Rep. Palmer: State AGs Should Consider Class Action Against Other States for Violating Equal Protection Clause with Election Rule Manipulation

Monday, in an interview with Mobile, AL radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) argued for the states’ attorneys general to consider taking legal action against other states that used executive or judicial authority to change presidential election rules for violations of the U.S. Constitution.

Palmer, who also the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, named Pennsylvania, Michigan and New York as states potentially in violation of the Constitution, which he maintained should warrant action by other states.

“What you have are unconstitutional acts,” he said. “Obviously, Pennsylvania is ground zero for this because the governor and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court usurped the authority of the legislature. Constitutionally, only the legislature of the various states have the authority to set election rules. But you had Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court and their governor by executive order making these changes that fundamentally impacted the election in Pennsylvania. The same thing happened in Michigan and in New York. Although New York is not in dispute in this presidential election, there’s a congressional race that’s yet to be called, and the Republican is leading by 350-some-odd votes, and Cuomo made an executive order that is in violation of the Constitution.”

“I’m very concerned, and I’m concerned that some of the states’ attorneys general are not standing up for their state’s rights in the context of when you have five or six states conduct fraudulent elections, and the only election that’s truly a national election, and that’s a presidential election — it does harm to everybody else. It basically makes the Electoral College irrelevant. And I think the states’ attorneys general should be getting together to look at a class action arguing that under the 14th Amendment, this violates the Equal Protection Clause and it also violates the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution that guarantees to the state a republican, and that’s republican with a small ‘r,’ form of government. And that’s what free and fair elections are about — so we can have a republic.”

The Alabama Republican lawmaker insisted this legal pathway would expedite the process because it would go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is why the attorneys general need to file this as a class action because when one state sues another state — when I say file for class action, that would be multiple states or individual states like Alabama or Mississippi, Tennessee — their AGs getting together and suing Pennsylvania, suing Georgia, suing Michigan, suing Wisconsin, and maybe even Nevada, and arguing that those states did harm,” Palmer added. “Then that goes straight to the Supreme Court. When one state sues another, you don’t go through this long, drawn-out start with the local federal court, then go to the circuit, then go to the Supreme Court. You go straight to the Supreme Court.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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