House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been asked to disqualify more than 100 Republican Congressmen who supported the Texas lawsuit to overturn the election results in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
The demand from New Jersey representative Bill Pascrell came after Pelosi herself said on Friday that the lawmakers engaged in election subversion that imperils democracy. Pascrell says there is ground for the House Speaker to bar the Congressmen as they had become 'traitors' by violating the Constitution.
The Democrat said the lawmakers were trying to obliterate public confidence in the democratic system' by installing an 'unelected dictator'.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rejected the Texas lawsuit, which was seen as a last-ditch effort to overturn the election results. President Donald Trump had joined the lawsuit, which was also supported by as many as 18 states.
The 83-year-old Congressman from New Jersey said the House members who signed an amicus brief supporting the Texas lawsuit breached their oath under which they are mandated to uphold the Constitution.
Pascrell said that, under the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the disqualification of the members is warranted. The amendment was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War.
"The text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems a pretty clear example of that," he tweeted.
It is not sure how Pelosi, an unrelenting critic of President Trump, would react to the COngressman's demand. The unusual and unprecedented move by Texas, which split the nation in the middle, has now come to a legal dead end but it remains to be seen what impact the verdict will have.
Prominent Republican commentator Rush Limbaugh went as far as to say that there cannot be a peaceful coexistence between liberal and conservative America anymore. He even suggested that the right wing states must consider breaking away from the Union.
Red states like Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina Utah, Arizona, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida and Missourie are supporting Texas in the case.
On the other side, as many as 22 blue states stand together. These states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
If Pelosi acts on the demand to deny seats to 127 Republican lawmakers when the House convenes the division will become worse. Even the language of the Speaker and the Democratic leaders in the aftermath of the 'revolt' of the Congressman will decide the direction the political discourse will take.
