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“UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT” mentioning John Thune was published in the Senate section on pages S18-S32 on Jan. 6.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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The publication is reproduced in full below:
UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader and the Democratic leader be allowed to speak and that the time not count against the 2 hours of debate in relation to the objection raised on the State of Arizona.
The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. I want to say to the American people, the United States Senate will not be intimidated.
We will not be kept out of this Chamber by thugs, mobs, or threats. We will not bow to lawlessness or intimidation.
We are back at our posts. We will discharge our duty under the Constitution and for our Nation, and we are going to do it tonight.
This afternoon, Congress began the process of honoring the will of the American people and counting the electoral college votes. We have fulfilled this solemn duty every 4 years for more than two centuries. Whether our Nation has been at war or at peace, under all manner of threats, even during an ongoing armed rebellion and the Civil War, the clockwork of our democracy has carried on.
The United States and the United States Congress have faced down much greater threats than the unhinged crowd we saw today. We have never been deterred before, and we will not be deterred today.
They tried to disrupt our democracy. They failed. They failed.
This failed attempt to obstruct the Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic.
Our Nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our Nation--not fear, not force, but the peaceful expression of the popular will.
We assembled this afternoon to count our citizens' votes and to formalize their choice of the next President. Now we are going to finish exactly what we started. We will complete this process the right way, by the book. We will follow our precedents, our laws, and our Constitution to the letter, and we will certify the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
Criminal behavior will never dominate the United States Congress. This institution is resilient. Our democratic Republic is strong. The American people deserve nothing less.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it is very, very difficult to put into words what has transpired today. I have never lived through or even imagined an experience like the one we have just witnessed in this Capitol. President Franklin Roosevelt set aside December 7, 1941, as a day that ``will live in infamy.'' Unfortunately, we can now add January 6, 2021, to that very short list of dates in American history that will live forever in infamy.
This temple to democracy was desecrated, its windows smashed, and our offices vandalized. The world saw America's elected officials hurriedly ushered out because they were in harm's way. The House and Senate floor were places of shelter until the evacuation was ordered, leaving rioters to stalk these hallowed Halls. Lawmakers and our staffs, average citizens who love their country and serve it every day, feared for their lives. I understand that one woman was shot and tragically lost her life. We mourn her and feel for her friends and family.
These images were projected to the world. Foreign Embassies cabled their home capitals to report on the harrowing scenes at the very heart of our democracy. This will be a stain on our country not so easily washed away--the final, terrible, indelible legacy of the 45th President of the United States and undoubtedly our worst.
I want to be very clear. Those who performed these reprehensible acts cannot be called protestors. No, these were rioters and insurrectionists, goons and thugs, domestic terrorists. They do not represent America. These were a few thousand violent extremists who tried to take over the Capitol Building and attack our democracy. They must and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, hopefully, by this administration; if not, certainly by the next. They should be provided no leniency.
I want to thank the many in the Capitol Hill Police and Secret Service and local police who kept us safe today and worked to clear the Capitol and return it to its rightful owners and its rightful purpose. I want to thank the leaders, Democratic and Republican, House and Senate. It was Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Leader McCarthy, and myself who came together and decided that these thugs would not succeed and that we would finish the work that our Constitution requires us to complete in the very legislative Chambers of the House and Senate that were desecrated but we know always belong to the people and do again tonight.
But make no mistake--make no mistake, my friends--today's events did not happen spontaneously. The President who promoted the conspiracy theories that motivated these thugs, the President who exhorted them to come to our Nation's Capital egged them on. He hardly ever discourages violence and more often encourages it. This President bears a great deal of the blame.
This mob was, in good part, President Trump's doing, incited by his words and his lies. This violence, in good part, is his responsibility and his everlasting shame. Today's events certainly--certainly--would not have happened without him.
Now January 6 will go down as one of the darkest days in recent American history--a final warning to our Nation about the consequences of a demagogic President, the people who enable him, the captive media that parrot his lies, and the people who follow him as he attempts to push America to the brink of ruin.
As we reconvene tonight, let us remember, in the end, all this mob has really accomplished is to delay our work by a few hours. We will resume our responsibilities now, and we will finish our task tonight. The House and Senate Chambers will be restored good as new and ready for legislating in short order.
The counting of the electoral votes is our sacred duty. Democracy's roots in this Nation are deep; they are strong; and they will not be undone, ever, by a group of thugs. Democracy will triumph, as it has for centuries.
So to my fellow Americans who were shocked and appalled by the images on their televisions today and who are worried about the future of this country, let me speak to you directly. The divisions in our country clearly run deep, but we are a resilient, forward-looking, and optimistic people. And we will begin the hard work of repairing this Nation tonight because here in America we do hard things. In America, we always overcome our challenges.
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Vice President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Lankford.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Vice President, you said things more eloquently than how we say it in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, we say something like: Why in God's name would someone think attacking law enforcement and occupying the United States Capitol is the best way to show that you are right? Why would you do that?
Rioters and thugs don't run the Capitol. We are the United States of America. We disagree on a lot of things, and we have a lot of spirited debate in this room, but we talk it out, and we honor each other, even in our disagreements. That person, that person, and that person is not my enemy. That is my fellow American. And while we disagree on things, and disagree strongly at times, we do not encourage what happened today--ever.
Now, I want to join my fellow Senators in saying thank you to the Capitol Hill Police, the law enforcement, the National Guard, the Secret Service who stood in harm's way. While we were here debating, they were pushing back. And I was literally interrupted midsentence speaking here because we were all unaware of what was happening right outside this room because of their faithfulness and because of what they have done. I want to thank them.
Ronald Reagan once said: Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
The peaceful people in my State of Oklahoma want their questions answered, but they don't want this, what happened today. They want to do the right thing, and they also want to do it the right way. They want to honor the constitutional process, but they also want to have debate about election security because they want to make sure it is right, which is why it is an important issue that still needs to be resolved.
Transparency in government just doesn't seem like a bad idea. Obviously, the Commission that we have asked for is not going to happen at this point, and I understand that. And we are headed tonight toward the certification of Joe Biden to be the President of the United States, and we will work together in this body to be able to set a peaceful example in the days ahead.
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from Nevada, Senator Cortez Masto.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. Vice President, I know that this room is full of leaders of both parties who love this country, and many believe that for America to succeed, our politics must find common ground. That has never been clearer than today, when armed rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, emboldened by President Trump's false and inflammatory rhetoric about the 2020 elections.
I believe that we, in this Chamber, have a special duty as leaders to work together to lower the temperature of our politics, and I hope that my colleagues, who have questioned the legitimacy of this election in Arizona and all of these other States, now see the dire and dangerous consequences of sowing doubt and uncertainty.
I also know that, as U.S. Senators, we all take solemnly the oath we swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. At this moment in history, I can think of nothing more patriotic than renewing our faith in the Charters of Freedom that our Founding Fathers crafted for our Republic, starting with the fundamental American principle in our Declaration of Independence that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The people have spoken in this election, and our only job here today is to do what they ask. It is not to argue election security. That is not the place for what we are doing today.
Our Constitution specifically reserves to the people the right to meet in their respective States and vote for the President and Vice President. As a result, individual States oversee and implement the election process, not the Federal Government.
To guard against fraud or irregularities in the voting process, the States are required to have robust election security measures. Likewise, State legislatures have the opportunity to examine evidence of voter fraud before they certify their electoral college votes. And our courts--from district courts to the United States Supreme Court--
adjudicate legal challenges and election disputes. All of those things happened after the 2020 election.
Statehouses and courts across the country took allegations of voter fraud seriously and followed the constitutional process to hear challenges to this year's election. No State found evidence of any widespread voter fraud and neither did any court ask to review the State's findings.
In Arizona, Republican Governor Doug Ducey; the Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs; the Republican attorney general, Mark Brnovich; and the State supreme court chief justice, Robert Brutinel all certified the results of the election on November 30.
And we know--we have heard--Arizonans have been voting by mail for almost 30 years, and Governor Ducey has expressed confidence in the State's process numerous times. In November, he said:
We do elections well here in Arizona. The system is strong, and that is why I have bragged on it so much.
He further stated:
We have some of the strongest election laws in the country, laws that prioritize accountability and clearly lay out our procedures for conducting, canvassing and even contesting the results.
And they are right. Arizona has one of the most transparent election processes in the country with built-in accountability, starting with the internal auditing.
We have heard unfounded allegations that voting machines in Arizona and elsewhere somehow changed vote tallies or somehow improperly rejected ballots while claiming to accept them. These allegations all ignore the fact that Arizona counties conducted ballot audits by hand to double-check the machine counts, and these audits found no widespread fraud or irregularities.
Maricopa County, the county where more than 60 percent of the State's population resides, conducted a postelection hand count audit in the week after the election, which showed perfect, 100 percent, accuracy in the machine tabulations. So why would we need, my colleagues, to call for a 10-day emergency audit to be conducted by a legislative commission when it has already been done by the State of Arizona? What happened to State's rights?
The audit involved checking ballots for the Presidential election but also ballots for Federal and State legislative elections. The audit report shows every precinct's machine and hand count totals for each of the races audited, and for every single race in every precinct, the difference between the hand count and the machine count was zero. Maricopa's audit report stated: No discrepancies were found by the hand count audit boards.
