Congress convenes, then flees
After disruption, lawmakers return to debate election
WASHINGTON — Even before violent demonstrators forced lawmakers out of the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday was unfolding as one of the most extraordinary days in the nation’s seat of government.
Republican lawmakers mounted their first official challenge to Joe Biden’s presidential election win, objecting to state results from Arizona as they took up President Donald Trump’s relentless effort to overturn the election outcome in an unusual joint session of Congress.
Outside, demonstrators tried to shove their way into the Capitol, scuffling with police, after a fiery rally near the White House in which Trump prodded his supporters to march to Capitol Hill.
Hours later, after the Capitol had been cleared of pro-Trump occupiers House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that after meeting with her leadership team, it was decided lawmakers would resume counting electoral votes Wednesday evening.
Vice President Mike Pence, whose job it is to preside over the formal confirmation of the Electoral College results, opened the resumption of the Senate debate by declaring: “Violence never wins.”
Earlier, Trump vowed to he would “never concede” and urged the massive crowd outside the White House to march to the Capitol
where hundreds had already gathered under tight security.
“We will never give up,” Trump told the noontime rally.
Trump had been subjecting Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role, opening the sealed envelopes from the states, to overturn the will of the voters and tip the results in the president’s favor, despite having no legal power to affect the outcome.
But Pence, in a statement shortly before presiding, defied Trump, saying he could not claim “unilateral authority” to reject the electoral votes that make Biden president
Despite Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud, election officials and his own former attorney general have said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All the states have certified their results as fair and accurate, by Republican and Democratic officials alike.
Inside the House chamber, Arizona was the first of several states facing objections from the Republicans as Congress took an alphabetical reading of the election results.
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, flanked by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, rose to object to the typically routine acceptance of electors.
The objection sent lawmakers away to separate deliberations and was supposed to force two hours of debate in the House and Senate.
During the Senate session, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged fellow Republicans to abandon their effort to overrule Biden’s election triumph, directly rebuking Trump and asserting that the GOP drive threatened the country’s democratic foundations.
“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken,” said McConnell, R-Ky., as the Senate debated a challenge by a handful of GOP lawmakers to the 11 electoral votes that Arizona cast for Biden. “They’ve all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.”
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes, and eight lawsuits challenging the results have failed. The state’s Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of an election challenge.
McConnell minced no words as he spoke on the Senate floor against Trump’s futile bid to reverse his reelection loss.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” McConnell said. “We would never see the whole nations accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power at any cost.”
After four years in which Trump has frequently resorted to falsehoods, McConnell said, “We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate realities.” He said the country risked taking “a poisonous path where only the winner of an election actually accept the results.”
The joint session of Congress, required by law, convened before a watchful, restless nation — months after the election, two weeks before the inauguration’s traditional peaceful transfer of power and against the backdrop of a surging COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden will be sworn in as president Jan. 20.
Any pretense of an entirely peaceful transfer was shattered when the Senate and House were forced to suspend their session after chanting protesters gained entry to the Capitol, prompting police to lock down the building. Thousands of pro-Trump protesters rallied in the nation’s capital, answering appeals by Trump himself, who addressed supporters gathered outside the White House.
“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical Democrats,” Trump told the crowd on the Ellipse just south of the White House. “We will never give up. We will never concede . ... You don’t concede when there’s death involved.”