Sasse Slams G.O.P. Effort to Challenge Election
Results as a ‘Dangerous Ploy’
Senator Josh Hawley’s plan to object to the Electoral
College votes on Jan. 6 is exposing a rift among Republicans.
Senator Ben Sasse became the first Republican senator
to publicly condemn a decision by Senator Josh Hawley to challenge
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
Catie Edmondson
By Catie
Edmondson
Dec. 31,
2020
WASHINGTON
— Senator Ben Sasse on Thursday condemned a drive by his Republican colleagues
in Congress to challenge the results of the 2020 election, rebuking the effort
as a “dangerous ploy” led by lawmakers who are “playing with fire.”
In a
blistering open letter to his constituents, Mr. Sasse of Nebraska became the
first Republican senator to publicly condemn a decision by Senator Josh Hawley
to challenge President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, saying it was intended
to “disenfranchise millions of Americans.”
“Let’s be
clear what is happening here: We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who
think there’s a quick way to tap into the president’s populist base without
doing any real, long-term damage,” Mr. Sasse wrote. “But they’re wrong — and
this issue is bigger than anyone’s personal ambitions. Adults don’t point a
loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.”
Mr. Sasse’s
scathing remarks came a day after Mr. Hawley, Republican of Missouri, announced
that he would object to Congress’s certification of the Electoral College
results on Jan. 6, the final procedural step in affirming Mr. Biden’s victory.
Mr.
Hawley’s move ensures that the process, usually a formality, will force
up-or-down votes on the House and Senate floors, requiring lawmakers to either
show loyalty to President Trump and object to the results or protect the
sanctity of the electoral process.
There is
almost no chance that the effort, led by Mr. Hawley in the Senate and a small
group of Republican lawmakers in the House, will succeed in reversing the
outcome. But Mr. Hawley’s decision to challenge the results is forcing a test
of how far the Republican Party is willing to go to back Mr. Trump’s false
claims.
Senator
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has discouraged lawmakers
from objecting to the results, and on Thursday, he told members of his conference
on a private call that he considered his vote on Jan. 6 the most consequential
one he would ever cast, according to two people familiar with the discussion.
Mr.
McConnell did not explicitly say how he would vote, and made clear he was not
trying to sway senators to vote one way or another, the people said. But he
framed the vote to certify the election results as a critical moment to defend
the backbone of the electoral system and invoked votes he had taken on wars and
impeachment to underscore its significance.
Even some
of Mr. Trump’s usual allies have called his efforts to cling to power unseemly.
The Wall
Street Journal’s editorial board called it a “kamikaze mission” this week and
said “Republicans should be embarrassed by Mr. Trump’s Electoral College
hustle.”
The New
York Post, which has supported Mr. Trump for years, proclaimed on Monday: “Give
it up, Mr. President — for your sake and the nation’s.”
Mr. Trump
has continued to falsely claim that Mr. Biden unfairly won the election because
of widespread voter fraud and has demanded that congressional Republicans work
to overturn the results. Attorney General William P. Barr has acknowledged that
the Justice Department had uncovered no such fraud that would have changed the
outcome and the Supreme Court, as well as courts in at least eight key states
across the country, has refused or rejected challenges waged by the Trump
campaign in an attempt to throw out the results of the election. Those
challenges have not come close to overturning the results in a single state.
Still there
is a substantial rift in the party. While a steady stream of House Republicans
have announced their willingness to object to the electoral votes of critical
states, Mr. Hawley is the first senator to do so. He hinted on Wednesday that
other senators could soon join his effort, telling reporters “a number of
offices have reached out via staff to ours and said, ‘We’re interested.’”
On
Thursday, he blasted out a fund-raising pitch highlighting his plan. “We must
ensure that one vote means one vote in America,” read the message, which was
positioned alongside a photo of Mr. Hawley and Mr. Trump. “I plan to object to
the results of the Electoral College on Jan. 6, but I need your help.”
It is
unclear how many — if any — of his Senate colleagues will rally to his side.
His
announcement on Wednesday was met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm in many
conservative circles. On the private conference call on Thursday with Senate
Republicans, Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is retiring in
2022, spoke up to make clear his “strong” disagreement with Mr. Hawley’s plan,
a spokesman for Mr. Toomey confirmed.