Seeking to find any reason to contest these results, some of the State Republicans then tried to claim that Maricopa County failed to follow State law in conducting this audit by selecting voting center locations to audit instead of voting precincts. This was wrong. And this, too, went to a court. In rejecting this claim, the State court in Arizona found that the county followed the properly issued guidance on hand audit procedures from the Arizona Secretary of State. And the court found that Maricopa County officials, therefore, could not lawfully have performed the hand count audit the way the plaintiffs wanted it done. If they had done so, they would have exposed themselves to criminal punishment
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator's 5 minutes has expired.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I would close by just saying, please, my colleagues, do not disenfranchise the voters of Arizona and certify their votes tonight.
Thank you.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Vice President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Utah, Senator Lee.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. Vice President, from the time I prepared my remarks for today, it seems like a lifetime ago. A lot has changed in the last few hours. So I am going to deliver some of the same remarks, but it has a little bit of a different feel than it would have just a few hours ago.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the family members of those who have been injured or killed today. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to the Capitol Hill Police who valiantly defended our building and our lives.
While it is true that legitimate concerns have been raised with regard to how some of the key battleground States conducted their Presidential elections, this is not the end of the story. We each have to remember that we swore an oath to uphold, protect, and defend this document, written nearly two and a half centuries ago by wise men raised up by God for that very purpose. That document makes clear what our role is and what it isn't. It makes clear who does what when it comes to deciding Presidential elections.
You see, because in our system of government, Presidents are not directly elected. They are chosen by Presidential electors, and the Constitution makes very clear, under article II, section 1, that the States shall appoint Presidential electors according to procedures that their legislatures develop. Then comes the 12th Amendment. It explains what we are doing here today in the Capitol. It explains that the President of the Senate--the Vice President of the United States--shall open the ballots, ``and the votes shall then be counted.'' It is those words that confine, define, and constrain every scrap of authority that we have in this process.
Our job is to open and then count. Open, then count--that is it. That is all there is.
There are, of course, rare instances--instances in which multiple slates of electors can be submitted by the same State. That doesn't happen very often. It happened in 1960. It happened in 1876. Let's hope it doesn't ever happen again. In those rare moments, Congress has to make a choice. It has to decide which of the electoral votes will be counted and which will not. That did not happen here--thank heavens--
and let's hope that it never does.
Many of my colleagues have raised objections or had previously stated their intent to raise objections with regard to these. I have spent an enormous time on this issue over the last few weeks. I have met with lawyers on both sides of the issue, and I have met with lawyers representing the Trump campaign, reading everything I can find about the constitutional provisions in question, and I have spent a lot of time on the phone with legislators and other leaders from the contested States. I didn't initially declare my position because I didn't yet have one.
I wanted to get the facts first, and I wanted to understand what was happening. I wanted to give the people serving in government in the contested States the opportunity to do whatever they felt they needed to do to make sure that their election was properly reflected. I spent an enormous amount of time reaching out to State government officials in those States, but in none of the contested States--no, not even one--did I discover any indication that there was any chance that any State legislature or secretary of state or Governor or Lieutenant Governor had any intention to alter the slate of electors. That being the case, our job is a very simple one.
This simply isn't how our Federal system is supposed to work. That is to say, if you have concerns with the way that an election in the Presidential race was handled in your State, the appropriate response is to approach your State legislatures, first and foremost.
These protests--hearing from those who have raised concerns--should have been focused on their State capitols, not the Nation's Capitol, because our role is narrow, our role is defined, our role is limited.
Yes, we are the election judges when it comes to Members elected to our own body. And, yes, the House of Representatives are the judges of their own races there.
We also have the authority to prescribe, as a Congress, rules governing the time, place, and manner of elections for Senators and Representatives. There is no corresponding authority with respect to Presidential elections--none whatsoever. It doesn't exist. Our job is to convene, to open the ballots, and to count them. That is it.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from Colorado, Mr. Bennet.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Colorado
Mr. BENNET. Colleagues, it has been a terrible day for everybody here and for our country.
One of the things I was thinking about today is something I often think about when I am on this floor, which is that the Founders of this country, the people who wrote our Constitution, actually knew our history better than we know our history.
I was thinking about that history today, as we saw the mob riot in Washington, DC--thinking about what the Founders were thinking about when they wrote our Constitution, which was what happened to the Roman Republic when armed gangs, doing the work for politicians, prevented Rome from casting their ballots for consuls, for praetors, for senators. These were the officers in Rome, and these armed gangs ran through the streets of Rome, keeping elections from being started, keeping elections from ever being called. In the end, because of that, the Roman Republic fell, and a dictator took its place, and that was the end of the Roman Republic--or any republic, for that matter--until this beautiful Constitution was written in the United States of America.
So it is my fervent hope that the way we respond to this today, my dear colleagues, is that we give the biggest bipartisan vote we can in support of our democracy and in support of our Constitution and in rejection of what we saw today and what the Roman Republic saw in its own time.
There is a tendency around this place, I think, to always believe that we are the first people to confront something when that is seldom the case and to underappreciate what the effect of our actions will be. We need to deeply appreciate, in this moment, our obligation to the Constitution, our obligation to democracy, and our obligation to the Republic.
There are people in this Chamber who have twisted the words--twisted the words--of a statute written in the 19th century that was meant to actually settle our electoral disputes, to leave them with the States, as the Senator from Utah was saying, to give us a ministerial role, except in very rare circumstances. That is what that law is about that the Senator of Texas was talking about today. And that is the law that is leading us to be asked to overturn the judgments of 60 courts in America, many of the courts in Arizona, some of whom have howled the President's lawyers out of the courtrooms because there is no evidence of fraud.
By the way, the fact that 37 percent or 39 percent of Americans think there is evidence of fraud does not mean there is fraud. If you have turned a blind eye to a conspiracy theory, you can't now come to the floor of the Senate and say you are ignoring the people who believe that the election was stolen. Go out there and tell them the truth, which is that every single Member of this Senate knows this election wasn't stolen and that we, just as in the Roman Republic, have a responsibility to protect the independence of the judiciary from politicians who will stop at nothing to hold on to power. There is nothing new about that either. That has been true since the first republic was founded.
So now we find ourselves in the position, just days after many Senators here swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution--
every single Member of the House of Representatives swore the same oath, as well, and I think we have a solemn obligation and responsibility here to prove, once again, that this country is a nation of laws and not of men, and the only result that we can reach together is one that rejects the claim of the Senator from Texas and the other Members of the House and Senate who seek to overturn the decisions that have been made by the States, by the voters in these States, and by the courts.
If we follow what they have proposed, we will be the ones who will have disenfranchised every single person who cast a vote in this election, whether they voted for the President or they didn't.
I urge you to reject this, and I deeply appreciate the opportunity to serve with every single one of you.
Thank you.
(Applause.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Georgia, Senator Loeffler.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Georgia.
Mrs. LOEFFLER. Mr. President, when I arrived in Washington this morning, I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes. However, the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider, and I cannot now, in good conscience, object to the certification of these electors.
The violence, the lawlessness, and siege of the Halls of Congress are abhorrent and stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was intended to protect: the sanctity of the American democratic process. And I thank law enforcement for keeping us safe.
I believe that there were last-minute changes to the November 2020 election process and serious irregularities that resulted in too many Americans losing confidence not only in the integrity of our elections but in the power of the ballot as a tool of democracy. Too many Americans are frustrated at what they see as an unfair system. Nevertheless, there is no excuse for the events that took place in these Chambers today, and I pray that America never suffers such a dark day again.
Though the fate of this vote is clear, the future of the American people's faith in the core institution of this democracy remains uncertain. We as a body must turn our focus to protecting the integrity of our elections and restoring every American's faith that their voice and their vote matter.
America is a divided country with serious differences, but it is still the greatest country on Earth. There can be no disagreement that upholding democracy is the only path to preserving our Republic.
I yield the floor.
(Applause.)
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to Senator Booker and 2\1/2\ minutes to Senator Kaine, in reverse order.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President and my colleagues, I applaud the comments of my colleague from Georgia deeply.
My first job after school was in Macon, GA, working for a Federal judge, Lanier Anderson. I learned a lot about integrity and a lot about law from him. I also learned some sad lessons, that in the history of Georgia--and, indeed, Virginia and many States--so many people, especially people of color, had been disenfranchised over the course of our history. Our late friend, John Lewis, a Congressman from Georgia, was savagely beaten on Bloody Sunday just for marching for voting rights. That act of violence inspired this body, the U.S. Senate, to come together in March of 1965 and work to pass, in a bipartisan fashion, the Voting Rights Act.
We should be coming together today--after acts of violence--as a U.S. Senate, to affirm the votes of all who cast ballots in November. Instead, we are contemplating an unprecedented objection that would be a massive disenfranchisement of American voters.
The Georgia result was very clear: a 12,000-vote margin, 2 certifications by Republican officials, 4 separate recounts and canvases, 7 lawsuits, as in the other States. If we object to results like this, the message is so clear. We are saying to States: No matter how secure and accurate your elections are, we will gladly overthrow them if we don't like who you voted for. But, more importantly, what we will be saying--really, what we will be doing--is as the body that acted together to guarantee Americans the right to vote, we will become the agent of one of the most massive disenfranchisements in the history of this country.
