‘UNHINGED’ DEM REP. URGES PELOSI TO BLOCK 126 REPUBLICANS FROM CONGRESS FOR SUPPORTING “INSURRECTION OR REBELLION”
ZeroHedge.com
On Friday, just before the Supreme Court rejected Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R-Texas) explosive lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election in four key swing states, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to refuse to seat members of the next Congress who support President Donald Trump’s effort to challenge the election results.
Pascrell accused the 126 Republicans who supported the Texas lawsuit of “insurrection or rebellion” – or at least, of supporting “insurrection or rebellion” – against the Constitution.
As Jonathan Turley details below, it appears that Rep. Bill Pascrell (D., NJ) has a serious problem with Republicans going to court.
We recently discussed Pascrell’s absurd effort to disbar roughly two dozen Republican lawyers for challenging the results of the 2020 election. Now Pascrell is declaring that 120 House Republicans signing a “Friend of the Court brief” (or amicus brief) is tantamount to supporting a rebellion against the United States and that they should be blocked from taking their seats in Congress. I previously denounced Pascrell for his “dangerous form of demagoguery.” This latest call shows the demagoguery has reached a level of utter delusion.
From the outset of the Texas lawsuit, I stated that it was virtually guaranteed to fail on standing. It did fail last night. However, courts are where we take cases alleging such injuries. Tens of millions of American believe that the election was not fair, including many Democratic voters. Roughly 70 percent of Republican voters believe the election was stolen. Such challenges and concerns are brought to the courts where we can have disputes resolved without violence in a constitutional system.
Pascrell has long denounced political critics of destroying the Constitution based on his disagreement with their views. In the case of President Trump, he called for impeachment in 2019 on such undefined grounds as “disgrac[ing] his office and our nation beyond measure.”
Rather than welcome such review, Democrats have launched a scorched earth campaign, including an abusive campaign of harassment and abuse by the Lincoln Project. These efforts notably began shortly after Biden was declared the presumptive winner of the election and before any challenges were actually ruled upon by the courts.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also fueled such reckless rhetoric, declaring that the Republicans are “subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead.”
Pascrell’s move against his colleagues mirrors language in the response of Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro calling the Texas lawsuit “seditious.” Seeking judicial review is the antithesis of sedition or rebellion. It is working within our constitutional system for a legal opinion on the merits of a challenge. These litigants have complied with court orders, as has President Trump.
On Twitter, Pascrell declared
“Stated simply, the men and women who would act to tear the United States Government apart cannot serve as Members of the Congress. 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.”
Pascrell cites the 14th Amendment to argue that filing with a federal court is an act of rebellion and “trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that.”
Pascrell’s call is utterly unhinged from any logical or constitutional foundation. Rebels do not storm the courts with legal filings. They overthrow courts with the rest of the constitutional system.
Those who lack faith or fealty in our constitutional system are those who label litigants “rebels” and legal filings as forms of “rebellion” and “sedition.”