As President-elect Joe Biden is preparing to take office on Jan. 20, 2021, President Donald J. Trump has continued to challenge the results of the 2020 election in the courts.

Trump’s latest court challenge to overturn election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and backed by 126 members of Congress before the United States Supreme Court, recently drew negative criticism from U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr., D-9th district, in New Jersey.

Last Friday, Pascrell tweeted, “Today I’m calling on House leaders to refuse to seat any members trying to overturn the election and make Donald Trump an unelected dictator.”

A copy of his letter to House leaders demanding the 126 members of Congress seeking to overturn the election be sanctioned and excluded from the 117th Congress was also included in his tweet.

According to Pascrell’s letter to House leaders, their support of Trump’s attempt to become an unelected dictator is in violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

According to Section 3 of that Amendment, “No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Whenever members of Congress, whether a senator, house representative, president or vice president, are elected to office, they are sworn to uphold the law and the U.S. Constitution.

I agree with Pascrell that the 126 members of Congress did violate Section 3 of the 14th Amendment when they supported President Trump’s challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin so he could be president for another four years.

However, I do not agree they need to be sanctioned and excluded from the 117th Congress.

America is not a dictatorship it is a Democratic Republic.

Trump is not a dictator, he was elected to office in 2016.

On Nov. 3, Americans exercised their right to vote when they chose President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Trump and members of Congress need to stop manipulating the courts to overturn the 2020 election results to promote their own agendas.

It is also time for Trump and elected officials in Congress to accept the results of the election and start preparing for the transition of power in 36 days.

Susan Bryant

editorial assistant

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press