Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) is asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to refuse to seat members of the next Congress who back President Trump’s effort to challenge the election.
The demand comes as more than 120 House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), have signed an amicus brief supporting Texas’s election lawsuit in the Supreme Court.
The suit is asking the court to prevent Electors from finalizing President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
“Stated simply, the men and women who would act to tear the United States Government apart cannot serve as Members of the Congress,” Pascrell said in a statement posted to Twitter.
“These lawsuits seeking to obliterate public confidence in our democratic system by invalidating the clear results of the 2020 presidential election undoubtedly attack the text and the spirit of the Constitution, which each Member swears to support and defend,” he added.
Pascrell argues that the 14th Amendment prohibits members of Congress from rebelling agains the U.S., and “trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that.”
Many Republicans have stood behind the president’s unsubstantiated claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the election and that it should be overturned, though the Texas suit itself has divided the party.
This is an excerpt from Thehill
