NEW YORK — New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell believes the Supreme Court rejecting a Texas lawsuit to overturn the results of the 2020 election in four battleground states Friday is not enough for the Republican members and members-elect of Congress.
Pascrell, who serves the Garden State's 9th District (parts of Bergen and Passaic counties), wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Administration Chair Zoe Lofgren saying that she should refuse to seat 126 Republicans who effectively endorsed the suit.
"I’m demanding that the 126 Republicans who have endorsed a malignant lawsuit to overturn the will of the people and undermine our democracy not be seated in Congress," Pascrell said in a statement Friday.
🚨BREAKING: I’m demanding that the 126 Republicans who have endorsed a malignant lawsuit to overturn the will of the people and undermine our democracy not be seated in Congress. https://t.co/PKMzlSfEjX pic.twitter.com/PLZyyAz7aZ
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@PascrellforNJ) December 11, 2020
You can read the entire letter here.
Pascrell cites Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution in the letter, which "gives each chamber of Congress the ultimate authority to decide their membership."
"Stated simply, men and women who would act to tear the United States government apart cannot serve as members of Congress," Pascrell writes, adding that they were attempting to make President Trump "an unelected dictator" by endorsing the lawsuit.
The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court and subvert the will of voters Friday.
The high court’s order was a stark repudiation of a legal claim that was widely regarded as dubious, yet embraced by the president, 19 Republican state attorneys general, and 126 House Republicans.
Trump had insisted the court would find the “wisdom” and “courage” to adopt his baseless position that the election was the product of widespread fraud and should be overturned.
But the nation’s highest court emphatically disagreed.
This story was first reported by Stephen Lepore at WPIX in New York, New York.
