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VP Pence Will Not Block Biden Electors
Vice President Mike Pence released a statement Wednesday that he will not seek to block electors for President-elect Joe Biden. The memo was issued as President Donald Trump gave a speech pressuring him to reject certifying the 2020 election. The text of the Vice President’s statement follows.
Published in Elections, PoliticsDear Colleague:
Today, for the 59th time in our Nation’s history, Congress will convene in Joint Session to count the electoral votes for President of the United States. Under our Constitution, it will be my duty as Vice President and as President of the Senate to serve as the presiding officer.
After an election with significant allegations of voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of this election. The American people choose the American President, and have every right under the law to demand free and fair elections and a full investigation of electoral misconduct. As presiding officer, I will do my duty to ensure that these concerns receive a fair and open hearing in the Congress of the United States. Objections will be heard, evidence will be presented, and the elected representatives of the American people will make their decision.
Our Founders created the Electoral College in 1787, and it first convened in 1789. With the advent of political parties, the Electoral College was amended in 1804 to provide that Electors vote separately for President and Vice President. Following a contentious election in 1876, with widespread allegations of fraud and malfeasance, Congress spent a decade establishing rules and procedures to govern the counting of electoral votes and the resolution of any objections.
During the 130 years since the Electoral Count Act was passed, Congress has, without exception, used these formal procedures to count the electoral votes every four years.
Given the controversy surrounding this year’s election, some approach this year’s quadrennial tradition with great expectation, and others with dismissive disdain. Some believe that as Vice President, I should be able to accept or reject electoral votes unilaterally. Others believe that electoral votes should never be challenged in a Joint Session of Congress.
After a careful study of our Constitution, our laws, and our history, I believe neither view is correct.
The President is the chief executive officer of the Federal Government under our Constitution, possessing immense power to impact the lives of the American people. The Presidency belongs to the American people, and to them alone. When disputes concerning a presidential election arise, under Federal law, it is the people’s representatives who review the evidence and resolve disputes through a democratic process.
Our Founders were deeply skeptical of concentrations of power and created a Republic based on separation of powers and checks and balances under the Constitution of the United States.
Vesting the Vice President with unilateral authority to decide presidential contests would be entirely antithetical to that design. As a student of history who loves the Constitution and reveres its Framers, I do not believe that the Founders of our country intended to invest the Vice President with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session of Congress, and no Vice President in American history has ever asserted such authority. Instead, Vice Presidents presiding over Joint Sessions have uniformly followed the Electoral Count Act, conducting the proceedings in an orderly manner even where the count resulted in the defeat of their party or their own candidacy.
As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley wrote following the contentious election of 1876, “the powers of the President of the Senate are merely ministerial… He is not invested with any authority for making any investigation outside of the Joint Meeting of the two Houses… Rif any examination at all is to be gone into, or any judgment exercised in relation to the votes received, it must be performed and exercised by the two Houses.” More recently, as the former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Lustig observed, “[t]he only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the Electoral College votes as they have been cast,” adding “[t]he Constitution does not empower the Vice President to alter in any way the votes that have been cast, either by rejecting certain votes or otherwise.”
It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.
While my role as presiding officer is largely ceremonial, the role of the Congress is much different, and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 establishes a clear procedure to address election controversies when they arise during the count of the vote of the Electoral College. Given the voting irregularities that took place in our November elections and the disregard of state election statutes by some officials, I welcome the efforts of Senate and House members who have stepped forward to use their authority under the law to raise objections and present evidence.
As presiding officer, I will ensure that any objections that are sponsored by both a Representative and a Senator are given proper consideration, and that all facts supporting those objections are brought before the Congress and the American people. Those who suggest that raising objections under the Electoral Count Act is improper or undemocratic ignore more than 130 years of history, and fail to acknowledge that Democrats raised objections in Congress each of the last three times that a Republican candidate for President prevailed.
Today it will be my duty to preside when the Congress convenes in Joint Session to count the votes of the Electoral College, and I will do so to the best of my ability. I ask only that Representatives and Senators who will assemble before me approach this moment with the same sense of duty and an open mind, setting politics and personal interests aside, and do our part to faithfully discharge our duties under the Constitution. I also pray that we will do so with humility and faith, remembering the words of John Quincy Adams, who said, “Duty is ours; results are God’s.”
Four years ago, surrounded by my family, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution, which ended with the words, “So help me God.” Today I want to assure the American people that I will keep the oath I made to them and I will keep the oath I made to Almighty God. When the Joint Session of Congress convenes today, I will do my duty to see to it that we open the certificates of the Electors of the several states, we hear objections raised by Senators and Representatives, and we count the votes of the Electoral College for President and Vice President in a manner consistent with our Constitution, laws, and history. So Help Me God.
