Facing a loss in the Electoral College, Trump’s allies shifted their focus to January 6, when Congress counts the electoral votes.
USA Today
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized his fellow Republicans Sunday in a rare statement describing the Republican Party’s planned efforts to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory as “anti-democratic and anti-conservative.”
Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin who served as speaker of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019, has rarely influenced events since leaving office, but he issued a lengthy statement condemning Republican plans to object to the ratification of Electoral College results at a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. . 12 incumbent and serving Republican senators and dozens of Republican members of the House of Representatives plan to veto the counting of President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud.
Ryan said in a statement, “efforts to reject the votes of the Electoral College and to sow doubts about Joe Biden’s victory in the establishment of our republic.” “It is hard to imagine an anti-democratic and conservative action more than a federal intervention to annul state-approved election results and deny millions of Americans the right to vote. The fact that this effort will fail does not mean that it will do little harm to American democracy.”
Ryan asked his conservative colleagues to think about “the precedent that would set it” and referred to Trump’s failed campaign efforts in court to challenge election results in a number of states.
He added, “The Trump campaign had a great opportunity to challenge the election results, and those efforts failed due to insufficient evidence. Legal procedures were exhausted and the results were decisively confirmed.” “The Department of Justice, too, has found no basis for nullifying the result. If states wish to reform their processes for future elections, that is within their prerogatives. But Joe Biden’s victory is perfectly legitimate.”
Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, was the first senator to announce plans to object to the electoral vote count. Since then, 11 Republican senators have joined in a similar effort, pledging to oppose endorsement of Biden’s victory when Congress meets in joint session on Wednesday if an election commission is not set up to investigate the election and allegations of fraud.
While the effort to nullify the results is doomed to failure, the protests will launch a dramatic and lengthy process involving two hours of debate and voting in every chamber for every state contested.
Read or share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/01/03/paul-ryan-calls-gop-effort-object-bidens-win-anti-democr/ 4120797001 /
“Devoted bacon guru. Award-winning explorer. Internet junkie. Web lover.”
