A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other Republicans against Vice President Mike Pence, who is due to preside over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 for the formal certification of states’ electoral votes for the president of the United States. Gohmert (R-Texas) and others filed a lawsuit last week that concerns Pence’s role as president of the Senate. The lawsuit, filed against Pence, requested that the court grant Pence “the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State” on Jan. 6. Pence argued that he was not the correct defendant to the lawsuit. “A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,” his attorney said in a Thursday filing in Texas (pdf). In an order of dismissal on Friday (pdf), U.S. District Judge Jeremy …