So I urge all of my colleagues: Please oppose these objections.
Thank you.
I yield to my colleague from New Jersey.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. Vice President, I can only think of two times in American history that individuals laid siege to our Capitol, stormed our sacred civic spaces, and tried to upend and overrun this government. One was in the War of 1812, and the other one was today.
What is interesting about the parallel between the two is they both were waving flags to a sole sovereign, to an individual, surrendering democratic principles to the cult of personality. One was a monarch in England, and the other were the flags I saw all over our Capitol, including in the hallways and in this room, to a single person named Donald Trump.
The sad difference between these two times is one was yet another nation in the history of our country that tried to challenge the United States of America, but this time, we brought this hell upon ourselves.
My colleague from Texas said that this was a moment where there were unprecedented allegations of voter fraud. Yes, that is true. They were unprecedented when the President, before the election even happened, said: If I lose this election, then the election was rigged.
That is unprecedented. It is unprecedented that, before the night of the counting of the vote was even done, that he called it rigged. It is unprecedented that he is fanning the flames of conspiracy theory to create a smokescreen in this Nation to cover what he is trying to do, which is undermine our democratic principles.
But it is not just that. The shame of this day is it is being aided and abetted by good Americans who are falling prey, who are choosing Trump over truth, who are surrendering to the passion of lies as opposed to standing up and speaking truth to power, who are trying to fundraise off of the shame of conspiracy theories as opposed to doing the incalculably valuable, patriotic thing: to speak truth to our Nation. Our democracy is wounded, and I saw it when I saw pictures of yet another insurgency, of a flag of another group of Americans who tried to challenge our Nation. I saw the flag of the Confederacy there.
What will we do? How will we confront this shame? How will we confront this dark second time in American history? I pray that we remember a Georgian and his words. All I can say is we must, in spirit, join together like those Georgians on a bridge called the Edmund Pettus, who joined hands, who were called threats to our democracy, who were called outrageous epithets when they sought to expand our democracy, to save it, to heal it--when they joined arm in arm and said what we should say now, commit ourselves to that ideal, that together, we shall overcome.
(Applause.)
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Vice President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska, Mr. Sasse.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Nebraska
Mr. SASSE. Mr. Vice President, I want to say, before we begin, thank you for the way you have fulfilled your constitutional duties and your oath of office today. Obviously, it hasn't been easy.
Colleagues, today has been ugly. When I came to the floor this morning, I planned to talk about the lesson of 1801 because I am kind of a history nerd, and I wanted to celebrate the glories of the peaceful transition of power across our Nation's history. It feels a little naive now to talk about ways that American civics might be something that could unite us and bring us back together.
Now, 1801 blew everybody's mind all over the world, by the way. John Adams loses to Thomas Jefferson, and Adams willingly leaves the Executive mansion and moves back to Massachusetts, and Jefferson peacefully assumes power. People all over Europe said: That must be fake news. Those must be bad reports. There is no way any Executive would ever willingly lay down power. Yet Adams, in defeat, did something glorious to give all of us a gift.
I wanted to celebrate that, and it feels a little bit harder now. This building has been desecrated. Blood has been spilled in the hallways. I was with octogenarian Members of this Chamber who needed to have troops and police stabilize them to get down the stairs at a time when a lot of our staffs were panicked and under their desks and not knowing what was going to happen to them.
It was ugly today. But you know what? It turns out that when something is ugly, talking about beauty isn't just permissible; talking about beauty is obligatory in a time like that. Why? Why would we talk about beauty after the ugliness of today? Because our kids need to know that this isn't what America is. What happened today isn't what America is.
They have been given a glorious inheritance for the 59th Presidential election. If the Vice President wasn't in the Chair and if the President pro tempore was, I would have made some joke that Chuck Grassley has voted in two-thirds of those 59 Presidential elections. He is laughing. It is not as good as ``hit deer, deer dead,'' but it still got a Grassley laugh.
I don't think we want to tell the Americans that come after us that this republic is broken, that this is just a banana republic, that our institutions can't be trusted. I don't think we want that. We don't want that in this body, and we don't want that in our hometowns. I don't think we want to tell our kids that America's best days are behind us--because it is not true. That is not who we are. America isn't Hatfields' and McCoys' blood feud forever. America is a union.
There is a lot that is broken in this country but not anything that is so big that the American people can't rebuild it, that freedom and community and entrepreneurial effort and that neighborhoods can't rebuild. Nothing that is broken is so big that we can't fix it.
Generations of our forefathers and our foremothers--probably not a word--and our ancestors have spilled blood to defend the glories of this republic. Why would they do that? Because America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world and because the Constitution is the greatest political document that has ever been written. Most governments in the past have said might makes right, and we saw some of that hooligan nuttery today. Might makes right. No, it doesn't.
God gives us rights by nature, and government is just our shared project to secure those rights. America has always been about what we choose to do together, the way we reaffirm our constitutional system. We have some governmental tasks, and we all in this body could do better at those governmental tasks, but the heart of America is not government. The center of America is not Washington, DC.
The center of America is the neighborhoods where 330 million Americans are raising their kids and trying to put food on the table and trying to love their neighbor. That is the center of America.
We are not supposed to be the most important people in America. We are supposed to be servant leaders who try to maintain a framework for ordered liberty so that there is a structure that, back home where they live, they can get from the silver-framed structure and order to the golden apple at the center, as Washington would have said, which is the things that they build together, the places where they coach little league, the places where they invite people to synagogue or church.
Sometimes, the biggest things we do together are governmental, like kicking Hitler's ass or like going to the moon. Sometimes, there is governmental stuff. But the heart of America is about places where moms and dads are raising kids, and we are supposed to serve them by maintaining order and by rejecting violence. You can't do big things like that if you hate your neighbors. You can't do big things together as Americans if you think other Americans are the enemy
Look, there is a lot of uncertainty about the future. I get it. There is a lot that does need to be rebuilt. But if you are angry--I want to beg you--don't let the screamers who monetize hate have the final word. Don't let needlists become your drug dealers. There are some who want to burn it all down. We met some of them today.
But they aren't going to win. Don't let them be your prophets--
instead, organize, persuade, but most importantly, love your neighbor. Visit the widower down the street who is lonely and doesn't want to tell anybody that his wife died and he doesn't have a lot of friends. Shovel somebody's driveway. You can't hate somebody who just shoveled your driveway.
The heart of life is about community and neighborhood, and we are supposed to be servant leaders. The constitutional system is still the greatest order for any government ever, and it is our job to steward it and protect it.
Let's remember that today when we vote.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Vice President, in March of 1861, a Springfield lawyer caught a train to Washington. His name was Abraham Lincoln. It wasn't his first trip there. He served as Congressman 15 years before and returned in the beginning of the Civil War to serve as President.
It was a different place than he knew as a Congressman. In 15 years, it had changed a lot. The Sprigg's boarding house across the street, which is now the Library of Congress, was gone. And this building was changing--big changes. They were building a dome on the Capitol. But they were also in the earliest days of war, and President Lincoln was counseled: Stop building the dome. It costs too much money. We can't spend any more time on it.
And he said: No. We are going to build that dome, and we are going to finish it. That dome and this building will be a symbol of this country that will survive this Civil War and come back strong.
So they built the dome. They won the war. And since those days, that dome and this building have been a symbol to this country, a symbol of unity and of hope.
Tours come through here--before COVID-19--by the tens of thousands. If you have ever noticed their tours, they are often shushed. People are saying: Show some respect for this building.
We know this building and the Rotunda as a place where some of the greatest American heroes of both political parties lie in state, and we go there to honor them. We know this building because we work here. We enact laws here that change America. We gather for State of the Union messages from Presidents and honor the people in the gallery.
This is a special place. This is a sacred place. But this sacred place was desecrated by a mob today, on our watch. This temple to democracy was defiled by thugs who roamed the halls and sat in that chair, Mr. Vice President, the one that you vacated at 2:15 this afternoon--sat and posed for pictures, those who were roaming around in this Chamber.
What brought this on? Did this mob spring spontaneously from America? No. This mob was invited to come to Washington on this day, by this President, for one reason: because he knew the electoral college vote was going to be counted this day. He wanted this mob to disrupt the constitutional process which we are part of. This mob was inspired by a President who cannot accept defeat.
If you wonder whether I am going too far in what I say, just read the transcript with the secretary of state from Georgia and listen to this President's wild conspiracy theories, one after the other, swatted down by that Republican-elected official and his attorney as having no basis in fact. This President begs, he coaxes, he even threatens that secretary of state to find the votes he needs. In any other venue, that would be a simple, obvious crime.
The lengths he will go to are obvious. The Texas Senator says to us: Well, many people still agree with him, you know, when it gets down to the bottom line. Many people have fallen for this Presidential position that it must have been a rigged election if I lost.
