TAMPA, Fla. — Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert and a handful of other Republicans are suing Vice President Mike Pence in the latest legal effort to potentially upset the results of the presidential election in which President-elect Joe Biden won.
In the suit, they ask the court to give Pence and only him the authority to decide which electoral votes from a given state should count.
The House and Senate in a joint session of Congress will convene on Jan. 6 to count states' electoral votes. As President of the Senate, the vice president presides over that meeting. Pence's role is largely ceremonial and is laid out in the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is a law professor at Stetson University College of Law.
She says the 12th Amendment allows for the vice president to open the electoral votes, but it’s up to the House and Senate to count and accept the slate of electors from each state.
“Essentially, what the congressman is asking a court to do is to give Mike Pence enormous power that he doesn't have under the Constitution. And so, there is no way that a court is going to agree to this. But it's just one more case where the litigation itself puts the election in doubt,” she said.
Torres-Spelliscy said as of Tuesday, the Trump campaign and others had filed roughly 60 suits challenging election results in key swing states. They won one case, but it did not change the results of the presidential election.
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