Republican support for anti-election case reaches absurd heights
By Steve Benen
Just months into Barack Obama's first term as president, a group of far-right House Republicans unveiled a "birther" bill in Congress, requiring presidential candidates to prove they're native-born citizens. As its proponents knew, the proposal stood no chance of success, but these GOP lawmakers wanted to go on record, associating themselves with the ugly conspiracy theory.
The list of co-sponsors, however, was quite small. In fact, only 11 House Republicans endorsed the measure. (One of the 11 was Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn, who's since been promoted to the Senate.) To be sure, 11 was too many, but there were 178 GOP House members at the time. Those backing the "birther" bill represented the fringe: 94% of the House Republican conference wanted nothing to do with the legislation.
A decade later, the line between the Republican fringe and the Republican mainstream no longer exists. The Washington Post reported overnight:
A majority of House Republicans have signed onto an amicus brief in a Texas lawsuit seeking unprecedented judicial intervention in disallowing millions of votes and the election results from four key swing states that went for President-elect Joe Biden.... In all, 106 of the 196 House Republicans signed on to the amicus brief filed to the Supreme Court.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republican-support-anti-election-case-reaches-absurd-heights-n1250855
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