Texas GOP chair floats secession for ‘law-abiding states’ after Supreme Court defeat
Texas #Texas
The chair of the Texas Republican Party appeared to float secession after the Supreme Court shot down a lawsuit led by the Lone Star State seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.
Texas GOP chair Allen West rebuked the high court in a statement, saying that “law-abiding states” should “form a Union” after the decision throwing out the lawsuit from Texas.
Seventeen other states and 126 House Republicans had backed Texas’s effort to overturn the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – four key states that secured President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
The court’s ruling, which said that Texas lacked the legal right to litigate over how other states conduct their elections, represented a devastating blow to efforts by President Trump and his allies to challenge the election results.
“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 U.S. congressman, has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences,” West said after the ruling. “This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the U.S. constitution and not be held accountable.
“This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic,” he continued. “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”
The remark drew swift condemnation from both parties.
“I believe @TexasGOP should immediately retract this, apologize, and fire Allen West and anyone else associated with this. My guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no,” GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), a frequent Trump critic, tweeted.
“The Texas Republican Party is officially in favor of leaving the Union. They have lost their minds. Biden will be President, but these people are deadly serious about secession and sedition. And this is the only question that media should ask any elected Republican tomorrow,” added Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
The Supreme Court’s ruling marked the latest and most grave defeat yet for the legal campaign by the president and his allies to overturn Biden’s win. The Electoral College will vote Monday to formally elect Biden.
Trump and his allies in Congress have repeatedly touted claims that widespread voter fraud and irregularities cost the president reelection, though their lawsuits have been shot down for lack of evidence or standing.