As you know if you’ve been following the news, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court asking the court to throw out the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin, thus voiding the results of the election and installing Trump as president.
As a legally-defensible lawsuit, it was ridiculous on its face. No state can tell another state how to conduct its elections. The suit did not list any allegations of fraud; instead, it relied on a spurious-and-unexplained theory that it was “mathematically impossible” for Biden to have won those states.
As a threat to our democracy, though, it was very real. If the six conservative judges on the court had gone along with the suit, that would have been the end of American democracy. No longer would the people have a voice; all elections would be subject to subsequent challenges, and whichever side owned the judges would win.
The danger was increased when eighteen other Republican attorneys general joined the lawsuit. And the danger was compounded further when over half the Republican in the House filed an amicus brief.
I kept scanning that list of attorneys general, and the list of Republican representatives, fully expecting to see Daniel Cameron on the first list, and anywhere from one (Massie) to all five of our Republican reps on the amicus brief. Jamie Comer, for example, has been calling for hearings into the election, so I assumed he would be part of the “throw it out” crowd.
But no. Neither of our senators, and none of our representatives, went anywhere near this lawsuit. They didn’t sign on, and as far as I know, they didn’t voice support for it.
One person on Twitter asked me I thought McConnell told them not to. Since none of the Senate signed on, that is certainly possible. Perhaps McConnell saw where this was going, and did not want anyone from his state to be forever tainted with this seditious act.
Or maybe, this was a bridge too far for even them. Perhaps they looked at this and said “Nope, I’m not doing this. I swore an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, and this time at least, I’m going to honor that oath.”
I suspect it’s the former, but I hope it’s the latter. In either case, I am thankful that for once, all our elected representatives are on the right side of history.
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