One of the arguments I’ve heard expressed about Congress voting to accept the results of the Electoral College is that they have no other option.
That constitutionally, Congress must accept the results if states do not submit alternative electoral college ballots.
The 12th Amendment states the President of the Senate shall open all the certificates in the presence of the Senate and the House and the votes shall be counted.
Congress, though, has been involved before.
I understand the argument that there is nothing Congress can do constitutionally, but I also understand there is reason to doubt that argument.
After all, nobody says Congress doesn’t have the right to object to results from individual states. And if Congress has the right to object, then it has the right to object. Period.
They aren’t there for the dog-and-pony show. It isn’t a coronation. It’s an election.
If there is serious allegations or concern that voter fraud happened, then what kind of person would not object to the election?
If you know or even strongly suspect something wrong happened, yet you approve it anyway, then you are approving the wrong that happened.
At some point, the right thing should be the most important thing.
In order to believe it is “unconstitutional” to object to individual states’ results, then the majority of House Republicans are opposed to the Constitution.
After all, 65 percent of House Republicans voted to object to the Pennsylvania results.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy even voted to object. Now, if voting to object to these results is “unconstitutional” because only the states and/or courts can do anything about it — then I expect Republicans making that argument will be shouting for McCarthy’s resignation from leadership this week?
I mean, if they really believe it is unconstitutional, and the Constitution means so, so, so much to them — they can’t have someone leading them who so recklessly abandoned the Constitution last week…right?
The fact is Congress can object — if it couldn’t, there wouldn’t be a history of it.
Again, 65 percent of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to object to the Pennsylvania results.
But zero percent of Iowa’s Republicans in the House joined them.
Those three Republicans voted with every Democrat in the U.S. House instead.
Again, their argument is that the Constitution doesn’t allow for them to object and that the courts are where election disputes should be resolved. And that states need to control their own individual elections.
So, in that universe, any state could go rogue if it wanted to and run the most publicly dishonest elections ever, and unless the court intervenes, Congress (a coequal branch of government) can do nothing about it.
The reality is the House and Senate are able to object. And the House and Senate are then able to approve or disapprove objections.
If objections are upheld, the result would be the decertification of any and all elector votes from that specific state.
A congressional source told The Iowa Standard that everyone they talk to commonly refers to the vote as “certification votes.”
Congress must have this role for a reason — to serve as a check on any rogue state.
Here is a harsh reality for Iowa Republicans: Representatives Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Randy Feenstra all joined Congresswoman Cindy Axne, as well as every other Democrat, in their vote against agreeing to the objections made by congressional Republicans. And Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst did the same.
Five Republicans in Congress. Five nos.
They voted to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. They very well likely voted against the wishes of the majority of people who put them in their positions.
It’s a bold strategy. In two years we’ll find out if it pays off.
