Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey on Friday demanded that House leadership refuse to seat the 126 Republicans supporting Texas’s Supreme Court lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results.
Citing the 14th Amendment, Pascrell said that Republicans supporting the lawsuit “would act to tear the United States government apart” and should not be allowed to serve in Congress.
“I call on you to exercise the power of your offices to evaluate steps you can take to address these constitutional violations this Congress, and, if possible, refuse to seat in the 117th Congress any Members-elect seeking to make Donald Trump an unelected dictator,” Pascrell wrote in a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Just as the American people’s clear vote in support of President-elect [Joe] Biden must be respected, so too must votes cast in favor of our Members-elect,” he added. “But the actions of any of our colleagues to demolish democracy, regardless of party affiliation, must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms.”
Pascrell’s letter came hours after Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson announced that a clerical error left out 20 House Republicans seeking to sign on to his amicus brief supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge to the election proceedings in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Johnson’s original brief included support from House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Dan Crenshaw of Texas.
The new list included House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and every member of the Republican House leadership except for Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
Pelosi responded in a letter, calling Republican support for the lawsuit an “act of flailing GOP desperation, which violates the principles enshrined in our American Democracy.” Citing Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s brief in the lawsuit, Pelosi added that the Supreme Court “should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process.”
“Republicans are subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead,” Pelosi wrote.
Pelosi did not directly respond to Pascrell’s request that the 126 Republicans not be seated.
Pascrell in November filed to disbar Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s top attorney, in five states. Pascrell called for Giuliani and Trump’s legal team to be punished for raising “frivolous” lawsuits and allegedly spreading “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”
Paxton filed the case late Monday night, claiming that the four swing states had “tainted the integrity” of the presidential election with mail-in ballots. The charge electrified Trump’s allies after the president on Wednesday called the dispute “the big one” on Twitter. Led by Missouri, 17 states that day filed an amicus brief supporting Paxton. Two more, Arizona and Ohio, added their states to the list on Thursday.
Trump motioned to intervene in the case, claiming through attorneys on Wednesday that the case was a federal issue because it violated the electors clause of the Constitution. The four accused states, members of the Trump legal team wrote, “under the guise of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic,” tampered with the system of mail-in voting to skew to a Democratic advantage, creating a constitutional crisis.
