President Donald Trump’s legal team lost former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani at the worst possible time.
With the “safe harbor” of Electoral College votes set for Tuesday — where electoral votes are locked in for states certifying the election — there’s very little time left for Trump’s team to score the decisive victory needed to overturn the current 2020 election results.
Enter Sen. Ted Cruz, R-T.X.
Cruz said he would join the Trump legal team if their Pennslyvania election lawsuit is heard by the Supreme Court.
Trump’s legal team suffered another loss in Pennslyvania this weekend after the state’s Supreme Court said they would allow all mail-in ballots to be counted. Trump’s lawyers argued that universal mail-in ballots was unconstitutional, and said they will appeal the Pennslayvnia ruling to the Supreme Court.
Cruz told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the legal challenge “raises very serious issues” and that he’s agreed to argue the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court if they hear the case.
“It raises pure issues of law, and I believe the Supreme Court should choose to take the case,” Cruz said during his Monday interview.
Cruz said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is biased towards Democrats, and the legal standing of counting mail-in ballots should be ruled on by the highest court of the land.
“Right now, it is not healthy for democracy, what we’re seeing, and in Pennsylvania, the problem was made worse because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is a partisan Democratic court that issued multiple decisions just on their face contrary to the law,” Cruz went on. “That’s not how elections are supposed to work.”
If the Supreme Court were to act on the unprecedented challenge by Trump’s team to throw out potentially millions of mail-in votes in the 2020 election, it has just days to make a decision.
Tuesday is called “safe harbor day” — and 49 states appear to have met a deadline in federal law that essentially means Congress has to accept the electoral votes that will be cast next week and sent to the Capitol for counting on Jan. 6. Those votes will elect Joe Biden as the country’s next president. Only Wisconsin hasn’t met the deadline and is expected to miss it, but is still expected to send their 10 electoral votes on Monday.
The law is called a “safe harbor” provision because it’s a kind of insurance policy by which a state can lock in its electoral votes by finishing up certification of the results and any state court legal challenges by a congressionally imposed deadline.
Cruz said he expected to have a response by the U.S. Supreme Court by the end of the day Tuesday, the deadline.
The safe harbor provision played a prominent role in the Bush v. Gore case after the 2000 presidential election. The Supreme Court shut down Florida’s state-court-ordered recount because the safe-harbor deadline was approaching. The court’s opinion was issued on Dec. 12, the deadline in 2000.
The Associated Press contributed to this article