Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 12:26 pm
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Texas’s Louie Gohmert, named “Dumbest Member of Congress” for 84 years running, sued Vice President Pence on Monday in a Texas Court, asking the Court to order Pence to ignore the Electoral College and appoint his own electors to name Trump president. Kelly Ward and a handful of other B-list Republicans joined the doomed-to-fail suit.
The suit, like the 50-something others filed by the GOP will fail. First, the US Supreme Court ruled this past July that State laws prohibiting so-called “faithless electors”, electors that vote for who they prefer instead of the candidate chosen by voters, were constitutional. In Chiafalo v. Washington, in a rare unanimous decision, the Court ruled that States could remove any elector who refused to vote for the winner of the State’s popular vote and replace him/her with an elector who would.
While not all States passed such laws, most the ones that matter here, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota and Wisconsin did. Simply, what Louie is asking Mike Pence to do is illegal in all the swing states but for Pennsylvania. Clearly, math is not Louie’s strong suit, but even without Pennsylvania, the swing states with faithless elector laws, along with host of blue states Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won, is enough to clinch their win.
The second reason the suit fails is standing: the legal principle that only a person directly harmed by an event may seek redress from the Court. Most of the 59 suits TeamTreason lost were dismissed based upon a lack of standing. Sulking that your guy did not win is not a specific enough injury to grant standing.
In sum, the suit is nothing but a desperate and futile ploy by Louie to please Trump. The Court, if it does not dismiss the suit outright for lack of standing, will quickly dismiss it for lack of merit, and on January 6, Louie can cry his head into his Trump2020 hankie while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are certified as our President and Vice President.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
