Friday, January 1, 2021

[U] This Gohmert / Texas GOP Joke Of A Suit Is... Dead. No Surprise.


Updated: As of the evening of January 2, 2021, the Fifth Circuit has also bounced Gohmert's specious appeal. Onward, end update.

It is too silly to really spend much time describing.

He claims a novel power, found nowhere in any relevant founding document -- that he may sue the sitting Veep, and force the Veep to effectively ignore several states' appointed (state level) electors, and without any process, select alternate electors who might vote the states' college ballots for Baby T. It was just tossed, after three elapsed days -- by a Baby-T appointed federal judge no less, thus:.

. . .Congressman Gohmert argues that on January 6, 2021, when Congress convenes to count the electoral votes for President and Vice President, he “will object to the counting of the Arizona slate of electors voting for Biden and to the Biden slates from the remaining Contested States.” Docket No. 1 ¶ 6. If a member of the Senate likewise objects, then under Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act, each member of the House and Senate is entitled to vote to resolve the objections, which Congressman Gohmert argues is inconsistent with the state-by-state voting required under the Twelfth Amendment. Docket No. 2 at 5. Congressmen Gohmert argues that the Vice President’s compliance with the procedures of the Electoral Count Act will directly cause his alleged injury. Id. at 7. And he argues that a declaration that Sections 5 and 15 of the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional would redress his alleged injury. . . .

Congressman Gohmert’s argument is foreclosed by Raines v. Byrd, which squarely held that Members of Congress lack standing to bring a claim for an injury suffered “solely because they are Members of Congress.” 521 U.S. at 821. And that is all Congressman Gohmert is alleging here. He does not identify any injury to himself as an individual, but rather a “wholly abstract and widely dispersed” institutional injury to the House of Representatives. . . .


The able USDC Judge in the Eastern District of Texas just effectively said "Shut it, Louie". . . the argument is so devoid of merit, it nearly amounts to. . . sedition. Onward now, to a brighter 2021.

नमस्ते

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