By Bob Gatty
How is it that Rep. Tom Rice can somehow forget about the sanctity of the electoral process and the U.S. Constitution that he has sworn to uphold by joining an appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election?
What is it, Congressman? Are you so afraid of losing the support of Donald Trump’s cult here in the 7th Congressional District that you will abandon the Constitution and its guarantees that every American has the right to vote in a free election?
Do you not realize that in supporting Trump’s desperate effort to hang onto power that you risk turning our nation into an autocracy rather than a democracy? Are you so afraid of his hold on your supporters that you are willing to do that? Do you want that to be your legacy?
Did you run for Congress simply to demolish our democracy?
Rice has joined at least 105 other Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit asking the high court to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in what is a desperate attempt to return Donald Trump to the White House.
He is among five Republican U.S. representatives from South Carolina who have signed the brief. The others are Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman, William Timmons, and Joe Wilson.
The brief was initiated by 17 state attorneys general – including South Carolina’s –in support of the lawsuit filed by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. It repeats a litany of false, disproven and unsupported allegations about mail-in ballots in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin while demanding that the 62 Electoral College votes from those states be invalidated, thus giving the presidency to Trump.
In their filing Thursday, the House Republicans, including Rice, claimed that “unconstitutional irregularities” have “cast doubt” on the election’s outcome and “the integrity of the American system of elections.”
The Texas lawsuit repeats false, disproven, and unsubstantiated accusations about voting in the four battleground states, which Biden won to clinch the presidency. Court case after court case, many filed in federal courts with GOP-friendly judges, have been rejected. In fact, the Trump campaign legal team, led by his personal counsel, Rudolph Giuliani, has suffered more than three dozen defeats in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court’s ruling this week rejecting a motion to block Pennsylvania from certifying Biden’s victory there.
“Denied,” that ruling said. All nine justices were in agreement.
Meanwhile, 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have filed a motion urging the Supreme Court to reject the Texas lawsuit, and each of the targeted states filed an objection to the suit, listing numerous reasons why the high court should not get involved.
For Republicans, including Rice, to claim that the “integrity of the American system of elections” is at stake simply because Biden defeated Trump is ludicrous and nothing more than a cynical attack on the very system they claim to protect. To set aside the votes of tens of millions of people because of the baseless claims of fraud by the defeated Trump would be a travesty that would lead to a devastating constitutional crisis for our nation.
Trump is actively leading this attempted coup to regain power, tweeting that “the Supreme Court has a chance to save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States.” In reality, it is Trump who is engaged in the greatest election abuse in history, and now Rice and his GOP House colleagues are party to that abuse.
For months, Trump has laid the groundwork for his claim of a rigged election, warning that voting by mail would lead to massive fraud, then attempting to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service with his hand-picked big money donor postmaster general, and then pushing the last minute nomination of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. That would be his insurance policy should the disputed election reach the high court, which he has now orchestrated.
Congressman Rice, is this what you want? Do you really want the Supreme Court to disqualify the legally cast votes of millions of Americans simply because Donald Trump throws a tantrum because he lost the election? Are you that afraid of him?
Congressman Rice, where is your leadership? Why can’t you stand up for what is right and support the sanctity of the ballot? That should be your highest calling, but clearly, it is not. Instead, you are simply another weak Republican lemming heading over the cliff created by Donald John Trump.
Contact Rep. Tom Rice to let him know his support to invalidate the election of Joe Biden is unacceptable by calling (202) 225-9895 or email him at https://tomriceforms.house.gov/contact/.
