11 December 2020 — 0954 mst

Gianforte and Fox dishonor Montana and themselves
by backing Texas AG Paxton’s seditious lawsuit

Is Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton the only elected Republican under the Big Sky with the courage and wisdom not to indulge President Trump’s increasingly half-baked attempts to overthrow the decision of the voters so that he can “win” a second term?

He may be.

Earlier this week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — a man “currently under indictment for securities fraud and facing an FBI investigation over allegations of bribery and abuse of office,” according to the San Antonio Current — asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the federal elections in four states that voted for Joe Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennyslvania, and Wisconsin.

The lawsuit is basically a publicity stunt, possibly an attempt to propitiate a pardon from Trump. Nevertheless, Montana Attorney General Tim Fox, a Republican who lost to Greg Gianforte in the 2020 GOP gubernatorial primary, joined 16 other GOP state AGs in an amicus brief supporting Paxton.

And yesterday, Montana Governor Elect Rep. Greg Gianforte and over 100 of his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives filed their own amicus brief supporting Paxton.

For details and links to the best reports on Paxton’s grandstanding, go to Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog.

Gianforte and Fox may think they’re currying the good graces of diehard Trump supporters and doing no real harm as SCOTUS will stick Paxton’s hot potato down his throat.

If so, they need to rethink that conclusion. The 2020 presidential election was not perfect — no election is — but it was free, fair, and decisive. There was not, according to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, widespread voter fraud, let alone voter or any other fraud of a magnitude sufficient to call the election in doubt. Joe Biden won the popular vote by seven million plus, and won 306 votes in the Electoral College.

By endorsing Paxton’s proposed overthrow of the will of the voters in four states, Gianforte and Fox are endorsing minority rule. If they do not come to their senses and apologize for embracing what amounts to an attempted nonviolent coup d’état, they do damage not only to themselves and the state they represent, they reject, through their endorsing Paxton’s lawsuit, the bedrock principle of democracy: majority rule.

Repent, gentlemen. Save yourselves.