Tenn. joins amicus brief supporting Texas voting lawsuit
Tennessee has signed on to support an effort by Texas to delay four other states from casting Electoral College votes, a longshot lawsuit being touted by President Donald Trump as way to reverse the outcome of the election.
Attorney General Herbert Slatery’s office on Wednesday announced that Tennessee had joined an amicus brief in the case, meaning the state is offering its support to Texas but is not a party on the lawsuit.
Led by Missouri, Tennessee is one of 17 conservative states that signed the brief.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin from finalizing election results when electors meet Monday, a last-ditch effort to keep Trump in the White House.
Each of those states were battlegrounds won by President-elect Joe Biden.
Tennessee Republican state legislators on Tuesday urged Slatery to get involved in the lawsuit.
Slatery said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Tennessee
signed on.
“The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has consistently taken the position that only a State’s legislature has the authority to make and change election laws,” Slatery said in a statement. “This Office pressed that argument in cases defending Tennessee’s election laws against pandemic-related challenges and in amicus briefs in cases involving similar challenges in other courts.
“This is not something new. Texas’s action in the Supreme Court seeks to vindicate the same important separation-of-powers principles, and that is why we joined Missouri’s amicus brief in support of that action.”
Trump, who said he is also supportive of the effort by Texas, has been unsuccessful in attempts to overturn the results of the election, losing dozens of court cases where his legal team attempted to argue that illegal voting cost the president the election.
Paxton argued that due to the pandemic, the four states in question wrongfully expanded mail voting and weakened signature verification, witness requirements and other measures meant to protect ballot integrity.
Officials in the four states criticized the filing as a publicity stunt that recycled false and disproven claims of widespread election fraud.
“Texas alleges that there are 80,000 forged signatures on absentee ballots in Georgia, but they don’t bring forward a single person who this happened to,” said Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state.
“That’s because it didn’t happen.” Attorneys general in Tennessee are appointed by the state Supreme Court to eight-year terms, unlike most states where the AG is elected.
Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-statesman contributed.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.