Well, I would say that after--we have lost count--57 lawsuits, 62 lawsuits--I have heard so many different numbers--after 90 different judges; after this President took his case, the best he could put together, to the highest Court in the land across the street, where he had personally chosen three Justices on the Supreme Court--and I say to the Senator from Texas that he knows much more about that Court than I do--I don't believe they let that paper that he sent up there even hit the desk before they laughed it out of the Court. And that is the best he had to offer--no evidence whatsoever of this rigged election and this fraudulence.
The Senator from Texas says: We just want to create a little commission, 10 days; we are going to audit all of the States--
particularly the ones in contention here--and find out what actually occurred.
And it really draws its parallel to 1876, to Hayes and Tilden. Don't forget what that commission--that so-called political compromise--
achieved. It was not just some ordinary governmental commission. It was a commission that killed reconstruction, that established Jim Crow, that--even after a civil war, which tore this Nation apart, it re-
enslaved African-Americans, and it was a commission that invited voter suppression we are still fighting today in America.
Let me close by saying this. The vote we are going to have here is a clear choice of whether we are going to feed the beast of ignorance or we are going to tell the truth to the American people. We saw that beast today roaming the halls. Let's not invite it back.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Kansas, Senator Marshall.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. President.
Freedom of speech and the freedom to protest are provided in our Constitution. While I share the same frustration many Americans have over the Presidential election, the violence and mob rule that occurred at the U.S. Capitol today and across the country over the past year are unacceptable, and I condemn them at the highest level. Like all of us in the Chamber, I am thankful for the heroic law enforcement officers who worked feverishly to restore order so that we get back to the electoral certification process.
During my 29-year career as an obstetrician and gynecologist, too often I had to sit down with patients and give them a very bad diagnosis. It might have been a young mother of three whose three babies I delivered, now with metastatic breast cancer, or perhaps another woman with advanced cervical or ovarian cancer, all of which have very challenging prognoses. But before I sat down with each one of those patients, I carefully reviewed all the labs, their x rays, and the pathology to make sure I had the facts straight, but at the end of the day, my final recommendation was always going to be a recommendation from my heart.
I want my fellow Kansans and all Americans to know that I have given as much consideration and thought surrounding the issue of objecting to a State's electoral college votes as I did considering the treatment plan for a serious health concern, and today's decision once again is from my heart.
Mr. President, I rise today to restore integrity to our Republic, and I rise to do it knowing that many of our colleagues are all concerned for current and future generations. We must restore faith and confidence in one of our Republic's most hallowed and patriotic duties: voting.
There is no question our U.S. Constitution empowers State legislatures to execute free, legal, and fair elections. Unfortunately, in several States, the clear authority of those State legislatures to determine the rules for voting was usurped by Governors, secretaries of state, and activist courts. Our laws and Constitution should always be followed, especially in a time of crisis.
I don't rise to undo a State's legally obtained electoral college votes; rather, I rise in hopes of improving the integrity of the ballot to hold States accountable to the time-proven constitutional system of the electoral college.
This is why I urge the formation of an electoral commission to give constructive suggestions and recommendations that States can take to make our elections once again safe, free, and fair after a year of jarring irregularities.
We must and will have a peaceful transition of power.
To all my fellow Americans, I have no doubt that our Republic can grow stronger through this difficult day.
May God bless this great Republic.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The minority leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from Illinois, Senator Duckworth
Ms. DUCKWORTH. In 2004, I packed up my rucksack, laced up my boots, and deployed to Iraq, ready to sacrifice whatever was asked of me, all because I love this Nation--willing to sacrifice my life, if needed, because I believe in the sanctity of our electoral system, which had declared George W. Bush my Commander in Chief.
I earned my wounds proudly fighting in a war I did not support on the orders of a President I did not vote for because I believed in and I still do believe in the values of our Nation; because I believe in a government of, by, and for the people, where voters--voters--choose who leads them, not the other way around.
I have spent my entire adult life defending our democracy, but I never--never--thought it would be necessary to defend it from an attempted violent overthrow in our Nation's own Capitol Building. Well, I refuse to let anyone intent on instigating chaos or inciting violence deter me from carrying out my constitutional duties.
You know, when my Army buddies and I raised our right hands, when 45,000 troops in Arizona raised their right hands and swore to protect and defend the Constitution, we did not qualify our oaths by saying that we would follow orders only when the Commander in Chief was someone whose election we were happy with.
Just like when every Senator in this Chamber was sworn into office, we didn't mutter under our breath that we discharge our duties only when it served our political interests or helped us to avoid the wrath of a petty, insecure, wannabe tin-pot dictator on the precipice of losing power and relevance. No, there is no ambiguity here--Joe Biden won the election with a record number of votes. Republican officials nationwide confirmed those results, including in Arizona, as has judge after Trump-appointed judge. Even Trump's Attorney General admitted that the U.S. Department of Justice had not found widespread fraud that would have affected the outcome.
Yet still many of my Republican colleagues are asking us to ignore all of that. With no evidence of their own, they are asking us to ignore court rulings, ignore Republican-elected officials, and even worse, ignore the will of the people across this vast, great Nation by trying to overturn this election. They are placing more trust in Reddit conspiracy theories than the Constitution, proving that appeasing Trump is more important to them than protecting the most basic tenet of our Republic--the adherence to free and fair elections.
If there is one thing I know, it is that my troops didn't sign up to defend our democracy in war zones thousands of mile away only to watch it crumble in these hallowed halls here at home. Yet that is what this effort amounts to--an attempt to subvert our democracy. In the process, it is threatening what makes America American, because in this country--in this country--the power of the people has always mattered more than the people in power.
That is the ideal that this Nation was founded upon. That is why a few patriots threw some tea in Boston Harbor, why Washington crossed the Delaware, why suffragists were arrested a century ago, and why my friend John Lewis crossed that bridge in Selma in 1965. It is why millions spent a Tuesday in November standing in line, braving a pandemic to make their voices heard.
Listen, this administration has always had an adversarial relationship with the truth. Trump always cries conspiracy, always foments chaos whenever something doesn't go his way. But today, we here in this Chamber have the opportunity to prove that here in this country, truth matters, that right matters, that the will of the people matters more than the whims of any single powerful individual.
I have no tea to throw in Boston Harbor tonight, and I regret that I have no rucksack to pack for my country, no Black Hawk to pilot, nor am I asking for any grand gesture from my Republican colleagues. All I am asking of you is to reflect on the oaths that you have sworn, on the damage done to our Union today, and on the sacrifices made by those who have given so much to this Nation, from the servicemembers at Arizona's Fort Huachuca and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma to the marchers who bent America's moral arc a little bit more toward justice with every single step that they took, every bridge that they crossed.
Then ask yourself whether the democracy they were willing to bleed for, the country that each of us in this Chamber has sworn to defend, is worth damaging in order to protect the porcelain ego of a man who treats the Constitution as if it were little more than a yellowing piece of paper.
I think we all know the right answer.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky, Senator Paul.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. I wrote a speech for today. I was planning to say that I fear the chaos of establishing a precedent that Congress can overturn elections. Boy, was I right. Chaos, anarchy--the violence today was wrong and un-American.
The vote we are about to cast is incredibly important. Now more than ever, the question is, Should Congress override the certified results from the States and nullify the States' rights to conduct elections?
The vote today is not a protest; the vote today is literally to overturn elections. We have been told that this is a protest, that this is about an electoral commission. No, it is not. It is about whether to seat the electors certified by a State. It is not about an electoral commission. It is not about a protest. You can go outside if you want to protest. This is about overturning a State-certified election.
If you vote to overturn these elections, wouldn't it be the opposite of States' rights Republicans have always advocated for?
This would doom the electoral college forever. It was never intended by our Founders that Congress have the power to overturn State-
certified elections. My oath to the Constitution doesn't allow me to disobey the law. I can't vote to overturn the verdict of States. Such a vote would be to overturn everything held dear by those of us who support the rights of States in this great system of federalism that was bequeathed to us by our Founders.
The electoral college was created to devolve the power of selecting Presidential electors to the States. The electoral college is, without question, an inseparable friend to those who believe that every American across our vast country deserves to be heard.
If Congress were given the power to overturn the States' elections, what terrible chaos would ensue every 4 years. Imagine the furor against the electoral college if Congress becomes a forum to overturn States' electoral college slates.
It is one thing to be angry. It is another to focus one's anger in constructive ways. That hasn't happened today, to say the least.
We simply cannot destroy the Constitution, our laws, and the electoral college in the process.
I hope, as the Nation's anger cools, we can channel that energy into essential electoral reforms at the State level. America is admired around the world for our free elections. We must--we absolutely must fix this mess and restore confidence and integrity to our elections. We must.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think like most of us, I am still pretty reeling from what happened today. What I was going to talk about was the work I am most proud of since I have been here, with my good friend Richard Burr and all the members of the Intelligence Committee, about a multiyear report we did into foreign interference in our elections. Probably our top recommendation of that five-volume, bipartisan report was that any official or candidate should use restraint and caution when questioning results of our elections because when you do so, you often carry out the goals of our foreign adversaries. Use caution because, whether knowingly or unknowingly and whether that adversary is in Russia or China or Iran, their goals are pretty simple: They want to make it appear to Americans, to folks around the world, and to their own people that there is nothing special about American democracy.
