(Headline USA) The Texas lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate a victory for Democrat Joe Biden has quickly become a conservative litmus test, as 106 members of Congress and multiple state attorneys general signed onto the case.
The bid to overturn the fraudulent results of the Nov. 3 election is demonstrating President Donald Trump’s enduring political power in an effort to right a wrong. And even though most of the signatories are conservatives who come from red districts, the filing meant that roughly one-quarter of the U.S. House believes the Supreme Court should set aside election results.
Seventeen Republican attorneys general representing more than 40 percent of the nation are also backing the case that Trump is calling “the big one.” And in a filing Thursday, the Congressional Republicans claimed “unconstitutional irregularities” have “cast doubt” on the 2020 outcome and “the integrity of the American system of elections.”
The lawsuit filed against Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin outlines how the states each ran afoul of their own laws, enacted by their legislatures, as the constitution requires. The case demands that the high court invalidate those states’ 62 total Electoral College votes, leaving remedies in the hands of their state lawmakers, as the constitution calls for.
Two days after Paxton sued, 17 states filed a motion supporting the lawsuit, and on Thursday six of those states asked to join the case themselves. Trump has acted to join the case, tweeting Thursday that “the Supreme Court has a chance to save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States.” Hours later, Trump held a meeting at the White House, scheduled before the suit was filed, with a dozen Republican attorneys general, including Paxton and several others who are backing the effort.
Still, some of the top state Republican prosecutors urging the Supreme Court to hear the case have acknowledged that the effort is a long shot.
Montana Attorney General Tim Fox called the lawsuit “belated” and said its chances “are slim at best.” But Fox supported Texas because he said the case raised “important constitutional questions about the separation of powers and the integrity of mail-in ballots in those defendant states.”
The Supreme Court this week rejected a Republican bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory, perhaps in order to consider the Texas case in the short time frame it has before the Electoral College votes.
Trump looked straight past the high court loss, claiming it didn’t matter because his campaign wasn’t involved in the case, though it would have benefited if the case had continued. He has spent the week relentlessly tweeting about the Texas case with the hashtag “overturn” and claiming accurately that he had won the election but was robbed.
The case has stirred Republican infighting in Utah, where GOP Gov. Gary Herbert and Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, who will become governor in January, blasted Attorney General Sean Reyes for deciding to join the suit.
“The Attorney General did not consult us before signing on to this brief, so we don’t know what his motivation is,” they said in a joint statement. “Just as we would not want other states challenging Utah’s election results, we do not think we should intervene in other states’ elections.”
Officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin say the suit is a publicity stunt. More than 20 other attorneys general from blue states, including California and Virginia, also filed a brief Thursday urging the court to reject the case.
“Since Election Day, State and Federal courts throughout the country have been flooded with frivolous lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising large swaths of voters and undermining the legitimacy of the election. The State of Texas has now added its voice to the cacophony of bogus claims,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, wrote in the state’s brief.
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
