Lawyers representing Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Arizona’s 11 GOP electors disclosed in a court filing Tuesday that Vice-President Mike Pence declined to go along with their plan to upend Congress’ certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
On Monday, Gohmert and the electors filed a lawsuit against Pence that focused on the Vice-president’s role in an upcoming Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count states’ electoral votes and finalize Biden’s victory over President Trump.
The Vice-president’s role in presiding over the meeting is a largely ceremonial one governed by an 1887 federal law known as the Electoral Count Act. However, in the Gohmert lawsuit, he argued that Pence has sole authority to determine which presidential electors Congress will count when it certifies the results of the election, according to The Hill.
Additionally, Gohmert and his cohorts, in a motion to expedite the proceedings, revealed to the court that their lawyers had reached out to the vice-president’s lawyers – hoping to reach an agreement in their favor before going to court.
“In the teleconference, Plaintiffs’ counsel made a meaningful attempt to resolve the underlying legal issues by agreement, including advising the Vice President’s counsel that Plaintiffs intended to seek immediate injunctive relief in the event the parties did not agree,” according to Gohmert’s filing, reports Politico. “Those discussions were not successful in reaching an agreement and this lawsuit was filed.”
On Tuesday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Kernodle of the Eastern District of Texas agreed to partially grant the request for an expedited schedule. The court requested that Pence issue a response to the lawsuit by Dec. 31 at 5 p.m. and for Gohmert to issue a reply to Pence by Jan. 1 at 9 a.m. Kernodle did not agree to hold a hearing and said none would be scheduled “absent further notice from the Court.”
Gohmert and his electors told Kernodle they needed a ruling before January 4 so they would have an opportunity to appeal ahead of the Jan. 6 session of Congress, if necessary.
Pence has remained quiet about the whole lawsuit and the attempts by Trump and his lawyers to use any means possible to get the Electoral College vote thrown out and Trump declared the winner of the election. All the Trump campaign’s lawsuits to overturn results in individual states on allegations of voter fraud and irregularities largely failed. Nearly all of the GOP cases were tossed in court for lack of evidence or standing.