Tag: 2020 election

Why Trump’s Senate supporters can’t overturn Electoral College results they don’t like – here’s how the law actually works

On Jan. 6, the United States Congress will gather in a joint session to tally the votes of the Electoral College, which cast its ballots in state capitols last month. In his role as president of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence is slated to officially announce Joe Biden as the country’s next president. 

This formal certification process – the final step in the U.S. presidential election – is the latest target of President Donald Trump’s desperate, untenable and possibly criminal effort to overturn the 2020 results. In his refusal to concede, Trump is pressuring Pence and Republicans in Congress to delay or oppose certification.

Can they really subvert the Electoral College? The answer, both legally and politically, is no. Continue reading.

Pence removed from Senate as protestors breach Capitol security

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Vice President Mike Pence was taken from the Senate chamber after protesters entered the Capitol to protest the results of President-elect Joe Biden‘s win.

The House and Senate gaveled out of their debates on the Electoral College results as footage showed protesters breaching security and entering the Capitol.

The doors of the House chamber were locked for safety purposes. A member of the Capitol Police confirmed protesters had entered the building. Continue reading.

Electoral College fight splits GOP as opposition grows to election challenge

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Wednesday’s fight over a long-shot effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election is dividing Republicans, including those from the same state, as opposition grows to the plan. 

Several Republican senators formally announced on Tuesday that they will oppose challenging the Electoral College results, meaning GOP senators in at least five states will split when Congress convenes its joint session on Wednesday where lawmakers will count the votes, a pro forma exercise that in previous years has taken a matter of minutes. 

GOP Sens. John Cornyn (Texas), James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) each said Tuesday that they will not support efforts to challenge President-elect Joe Biden‘s win in key battleground states.  Continue reading.

Why Congress Should Impeach Trump Again

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And this time, he should be convicted. The country cannot risk his becoming president again.

The emergence of an audio recording of President Trump pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the results of the election is a harrowing moment in the history of our democracy. And though the number of his days in office is dwindling, the only appropriate response is to impeach Mr. Trump. Again.

Whether he acknowledges it or not, President Trump is leaving the White House on Jan. 20 — but right now, there is nothing stopping him from running in 2024. That is a terrifying prospect, because the way he has conducted himself over the past two months, wielding the power of the presidency to try to steal another term in office, has threatened one of our republic’s most essential traditions: the peaceful transfer of power.

Fortunately, our founders anticipated we would face a moment like this, which is one reason Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution entrusts Congress with the power not only to remove a president but also to prevent him or her from ever holding elected office again. Mr. Trump’s conduct over the past two months has left our legislators with no choice but to use it. That impeachment inquiry would take time, far more than Mr. Trump has left in office. But it would be well worth it. Continue reading.

Pence says he lacks authority to throw out Electoral College votes

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Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that he lacked constitutional authority to follow President Trump’s wishes to throw out Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden. 

Why it matters: Trump has been pressuring Pence to overturn the election results as part of an ongoing attempt to subvert Biden’s clear win, which failed to garner evidence or support through various legal battles. Trump will view Pence’s statement as the ultimate act of betrayal.

What they’re saying: “It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence wrote. Continue reading.

An Insurgency From Inside the Oval Office

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President Trump’s effort to overturn the election he lost has gone beyond mere venting of grievances at the risk of damaging the very American democracy he is charged with defending.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s relentless effort to overturn the result of the election that he lost has become the most serious stress test of American democracy in generations, one led not by outside revolutionaries intent on bringing down the system but by the very leader charged with defending it.

In the 220 years since a defeated John Adams turned over the White House to his rival, firmly establishing the peaceful transfer of authority as a bedrock principle, no sitting president who lost an election has tried to hang onto power by rejecting the Electoral College and subverting the will of the voters — until now. It is a scenario at once utterly unthinkable and yet feared since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s tenure.

The president has gone well beyond simply venting his grievances or creating a face-saving narrative to explain away a loss, as advisers privately suggested he was doing in the days after the Nov. 3 vote. Instead, he has stretched or crossed the boundaries of tradition, propriety and perhaps the law to find any way he can to cling to office beyond his term that expires in two weeks. That he is almost certain to fail and that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 does not mitigate the damage he is doing to democracy by undermining public faith in the electoral system. Continue reading.

Trump pressure campaign on Georgia backfires with GOP

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President Trump‘s extraordinary phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state is roiling Washington and putting Republicans on the defensive as Democrats call for a criminal investigation of the president. 

The political fallout of Trump’s hour-long call over the weekend, which was recorded and widely disseminated, is putting a damper on an insurgent Republican bid to challenge the results of electoral votes in several swing states.

The effort to muster Republican support for objecting to states’ electoral votes when Congress meets in a joint session Wednesday stalled after Trump’s tense communication with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger became public. Continue reading.

The Republicans refusing to join Trump’s coup attempt are making a stunning admission

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A small group of far right GOP members of Congress were getting some initial praise after announcing they would not be joining Republicans contesting the presidential election – until they released a statement explaining why.

Essentially, the seven lawmakers are explicitly warning their Republican colleagues to not challenge or disrupt the Electoral College, because that is likely the only way America will see another Republican president.

“Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32 years,” they freely admit. “They have therefore depended on the electoral college for nearly all presidential victories in the last generation.” Continue reading.

Upholding His Constitutional Oath and the Will of American Voters, Phillips Will Vote to Affirm Electoral College Results

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) will uphold his oath to the Constitution and the will of American voters by affirming the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election.  

“What has been a routine procedure for the better part of our nation’s history is suddenly being politicized in ways that set a very dangerous precedent,” said Phillips. “The role of Congress is to count the electoral votes as submitted by the states, and that’s exactly what I and most of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, intend to do. For we recognize that this is not about a preserving a president, rather preserving the presidency and the very system of government that has made the United States of America the oldest continuous democracy in the world.”

As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and other principled Republicans in Congress have affirmed this week, our founders were very intentional about entrusting the administration of federal elections to the states, the election of the president through the Electoral College, and the adjudication of election disputes to the courts.