House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that the Supreme Court had “rightly dismissed” a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — and supported by President Donald Trump — that had sought to invalidate election results in four states the president lost in November.
Pelosi lambasted the suit, which the nation’s highest court had rejected earlier on Friday, as an “extreme, unlawful and undemocratic” attempt to “overturn the will of millions of American voters.”
The lawsuit had called for the invalidation of votes in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin — states President-elect Joe Biden won — because of alleged “voting irregularities.” No evidence has emerged to support the conspiracy theory Trump and his allies have promoted that there were significant voting irregularities this election.
“The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House,” Pelosi said in a statement, referring to the House Republicans who signed an amicus brief expressing their support for the suit. The group included House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise.
“Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions,” Pelosi said. “The pandemic is raging, with nearly 300,000 having died and tens of millions having lost jobs. Strong, unified action is needed to crush the virus, and Republicans must once and for all end their election subversion — immediately.”
Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Texas criticized the Supreme Court, saying it had “decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law.”
“This decision will have far reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic,” Texas GOP Chairman Allen West said in a statement before suggesting that Texas and other “law-abiding states” should come together and “form a Union.”
“Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution,” the statement read.