‘A precedent we should not set’: Tillis won’t object to election results
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North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis will vote to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, breaking with President Donald Trump’s last-gasp effort to overturn the results of the November election by rejecting states’ electors.
Tillis announced his decision Wednesday morning, just hours before a joint session of Congress met to begin certification of the votes — before being interrupted by Trump supporters who breached the Capitol.
The certification process is typically a mere formality, but Republicans in the House and Senate planned to object to the results in as many as six states.
Seven of North Carolina’s eight Republican members of the U.S. House planned to object to at least one state.
The formal objections could stretch the proceedings into Thursday and, potentially, Friday, but appear extremely unlikely to change the end result — Biden will be certified as the winner and inaugurated on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C.
Sen. Richard Burr will not object and will vote to certify the election results, a spokesperson confirmed this week. Burr and Tillis are among at least two dozen Republican senators expected to vote against the effort to overturn the results.
“The Framers of our Constitution made it clear that the power to certify elections is reserved to the states, not Congress,” Tillis said in a statement released shortly before the joint session. “Refusing to certify state election results has no viable path to success, and most importantly, it lends legitimacy to the Left’s stated policy objectives of completely federalizing elections and eliminating the Electoral College. Congress should not overstep its Constitutional authority by overturning the results of states and the will of American voters, especially absent legitimate requests from states for Congress to intervene.”
“It is a precedent we should not set.”
Trump has maintained publicly that he won the election, citing dubious claims of voter fraud in many of the key swing states. He has filed dozens of legal challenges, but all have been rebuffed.
Former Attorney General William Barr told The Associated Press last month that, “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
But Trump pivoted to the congressional certification that began Wednesday as his next — or last — chance to remain in office beyond Jan. 20. Trump has pressured Republicans to overturn the results, including in a call to Georgia’s Republican secretary of state and, most recently, Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over Wednesday’s proceedings.
“The “Surrender Caucus” within the Republican Party will go down in infamy as weak and ineffective “guardians” of our Nation, who were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers!” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday.
The vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia has been certified by state officials. But many Republicans still planned to object, citing public distrust in the legitimacy of the election and changes made to state election laws, many made with the coronavirus pandemic in mind, in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
Objections to the process
More than 100 House Republicans and at least 13 Senate Republicans were expected to object.
“It’s not necessarily about overturning an election,” said Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of Greenville. “... The crux of the matter is not the outcome of the election, but the process of the election.”
Murphy said he went back and forth for weeks before ultimately deciding to object to the results in at least Pennsylvania.
He said the U.S. Constitution provides that state legislatures — and not judges or secretaries of state or state election boards — have the authority to set election laws and that in 2020 several states changed or modified their election laws in unconstitutional ways.
“If we’re not going to follow the Constitution of the United States and let elections be politically driven, then I think our nation is lost,” Murphy said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
North Carolina’s deadline for accepting mail-in ballots was extended over the objections of leading Republican state lawmakers who challenged the deadline in court. Lawmakers also challenged several other election changes agreed to by the State Board of Elections and Attorney General Josh Stein as part of a lawsuit settlement and were able to get those rescinded.
North Carolina is not among the states expected to be challenged. Trump won the state’s 15 electoral votes by about 75,000 votes. Murphy said since some of the changes were thrown out, North Carolina was “much less egregious.”
“You have to pick your battles with some of this stuff,” he said.
Rep. Dan Bishop, of Charlotte, said Tuesday he would object to results from Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Objections to results in Arizona and Nevada are also likely. Biden won all six states in his 306-232 electoral college victory.
Each formal objection, if signed by one representative and one senator, will trigger up to two hours of debate in each chamber and a recorded vote on whether or not to certify the results from that state. Both chambers must agree by a majority vote not to certify the results in order for the electors to be tossed.
It is improbable that either chamber will agree not to certify. Democrats hold a majority in the House and several Republican House members have said they will vote to certify the election. Republicans hold a 51-48 majority in the Senate as of Wednesday. (Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue’s term expired before the two runoff elections in the state Tuesday night.)
“Although I certainly wish the results were different, Congress cannot change them without inflicting irreparable damage to our Constitutional Republic. I will not oppose the certification of the Electoral College votes, and I will not embolden politicians in the future to appoint our presidents instead of having the American people duly elect them,” Tillis said in his statement.
North Carolina delegation
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who was elected in November to represent far-western North Carolina, was the first member of the delegation to announce he would object. Cawthorn, 25 and the youngest member of Congress, has tweeted about the vote in near-apocalyptic terms.
“January 6th is fast approaching, the future of this Republic hinges on the actions of a solitary few. Get ready, the fate of a nation rests on our shoulders, yours and mine. Let’s show Washington that our backbones are made of steel and titanium. It’s time to fight,” he tweeted this week.
Rep. Ted Budd, of Davie County, followed. He wrote a letter to the rest of the delegation asking them to join him.
Reps. Richard Hudson, of Concord, and David Rouzer, of Wilmington, announced earlier this week that they, too, would object. Murphy announced Tuesday morning.
“Millions of people do not trust the outcome of this presidential election because there is incontrovertible evidence of voter irregularity — if not outright fraud — in multiple states,” Hudson said in a statement, though he did not provide details.
Rep. Virginia Foxx said Wednesday that she, too, would object.
“Without question, I am committed to restoring the confidence of the American people in our elections and upholding the Constitutional principles that guide this great Republic,” Foxx wrote on Twitter. “Today, I will object to accepting electors from states that clearly violated the Constitution.”
Rep. Patrick McHenry was the lone GOP representative from North Carolina that said he would not object, a decision he announced late Wednesday just before the vote on Arizona.
About one-fourth of Americans (27%) do not accept that Biden’s win was legitimate, according to a new Axios poll. The poll showed that 39% of Americans believe Wednesday’s vote against counting the Electoral College votes represents a “threat to America.”
“The antics taking place are damaging. The American people will see the transparency of what’s going to take place. I’m hoping there are Republicans who will put the good of the country ahead of their own personal ambitions,” Democratic Rep. Kathy Manning, of Greensboro, said in a telephone interview Monday.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 12:33 PM.
