“Want to steal an election in Wisconsin? It’s harder than you think.” Phil Brinkman and Chris Rickert of The Wisconsin State Journal have this report.

“Paul Newby wins NC chief justice race as incumbent Cheri Beasley concedes”: Danielle Battaglia and Charlie Innis of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina have a report that begins, “A hand-recount of votes in North Carolina’s election was not enough for state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley to overcome her colleague’s lead in the race to retain her seat. Beasley, a Democrat, conceded the race to her Republican challenger, Justice Paul Newby, on Saturday.”

“Making Sense of Texas v. Pennsylvania: President Trump doesn’t like standing doctrine, and thinks that Justice Alito and Thomas ruled for him.” Josh Blackman has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy.”

“The Supreme Court’s clear message to President Trump: Stop.” Joan Biskupic of CNN has this report.

Deciphering, rewriting, and potentially retitling Justice Alito’s separate statement in Texas v. Pennsylvania: Thanks to everyone who has taken time to respond to my tweet from last night seeking views on whether yesterday evening’s U.S. Supreme Court order was unanimous in rejecting Texas’ effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election or was instead a 7-0-2 vote.

Let’s begin with the relevant text from the order:

Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U.S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.

And the Court’s order itself stated:

The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

(As an aside, the order reveals that it was written by someone on the Court who spells the possessive of Texas by adding an apostrophe s.)

As I see it, there are two possible ways to understand Alito’s statement. (1) Perhaps he agrees with the Court’s disposition of the case without reaching the merits but first would have granted Texas’ motion for leave to file its bill of complaint. (2) Or, in the alternative, he would grant Texas’ motion for leave to file its bill of complaint, he would deny some unspecified amount of or perhaps all “other relief,” and he expresses no view on any other issue. The statement would certainly be much more clear, in my view, if Alito had said he would not grant ANY other relief (meaning he would deny all other relief) and that accordingly he is expressing no view on THE MERITS, as opposed to “on any other issue.”

Deciphering Justice Alito’s separate statement: That Alito’s writing appears under the title “Statement” indicates that he agrees with the result that the Court reached in denying all relief to Texas. For example, when a Justice issues a statement respecting the denial of certiorari, he or she is not disagreeing with the denial of review in this particular case but rather is observing that some other case presenting the issue might be more deserving of review. The title appended to Alito’s separate writing — even if not the most appropriate title under the circumstances, as I explain below — is the strongest indication to me that the decision to deny all relief was unanimous. And Alito’s assertion that he would deny “other relief” can be read to mean ANY and ALL other relief, and his assertion that he expresses “no view on an other issue” most likely means that he agrees with the dismissal for lack of standing, which is not an adjudication on the merits.

Rewriting Justice Alito’s separate statement: If my understanding is correct that Alito agreed with the rest of the Court that Texas lacked standing to bring this case, here is how I would rewrite his statement:

In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U.S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but deny all other relief due to lack of standing, thereby expressing no view on the merits of this matter.

This rewrite would make clear that all nine Justices concluded that Texas lacked standing, and it would further underscore that the entire Court’s resolution of the case had nothing to do with its merit or lack thereof.

Retitling Justice Alito’s separate statement: Technically speaking, Alito’s statement qualified as at least a partial dissent, as in the case of Arizona v. California that he cited, in which he joined Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent from the Court’s denial of the motion for leave to file the bill of complaint. So perhaps the statement could have been more accurately been titled “dissenting in part but concurring in the judgment,” “dissenting in part but concurring in the result,” “concurring in the judgment,” or “concurring in the result.” Any of these alternate titles would have made it absolutely clear that the decision to reject Texas’ request to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was unanimous.

Before concluding, I acknowledge that some have opined that the lack of clarity in Alito’s separate statement may have been intentional rather than accidental. To be sure, he certainly had adequate time to decide what to say, since Texas had filed its motion for leave to file a bill of complaint on Monday and the Court’s denial issued on Friday. In any event, I wrote this to explain why I have concluded that the Court unanimously rejected Texas’ request to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, while also demonstrating how easily Alito could have altered his statement to remove any and all uncertainty in that regard.

“The Scalia Trilogy”: You can access via this link today’s new installment of the “SCOTUS 101” podcast from The Heritage Foundation. The episode includes an interview with the editors of “The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law.”

“U.S. Supreme Court takes up Goldman securities class action appeal”: Jonathan Stempel of Reuters has this report.

And Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that “Goldman Sachs Gets High Court Review It Sought on Investor Suits.”

“Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Seeking to Subvert Election; The suit, filed directly in the Supreme Court, sought to bar Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from casting their electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.” Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this report.

Robert Barnes of The Washington Post reports that “Supreme Court dismisses bid led by Texas attorney general to overturn the presidential election results, blocking Trump’s legal path to reverse his loss.”

David G. Savage of The Los Angeles Times reports that “Supreme Court rejects Trump’s last-chance lawsuit, upholding Biden’s victory.”

Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal reports that “Supreme Court Rejects Texas Challenge to Biden’s Election; Path cleared for presidential electors to elect Biden when electoral college meets on Monday.”

Richard Wolf of USA Today reports that “Supreme Court denies effort to block election results in 4 key states that sealed Trump’s fate.”

Alex Swoyer of The Washington Times reports that “Supreme Court rejects election challenge brought by Texas.”

Jeremy Roebuck of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “U.S. Supreme Court rejects far-fetched Texas bid to void the vote in Pennsylvania and other battleground states.”

David Wickert of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that “Supreme Court rejects Texas lawsuit against Georgia.”

Craig Mauger of The Detroit News reports that “U.S. Supreme Court rejects Texas challenge to election in Michigan, other states.”

Nomaan Merchant and Alanna Durkin Richer of The Associated Press report that “Supreme Court rejects Republican attack on Biden victory.”

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters reports that “U.S. Supreme Court rejects Texas lawsuit and Trump bid to undo election loss.”

Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that “Supreme Court Rejects Texas Bid to Overturn Election Results.”

Pete Williams of NBC News reports that “Supreme Court rejects Texas’ effort to overturn election in fatal blow to Trump legal blitz to stop Biden; The court’s ruling was essentially a unanimous rejection of the Texas claims.”

Ariane de Vogue and Maegan Vazquez of CNN report that “Supreme Court rejects Texas’ and Trump’s bid to overturn election.”

Tyler Olson, Bill Mears, Michael Ruiz, and Shannon Bream of Fox News report that “Supreme Court denies Texas, Trump appeal over election results in four other states; Legal experts said Texas’ case, flawed in several ways, was likely to fail.”

Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney of Politico report that “Supreme Court rejects Texas-led effort to overturn Biden’s victory; The move likely marks the end of the line for Trump’s legal push to reverse his defeat.”

John Kruzel of The Hill reports that “Supreme Court rejects Texas’ push to overturn Biden victory.”

Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News reports that “The Supreme Court Rejected Texas’s Last-Ditch Legal Challenge To Biden’s Win; The justices found that Texas lacked standing to sue other states that President-elect Joe Biden won.”

Travis Bubenik of Courthouse News Service reports that “Supreme Court Denies Texas Bid to Overturn Election.”

And on this evening’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Nina Totenberg had an audio segment titled “Supreme Court Rejects Texas’ Lawsuit Over Election Results.”

Access today’s Order List of the U.S. Supreme Court: At this link. The Court granted review in one new case.

And the Court, by a vote of 7-to-2, issued an order in Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 155 Orig., that begins, “The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution.”

“How Grammar Guru Bryan Garner Made His Way to the Supreme Court”: Tony Mauro of The National Law Journal has this Q&A with Bryan A. Garner.

“Editorial: Don’t just deny Texas’ original action. Decimate it.” Tom Goldstein has this post at “SCOTUSblog.”

“‘The moment of truth’: The Electoral College prepares to hand Trump the loss he refuses to accept.” Joey Garrison of USA Today has this report.

“U. of Michigan Can’t Shake ‘Deliberate Indifference’ Bias Suit”: Porter Wells of Bloomberg Law had this report back in March 2020 on a ruling of a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

And Greta Anderson of Inside Higher Ed reported on that same ruling in an article headlined “What Qualifies as Harassment? A federal appeals court says universities must do everything in their power to stop further harassment of students who report it, and defines what behaviors qualify.”

Thereafter, the Sixth Circuit granted rehearing en banc in the case.

Today, by a vote of 8-to-6, the en banc Sixth Circuit issued this decision ruling in favor of the defendant-university and against the plaintiff-student.

The particulars of this dissenting judge’s appointment to the Sixth Circuit prevents me from observing that the majority consisted entirely of appointees of Republican presidents (although this is indeed the case) while the dissent consisted entirely of appointees of Democratic presidents (which, for the reasons noted here, is not correct).

“Senate Judiciary Committee advances Amy Coney Barrett replacement on 7th Circuit to floor over Dem opposition; Committee reported current U.S. attorney favorably to floor on party-line vote”: Tyler Olson of Fox News has this report.

“Once accused of cheating in an election by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz is now a leading voice casting doubt on 2020’s results; On Tuesday, Trump asked Cruz to argue the Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the election results in four states if it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court”: Kelsey Carolan of The Texas Tribune has this report.

“Two reasons the Texas election case is faulty: flawed legal theory and statistical fallacy.” Jeremy W. Peters, David Montgomery, Linda Qiu, and Adam Liptak of The New York Times have this report.

“Trump’s last-ditch effort to steal the election is the biggest farce of all”: George T. Conway III has this op-ed in today’s edition of The Washington Post.

“Trump’s Lawyers Will Get Away with Facilitating His Anti-Democratic Antics and They Know It”: Professor Austin Sarat has this essay online at Justia’s Verdict.

“Argument analysis: Justices at odds over federal robocall ban in the face of technological change.” Amanda Shanor has this guest post at “SCOTUSblog.”

