GOP lawmakers mum on next moves after Biden victory affirmed
WASHINGTON — After Pennsylvania electors submitted the state’s 20 electoral votes on Monday for President-Elect Joe Biden in Harrisburg, Western Pennsylvania Republicans, who have sought to overturn President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, said little as the results moved on to a final venue: a joint session of Congress next month.
The Electoral College’s certification of Mr. Biden’s victory — with electors in state capitals across the country casting 306 votes for Mr. Biden and 232 votes for Mr. Trump — will be formally counted by a Jan. 6 meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate on Capitol Hill. The Electoral College votes correspond with the popular vote in each state.
The joint session is, in most presidential elections, a procedural formality that few people closely watch. But Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that he won the election in a landslide and widespread voter fraud rigged the election against him have injected political pressure into the usually staid processes of finalizing election results for the next administration to take office by Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Instead of a routine confirmation of the Electoral College vote, the joint session, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, could spiral into a partisan spectacle: The majority of Congressional Republicans, including all GOP lawmakers from the Pittsburgh region, have backed Mr. Trump’s claim of voter fraud and refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden’s win — even after the Electoral College meetings.
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, has in recent days continued a legal fight that seeks to toss out millions of Pennsylvania mail-in ballots and hand Mr. Trump a victory in the state. On Dec. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected, with no noted dissent, an emergency motion from Mr. Kelly’s lawyers to postpone the Electoral College meeting to hear his arguments that a 2019 state mail-in voting law violated the state constitution.
“Despite media headlines, our lawsuit is still alive,” Mr. Kelly said in a statement last Friday announcing a new filing. At the same time, the statement seemed to acknowledge the inevitable election outcome: “Even a remedy that includes prospective relief, meaning for future elections, would be a win for Pennsylvanians who were harmed.”
Mr. Kelly also was one of 126 House Republican lawmakers — about 64% of the House Republican caucus — who signed onto a Hail Mary lawsuit brought by Texas and 16 other Republican-led states last week to throw out the results in four battleground states won by
Mr. Biden, including Pennsylvania. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the petition, too, last Friday.
Reps. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters; John Joyce, DBlair; and Glenn Thompson, R-Centre, also signed onto the extraordinary lawsuit.
Effectively out of legal options, it is unclear what objections Republicans may try to raise during the joint session next month.
Mr. Kelly did not respond to a request for comment on the outcome of the Electoral College. Mr. Reschenthaler, Mr. Thompson and Dr. Joyce did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
In an interview last week, Mr. Thompson, the longestserving GOP lawmaker from the Keystone State, refused to explicitly acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory, saying he did not want to “get ahead of the Electoral College.”
There is some precedent for objections during Congress’ counting of the votes.
In 2017, some House Democrats objected to Mr. Trump’s win in key states, citing Russian election interference. But Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had conceded following the election, and no Democratic senator joined the effort, soled the efforts were shut down by the Republican majority in both chambers.
For House Republicans, the key will be to convince a Republican senator to join an objection.
If an objection is raised by a member of both chambers, according to congressional rules, lawmakers would have to debate the objection for up to two hours.
They could then vote on whether to reject the electoral results of the state in question, and both chambers would have to agree to toss out the votes — a move that has not happened in modern history.
In 2005, Sen. Barbara Boxer, a former California Democrat, joined Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Democrat from Northeastern Ohio, in objecting to Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for President George W. Bush in the 2004 election. The lawmakers complained of voting irregularities in that state related to long lines, lack of uniform policies on provisional ballots and the allocation of voting machines.
After debate, the House ultimately voted 267-31 against the challenge. The Senate voted 74-1 to confirm the results, with Ms. Boxer standing in opposition.
Rick Santorum, then a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, called the move a “travesty” by Democrats. “They’re still not over the 2000 election, let alone the 2004 election,” he said, according to a New York Times report.
Next month, it will come down to Mr. Pence, as president of the Senate, to declare Mr. Biden, at last, the winner of the election. Few Republican senators have shown a willingness to embrace Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said last week he had spoken with Mr. Biden, congratulated him, and discussed ways to work together.