Texas election lawsuit: ‘Demonstrates the depths of modern hyperpartisanship’
“President Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election is sedition plain and simple,” says Northwestern University political scientist Alvin Tillery. “It is the most sustained assault on our democracy since the Counter-Reconstruction movement in the 1870s.”
More than 100 Republican members of the U.S. House have signed on to an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed with the Supreme Court, seeking to delay certification of presidential electors in four swing states won by President-elect Biden. In addition, agroup of attorneys general from 17 states filed their own amicus brief in support of Texas.
“This lawsuit is a ridiculous political stunt, more than it is a serious legal claim,” says Michael Kang of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
Kang and Tillery are both available to comment.
Michael Kang is the William G. and Virginia K. Karnes Research Professor of Law. His areas of expertise include election law, voting rights and redistricting and campaign finance. He can be reached at mkang@northwestern.edu (print requests only).
Quote from Professor Kang
“This lawsuit is a ridiculous political stunt, more than it is a serious legal claim. Its arguments variously defy democratic norms, American law and basic logic. The lawsuit itself demonstrates the depths of modern hyperpartisanship and jaw-dropping Republican determination to undo, at all costs, a presidential election they lost.”
Alvin B. Tillery Jr. is an associate professor of political science in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy. His research and teaching interests are in the fields of American politics and political theory. His research focuses on American political development, racial and ethnic politics, and media and politics. He can be reached at alvin.tillery@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Tillery
“The fact that so many Republican lawmakers at both the federal and state levels are lining up to support this campaign reveals what many of us who study American politics have known for some time — they are a party filled with men and women who are more committed to their own power than to serving the will of the American people.
“The fact that most of their attacks follow Trump’s racist logic that votes in diverse areas of the country — like Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta — are illegitimate, also shows that they will continue to be the party of white supremacy long after Trump begins living out his comfortable retirement at one of his many golf resorts.”