I was going to try in a feeble way, maybe, to reach some of the rhetorical heights of Ben Sasse. I knew I couldn't do that, so instead--I know I am violating rules. Today is the day for violating rules. This is a photo that appears today in one of the most prominent German newspapers. You don't need to draw it up. You can draw up photos from any newspaper or any television feed anywhere across the world.
And what is this photo of? It is of thugs--thugs--in the Halls of this Capitol, diminishing everything we say we believe in, in this democracy.
When you look at those images, realize that those images are priceless for our adversaries. I am willing, tonight, in an overwhelming way, to take a small step, in a bipartisan way, to start restoring that trust of our people and, hopefully, the billions of people around the world who believe in that notion of American democracy. Remember, these images are still there.
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Hawley.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I want to begin this evening by saying thank you to the men and women of the Capitol Police, the National Guardsmen, the Metropolitan Police, and others who came to this Capitol and put their lives on the line to protect everybody here who was working inside. I want to thank law enforcement all across this country--in my home State of Missouri and everywhere else--who do that day in and day out.
I just want to acknowledge that, when it comes to violence, it was a terrible year in America this last year. We have seen a lot of violence against law enforcement, and today, we saw it here in the Capitol of the United States. In this country, in the United States of America, we cannot say emphatically enough: Violence is not how you achieve change. Violence is not how you achieve something better.
Our Constitution was built and put into place so that there would be, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, no appeal from ballots to bullets, which is what we saw, unfortunately, attempted tonight. There is no place for that in the United States of America, and that is why I submit to my colleagues that what we are doing here tonight is, actually, very important because, for those who have concerns about the integrity of our elections and for those who have concerns about what happened in November, this is the appropriate means. This is the lawful place where those objections and concerns should be heard. This is the forum that the law provides for--that our laws provide for--for those concerns to be registered, not through violence--not by appealing from ballots to bullets--but here, in this lawful process.
So to those who say that this is just a formality today--an antique ceremony that we have engaged in for a couple of hundred years--I can't say that I agree. I can't say that our precedent suggests that. I actually think it is very vital, what we do. The opportunity to be heard and to register objections is very vital because this is the place where those objections are to be heard and dealt with, debated, and finally resolved--in this lawful means, peacefully, without violence, without attacks, without bullets.
Let me just say now, briefly--in lieu of speaking about it later--a word about Pennsylvania, which is a State that I have been focused on and have objected to, as an example of why people are concerned--why millions of Americans are concerned--about our election integrity.
I say to Pennsylvania, quite apart from allegations of any fraud, you have a State constitution that has been interpreted for over a century to say that there is no mail-in balloting permitted except for in very narrow circumstances, which is also provided for in the law. Yet, last year, Pennsylvania's elected officials passed a whole new law that allowed for universal mail-in balloting, and they did it, irregardless of what the Pennsylvania Constitution said.
Then, when Pennsylvania's citizens tried to be heard on this subject before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, they were dismissed on grounds of procedure and timeliness, in violation of that supreme court's own precedent.
So the merits of the case have never been heard. The constitutionality of the statute, actually, has never been defended. I am not aware of any court that has passed on its constitutionality. I actually am not aware of anybody who has defended the constitutionality, and this was the statute that governed this last election in which there were over 2.5 million mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.
This is my point, that this is the forum. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court hasn't heard the case, and there is no other court to go to, to hear the case in the State, so this is the appropriate place for these concerns to be raised, which is why I have raised them here today.
I hope that this body will not miss the opportunity to take affirmative action to address the concerns of so many millions of Americans--to say to millions of Americans tonight that violence is never warranted, that violence will not be tolerated, that those who engage in it will be prosecuted, but that this body will act to address the concerns of all Americans across the country.
We do need an investigation into irregularities, fraud. We do need a way forward together. We need election security reforms. I bet my friends on the other side of the aisle don't disagree with that. We need to find a way to move forward on that together so that the American people from both parties and all walks of life can have confidence in their elections and so that we can arrange ourselves under the rule of law that we share together.
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to defend the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania--to defend the more than 6.9 million voters who voted in this election--and to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this attempt to disenfranchise the voters of Pennsylvania based upon a lie, a falsehood. That same lie sowed the seeds of today's violence and today's lawlessness here in the Capitol.
One of my constituents, Susan, from Lehigh Valley--the community of our State where Senator Toomey lives--recently wrote to my office and, perhaps, said it best:
We cannot allow ANYBODY to overturn the legal votes of the citizens of Pennsylvania. This would be the ultimate destruction of our democracy.
Susan had it right. We cannot allow ``ANYBODY''--and she put that word in all caps--to overturn the legal votes of the people of our State.
Let me address the allegation regarding the Pennsylvania Constitution and the general assembly and somehow that the general assembly didn't have the authority to enact ``no excuse mail-in voting''--that process--for the people of our State.
First, the law in question, Act 77, was passed in 2019 and was implemented without any serious question as to its constitutionality. The law was passed by a Republican-controlled general assembly, house and senate. It was only after the 2020 election, when it became clear that President-Elect Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by a little more than 80,000 votes, that some Republican politicians in our State decided to challenge the constitutionality of the law.
Second, Act 77 is plainly constitutional. My colleagues allege that the State constitution requires in-person voting except under limited circumstances. This is not true. While Pennsylvania lays out specific situations in which absentee voting is required, there is no in-person requirement in our State constitution. The constitution sets a floor, not a ceiling, for this type of voting.
Third, apart from the argument made by my colleague, there is bipartisan agreement across our State--at the local, State, and Federal levels--that our election was fair, secure, and lawful. On Monday, my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, wrote in an op-ed: ``The evidence is overwhelming that Joe Biden won this election.''
There is simply no evidence to justify the outrageous claims of widespread voter fraud or election irregularities that have been suggested by those seeking to overturn the election. There have been 60 cases in court after court, all throughout our State and throughout the country, including in the Supreme Court, that have dealt with this bizarre argument that we know is based upon that lie.
In one court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Bibas, appointed by President Trump, wrote:
The campaign's claims have no merit. The United States has free and fair elections, which are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.
So said Judge Bibas.
Finally, a word about those election officials who did such work. These election officials all across our State--Republicans and Democrats from red counties and blue counties--did their jobs. They are patriots, and these objections are an attack on these Pennsylvania public servants. I will give you one example from Republican Commissioner Al Schmidt, of Philadelphia.
He wrote:
There really should not be a disagreement, regardless of party affiliation, when we're talking about counting votes .
. . by eligible voters. It is not a very controversial thing or, at least, it shouldn't be.
After election day, Commissioner Al Schmidt, his family, and his colleagues were subjected to death threats simply because he was trying to do his job with integrity. It calls to mind that great line from
``America the Beautiful": ``O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years.''
These election officials, like so many of our patriots--and we heard from Senator Duckworth tonight, a real patriot--did their jobs. Let's support these patriots. Vote against this objection
I yield the floor.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Utah, Mr. Romney.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. ROMNEY. Today was heartbreaking, and I was shaken to the core as I thought about the people I have met in China and Russia and Afghanistan and Iraq and other places who yearn for freedom and who look to this building and these shores as a place of hope. I saw the images being broadcasted around the world, and it breaks my heart.
I have 25 grandchildren. Many of them were watching TV, thinking about this building, and whether their grandpa was OK. I knew I was OK. I must tell you, as well, that I am proud to serve with these men and women. This is an extraordinary group of people. I am proud to be a Member of the U.S. Senate and meet with people of integrity as we do here today.
Now, we gather due to a selfish man's injured pride and the outrage of his supporters, whom he has deliberately misinformed for the past 2 months and stirred to action this very morning. What happened here today was an insurrection that was incited by the President of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate and democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. Fairly or not, they will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode of American history. That will be their legacy.
I salute Senators Lankford and Loeffler and Braun and Daines and, I am sure, others who, in light of today's outrage, have withdrawn their objections. For any who remain insistent on an audit in order to satisfy the many people who believe the election was stolen, I would offer this perspective: No congressional audit is ever going to convince these voters, particularly when the President will continue to say that the election was stolen. The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
That is the burden. That is the duty of leadership. The truth is that President-Elect Biden won the election, and President Trump lost. I had that experience myself. It is no fun.
(Laughter.)
Scores of courts, the President's own Attorney General, and State elections officials, both Republican and Democrat, have reached that unequivocal decision.
In light of today's sad circumstances, I ask my colleague: Do we weigh our own political fortunes more heavily than we weigh the strength of our Republic, the strength of our democracy, and the cause of freedom? What is the weight of personal acclaim compared to the weight of conscience?
Leader McConnell said that the vote today is the most important in his 36 years of public service. Think of that after his authorizing two wars and voting against two impeachments. He said that not because the vote reveals something about the election but because this vote reveals something about us.
I urge my colleagues to move forward with completing the electoral count, to refrain from further objections, and to unanimously affirm the legitimacy of the Presidential election.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. The Senator from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, on January 3, I, along with 31 of my colleagues, stood in this Chamber and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is both ironic and deeply disappointing that only 3 days after swearing these oaths, some of my colleagues are coming close to breaking this promise.
