Live politics updates: Business leaders urge Congress to certify Joe Biden's win

Ledyard King and Phillip M. Bailey, USA TODAY

The year 2020 may now be behind us, but we aren't done with the 2020 election just yet.

This week, the new Congress gets to work, two runoff elections in Georgia will determine control of the Senate, and President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory will be certified by Congress.

Here are the upcoming dates to watch:

Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest information on the transition and other developments.

Business leaders urge Congress to certify Biden's win

The Business Roundtable, a 208-member association of corporate executives who head some of the country’s most influential companies, issued a statement Tuesday calling on Congress to properly count the electoral votes of the presidential election when lawmakers meet in a joint session Wednesday.

“With claims of electoral fraud having been fully considered and rejected by federal and state courts and state government officials, the integrity of the 2020 presidential election is not in doubt,” the group writes. “There is no authority for Congress to reject or overturn electoral votes lawfully certified by the states and affirmed by the Electoral College."

“Therefore, Business Roundtable opposes efforts to delay or overturn the clear outcome of the election,” the group said.

The move comes as Republican members of the House and Senate have said they will contest the presidential election’s official count.

The Business Roundtable cited the stress the coronavirus pandemic had placed on the economy as a reason that “ongoing division and distrust in our political system threatens the economic recovery and job creation our country desperately needs.”

The group, which in June called on Congress to pass bipartisan stimulus and update corporate regulations, says it will “continue to promote common ground” despite the division on Capitol Hill.

– Matthew Brown

All eyes on Georgia

Poll are open in the Georgia runoff elections that will determine which party will control the U.S. Senate and could be crucial for determining the fate of President-elect Joe Biden's legislative agenda after he takes office on Jan. 20.

The runoff election marks the end of the tumultuous 2020 election cycle that saw Republicans make gains in Congress while losing the White House.

Peach State voters will decide whether Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler return to Washington or if Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock replace them. All four ran Nov. 3, but none got enough votes under state law to win the Senate seats outright, forcing Tuesday's runoffs.

Georgia Senate runoff questions? 7 things to know

Wins by both Ossoff and Warnock would result in a 50-50 split in the Senate, effectively giving Democrats control of the chamber since Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would cast tiebreaking votes.

A win by one of the Republicans would keep the Senate in the hands of Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Though it would be a narrow Republican majority, Biden and Democrats would face an uphill battle on any legislation they hoped to pass.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Politics updates: Georgia voters head to polls for Senate runoff races

Latest Stories

  • Ex-chairman of China Huarong Asset Management sentenced to death

    BEIJING (Reuters) -The former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co has been sentenced to death, a court in the northern city of Tianjin said on Tuesday, in one of the country's highest profile corruption cases. Lai Xiaomin was convicted of receiving or seeking bribes totalling 1.788 billion yuan ($276.72 million) from 2008 to 2018, when he was also a senior banking regulator, according to the Secondary Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin. Lai, who was expelled from the ruling Communist Party in 2018, was also convicted on a charge of bigamy.

  • Proud Boys leader arrested, accused of burning church banner

    Police in the nation’s capital on Monday arrested the leader of the Proud Boys, who is accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic Black church in downtown Washington last month. Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, 36, was arrested by Metropolitan Police Department officers after he arrived in Washington ahead of protests planned by supporters of President Donald Trump to coincide with the congressional vote expected Wednesday to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory.

  • Why Kelly Loeffler's attack ads on Raphael Warnock may backfire

    Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) "has run the most negative campaign in Georgia history," her Democratic challenger, Rev. Raphael Warnock, said at a recent campaign rally, reports HuffPost. Loeffler and Republican groups backing her campaign, HuffPost notes, have run various attacks on Warnock in the lead up to Tuesday's Senate runoff, which include labeling him a Marxist and suggesting he's covered up child abuse. But the ads may not be riling up Loeffler's supporters as much as they are boosting Democratic turnout, especially among Black voters."The attack ads, the portrayal of Rev. Warnock using historically racist tropes in the ads is insulting," Gwen Mills, the secretary-treasurer of the labor union Unite Here, told HuffPost. "But it's also invigorating in the sense that people aren't going to stand for this. We've heard it a lot."That backlash in addition to a few other key factors seem to be paying off for Democrats. Tom Bonier, the CEO of the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, said Black voters have "been leading the way in increasing Black turnout," and 40 percent of the 102,000 people who cast ballots during early voting in the runoff after sitting out the general election are Black. Read more at HuffPost.More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers Colbert's Late Show turns Trump's Georgia election call into a Stevie Wonder hit

  • Georgia election official on Trump call: ‘Nobody I know who would be president would do something like that’

    Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling condemned President Trump’s call with Georgia’s secretary of state, saying, “I personally found it to be something that was not normal, out of place and nobody I know who would be president would do something like that to a secretary of state."