Michael R. Pence
Vice President of the United States
Remember the Dems doing this in 2017? How about earlier in Wisconsin and elsewhere? They broke the norms and moved the Overton window. Now they get a little taste of it back. Too bad.
Yes and it was awful when the Dems did it too. But this is hurting Republicans, not Dems. It is hurting the vision of Trump fighting against the media and the rinos. It is revealing Trump and his supporters as exactly what the media has been saying about them. And it is playing into their hands. Trump will raise money and continue doing this for years. And it will avail the country he purports to love only chaos and misery.
Argument A: the US Supreme Court should fix this.
Argument B: leave it to the State Supreme Court.
Argument C (mine): neither have the authority to fix this.
Its relevant.
I see the risks and agree. It’s certainly not my style, I prefer to use a stiletto than a battle-ax. But I’m in alignment with what Ari Fleischer just said: “If you don’t like what’s happening today, maybe you should go back four years, look in the mirror and ask if it was a good idea to declare #NotMyPresident, declare yourself the Resistance, and boycott an Inaugural. When one side violates norms, the other side will too.”
I agree the Media will make hay with this, but they always try to make the Right look bad, and cover up for the bad behavior of the Left. They do this safe in the belief that it’s no risk, no cost. That we will always be well-behaved in the end. After this they’ll be a little more afraid. It’s time to make them afraid.
They are popping champagne corks and not the least bit afraid.
wrong. They are soiling themselves
Just want to make sure we get this on the record: you are all good with this?
Clearly.
It’s worth noting that GOP leaders — including Trump — are condemning the violence and calling on protesters to be peaceful and cooperate with the police. This is very unlike the wink and a nod that the Dems leadership did with AntiFa/BLM for the past year.
They are not patriots. They are thugs. Mark Twain would be horrified to see himself quoted in support of them. Trump is about the farthest you can get from Washington.
Hey look, the arsonist just called the fire department!
Not wrong.
I’m terrified that this will end in a massacre and blood bath. I just hope that no police or soldiers are hurt.
How did it hurt the Dems? They won, remember? Get your narrative straight.
I said it helps the Dems. And stop with the insults.
What insult?
Really? No! You miss the point, when things get out of hand the GOP leaders are actively seeking to stop it. This is what happens when The Left/Dems/Media perpetrate their antics for 4+ years with no consequences. The other side, says, OK, the old rules don’t apply. If you don’t like this then look in the mirror and ask whether it was right to destroy all our institutions all because OrangeManBad? Many have said that Trump was the result of the failures and pig-headedness of the Establishment. We had a chance to correct course (I say “we” because I’m part of the Establishment), but we instead doubled down. Many have warned we will not like what comes after Trump if there is no course correction. Well, this is a taste. What happens when those who normally obey the rules start to see themselves as played for suckers? It gets really bad. I hope this is the high-water mark of bad and the Establishment (government, media, social media) start to realize they cannot keep going as they have.
The dems rioted, burned, and murdered this summer and they won. How exactly does storming the capitol hurt Rs when Ds can do worse and win?
So that’s the standard now? If so, count me out.
No, we are not all good with this. Even those of us who are strong Trump supporters and who believe that a lot of fraud occurred — perhaps enough to swing the election — and that the next administration will be in a very real sense illegitimate, don’t agree with this. I think essentially everyone here will agree that violent protests are wrong.
Scott, I try to avoid the potshots at management here as regards pro-/anti-Trump bias, but this is a snarky and, I think, inappropriate post.
What the hell do you expect from human beings?!?!
Might want to read more Twain, and Paine, and Jefferson, and Adams…
This is worse. This is what they want.
Really? I have read them and this is not what they were talking about. This is what they were fighting against. Good grief. For Trump? They would have laughed at Trump. And don’t make snarky, condescending comments about what I should read. You are not following Ricochet’s rules.
And if the Dems are every bit as bad as we have said they are, what recourse is there? You leave them none. They have been denied family, community, jobs. They have been stripped of their income to send to foreign governments. They have had to scrimp and save while their representatives get fat on largesse.
Their faith has been made a mockery of. Their history has been ridiculed, destroyed, rewritten, and handed over to another people to bastardize it. They have been denied a place in the public square, stolen from and lied to. What do you expect?
Posting breaking news photos is inappropriate? How so? And there is no bias here. It’s documenting what is going on and asking if people are ok with it.
Which COC did I violate? Show me and I’ll retract.
A is false.
B is not false, but not an obligation on that court.
C is false.
The end of it all is that this is a political issue. Politics has to settle it, and it seems that they have. If the political solution is not adequate, the risk is that the political question will be resolved through other Von Clausewitz’s other means.
“Civil conversation”.