Since 1797, each U.S. President has peacefully handed over power to the next, and that will happen again on January 20, when Donald Trump, despite the protesters today, the violence today--when Donald Trump leaves the White House at noon and Joe Biden becomes President.
We have heard tonight from both Democrats and Republicans about the importance of the voters speaking in the election and about the fact that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. But this is not just an issue for us here in the United States; this is an issue for nascent democracies around the world, which, as Senator Romney said, look to the United States as an example. We are the shining city on the hill. We give those struggling under oppression hope for a better future.
Now, like so many of us in this Chamber, I have traveled to developing democracies around the world--to Afghanistan and Iraq, to the Western Balkans, to Africa, to the country of Georgia. I went there with my colleague Senator Risch.
In 2012, we went to Georgia to observe officially, on behalf of the Senate, the election between outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement Party and the challenge by Georgian Dream, which was a newly formed party supported and funded by billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili. It was a battle for Parliament, but also for control of the government.
Senator Risch and I visited multiple polling places on election day, and we agreed with the international assessment that that election was free and fair and that Georgian Dream were the winners.
But there was real concern in the country that Saakashvili was going to refuse to give up power--that that would lead to violence, and it would end the nascent democratic reforms that were happening in that former Soviet Republic.
So Senator Risch and I, the day after the election, went to visit President Saakashvili to try and talk him out of staying in power. I remember very clearly going to his home, and we sat down with him, and we pointed out that the hallmark of a democracy--what he had worked so hard for in his 8 years as President of Georgia--the hallmark of that was to turn over power in a peaceful election to the person the voters chose. Well, President Saakashvili listened to us, and he did leave office peacefully.
But it is important that future generations recognize that America--
like democracies everywhere--depends on a peaceful transition of power, on believing in what the voters say, and ensuring that happens.
Unfortunately, we have heard from some Senators today who have been enabling President Trump's willful disregard of the votes of our citizenry, even as they speak out against foreign leaders who ignore their own people.
They will fail, and history will remember them.
I hope that future generations will view the actions of some of those folks today as little more than an unfortunate anomaly.
Future opportunists may use this ill-fated effort to seek short-term political gain over the long-term stability of our Republic. But for the sake of our great country and America's standing in the world, I ask my colleagues today to fully endorse the results of the free and fair election and set aside this partisan attempt to subvert the will of the people. We should be venerating the peaceful transition of power, even if our own preferred candidate didn't win. That is, after all, who we are in the United States of America.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Ohio, Senator Portman.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Vice President, you have fulfilled your duties as President of the Senate tonight with distinction, and we all appreciate it.
I thought about changing my mind and not speaking tonight, given the lateness of the hour, and I know all of my colleagues would have appreciated that greatly. But I thought it was necessary to speak because I want the American people, particularly my constituents in Ohio, to see that we will not be intimidated, that we will not disrupted from our work, that here in the citadel of democracy, we will continue to do the work of the people. Mob rule is not going to prevail here.
Now, let's face it. We did not reclaim this Chamber tonight. Brave and selfless law enforcement officers stood in the breach and ensured that the citadel of democracy would be protected and that we would be defended, and we are deeply grateful for that--as is the Nation
I have listened carefully to comments of my colleagues, and I have listened over the past couple of weeks as this issue has been discussed, and I tell you, for me, it is not a hard decision. I stand with the Constitution. I stand with what the Constitution makes clear: The people and the States hold the power here, not us.
My oath to the Constitution and my reverence for our democratic principles make it easy for me to confirm these State certifications.
By the way, I opposed this process some 15 years ago, when some Democrats chose to object to the electors from my home State of Ohio after the 2004 elections. I opposed it then, and I oppose it now. I said at the time that Congress must not thwart the will of the people. That is what we would be doing.
Let's assume for a moment that those who object to the certifications are right, that the Constitution intended that a bare majority of Members of Congress could circumvent the States that have chosen to certify the popular votes of their own State citizens. I ask the objectors to think about the precedent that would be set if we were to do that.
What if the majority in the House and the Senate were of the other party when a Presidential candidate of our party came through a close Presidential election? Would you want a Congress controlled by the Democrats to play the role you now intend for us?
It is asking Congress to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the voters and its judgment for the judgment of the States that certified the results. And even forgetting the dangerous precedent that would be set, what would be the basis for objecting in this election?
Look, I voted for President Trump. I supported him because I believe the Trump administration's policies are better for Ohio and for the country. And I supported the Trump campaign's right to pursue recounts--they had every right to do it--and legal challenges.
I agree that there were instances of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 elections. I think we all do. And by the way, there are fraud and irregularities in every Presidential election.
But it is also true that after 2 months of recounts and legal challenges, not a single State recount changed the result. And of the dozens of lawsuits filed, not one found evidence of fraud or irregularities widespread enough to change the result of the election. This was the finding of numerous Republican-appointed judges and the Trump administration's own Department of Justice.
Every State has now weighed in and chosen to certify its electoral slate based on the popular vote, as set out in the Constitution.
I understand that many Americans who would never storm this Capitol don't trust the integrity of the 2020 election, don't think the States should have certified, don't think we should have accepted the results from the States, and are insisting on more transparency and accountability.
In the 2016 elections, lest we forget, many Democrats objected to the results and distrusted the election.
I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to listen but also to do our part to try to restore faith in our elections. We should all work to improve the integrity of the electoral system and the confidence of the American people in this bedrock of our great democratic Republic.
Today, I will do my constitutional duty and oppose these efforts to reject the State-certified results.
And tomorrow, in the wake of this attack on the Capitol, the pandemic that engulfs us, and other national challenges, let's work together for the people.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I believe we have 8 minutes left, so I would like to divide 4 to Senator King and 4 to Senator Van Hollen.
The VICE PRESIDENT. That is correct.
The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, Winston Churchill once said that he could do a 2-hour speech extemporaneously, but a 10-minute speech took immense preparation. I don't know what he would have said about a 4-minute speech.
We are a 240-year anomaly in world history. We think that what we have here in this country is the way it has always been.
It is a very unusual form of government. The normal form of government throughout world history is dictators, kings, czars, pharaohs, warlords, tyrants. And we thought 20 years ago the march of history was toward democracy, but it is in retreat in Hungary and Turkey--goodness knows, in Russia.
Democracy as we have practiced it is fragile. It is fragile, and it rests upon trust. It rests upon trust in facts. It rests upon trust in courts, in public officials, and, yes, in elections.
I don't sympathize or justify or in any way--in any way--support--
that is putting it mildly--what happened here today, but I understand it. I understand it because I saw those people interviewed today, and they said: We are here because this election has been stolen.
And the reason they said that is that their leader has been telling them that every day for 2 months.
We cannot afford to pull bricks out from the foundation of trust that underlies our entire system. And I agree with Governor Romney that the answer to this problem is to tell people the truth--is to tell them what happened.
It is easy to confront your opponents. It is hard to confront your friends.
It is hard to tell your supporters something they don't want to hear, but that is our obligation. That is why the word ``leader'' is applied to people in jobs like ours. It is not supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be something that we take on as a sacred obligation, and if people believe something that isn't true, it is our obligation to tell them: No, I am sorry, it isn't, just as Senator Portman just said, as Mike Lee just said: I am sorry we can't do this here. We don't want to do this here. This is a power reserved to the States, not to the Congress.
And I agree with the majority leader. I think this is one of the most important votes any of us will ever take.
On December 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln came to this building. He came to this building in the darkest days of the Civil War. He was trying to awaken the Congress to the crisis that we were facing, and he didn't feel that they were fully and effectively engaged. He ended his speech that day with words that I think have an eerie relevance tonight. Here is what Abraham Lincoln said:
Fellow-[Americans], we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.
And here are his final words:
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. President. The mob violence and attack we saw on our Capitol today should be a wake-up call to each and every one of us of what happens when we fail to come together, not as Democrats and Republicans but each of us as Americans, to stand up to a President who time and again has shown contempt for our democracy, contempt for our Constitution.
Today, here on the Capitol, we witnessed people taking down an American flag and putting up a Trump flag. That is not democracy in the United States of America.
As every Senator who has spoken has mentioned, we have for hundreds of years had a peaceful transfer of power. Nobody likes to lose, and supporters of the losing candidate are always disappointed. What is different this time?
We all know what is different this time. We have a President who, as the Senator from New Jersey said, even before a vote was cast, that if he didn't win the election, it was going to be a fraud and every day since then has perpetrated that lie.
We have a President who just today criticized the very loyal Vice President, who is presiding right now, urging him to disregard his responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States in order to reinstall Donald Trump as President; the same person who got on the phone to the secretary of state in Georgia and threatened him to change the results of the election.
Mr. President, I read something this week I never thought I would read in a newspaper in the United States of America. It was an op-ed by all the living former Secretaries of Defense, including Secretaries Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Mattis, warning--warning--the country about our tradition of peaceful transfer of power and that it would be inappropriate for the military to take sides in the United States of America. We talk to the world about how we want to promote democracy and our values, and right here at home too many are undermining those values.
