WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s extraordinary effort to overthrow the presidential election is being taken to Congress as lawmakers gather for a joint session to confirm the Electoral College vote won by Joe Biden.
Wednesday’s typically routine procedure will be anything but an invisible political confrontation since the aftermath of the Civil War, while Trump makes a desperate effort to stay in office. The president’s Republican allies in the House and Senate plan to oppose the election results, in response to supporters’ call to “fight for Trump” while he demonstrates outside the White House. It’s ending the party.
The long-term effort is almost doomed to failure, defeated by bipartisan majorities in Congress prepared to accept the results. Biden, winner of Electoral College 306-232, is scheduled to open on January 20.
“The most important part is that, in the end, democracy will prevail here,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, among those who administered the proceedings, said in an interview.
The joint congressional session, required by law, will meet at 1 pm EST under a vigilant and restless nation – months after the November 3 elections, two weeks before the traditional peaceful transfer of power from possession and against the backdrop of a COVID growing -19 pandemic.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who has warned his party about this challenge, must comment ahead of time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who started working on her side of the Capitol, called the day “huge historical significance”. It is about “guaranteeing confidence in our democratic system,” she said in a letter to colleagues.
But it’s Vice President Mike Pence who will be closely watched while he chairs the session.
Despite Trump’s repeated allegations of electoral fraud, election officials and his former attorney general they said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All states have certified their results so fair and accurate, by Republican and Democratic officials.
Pence has a largely ceremonial role, opening the sealed envelopes of the states after they are loaded into the mahogany boxes used for the occasion, and reading the results out loud. But he is under increasing pressure from Trump to favor the president, despite having no power to affect the outcome.
While other vice presidents, including Al Gore and Richard Nixon, also chaired their own defeats, Pence supports Republican lawmakers who face growing challenges to the 2020 outcome.
“I hope our great vice president will show up for us,” Trump said at a rally in Georgia this week. “He’s a great guy. Of course, if he doesn’t pass, I won’t like him that much. “
It is not the first time that lawmakers have questioned the results. Democrats did so in 2017 and 2005. But the intensity of Trump’s challenge is unlike anything in modern times, and a flurry of elected and current Republican Party officials warn that the confrontation is sowing distrust in the government and eroding the faith of Americans in democracy.
“There is no constitutionally viable way for Congress to overturn an election,” said Sen. Tim Scott, RS.C., announcing his refusal to join the effort the day before the session.
Still, more than a dozen Republican senators led by Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, along with some 100 House Republicans, are pushing to raise objections to the state results of Biden’s victory.
According to the rules of the joint session, any objection to a state’s electoral count must be submitted in writing by at least one member of the House and one of the Senate to be considered. Each objection will force two hours of deliberations in the House and Senate, guaranteeing a long day.
Republican House legislators are agreeing to objections to electoral votes in six states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Arizona will likely be the first to be contested, as state counts are announced in alphabetical order, and Cruz said he will join Republicans in opposing that state.
Hawley said he will oppose the results of the Pennsylvania election, almost guaranteeing a second two-hour debate despite resistance from state Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who said Biden’s victory count is accurate.
Senator Kelly Loeffler can dispute the results in her state of Georgia. But it is not clear whether any of the other senators will object to any other state, as lawmakers are still working out a strategy.
Democrats have a majority in the House and the Republican-led Senate is divided on the issue. The bipartisan majorities in both chambers are expected to vehemently reject the objections.
Cruz’s group promises to protest unless Congress agrees to form a commission to investigate the election, but that seems unlikely.
Those with Cruz are the Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
Trump promised to “fight like the devil” to stay in office. He said at a rally in Georgia that voters who vote for Biden “are not going to take this White House!”
Many of the Republicans who contested the results said they are trying to give voters a voice at home, who do not trust the election result and want to see lawmakers fighting for Trump.
Hawley defended his role by saying that his voters have been “clear and tall” about his distrust of the election. “It is my responsibility as a senator to raise his concerns,” he wrote to colleagues.
With the increase in criticism, Cruz insisted that his goal was “not to annul the election”, but to investigate allegations of voting problems. He produced no new evidence.
Hawley and Cruz are potential candidates for the presidency in 2024, vying for the base of Trump supporters.
Legislators are being told by Capitol officials to arrive earlier, due to security precautions with protesters in Washington. Visitors, who typically fill the galleries to watch historic events, will not be allowed under the restrictions of COVID-19.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking in Dalton, Georgia, and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.