Judge dismisses Gohmert lawsuit seeking to stymie Biden electoral college count

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Judge dismisses Gohmert lawsuit seeking to stymie Biden electoral college count

By Devlin Barrett
1/1/2021, 11:18:00 p.m.

A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a long-shot lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) that sought to overturn the presidential election, saying neither the congressman nor his allies have legal standing to pursue the case.

The judge’s Friday night ruling tosses out what many election law experts considered a far-fetched theory to challenge the formal mechanism by which President-elect Joe Biden will be affirmed as the winner of the race for president.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle issued an order dismissing the case because, he found, neither Gohmert nor his fellow plaintiffs have a sufficient legal stake in the process to justify the lawsuit. Kernodle was nominated to the federal bench by President Trump.

The judge’s ruling comes less than 12 hours after lawyers for Gohmert filed court papers arguing that Vice President Pence has far more power than the government claims to alter the outcome of the presidential election. Gohmert’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal later Friday night.

Kernodle wrote that previous court cases make clear that an individual member of Congress cannot sue for a harm supposedly done to the larger legislature. Additionally, the judge found, Gohmert’s claim of harm is a series of hypothetical scenarios stacked on top of each other, further undercutting any authority for the court to intervene.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/gohmert-court-filing-claims-pence-is-not-a-glorified-envelope-opener/2021/01/01/eeb6b222-4c51-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I wish the media would stop referring to this and similarly stupid lawsuits as "long-shot."

They are no-shot lawsuits. They could not succeed in any universe in which the judge, or if not the judge, at least his/her law clerks, had read the relevant laws and the Constitution. They are totally performative, not actually intended to succeed, and meant only to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election and its processes and thereby stir up the MAGAts while fluffing His Lardship.