By Jalen Maki
Tomahawk Leader Editor
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) this week joined 105 other Republican members of the House of Representatives in signing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit filed by the State of Texas asking the Supreme Court to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories over President Donald J. Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Rep. Mike Hill (R-La.) reached out to all 196 House Republicans this week seeking signatures for the brief. Tiffany, who represents Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, was the lone Wisconsin representative to sign.
The lawsuit, filed by Republican attorney general of Texas Ken Paxton and backed by Republican attorneys general from 17 other states, claims that the four states “exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws.” The suit asks the Supreme Court to block the states from casting their electoral votes and asks the court to “remand” the election to the states’ GOP-controlled legislatures.
Paxton is currently under federal investigation for allegedly abusing the power of his office to benefit a political donor and is under indictment in a separate securities fraud case. He has denied the allegations.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, joined his counterparts from the other states named in the suit in asking the Supreme Court to reject it.
“I feel sorry for Texans that their tax dollars are being wasted on such a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit,” Kaul stated. “Texas is as likely to change the outcome of the Ice Bowl (the legendary 1967 NFL Championship game at Lambeau Field, in which the Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys amid temperatures reaching 13 degrees below zero) as it is to overturn the will of Wisconsin voters in the 2020 presidential election.”
Numerous legal experts have voiced doubts over the lawsuit’s viability.
Stephen Vladeck, who holds the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice, called the lawsuit “insane” and “mostly a stunt — a dangerous, offensive, and wasteful one, but a stunt nonetheless.”
In a blog post on www.electionlawblog.com, Richard L. Hasen, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at University of California Irvine, described the filing as “a press release masquerading as a lawsuit” and expressed his opinions on the suit’s legal shortcomings.
“Texas doesn’t have standing to raise these claims as it has no say over how other states choose electors; it could raise these issues in other cases and does not need to go straight to the Supreme Court; it waited too late to sue; the remedy Texas suggests of disenfranchising tens of millions of voters after the fact is unconstitutional; there’s no reason to believe the voting conducted in any of the states was done unconstitutionally; it’s too late for the Supreme Court to grant a remedy even if the claims were meritorious (they are not),” he wrote. “What utter garbage. Dangerous garbage, but garbage.”
Biden defeated Trump in the Nov. 3 presidential election with 307 Electoral College votes, surpassing the 270-vote threshold needed for victory. Biden’s popular vote lead over Trump currently stands at over seven million.
Since his defeat, Trump and other Republicans have launched more than 40 unsuccessful legal attempts to overturn the election results based on evidence-free claims of voting irregularities and fraud. Judges have criticized Republicans for providing no proof to support their sweeping allegations.
“Judicial acquiescence to such entreaties built on so flimsy a foundation would do indelible damage to every future election,” conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in concurring with the court’s 4 to 3 decision to reject a case that sought to overturn election results in the state. The court in previous weeks handed down two other 4 to 3 decisions declining to hear similar lawsuits.
Pennsylvania Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer, in a ruling that rejected an attempt to throw out some mail-in ballots in Buck County, wrote, “Importantly, the court must point out that there are absolutely no allegations of any fraud, impropriety, misconduct, or undue influence, that anyone voted who was not eligible to vote.”
“As I have said before, this is bigger than President Trump or Joe Biden,” Tiffany stated. “This lawsuit is about the integrity of our system. Every legal vote must be counted, credible complaints of fraud and irregularities must be investigated, and legitimate legal challenges must be heard and addressed by our independent judiciary.”