More Republicans Reject Effort to Disrupt Biden’s Certification

(Bloomberg) -- More Republicans came out against efforts to oppose certification of Donald Trump’s election loss that at least a dozen of their colleagues are attempting and which the president has greeted with enthusiasm.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, said the proposal announced on Saturday -- to demand a commission that would immediately audit vote counts in several states won by Democrat Joe Biden -- “has zero chance of becoming reality.”

“It appears to be more of a political dodge than an effective remedy,” the South Carolina senator said in a statement on Sunday.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters that the plan, from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and ten other GOP senators, was “not an effort I’m going to be supporting.” Senators Richard Shelby and Roy Blunt of Missouri also said they didn’t back the proposal.

Trump, though, egged on the senators’ plan in a series of tweets, praising the lawmakers involved.

The president has also called for supporters to travel to Washington on Wednesday for a “protest rally.” Gatherings of at least several thousand people are expected. Two pro-Trump demonstrations in the nation’s capital since the election have produced scattered violence, including stabbings, and arrests.

Congress on Jan. 6 is required by the U.S. Constitution to meet and accept the results of the Electoral College, which affirmed Democrat Biden as president-elect, a gathering that is typically a formality.

Instead, Cruz led a group on Saturday in calling for a delay of full certification, and a 10-day investigation into accusations of wrongdoing. Those claims have been stoked by Trump but repeatedly dismissed in court, including by Trump-appointed judges.

If an election commission isn’t created, “we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified,’” the senators said.

The group includes Senators Cruz, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana, as well as four Senators-elect: Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, and Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Barr’s Disavowal

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on Sunday, telling reporters that “We’ll be dealing with all that on Wednesday.” Last week, McConnell urged party members not to object to the election results.

Trump has yet to provide evidence of widespread voter fraud. Attorney General William Barr, who stepped down before Christmas, said in early December that the U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of fraud on a scale that could have changed the outcome of the election.

Congress is required to accept the results of the electoral college. On Jan. 6, both chambers will meet jointly to open and count certificates of electoral votes from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, in alphabetical order.

Why Jan. 6 Is Key Date for Trump’s Election Gripes: QuickTake

The process is spelled out in the U.S. legal code, right down to the date and hour at which the joint session begins. The candidate who reaches 270 electoral votes is the winner. During the session -- which will be presided over by Vice President Mike Pence -- any member may object to the results from any individual state.

If both a senator and a representative object to a state’s result, the two chambers leave the joint session to debate the objection for as long as two hours and then vote on it.

‘Congress’s Responsibility’

Cruz expanded on his group’s maneuver on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” saying he wants to force an “emergency audit of the election results to assess these claims of fraud,” in part because the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear cases alleging irregularities in Pennsylvania and Texas.

“We can do it in 10 days, before the inauguration,” Cruz said. “Congress’s responsibility is to address these claims. Whether we welcome it or not, the constitution gives us that responsibility.”

Johnson, one of the other senators involved in the effort, conceded on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Biden won Wisconsin in November by 20,000 votes but said there were “also issues” in the state that he didn’t specify.

The vice president’s office has signaled an openness to hearing objections, but steered clear of endorsing the tactics laid out on Saturday.

Pence “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6,” chief of staff Marc Short said in a statement.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Senate rules committee, said the Republican “publicity stunt” wouldn’t prevent Biden from being inaugurated on Jan. 20.

“Every single state in America has certified its election results and that includes by Republican secretaries of state and governors,” Klobuchar said in a statement.

The demand for “an additional federal ‘commission’ to supersede state certifications when the votes have already been counted, recounted, litigated, and state-certified, amounts to nothing more than an attempt to subvert the will of the voters,” Klobuchar said.

Three Rejections

Three Republican senators -- Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania -- rejected the efforts of their colleagues in sharply-worded statements on Saturday.

Another GOP Senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, wrote last week that Trump and his allies were “playing with fire” to question the results of the election without offering evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Freshman Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first to say he’ll object, teeing up a lengthy process on Jan. 6 that’s unlikely to stop the results but may fracture the GOP.

John Thune, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, said last week that attempts to object to the electoral count would “go down like a shot dog in the Senate.” He advised GOP lawmakers who plan to take part in such an effort to reconsider.

Trump responded by urging someone -- for example, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem -- to launch a primary challenge against Thune in 2022. Noem has said she’ll seek another term as governor.

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