texas us-supreme-court
What standing does one state have to determine if another state(s)&#39; implementation of their own constitution violates the federal constitution?
<h1>Background</h1>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-08/texas-says-challenging-election-results-in-u-s-supreme-court" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Various</a> <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/the_texas_lawsuit_in_the_supreme_court_is_huge.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">media</a> <a href="https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/12/09/supreme-court-orders-reply-texas-election-lawsuit/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">outlets</a> have been reporting on the notoriety and expansiveness of <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/admin/2020/Press/SCOTUSFiling.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">State of Texas vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, etc.</a>.  This lawsuit alleges the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>• Non-legislative actors’ purported amendments to States’ duly enacted
election laws, in violation of the Electors Clause’s vesting State
legislatures with plenary authority regarding the appointment of
presidential electors.</p>
<p>• Intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more
favorable allotted to voters – whether lawful or unlawful – in areas
administered by local government under Democrat control and with
populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of
Defendant States.</p>
<p>• The appearance of voting irregularities in the Defendant States that
would be consistent with the unconstitutional relaxation of
ballot-integrity protections in those States' election laws</p>
</blockquote>
<h1>Issue</h1>
<p>While the Supreme Court does have original jurisdiction over suits <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii#section2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">between two or more states</a>, this suit seems to state that the way other states allegedly failed to follow their own state law in turn led to these states not following federal law.  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas" rel="nofollow noreferrer">There</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut" rel="nofollow noreferrer">do</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._United_States" rel="nofollow noreferrer">exist</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson" rel="nofollow noreferrer">cases</a> where the Supreme Court invalidates certain state laws, but I do <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._New_Mexico_and_Colorado" rel="nofollow noreferrer">not</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._New_Mexico" rel="nofollow noreferrer">see</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Georgia_(2018)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a</a> successful case where a state invalidates another state's law on the basis of the other state's law violating the U.S. constitution.  Rather the cases I cited with two or more states seem to be with contractual disputes as opposed to one state saying that another state's law is wrong. This leads me to question...</p>
<h1>Question</h1>
<p>Can one state appeal a suit to the supreme court about the validity of a different states' state law in relation to the federal constitution?</p>

<p>The direct answer is &quot;no&quot; and the indirect answer is &quot;yes&quot;, that is, your way of putting the matter diverges significantly from how the Bill of Complain puts the matter. The claim is that the defendant states violated the Electors Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Due Process Clause. Texas claims that there is an injury in fact, citing various SCOTUS rulings e.g. <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/376/1/" rel="noreferrer">Wesberry v. Sanders</a> which says that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No  right  is  more precious in a free country than that of having a
voice in  the  election  of  those  who  make the  laws  under which,
as  good  citizens,  we  must  live.  Other  rights, even the most
basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined</p>
</blockquote>
<p>See the argument in the brief for more legal rhetoric. There can be no question that one state can sue another; equally clearly, the plaintiff must show actual harm and not just annoyance. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/283/336" rel="noreferrer">New Jersey v. New York</a> is a case involving a question of equity, not the federal constitution, but there is no legal principle to the effect that one state cannot sue over a constitutional harm rather than an equitable harm. See the brief p. 65 ff. The court does not require that there be exact precedential analogs (otherwise, Roe v. Wade would have turned out differently), what's required is simply that there be reasonable logical steps: SCOTUS gets to decide what is reasonable (or it can decline to decide).</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Can one state appeal a suit to the supreme court about the validity of a different states' state law in relation to the federal constitution?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, at least to the extent that state legislature ought not to circumvent U.S. constitutional constraints with which all other states have to comply, since that circumvention might put compliant states at an unfair disadvantage.</p>
<p>For instance, in the context of presidential elections, a state's legislature might translate to an unconstitutional work-around or circumvention of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Electors" rel="nofollow noreferrer">apportionment of electors</a>. Hence, any state has a legitimate interest to preclude other states' legislature or conduct from diluting that state's electoral &quot;weight&quot;.</p>
