Sen. Hawley Plans To Object to Electoral College Vote Certifying Biden Win
[guest post by Dana]
Raise your hand if you’re surprised by this:
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said Wednesday he will object when Congress counts the Electoral College votes next week, which will force lawmakers in both the House and Senate to vote on whether to accept the results of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Hawley is the first senator to announce plans to object to the results, which is significant because both a House member and senator are required to mount an objection when Congress counts the Electoral College votes on January 6.
The objection will not change the outcome of the election, only delaying the inevitable affirmation of Biden’s victory in November over President Donald Trump. Democrats will reject any objections in the House, and multiple Republican senators have argued against an objection that will provide a platform for Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories claiming the election was stolen from him.
Anyway, I’m not wasting any more words on these yahoos. Trump and his fellow Congressional cohorts have pathetically disgraced themselves (and the Republican Party) to an irreparable degree. This move by Hawley will force Trump’s cohorts who are pro-actively working to overturn a legitimate election to come forward. And when they do, they should not be allowed to have their names fade into the woodwork after Biden is sworn in. Their names should be remembered, especially when they come up for re-election. Named and shamed.
Anyway, countering the crazy circus that never seems to end, this:
Everyone needs to take a deep breath. Yes, the President and far too many Republicans are *continuing* to engage in dangerous, anti-democratic behavior—despite having utterly failed to substantiate *any* of the claimed electoral improprieties. But it’s just not going to work.
First, even if a Senator like Hawley joins a House member’s challenge to a particular state’s electors, there’s nowhere near a majority in *either* chamber (let alone both) to sustain the challenge. All that will happen from these challenges is the process getting slowed down.
Second, no, that doesn’t mean that Republicans can “run out the clock.” Even if McConnell somehow allowed this nonsense to drag on for *two weeks,* we’d end up with Acting President Pelosi at noon on 1/20, not President Trump. And the Twelfth Amendment isn’t to the contrary.
Third, none of the (still pending) lawsuits are going to change any of this. #SCOTUS isn’t about to throw out certified electors, and neither Judge Kernodle nor the Fifth Circuit is going to somehow enjoin VP Pence from performing his *ministerial* duty of counting the votes.
I know emotions are raw and tempers are short, but I think it’s actually affirmatively *unhelpful* for folks to buy into any of the preposterous conspiracy theories being spread in right-wing social media. They’ve been wrong *from the start*; the actual *experts* haven’t been.
None of this is to excuse any of the indefensible behavior from the President or far too many elected Republicans at both the state and federal levels.
But there’s no necessary correlation between indefensible arguments and plausible ones. This is all just PR—and sore losing.
Exit question: What do Hawley (and fellow sore losers) get out of sacrificing their integrity and reputations for the biggest sore loser of all?
–Dana