On that
same call, details of which were earlier reported by Axios, Mr. McConnell
pressed Mr. Hawley to explain how he expected his objection to play out, according
to a person familiar with the conversation. But Mr. Hawley was absent from the
call and did not respond, prompting him to email members of the conference
later, explaining that he intended to force a debate on the issue of election
security and noting that the election had left many of his constituents at home
disillusioned.
Mr.
Hawley’s objection will force the Senate to debate his claim for up to two
hours, followed by a vote on Mr. Biden’s victory. With every Senate Democrat
expected to certify the election, along with at least several Republicans, the
Senate is likely to affirm Mr. Biden’s victory. The House, which must also
conduct the same vote, is controlled by Democrats, making certification a
certainty.
Senator
John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said he was “curious to see” the evidence
driving the objection, but expressed skepticism at the effort, noting that a
slew of courts had already overturned challenges from the Trump campaign.
“There’s a
lot of things I don’t want to happen that happen,” Mr. Cornyn said. “So you
just got to learn to deal with it. And I think this is one of them.”
“I question
why he is doing it when the courts have unanimously thrown out the suits that
the president’s team have filed for lack of credible evidence,” said Senator
Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. “Senator Hawley is a smart attorney who
clerked for the Supreme Court so he clearly understands that.”
Senator Ron
Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who has questioned whether Mr. Biden fairly
won the election and is often eager to wade into battles demanded by Mr. Trump,
said he was supportive of Mr. Hawley’s effort but would not join him in
objecting. He left open the possibility that he would vote to support the
objection.
“There’s no
reason for more people to object,” Mr. Johnson told reporters. “All it takes is
one. But I’ll support his efforts and support the efforts of the conference” to
“hear the issues.”
House
Republicans have been more eager to challenge the results. On Thursday, eight
Republican members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation announced that
they would challenge Mr. Biden’s electoral votes, citing the use of election
procedures they claim were unauthorized by state legislators. Pennsylvania’s
Republican state legislators also wrote to Mr. McConnell on Thursday urging him
to “dispute the certification until an investigation is completed” into
allegations of election law violations.
Representative
Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, said he believed that more than 100
Republican lawmakers could ultimately vote to sustain the objections in the
House. In December, 126 Republican lawmakers in the House including the party’s
leader — making up more than 60 percent of the conference — joined a legal
brief supporting an extraordinary lawsuit seeking to overturn Mr. Biden’s
victory, and dozens have already signed onto the effort to challenge the
results on Jan. 6.
Mr.
Kinzinger, a vocal critic of attempts by Mr. Trump and his allies in Congress
to overturn the election, said on “The Bulwark Podcast” that he hoped his
colleagues would prove him wrong.
“I’m just
over the undermining of democracy and the frankly massive damage that’s being done
with this,” Mr. Kinzinger said.
Some of his
colleagues have agreed that the effort amounted to an inappropriate
undertaking. Representative-elect Nancy Mace of South Carolina told The Post
and Courier that she would not vote to overturn the results. “I do not believe
that Congress knows better than voters or better than the states,” she said.
But more
House Republicans announced on Thursday that they would support the drive, and
none came forward to condemn it. Four members of Missouri’s House delegation
followed Mr. Hawley’s lead, acknowledging in a joint statement they knew the
effort would ultimately fail.
“We have no
illusions about the outcome, at the end of the day, this is still Nancy
Pelosi’s House,” they wrote. “Our only hope is that more will join us — that
more will value protecting the vote of every American living in their state as
much as we do fighting for yours.”
Other
lawmakers, led by Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, had been trying a
different tactic to try to block Mr. Biden’s victory. They filed a lawsuit
against Vice President Mike Pence that tries to invalidate the 1880s law that
governs the Electoral College vote, a move aimed at getting a judge to inform
Mr. Pence that he does not have to accept the electoral votes.
But on
Thursday, the Justice Department, arguing on behalf of Mr. Pence, asked a
federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, pitting the department against Mr. Trump
and his allies in Congress.
The
department said in its response that Mr. Gohmert did not have standing to sue
Mr. Pence over performing the duties that he is allowed to by law, and that —
if lawmakers wanted to change the statute — they should sue Congress, which was
responsible for its passage.
The Justice
Department also made clear in its filing that it welcomed any comments from the
federal judge in the case, Jeremy D. Kernodle, that would clarify that Mr.
Pence’s role in the election is procedural and that he does not have the power
to reject votes or decide the results of the election.
Katie Benner
contributed reporting.
Catie
Edmondson is a reporter in the Washington bureau, covering Congress. @CatieEdmondson
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