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More than 120 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court this week to prevent four swing states from casting electoral votes for Joe Biden to seal his victory in the November election, a blatant move that indicates how the Republican Party has embraced Donald Trump’s baseless attacks on the American electoral system.
The request by 126 Republican Party members, nearly two-thirds of the Republican caucus, came in support of a lawsuit filed by Texas earlier this week that seeks to block electoral votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia, all states that Biden won in November.
The lawsuit, which won the support of top House Republicans, is unfounded and highly unlikely to succeed. The United States constitution gives states clear authority to set their own elections and does not give other states the right to interfere. Texas’ argument in the lawsuit is also based on unsubstantiated fraud allegations that have been dismissed in lower courts.
“The lawsuit has so many fundamental flaws that it is difficult to know where to start. It misstates the basic principles of electoral law and demands a remedy that is unconstitutional and unavailable, ”wrote Lisa Marshall Manheim, a law professor at the University of Washington, in an email. “At bottom, it is an incoherent amalgam of claims that have already failed in lower courts.”
The lawsuit is unprecedented in American history: a quest to overturn a presidential election on the basis of unsubstantiated claims by an incumbent who outright lost his re-election bid.
And yet it has become a test of loyalty for the president’s party that has pitted Republican governors, legislators and elected officials against each other.
A Supreme Court brief, filed by prominent Republicans in opposition to the Texas lawsuit, said the arguments “make a mockery of federalism and the separation of powers.”
Among the 126 lawmakers who signed the report is one particularly baffling group: 19 Republican members of Congress representing districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.
All of those members appeared on the same ballot as the presidential candidates, and all but one were elected under the same rules they now oppose.
(Meanwhile, Doug Collins, a congressman from Georgia, ran for a seat in the United States Senate and lost. Collins recognized his career, thus accepting his defeat in a state election, and was later elected by the Trump campaign. to lead their counting effort in the state.)
By signing the brief, those lawmakers essentially argue that their own results could have been clouded by the same irregularities that they say cost Trump the election in their state.
The Guardian contacted the offices of the 18 Republicans who won re-election to ask if they think there should be more investigation into their election victories in November. None of them responded to a request for comment.
Most of the lawmakers backing the effort are far-right conservatives from deep red districts who voted for Trump. But collectively, their support for the lawsuit means that more than a quarter of the House, including California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, believes the supreme court should invalidate the votes of tens of millions of Americans.
Seventeen Republican attorneys general also signed in support of the latest legal offer to overturn the 2020 presidential race before state voters meet Monday to officially declare Biden the winner.
In the extraordinarily unlikely scenario that the Texas lawsuit was even taken up by the supreme court, it could prevent Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia from casting electoral votes for Biden. That would deny him the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president.
Biden won the election with 306 electoral votes, the same number Trump won in 2016, and leads the popular vote by more than 7 million. The four states subject to the Texas lawsuit represent 62 electoral votes.
Biden roundly defeated Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, part of the “blue wall” that Trump broke in 2016. Biden also regained a third “blue wall” state, Wisconsin, while achieving a surprise victory in Georgia, where various accounts have claimed. his victory despite a bold attempt by the president to pressure the Republican governor and secretary of state to reverse the result.
Dozens of lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign and its allies in state and federal courts were unsuccessful, and the cases lacked evidence of widespread voter fraud that alleged they were dismissed, ridiculed, and even denounced by judges as without merit. Election law experts have also roundly criticized the Texas lawsuit, pointing to what they say are substantial legal flaws in the argument made by Republican state attorney general Ken Paxton.
Paxton, a staunch ally of the president, is indicted in a long-standing securities fraud case and faces a separate federal investigation related to allegations that he abused the power of his office in connection with a political donor. He has denied the accusations. However, Paxton’s attempts to overturn the election results have raised speculation that he may be seeking a presidential pardon, although he insists that is not his motivation.