Art Lien’s accompanying depiction of Bryan A. Garner’s oral argument presentation shows that Garner was holding a landline phone’s handset — something I haven’t seen other remote #SCOTUS advocates doing in Lien’s depictions of their arguments.

“Originalism and Personal Jurisdiction: Some Hard Questions; What original principles would say about this term’s big case.” Stephen Sachs has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy.”

“A Nondelegation Doctrine the Court Can Believe In; The Constitution’s original meaning provides a judicially manageable line between constitutional and unconstitutional delegations”: Mike Rappaport has this post at the “Law & Liberty” blog.

“With time running out, Trump and GOP allies turn up pressure on Supreme Court in election assault”: David Nakamura and Robert Barnes of The Washington Post have this report.

“In Blistering Retort, 4 Battleground States Tell Texas to Butt Out of Election; The attorneys general of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia asked the Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit from Texas seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories”: Adam Liptak and Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times have this report.

“Barr Plans to Finish Term Despite Wanting to Leave Early; The attorney general had weighed whether to step down by the end of the year, potentially avoiding a contentious transition”: Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times has this report.

“What Really Saved the Republic From Trump? It wasn’t our constitutional system of checks and balances.” Law professor Tim Wu has this essay online at The New York Times.

“Texas Tries an Election Long Shot: Can a state be harmed by the way other states conduct their elections?” Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal will contain an editorial that begins, “Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, seems intent on developing a name for himself as the patron saint of lost legal causes.”

“Judge Sullivan’s Final ‘Verdict’: A presidential pardon prompts a norm-busting outburst from the bench.” Columnist Kimberley A. Strassel will have this op-ed in Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

“Burdens and Case Law Debated in Close of Wisconsin Abortion Trial”: Joe Kelly of Courthouse News Service has this report.

“Supreme Court challenge to election results turns into bitter war between the states”: Richard Wolf of USA Today has this report.

“The Conservative Idea That Would Let Biden Seize Control of Washington; It might be time for Biden to show he can get behind the unitary executive theory, too”: Law professor Ronald Krotoszynski has this essay online at Politico Magazine.

“Supreme Court Backs Muslim Men in Case on No-Fly List; The court also dismissed a challenge to Delaware’s court system, which takes account of judges’ partisan ties to create ideological balance”: Adam Liptak of The New York Times has this report.

Robert Barnes of The Washington Post has articles headlined “Supreme Court rules for Muslims placed on no-fly list after refusing to become FBI informants” and “Supreme Court leaves Delaware system of balancing Democratic and Republican judges in place.”

Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal reports that “Unanimous Justices Rule Muslim Men Can Sue Agents for Putting Them on No-Fly List; In separate case, Supreme Court finds no time restrictions on rape charges in military.”

Richard Wolf of USA Today has articles headlined “Supreme Court says Muslim men wrongly placed on no-fly list can sue for money damages” and “Supreme Court rules that states can regulate pharmacy benefit managers.”

Alex Swoyer of The Washington Times reports that “Supreme Court sides with Muslim men against FBI agents over No-Fly List.”

Mark Sherman of The Associated Press reports that “Justices rule Muslim men can sue FBI agents over no-fly list.”

Andrew Chung of Reuters reports that “U.S. Supreme Court allows Muslim men to sue over ‘no-fly’ list placement.”

Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that “Supreme Court Leaves Intact Delaware Judicial Partisan-Balance Rules.”

John Kruzel of The Hill reports that “Supreme Court allows Muslim men to sue FBI agents over no-fly list.” And Ellen Mitchell of The Hill reports that “Supreme Court rules military rape cases have no statute of limitations.”

From Courthouse News Service, Nick Rummell reports that “Agents May Owe Damages for No-Fly-List Decisions, Supreme Court Says.” Alexandra Jones reports that “Delaware’s Partisan Playbook for Court Appointments Survives Suit.” Jack Rodgers and Brandi Buchman have a report headlined “No Time Limit on Military Rape Cases, Justices Rule.” And Rodgers also reports that “Pharmacy Reimbursement Law Gets Supreme Court Backing.”

And on this evening’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Nina Totenberg had an audio segment titled “Supreme Court Says Muslim Men Can Sue FBI Agents In No-Fly List Case.”

“A Fascinating Case About Paying a $900 Million Debt by Mistake; The Citi-Revlon overpayment lawsuit tests competing legal principles”: Law professor Noah Feldman has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“‘Safe Harbor’ Day Was a Definitive Rebuke of Trump; You can stop doomscrolling about the meeting of electors on Dec. 14”: Law professor Cass R. Sunstein has this essay online at Bloomberg Opinion.

“I Was Wrongfully Imprisoned by a Nonunanimous Jury; The Supreme Court now has the chance to release hundreds like me”: Jerome Morgan has this jurisprudence essay online at Slate.

“Rare Lame Duck Federal Executions Preface About Face by Biden”: Jordan S. Rubin of Bloomberg Law has this report.