Sen. Alexander criticizes Texas lawsuit

Retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) criticized the lawsuit from Texas asking the Supreme Court to not certify election results in four key battleground states, saying he had a “hard time figuring out the basis” for the lawsuit. 

In the interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” set to air Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Alexander whether he thought the Texas lawsuit was “constitutionally sound.” 

“I mean, can you imagine another state telling Tennessee how to count its votes to decide who the electors are?” Todd asked. 

“That doesn’t sound like a very Republican argument to me,” the GOP senator responded.

“I mean, our position, my position, Republicans believe that states are in charge of elections,” Alexander continued. “And Texas is a big state, but I don’t know exactly why it has a right to tell four other states how to run their elections.”

“So, I’m having a hard time figuring out the basis for that lawsuit,” he added. 

In its challenge, Texas has asked the Supreme Court to review the election results in four states carried by President-elect Joe Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

President Trump won those battleground states in 2016, and the Texas suit, filed Tuesday by the state’s Republican attorney general, alleges that “voting irregularities” surrounding this year’s presidential contest call into question Biden’s victory in all four states.

More than 100 House GOP lawmakers have backed the Texas suit, with 20 more joining them on Friday, underscoring the divisions within the party over the issue.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was among the lawmakers on Friday who signed onto the brief, which was spearheaded by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the outgoing head of the Republican Study Committee and a close Trump ally. 

The Texas suit marks the latest effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election. Virtually all of the lawsuits to challenge the results have been dismissed by courts.

Friday marked the final round for briefs to be submitted to the Supreme Court in the Texas lawsuit, with the potential for the court to issue an order on the Texas request for a preliminary injunction that same day. Some court watchers expect the court will act no later than Sunday ahead of the next day’s Electoral College meetings to formalize Biden’s win over Trump.