Congressional leaders reveal the rules governing the counting of the Electoral College

A group of seven House Republicans – including members of Freedom Caucus, such as Ken Buck (Colorado) and Chip Roy (Texas), as well as elected MP Nancy Mace (SC) and libertarian representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) – made a rare and long statement on Sunday afternoon opposing the effort to challenge the election.

They argue that the constitution makes it clear that states – not Congress – are responsible for voter selection.

“We must respect the authority of the states here,” wrote the lawmakers in their statement, obtained by POLITICO. “While this may frustrate our immediate political goals, we vow to promote the Constitution above our political goals. We must count the electoral votes presented by the states ”.

A handful of Senate Republicans also spoke out strongly against the challenges driven by Trump. In addition to Sens. Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey, who vigorously scolded these growing challenges, Sens. Susan Collins and Roger Wicker indicated on Sunday that they would oppose challenges as well. The Washington Post also revealed on Sunday that Trump, a day earlier, had called Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and pressured him to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in the state.

Some Trump allies tried to dismiss the proceedings at once. They hoped to authorize Vice President Mike Pence, who will chair the session, to unilaterally reject Biden voters; it is unclear whether these members will attempt to oppose or change these rules when they come to the House and Senate floor on Sunday night. Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) sued Pence last week in an effort to have proceedings canceled, but he was unceremoniously dismissed by two federal courts.

The procedures, if adopted, require Pence to introduce all the papers that are “supposed” to be electoral votes. He should read them in alphabetical order by state and offer lawmakers the chance to make any objections along the way. These long-standing procedures allow only two legislators – a single member of the House and a senator acting together – to halt the process, forcing the House and the Senate to interrupt the joint session and debate the challenges for two hours each, before they vote. and returning to the joint session.

There is virtually no doubt that the challenges to Biden’s victory will fail. The Democratic-led House will oppose them, and a sufficient number of Republicans in the divided Senate have also indicated that they will reject any challenge. But the magnitude of the pressure – with dozens of Republicans in the House and at least a quarter of the Republican Party in the Senate – will be unprecedented, aided by the full support of the incumbent president, who encouraged supporters to meet in Washington on January 6 to protest against the session.

Some Trump allies are encouraging Pence to try to take control of the session regardless of the rules and simply refuse to introduce Biden voters to states that Trump has contested. But Pence refused to adopt this strategy in court, and Congress would also refuse to accept such an effort.

The processes in the proposed rules are enshrined in a federal law passed in 1887 called the Electoral Counting Act, a statute approved to deal with the disastrous election of 1876. The procedures have been adopted by all Congresses since then to govern the Electoral College of 6 January certification meeting. However, constitutional scholars have debated whether the House and the Senate can be limited by the 130-year law and whether they can complement it to clearly define some of its vague aspects, such as the Pence authorities as president and the requirements of the law that all “supposed” electoral votes are introduced.

One of the questions about Pence’s role is whether he intends to present lists of Republicans who claimed to give Trump electoral votes in key states that Biden won. Aspiring Trump voters met on December 14, the day when formal members of the Electoral College met in their respective capitals and held mock sessions to vote for Trump. If you do, Congress would be required, by law, to count only certificates by state governments – but it would continue to amplify Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the process.