A lawsuit filed by Texas Republican MP Louie Gohmert, which sought to give Vice President Mike Pence legal authority to override the results of the November presidential election alone, was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Jerome Daniel Kernodle.
In his decision, Kernodle said that Gohmert and his other plaintiffs had no legitimacy to defend their case.
“The problem for Claimants here is that they have no position,” wrote Kernodle in his decision. “Claimant Louie Gohmert, the United States Representative for the First Congressional District of Texas, alleges at most institutional damage to the House of Representatives. Under well-established Supreme Court authority, this is insufficient to sustain legitimacy.”
Kernodle also made a similar determination to the other 12 plaintiffs, all Republican presidential voters in the state of Arizona, saying they had no standing because they were suing for Pence-related injury, and not directly to them.
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Gohmert’s lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District on December 27, sought to challenge the 1887 Electoral Counting Act, a law that requires Pence to oversee Congressional approval of the Electoral College’s final votes for president .
The lawsuit argued that the 1887 law violates the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which the authors claimed gives Pence the right, on his own, to reject any votes obtained fraudulently, regardless of the agreement of the majority of Congress.
Pence himself had asked for the case to be closed for technical reasons, saying that “the plaintiffs sued the wrong defendant”.
Gohmert is due to speak on Friday night on the conservative trend network Newsmax about his reaction to the case’s dismissal. It is unclear whether Gohmert will appeal the decision to an appeals court.
Pence has not yet publicly commented on whether he will support Congressional Republicans’ efforts to oppose the Electoral College’s results certification when he chairs an approval vote on January 6 held by both chambers of Congress.
Pence did not publicly acknowledge that he and Trump lost the November 3 presidential election, nor did he repeat the president’s unverified claims that widespread voter fraud made them lose.
He also failed to recognize the nearly 60 lawsuits in the Trump campaign and other Republicans seeking to reverse the electoral results that were withdrawn or dismissed from the courts due to lack of evidence, USA today reports.
Newsweek contacted Gohmert’s office for comment.