  • SpecOps Colonel Arrested in Police Standoff Was Subject of Toxic Command Climate Investigation

    The 1st Special Forces Command Inspector General dismissed the complaint as "not substantiated."

  • Israeli officer shoots dead alleged Palestinian assailant in West Bank

    An Israeli security officer shot a Palestinian who threw a knife towards him in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israel's military said, and Palestinian officials said the man had been killed. "(A) community security officer spotted a suspect approaching the junction.

  • ‘He works for me’: Trump jealously hits out at favourable media coverage of Fauci

    Dr Fauci has already been included by President-elect Joe Biden in his health team

  • GOP congressmembers won't reject Electoral College vote because party 'depends' on it for presidential wins

    Republican House members against an attempt to oppose the certification of the Electoral College's vote are saying the quiet part of their argument very, very loud.A coalition of 11 GOP senators are planning to join with some House Republicans to oppose the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's win on Wednesday, giving debunked claims of election fraud as their reasoning. But another group of seven House congressmembers warned against undermining trust in the Electoral College, saying in a Monday statement that doing so could cost the party its only chance to win a future presidential election.Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas) released their joint statement Monday, claiming they do believe "significant abuses in our election system" took place in 2020. The U.S. electoral system should guarantee "only legal votes are cast to select its leaders" and the electors who formally choose them, the statement said. "But only the states have authority to appoint electors," and after they do so, Congress can only count their votes, the group wrote. "To take action otherwise" only "strengthen[s] the efforts of those on the left" who want to end the Electoral College altogether.From there, the groups gets specific about the "purely partisan" side of their argument. Republican presidential candidates have only won the popular vote once in the past 32 years, relying on the Electoral College for the majority of their wins. "If we perpetuate the notion that Congress may disregard certified electoral votes ... we will be delegitimizing the very system that led Donald Trump to victory in 2016, and that could provide the only path to victory in 2024," the congressmembers finished.Top intelligence officials and former Attorney General William Barr have affirmed there is no evidence of election-altering fraud in the 2020 election.More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers Colbert's Late Show turns Trump's Georgia election call into a Stevie Wonder hit

  • Iran seizes South Korean tanker and begins uranium enrichment to 20 per cent in fresh confrontations

    Iran provoked fresh confrontations with the West today by seizing an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf and confirming it would further enrich the raw materials for a nuclear bomb, in violation of international agreements. South Korea mobilised its forces in the Strait of Hormuz and dispatched an anti-piracy unit to the Gulf on Monday afternoon after a ship bearing its flag, the MT Hankuk Chemi, was intercepted off the coast of Oman and escorted into Iranian waters. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) later confirmed it had seized the vessel and detained its crew in the southern port of Bandar Abbas, "due to the repeated infringement of maritime environmental laws". Iranian media reported that the ship, which was carrying 7,200 tonnes of oil chemical products from Saudi Arabia to Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates, had been “polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals”.

  • Texas pastor killed, others injured in church shooting; suspect arrested

    The 62-year-old pastor reportedly confronted Mytrez Deunte Woolen with a gun, but he was overpowered. A pastor was killed and two parishioners were injured in a church shooting in East Texas on Sunday. Authorities had been searching for 21-year-old Mytrez Deunte Woolen on Saturday, using dogs and drones, when the pastor of Starrville Methodist Church in Winona reportedly discovered him hiding in a church bathroom Sunday.

  • Pakistan court outlaws 'virginity tests'

    A Lahore court rules that "two-finger" tests in rape cases are "humiliating" and unscientific.

  • Trump evidently thinks Pence can still hand him the election. That's very awkward for Pence.

