Tennessee AG joins Missouri in support of Texas lawsuit, cites 'separation of power'
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — One day after Texas announced the state would file a lawsuit against four battleground states with Joe Biden victories, Tennessee's AG released a statement on joining Missouri's amicus brief in support of Texas.
The lawsuit from the Texas attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, demands that the 62 total Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin be invalidated. That's enough, if set aside, to swing the election to Trump. Paxton's suit repeats a litany of false, disproven and unsupported allegations about mail-in ballots and voting in the four battlegrounds.
Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III on Wednesday released a statement after joining Missouri’s amicus brief in support of Texas’s action in the Supreme Court.
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 pandemic-related 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.
Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro on Wednesday called Slatery's decision "embarrassing."
"This is embarrassing and marks a low point in the history of the office of the Tennessee Attorney General," Yarbro said on Twitter.
In an interview with FOX 17 News, Sen. Yarbro said the move is history-making.
“This is the attorney general acting as our representative to go to the top court in the land and ask the court to overturn the results of a presidential election. Nothing like this has happened in the history of our state and it should really be cause for deep concern," Yarbro said. “Tennesseans should really be concerned about whether we’re using tax dollars that should be going to lots of other things right now like fighting this pandemic and trying to get unemployment under control.”
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