Tenn. AG normalized circus by backing pro-trump suit
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed the legal challenge, wants to undo the 2020 presidential election. Tennessee didn’t need to be a part of a publicity stunt.
Editor’s note: The Supreme Court ruled against the Texas attorney general’s lawsuit on Friday. This editorial was originally written before the decision, but it has been updated.
Seventeen Republican state attorneys general, including Tennessee’s Herbert Slatery, said they were making a point of law in trying to prevent four states from casting their electoral votes on Monday.
What they were really doing, however, is participating in a publicity stunt that was dangerous for democracy and for the people running elections in their states.
Elections officials in swing states, including Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, that flipped from President Donald Trump to Presidentelect Joe Biden in 2020, have been targeted.
They received threats to their lives and safety after violent, hateful rhetoric used by Trump and other Republican politicians and operatives who disagreed with the election outcome.
Trump’s incessant false claims of a rigged election – in spite of being rebuffed by the courts over and over again – is having the effect of persuading people – especially Republican voters – that widespread election fraud occurred when that has not been proven.
Top state officials, including Republican leaders of Georgia, have pleaded with Trump to stop the bullying.
How Slatery justified his decision
Slatery’s decision to join the amicus brief in support of the lawsuit by his Texas counterpart Ken Paxton only normalized the circus.
In his statement Wednesday on why he joined, Slatery wrote:
“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. This Office pressed that argument in cases defending Tennessee’s election laws against pandemicrelated 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.”
But what Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wanted is for the U.S. Supreme Court effectively to undo the election.
Paxton, who is being investigated for securities fraud and has been accused by former attorneys in his own office of abuse of power, is a classic case of a sycophant trying to please his leader. Trump also joined the lawsuit.
The legal challenge could harm elections and officials in the future
Tennessee conducted a smooth election in 2020, and the vote count was completed in the early morning of Nov. 4.
Imagine if another state sued Tennessee for how it conducted its election.
Imagine if Secretary of State Tre Hargett and his staff were the subjects of death threats just because someone did not like the result of the election in the Volunteer State.
The Texas legal challenge could have had an impact not just on future general elections, but on partisan primary elections in years ahead.
It is not unusual to see states fighting over natural resources and shared border issues, but to challenge another state’s right to conduct an election is more than just bizarre. It threatens the foundation of democracy our country was founded on.
The Tennessee attorney general is selected by the state Supreme Court, which means regardless of any pressure from the executive or legislative branches, Slatery did not have to support Texas in its legal challenge.
Slatery refused, for example, to get involved in the legislature’s lawsuit against the federal government on refugee resettlement. The Supreme Court rebuffed lawmakers’ challenge in October.
Over the summer, the state successfully fought in the state Supreme Court a lower court ruling to eliminate the requirement of an excuse to vote absentee just because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That argument focused on separation of powers. So, Slatery may not think his involvement in the Texas lawsuit was political, but Trump’s constant drumbeat of trying to delegitimize the electoral system across the country – except in those states he won – made this political.
Slatery made Tennessee a pawn in Trump’s sad efforts to try to thwart the American democratic process.
David Plazas, opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee, wrote this editorial on behalf of the editorial board. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.