WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s extraordinary attempt to reverse presidential election goes before Congress as lawmakers gather for joint session to confirm Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden.
Wednesday’s typical routine procedure will be anything but a political showdown that hasn’t been as intense since the aftermath of the civil war as Trump makes a desperate effort to stay in office. The president’s Republican allies in the House and Senate plan to object to the election results, obeying supporters’ plea to “fight for Trump” as he organizes a rally outside the White House. It tears the party apart.
The latest attempt at failure will almost certainly fail, defeated by a two-part majority in Congress willing to accept the November results. Biden, which won the Electoral College 306-232, will be inaugurated on Jan. 20.
“Most importantly, democracy will eventually prevail here,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, among those leading the proceedings, said in an interview.
The joint session of Congress required by law will meet at 1:00 p.m. EST for a vigilant, restless nation – months after the election, two weeks before the traditional peaceful transfer of power of the inauguration, and against the backdrop of a rising COVID-19. pandemic.
Lawmakers were told by Capitol officials to arrive early, due to security measures with protesters in Washington. Visitors, who typically fill the galleries to view historical events, are not allowed under COVID-19 restrictions.
The session also comes as the results of Georgia’s first elections put Democrats within reach of a majority in the Senate.
Current majority leader Mitch McConnell, who tried to warn his Republican Party of this challenge, is expected to make early remarks. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it a day of “tremendous historical significance,” about “ensuring confidence in our democratic system.”
But it’s Vice President Mike Pence who will be most closely monitored while chairing the session.
Despite Trump’s repeated allegations of voter fraud, election officials and his own former Attorney General said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All states have certified their results equally fair and accurate, by both Republican and Democratic officials.
Pence has a largely ceremonial role, opening the United States’ sealed envelopes after they have been shipped in mahogany boxes used for the occasion, and reading out the results. But he is under mounting pressure from Trump to overturn voters’ will and give the results in favor of the president, despite having no legal power to influence the outcome.
“Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
With Senate results pouring in from Georgia, Trump reinforced his pleas to remain in office as a veto against Democrats. The country “NEEDS THE PRESIDENCY MORE THAN EVER,” he tweeted after Raphael Warnock won one of the second election seats.
While other vice presidents, including Al Gore and Richard Nixon, also presided over their own defeats, Pence supports Republican lawmakers facing challenges to the 2020 outcome.
It is not the first time that legislators have questioned the results. Democrats did so in 2017 and 2005. But the intensity of Trump’s challenge is like nothing in the modern age, and a stream of current and elected GOP officials warn that the showdown is sowing distrust in the government and undermining Americans’ confidence in democracy.
“There is no constitutionally feasible way for Congress to reverse an election,” said Senator Tim Scott, RS.C., announcing on the eve of the session that he declined to participate.
Still, more than a dozen Republican senators led by Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, along with as many as 100 House Republicans, are busy objecting to individual states’ reports of Biden’s victories.
Under the rules of the Joint Assembly, any objection to the election of a state must be made in writing by at least one member of the House and one of the Senate for consideration. Each objection forces two hours of deliberation in the Chamber and Senate, which guarantees a long day.
House Republican lawmakers are objecting to election votes in six states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Arizona will likely be the first to be disputed as the state numbers are announced in alphabetical order. Cruz has said he will join House Republicans to object to that state, even if he admitted the attempt won’t have the votes to pass.
“Extraordinarily uphill,” he said on Fox News late Tuesday.
Hawley has said he will object to the Pennsylvania election results, almost assuring him of a second two-hour debate, despite resistance from state Republican senator Pat Toomey, who said the sum of Biden’s victory is correct .
Senator Kelly Loeffler can challenge the results in her state of Georgia. She was defeated in the flight from Georgia to Warnock, but can remain a senator until he is sworn in.
The Senate’s other second race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff continued to call early on Wednesday, although Ossoff stated he had won. Perdue, who was seeking re-election, is ineligible to vote in the Senate because his term expired with the start of the new Congress Sunday.
It’s unclear if any of the other senators will object to another state, as lawmakers were still devising a strategy.
Democrats hold the majority in Parliament, while the Republican-led Senate is divided on the issue. Dual majorities in both chambers are expected to firmly reject the objections.
The group led by Cruz vows to object unless Congress agrees to form a committee to investigate the election, but that seems unlikely.
The ones with Cruz are Sens. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, James Lankford from Oklahoma, Steve Daines from Montana, John Kennedy from Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee, Mike Braun from Indiana, Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming, Roger Marshall from Kansas, Bill Hagerty from Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville from Alabama.
Many of the Republicans contesting the results said they are trying to give a vote to home voters who don’t trust the election outcome and who want lawmakers to fight for Trump.
Hawley defended his role, saying his voters were “loud and clear” about their distrust in the election. “It is my responsibility as a senator to voice their concerns,” he wrote to colleagues.
As criticism grew, Cruz insisted that his goal was “not to set aside the election,” but to investigate claims of voting problems. He has not provided any new evidence.
Both Hawley and Cruz are potential presidential candidates for 2024, vying for Trump support.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking in Dalton, Georgia and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.