    Washington, D.C., is bracing for Wednesday, when an array of supporters of President Trump descend on the capital as Congress meets to formally count President-elect Joe Biden's win. "The MAGA crowd is trying to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and Republican lawmakers to refuse to seat Biden over fabricated voter-fraud claims," Politico's Tina Nguyen reports. "It's a doomed plan, given the makeup of Congress, the absent evidence behind the rigged election allegations, and the fact that every important state has already certified Biden's win."But Trump evidently believes, incorrectly, that Pence can sway the outcome of Wednesday's pro forma joint session of Congress, which he will preside over in his role as Senate president. "I hope Mike Pence comes through for us," Trump said at a rally in Georgia on Monday night. "If he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much." That may have been a joke, but in private, Trump has "directly pressed Mr. Pence to find an alternative to certifying Mr. Biden's win, such as preventing him from having 270 electoral votes and letting the election be thrown to the House to decide," The New York Times reports. Pence's duties are actually very limited.Trump thinks "Pence's role will be akin to that of chief justice, an arbiter who plays a role in the outcome," the Times reports. "In reality, it will be more akin to the presenter opening the Academy Award envelope and reading the name of the movie that won Best Picture, with no say in determining the winner." This Washington Post video explains the process and why the GOP challenge is doomed to failure."President Trump's real understanding of this process is minimal," Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, told the Times. Pence's aides view his role as largely ceremonial, the Times adds, but one Pence confidante said it will be "gut-wrenching" for the loyal vice president to declare Biden the winner on television, and Pence "will need to balance the president's misguided beliefs about government with his own years of preaching deference to the Constitution."Pence has scrapped a planned post-certification trip abroad, so after doing his scripted duties on Wednesday, "he will have to compensate by showing his fealty" to Trump, the Times reports, citing members of Pence's inner circle. The types of display of fealty are reportedly still being worked out.More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers Colbert's Late Show turns Trump's Georgia election call into a Stevie Wonder hit

  • South African Covid variant could be resistant to vaccine, expert warns

    The coronavirus variant circulating in South Africa could be resistant to the vaccine, a leading expert has suggested but stressed that it could take just six weeks to develop a new jab if one was needed. Sir John Bell, regius professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, said his "gut feeling" was that the vaccines already on stream would be effective against the new UK strain, which was first identified in Kent. But he added: "I don't know about the South African strain – I think that's a big question mark." South Africa was put into lockdown last week after President Cyril Ramaphosa said the new variant, 501.V2, appeared to be "more contagious" than the virus that circulated in the first wave. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said on December 23 that two cases of the South African strain had been identified in the UK. The cases and their contacts were quarantined, and the Government placed strict restrictions on travel from South Africa. Speaking on Jan 4, he said he was "incredibly worried" about the South African variant of coronavirus. "This is a very, very significant problem," he said.

  • Democrats tighten control with House rules changes

    Democrats controlling the House moved aggressively Monday to tighten their hold over the chamber despite their narrow margin, ramming through a rules package that limits the potential for embarrassing votes and caters to the party’s progressive wing by weakening deficit-neutrality requirements for legislation such as a “Green New Deal.” Democrats have freely used the new system, which maximized their voting participation while Republican leaders have urged their members to vote in person. The rules changes come as Democrats hold a bare majority in the House of fewer than a half-dozen seats, significantly smaller than over the past two years.

  • Hospital’s helicopter is ‘ransacked’ for medical equipment, North Carolina cops say

    A thermometer valued at $100 was among the equipment stolen, according to police records.

  • Trump's 'smoking gun' tape is worse than Nixon's, but congressional Republicans have less incentive to do anything about it