Mr. President, Donald Trump could not do this alone. He could only do it if he is aided and abetted by individuals who are willing to perpetrate those lies and those conspiracies, and that is why it is so important that we as Democrats and Republicans and Senators stand up together--stand up together and tell the truth. You know when you go into a court of law, like those 60 cases, you are testifying under penalty of perjury. That is very different than here in the House and the Senate, and in all those 60 cases, under penalty of perjury, there was no evidence of widespread fraud. So it should be easy for us all together to tell the truth.
On January 20, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. He has said he wants to bring the country together. He has said he wants to bring Democrats and Republicans together to do some of the pressing business of this country, to defeat this pandemic, to get the economy going again, to face challenging issues of racial and social justice. I hope we will learn from what happened today--the mob attack on this Capitol--the price we pay when we don't stand up for the truth and for democracy.
James McHenry, Maryland's delegate to the Constitutional Convention, wrote about a famous exchange in his diaries between Elizabeth Willing Powel and Benjamin Franklin. A lady asked Dr. Franklin, ``Well, Doctor, what have we got, a Republic or a monarchy?'' ``A republic,'' replied Dr. Franklin, ``if you can keep it.''
My colleagues, this is a test of whether we unite to keep our Republic. I hope we will pass the test together. Thank you
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President. January 6, 2021, will forever mark a historic day for our Nation. Not simply because our beloved Capitol building--the very heart of our democracy--laid under siege. Not simply because rioters stormed the Senate and House floors, assaulting Capitol Police officers and leaving a wake of destruction along the way. Not simply because the President of the United States encouraged his supporters to commit these felonies--to march to the Capitol and ``to fight,'' in his words. No, today will also be remembered because of what happened before all of that. Today, over 100 Members of the House and a dozen Senators supported a ploy to deprive the States and the American people of their constitutional role to choose our next President--a ploy that amounts to nothing less than an assault on our Constitutional republic.
The President's obscene claim that the election was stolen from him, which he continued to spout even while his rioting supporters roamed the Halls of the Capitol today, has been disproven time and again. Every single Senator knows that Vice President Biden won the election and did so decisively. Claims that President Trump won reelection are not just fantasy; they are delusional. And citing voters' mistrust in the election results as grounds for this stunt is particularly disingenuous given that those concerns have been fueled by the President's own baseless conspiracy theories--not by the evidence, not by the facts, and not by State election administrators, both Republicans and Democrats, who actually oversaw these elections and know what they are talking about.
President Trump and his allies have now lost more than 60 cases in courts across the country, by judges of every political stripe, including those appointed by the President. The lopsidedness of these decisions has been extraordinary. It has been nothing less than a wholesale rejection of the President's claims. But this is not surprising. The President's own Attorney General said there is no evidence of widespread fraud. His own Department of Homeland Security described it as the ``most secure election in American history.''
President Trump serves no one but himself. He is not a custodian or guardian of our democracy. He is a man whose every decision is driven by his shallow self-interest. I did not expect him to be gracious in defeat. I expected him to throw tantrums. I am not even surprised that his rhetoric has incited violence, as it has today. That is who President Trump is; we have all known that for some time. I am surprised and disappointed that so many Members of this body have let it get this far. After he incited rioters and criminal actions by a mob attacking America's symbol of democracy, our Capitol, what more will he do? He should just leave. He has damaged the country enough.
Our job today is simply to count the votes and to certify that Joe Biden won the election. Pretending that Congress could effectively overturn the will of the American people has, predictably, poured gasoline on an already lit fire. We must now get to work to put this fire out. I am glad that Congress is taking the first step now--that is, to stop with this nonsense and certify this election. The next step will be harder. The only way we stand a chance of coming together as a country, let alone making progress for the American people, is by working together.
I am thankful to the many Senate Republicans who have forcefully rejected this dangerous political stunt, even before the violence. Your words had meaning and sent a message to the country that our democracy will endure.
I have served in the Senate for 46 years. I can tell you that history will remember this sad day. So let us ensure that it is not just remembered for the destruction, for the President's recklessness, and for those in Congress who so casually attempted to overturn the will of the American people. Let us work together now and certify this election, so this day will also be remembered for those who stood up and rejected this dangerous political stunt for the good of the Republic and for the good of the American people.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President. Today has been a dark day that will take a long time and a lot of work to overcome. It has been a day truly unworthy of our Nation.
I thank the U.S. Capitol Police, the U.S. Secret Service, the law enforcement officers from Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, the National Guard, and others who have protected this institution and the U.S. Congress today.
There will be time to say more about today's events, but I rise now to speak about the unprecedented actions today to attempt to undermine a fairly and properly conducted democratic election.
Under our system of government, States bear the primary responsibility for runninq elections and certifying election results, and that is exactly what we have seen--all 50 States and the District of Columbia have certified the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
The results of the election are clear: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won.
Challenging these electoral votes now is the height of hypocrisy for a party that prides itself on States' rights.
Even worse, today's actions are based on the faulty premise that this election was somehow tainted by widespread fraud, which is flat out wrong.
Protesting these votes today is a disservice to our constitutional order and the more than 81 million Americans who voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
We must also recognize that today's actions could echo far beyond this election. Our democratic Republic has survived as a result of certain bedrock principles, including the peaceful transfer of power and the right of the people to elect their leaders.
For Congress to challenge the legitimacy of electoral votes because President Trump is upset that he lost far exceeds our role as envisioned by our Founding Fathers.
These challenges threaten the very core of a functioning democracy--
that voters and votes matter.
If a State's electoral votes can be set aside by Congress based on conspiracy theories dreamed up by the President and his followers, the value of free and fair elections is damaged.
Mr. President, those who feel they needed to protest today's results say they do so because of allegations of fraud. The problem is, those allegations all originate from President Trump himself.
The Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud. Attorney General Barr himself said there were no irregularities that could have affected the outcome of the election.
Likewise, our courts--including the Supreme Court--have tossed out lawsuit after lawsuit filed by President Trump and his allies, more than 60 in total.
I appreciate those Republicans Senators who have stood up for democracy and against these baseless objections to the election results.
Senator Romney called it an ``egregious ploy.''
Senator Toomey said, ``Allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election.''
Senator Portman said, ``I cannot support allowing Congress to thwart the will of the voters.''
And Senator Thune added, ``It's time for everybody to move on.''
He is right; the election is over. President-Elect Biden won.
Especially now, after all of the events of the day. It is truly time to get to work repairing our country.
Thank you, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, ``free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious, but calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.''
Those aren't my words. Those are the words of a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, rejecting President Trump's legal challenges to the Pennsylvania election--a judge who, I might add, was a longtime member of the conservative Federalist Society and was nominated to the bench by President Trump.
Mr. President, the 2020 presidential election was hard-fought, but the American people spoke clearly and decisively: 81.2 million votes for Joe Biden, 74.2 million votes for Donald Trump, 51.3 percent of the vote for Joe Biden, 46.8 percent of the vote for Donald Trump, 306 electoral college votes for Joe Biden, 232 electoral college votes for Donald Trump.
Accepting the outcome of an election can be difficult when our political party doesn't win, but calling an election unfair does not make it so.
More than 60 Federal and State courts, involving more than 90 judges, many of whom were nominated by Republican Presidents, including President Trump, are all in agreement. No evidence of widespread fraud, wrongdoing, or other irregularities have been uncovered during the 2020 election.
Unfortunately, some of our colleagues today ask us to do the same thing Donald Trump asked of the secretary of state of Georgia: to overturn the results of the 2020 election without specific allegations and without proof. Our colleagues are asking us not to abide by the will of the people but to bend to the will of one man, Donald Trump.
In 1787, delegates from 13 States convened in Philadelphia to debate the future of our country. Our Founders disagreed on many things, but they did agree that they didn't want a King, and they set up an intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that we would never have an all-powerful King. That system of checks and balances is being pushed to a dangerous limit here today, but it will prevail.
Here are just some of the claims Donald Trump and his legal team have made and that our colleagues lend credence to today: that Venezuela, Cuba, and China rigged our country's voting machines in favor of Joe Biden; that dead people voted in this election and they only voted for Joe Biden; and that poll watchers and election observers--who risked their lives during this pandemic to uphold the integrity of our elections--stuffed ballot boxes with Biden votes and shredded Trump votes. Not one--let me repeat--not one of these things is true. There is no evidence to back up these ridiculous claims.
Many of these absurd claims from Donald Trump and his legal team are nothing more than conspiracy theories circulating online. This misinformation and dangerous rhetoric from the President and his allies, including calls for violence, have polluted our discourse and imperiled our peaceful transition of power. And when our colleagues show indifference or outright support for these unsubstantiated claims and conspiracy theories, they lead our nation and our Constitution down a dangerous path. We all swore an oath to support and defend our Constitution--not our political party, and certainly not any individual candidate.
Colleagues, for the safety of our citizens and our Republic, we must lead by example and turn the temperature down. It was a hard-fought campaign, but the campaign is over, the votes have been counted, the count has been certified in all 50 States, and in 2 weeks, on January 20th, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn-in as President and Vice-President of the United States.
We have serious and urgent challenges that will require working with our new President and Vice President and with one another, including making sure hundreds of millions of Americans can be vaccinated, getting our kids back to school, and getting their parents back to work, just to name a few.
It is time to stop trying to overturn the will of the people and get back to working on their behalf.
