Vice President Mike Pence responded on Friday to a lawsuit brought against him by Texas Republican MP Louie Gohmert and 12 Arizona Republicans calling for Gohmert’s dispute to be dismissed by the court.
Gohmert filed the lawsuit against Pence on Monday, which sought to prevent Pence from declaring President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the Electoral College. Congress is due to meet on Wednesday to certify Biden’s victory. In his action, Gohmert claimed that Pence has “exclusive authority and exclusive discretion to open and allow the counting of electoral votes in a given state”. Since President Donald Trump claimed that electoral fraud in some states overturned the election in favor of Biden, Gohmert claimed that Pence’s expected certification of Biden’s victory would be “unconstitutional”.
In Friday’s response to Gohmert’s dispute, Deputy Attorney General John V. Coghlan wrote that the Gohmert process “is not a suitable vehicle” for addressing the counting of electoral votes “because plaintiffs sued the wrong defendant”.
“The vice president – the only defendant in this case – is ironically the same person whose power they seek to promote,” continued the court’s documents. “The Senate and the Chamber, not the vice president, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to the plaintiffs to justify a case or controversy under Article III. The defendant respectfully requests the plaintiffs’ denial of the emergency motion because the relief that the plaintiffs request is not adequately against the vice president. “
Newsweek contacted Gohmert’s office for comment.
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Pence, as part of his duties as president of the Senate, is to preside over the counting of electoral votes in Congress. As all 50 states have officially certified their electoral results, electoral votes are fixed. Pence’s role in the process should be minimal. Gohmert said on Wednesday that his process was aimed at getting Pence to take a more active role in the event and reject some electoral votes.
“Five states are sending two sets of voters and [Pence] it needs to be able to determine which ones are based on fraud and which are not based on fraud, “Gohmert said in an interview with KLTV.” So that’s what we’re looking for, a statement that he can do just that. “
No date for a hearing on the case, which was filed with the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, has been announced.
Gohmert’s attempts to alter the results of the Electoral College were not the only ones planned by the Republican Party. Some Republicans have spoken out and said they would formally object to the electoral votes of states where alleged voting fraud has occurred. Official contestations of votes must be submitted by a member of the House and a member of the Senate. Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley said on Wednesday that he would contest certification of the vote, as would several members of the Republican Party. The exact number of Republican representatives who plan to object is still unknown.
Republican efforts to reverse election results are likely to fail. Trump obtained 232 electoral votes in the November election, while Biden obtained 306 electoral votes, more than the 270 votes needed to be declared the winner at the Electoral College.
In a social media post on Wednesday, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska criticized the move to sabotage voter certification.
“We have a lot of ambitious politicians who think there is a quick way to get in touch with the president’s populist base without doing any real long-term damage,” wrote Sasse. “But they are wrong – and this problem is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”