    At least Donald Trump’s “smoking gun” tape is simpler than Richard Nixon’s. Schoolchildren can easily grasp Trump’s high crime, in contrast to the complex, Machiavellian plot immortalized on the tape that led to Nixon’s downfall. It will be harder to explain to them why congressional Republicans decided to hold Nixon accountable, but not Trump.It certainly wasn’t for lack of evidence. The tape is clear. Children can identify the principle at stake. They understand cheating. They know that the loser of a race should not declare himself the winner. They know it’s wrong for the loser to try to change the results of the race by threatening those who keep the score and enforce the rules. Presidential coercionThat is what Trump, the loser of the 2020 election, tried to do to the top election official in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in a phone call on Saturday. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said. Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes. To pressure this state official to do his bidding, Trump brandished the threat of criminal prosecution. He claimed – falsely, baselessly and ridiculously – that Georgia’s ballots were corrupt even as he was trying to corrupt them himself: > “You are going to find that they are – which is totally illegal – it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan [Germany], your lawyer.”The nature of this threat (nice place you got here, hate to see anything happen to it … or to you) won’t be lost on anyone familiar with mobster movies. Trump’s take on the tough-guy cliché wasn’t particularly coherent, but it met the trope’s two basic requirements. It was both clear enough to be unmistakable, and vague enough to minimize his own exposure to criminal prosecution.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.] Congress then – and nowIn contrast, Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape defies simple summary, as I was reminded last year while trying to summarize it during an interview with French public television on “le scandale du Watergate.” I get asked such questions as the author of “Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate.”The Nixon tape captured just one small part of the Watergate cover-up. But its release led congressional Republicans to call on Nixon to resign or face removal. Now, faced with taped evidence that the president is abusing the power of his office to launch a direct assault on majority rule and the integrity of the vote, the foundations of American democracy, most congressional Republicans either do nothing or actively support Trump.What changed? Less than meets the eye. The impact of Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape had less to do with its contents – and the content of the character of congressional Republicans – than with the timing. As historian Mark Nevin notes, Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape went public at the right time to make a difference. It came out in August 1974, when congressional Republicans had their primaries behind them and were looking ahead to the November congressional elections. Until they won their primaries, their main worry had been losing their base, which was strongly pro-Nixon, no matter how much evidence came out that the president had broken the law, abused the power of his office and tried to cover it up. Going into the general election, however, congressional Republicans had to worry about losing the middle, the moderates, the swing voters who were disgusted by the daily revelations of White House wrongdoing.Before congressional Republicans won their primaries, it was politically convenient for them to stick with the president, so they did. After their primaries, and before the general election, it was politically convenient for them to distance themselves from the president, so they did. How 2020 is and isn’t different from 1974With the 2020 presidential election behind us, we’re now in the 2022 congressional primary season and 2024 Republican presidential primary season. This means that for most Republican officeholders and office seekers, the path of least political resistance is to stick with Trump, even if that path leads away from democracy and equality under law and toward authoritarianism and a hollowed-out republic-in-name-only.By putting constitutional principle over lockstep partisanship, Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger and countless state and local Republican election officials, along with a small number of congressional Republicans, have demonstrated their commitment to honest elections. The strength and political courage they have shown, however impressive and essential in the present crisis, are not enough to stop the nation’s slide from democracy. Many congressional Republicans, as big fish in red states or hatchery fish in the protective habitat of gerrymandered districts, have little incentive to serve the majority of American voters. Until they have to either represent the majority or lose their positions of power, they likely will do neither.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Ken Hughes, University of Virginia.Read more: * Congressional Republicans abandon constitutional heritage and Watergate precedents in defense of Trump * Will Trump’s use of executive privilege help him avoid congressional oversight? It didn’t help Richard NixonKen Hughes is a researcher with the Presidential Recordings Program of the University of Virginia's Miller Center. The program's work is funded in part by grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

  • 11 Storage Beds to Keep You Organized in 2021

    Read on for space-saving, clutter-clearing magicOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Rep. Kay Granger tests positive for COVID-19 after receiving 1st vaccine dose

    Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.) has tested positive for COVID-19, a spokesperson announced in a statement Monday. The 77-year old Granger is the 49th member of Congress to contract the virus.Granger was apparently tested when she arrived in Washington, D.C., for the start of the 117th Congress on Sunday, where she was on the House floor mingling with her colleagues and later voted in the House speaker election. It was only afterwards that she found out about her result, her spokesperson said in the statement. She is now quarantining. Granger did receive a COVID-19 vaccine in December. It's not clear how long ago exactly that occurred, though she was scheduled to receive her second dose later this week. Still, her office suggested that getting vaccinated was beneficial. "Having received the vaccine in December, she is asymptomatic and feeling great," the statement reads. > Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) is now the latest member of Congress with COVID-19.> > The first to test positive after getting a vaccine dose, and the 49th overall. pic.twitter.com/UU0US8DfEX> > -- Cristina Marcos (@cimarcos) January 4, 2021More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers Colbert's Late Show turns Trump's Georgia election call into a Stevie Wonder hit

  • The Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the past half century

    If 2020 felt like a drag, you may be surprised to discover it actually went faster than you thought ... and this year is set to be even speedier. The Earth has been spinning unusually quickly lately, and July 19 saw the shortest day since records began, with the planet completing its rotation in 1.4602 milliseconds less than the usual 86,400 seconds. The previous shortest day in 2005 was beaten 28 times last year, and 2021 is on track to be the most nippy year ever, with the average day passing 0.5 milliseconds faster than usual. The changes to the length of a standard day were only discovered after highly accurate atomic clocks were developed in the 1960s and compared to fixed stars in the sky. In recent decades, Earth's average rotational speed has consistently decreased and timekeepers have been forced to add 27 leap seconds to atomic time since the 1970s to keep clocks in sync with the slowing planet. The last one was added on New Year’s Eve 2016, when clocks around the world paused for a second to allow the Earth’s rotation to catch up. Then, BT's speaking clock added a second's pause before its third pip while Radio 4 inserted an extra pip to its 1am bulletin.

  • Plane hits Michigan house, businessman and family die

    A small plane flying from Georgia crashed into a house in southeastern Michigan, killing the pilot and two family members.