President Lincoln observed at the end of the Gettysburg Address that ours is a ``government of the people, by the people, and for the people.'' Even in the midst of a Civil War, President Lincoln put his unwavering faith in ``the people'' to chart our Nation's course. We would be wise to remember Lincoln's words in this moment. We are not a government of Trump, by Trump, and for Trump. We are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And the people have spoken. Our only job today is to listen to them.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, not liking whom the voters choose to vote for in an election does not mean it is a fraudulent election. Enabling such talk and actively working to disseminate false information that cripples our government is in itself a fraud committed against the American people and our Constitution.
This past November, the American people voted in the highest numbers we have seen in our Nation's history. More than 155 million Americans cast a ballot in what was a free and fair election.
A clear majority voted for former Vice President Joe Biden over President Donald Trump. This was not the closest election in our Nation's history by a long shot. President-Elect Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes. He and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris won 306 electoral votes. Donald Trump and Mike Pence received 232 electoral votes.
Given the tremendous impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our country, everyone should be overwhelmed that Americans turned out in such strong numbers for this election. People should not have to choose between casting their ballot and protecting their own health and their family's health. The pandemic wreaked havoc in so many of our lives for much of last year, which is why our election officials in most States responded by taking special measures and precautions to protect the right to vote while safeguarding the health and well-being of voters and election judges alike.
Election security officials, Federal and those in all 50 States and the District of Columbia--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--
have all certified that we held a free and fair election despite these extraordinary circumstances. The Department of Homeland Security, DHS, stated that the November 3 election was ``the most secure in American history'' and that ``there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.''
President Trump responded how we would expect a would-be autocrat to respond, by firing the head of the DHS agency overseeing election security, pursuing baseless and groundless lawsuits, and promoting wild conspiracy theories about a rigged election. These lawsuits repeatedly have been dismissed as frivolous by both State and Federal judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic Chief Executives.
There is simply no evidence of widespread voter fraud claims in this election that can credibly affect the outcome of the election, which even former U.S. Attorney General William Barr--speaking on behalf of the Department of Justice--acknowledged. In December, the electoral college met to certify the results, and all of the States and the District of Columbia have now regularly reported their results to Congress, pursuant to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.
In Pennsylvania, a panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected President Trump's lawsuit making claims that a State court had already dismissed. Stephanos Bibas--a judge whom President Trump appointed--wrote, ``Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.''
On Monday, January 4, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, James Boasberg--whom George W. Bush originally appointed to the bench--dismissed yet another frivolous lawsuit seeking to stop Congress from certifying President President-Elect Joe Biden's victory when it meets in joint session to tally the electoral college votes on Wednesday.
In a 7-page opinion, Judge Boasberg noted that the plaintiffs had filed in the wrong court; did not have standing to sue; and had made no effort to serve defendants with the suit, a legal requirement. He indicated that he was contemplating referring the case to the Court's Committee on Grievances ``for potential discipline of Plaintiffs' counsel.'' More importantly, he wrote, ``the suit rests on a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution.'' He concluded,
``It would be risible were its target not so grave: the undermining of a democratic election for President of the United States.''
After being shut down again and again by the courts and State election officials--the people who run the elections--President Trump has continued his sordid campaign to undermine the rule of law in our Nation. He continues to fan the flames of division in our Nation, including encouraging fringe elements seeking to declare martial law or have the military intervene to overturn the election results. This demagoguery led all 10 former Secretaries of Defense who are still living--Republicans and Democrats alike--to warn against any attempt to involve the military in pursuing claims of election fraud, arguing that it would take the United States into ``dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.''
President Trump and his enablers' ceaseless provocations call into question whether we can have a peaceful and orderly transition of power in the United States. This concern is not theoretical, as we saw today, as a lawless mob encouraged by the President temporarily took control of our sacred Capitol.
President Trump's recent phone call to pressure the Georgia secretary of state to ``find'' the votes he needs to win the State is his latest failure to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
Historically, American Presidents have understood that America is a democracy and not an autocracy or a cult of personality. I find it unfathomable that we even need to say that out loud.
Elected legislators cannot, in good conscience, allow President Trump to continue to act like a dictator by trying to undermine valid election results and trash and burn our Republic on his way out of office.
If a foreign leader acted in such a blatant way to overturn legitimate election results, the full U.S. Congress would forcefully condemn such autocratic and undemocratic moves.
My congressional colleagues who are objecting to the electoral college results without any evidence or legal basis must stop coddling President Trump's insatiable ego. They must remember their oath is to the Constitution and not the President.
Sixty years ago, John F. Kennedy warned that people who foolishly seek power by riding the back of the tiger ultimately end up inside its belly. People should heed that advice. It is time to put country before personal ambition.
Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, the American people should have full faith in our election system, which is why I led the passage of voter ID legislation in North Carolina and why I supported President Trump's right to call for recounts and bring challenges to the courts. I share the concerns of many Americans regarding the lack of security of widespread mail-in voting and the partisan actions of activist Democratic lawyers who succeeded in making questionable changes to the voting process while Americans were already casting their ballots. Even if it wasn't enough to change the outcome of the election, irregularities and fraud are never acceptable, and they should be investigated and prosecuted when appropriate.
The Framers of our Constitution made it clear that the power to certify elections is reserved to the States, not Congress. Refusing to certify State election results has no viable path to success, and, most importantly, it lends legitimacy to the left's stated policy objective 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, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should not have the power to set aside electors after the 2024 election and overrule Federal courts and the Constitution as they see fit.
I was proud to support President Trump's agenda and campaign with him, and I am deeply disappointed he was not reelected despite his success in creating jobs, cutting taxes, securing a conservative judiciary, reforming the VA, and rebuilding our military. 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.
Mr. KELLY. Mr. President. In America, we have fair elections and peaceful transitions of power. In America, democracy prevails over chaos. And in America, those who commit violent acts against our government are held accountable. These are the values that I served to defend in the U.S. Navy and that I have sworn an oath to uphold in the Senate, and they have not failed us.
Our democracy was tested today--first, by a baseless objection to Arizona's electoral votes, despite the fact that Arizona's elections were fairly administered and certified by a Republican Governor, a Democratic Secretary of state, and public servants at every level of government and representing both political parties; and then again when individuals, spurred on by the President, stormed the Capitol in an unpatriotic attempt to overturn our election. They will fail. Tonight we will count Arizona's electoral votes and those of every other State.
For centuries, our democracy has thrived because after elections we have come together to find common ground and solve our challenges, and that is the work we begin tonight. My focus will continue to be on representing Arizonans by working with Republicans and Democrats and the incoming administration to beat this virus and rebuild our economy.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. President, it is the privilege of a lifetime to represent the people of Wyoming in this great deliberative body. I genuinely look forward to joining each of you to make a difference for the American people and to uphold my solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution.
Let me be clear. An attack on our Capitol is an attack on our Constitution and democracy itself. I strongly condemn the violence that occurred today, which did more to thwart the democratic process than to protect it. Today, many Members of the Senate were trying to peacefully use our democratic process to ensure each and every American's vote counts. In the best tradition of the U.S. Senate, we will fulfill our constitutional duty and complete the electoral count tonight.
In 1833, Senator Daniel Webster said that ``duty binds . . . the conscience of the individual member'' in counting the votes for President and Vice President. Each of us has a solemn duty to ensure that the slate of Presidential electors we certify is beyond reproach, respecting the people's voice and upholding the Constitution.
Congress will not overturn the people's voice. A president will be inaugurated on January 20. Congress cannot and shall not dictate the results of a Presidential election to our States. That would be the death of our Republic.
In the coming months, Congress must take a fresh look at troubling concerns from the election that simply don't add up. After the 2000 Presidential election, millions of voters in Florida felt disenfranchised, and now 74 million Americans deserve the assurance and the dignity that their votes count the same as every other American. We owe our first duty to the American people, following procedures--like the Electoral Count Act--
used for nearly 150 years.
It is my fervent hope that our State legislatures will consider meaningful election reform to ensure that our election laws are applied uniformly, to ensure the technology we use is accurate and secure, and, most importantly, to ensure that all Americans treasure our precious right to vote and feel their voices are heard. States are at the very center of elections in our country and will remain so.
Many ask why Congress should be involved in election matters that have been considered by the courts. Some argue that Congress' role in certifying our Presidential elections is merely ministerial. Under our constitutional separation of powers, it is too often forgotten that Congress has the right and duty to interpret the Constitution, especially on matters which by the Constitution have been delegated to Congress, like the electoral count. Congress interpreted the Twelfth Amendment in passing the Electoral Count Act in 1887 and continues to breathe new life into these provisions by its actions today. Our Founders understood Congress would play a key role in debating constitutional issues as a co-equal branch of government. Thomas Jefferson commented in an 1819 letter that ``each of the three departments [of government] has equally the right to decide for itself what is its duty under the Constitution.''
I remain deeply concerned that the electoral votes of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were not ``regularly given'' under Pennsylvania law, as required by the Electoral Count Act. Serious concerns have been raised about the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's vote-by-mail statute. Also, Pennsylvania election law may have been applied unevenly by State officials, including signature verification and voter identification requirements.
In 2005, Senator Barbara Boxer and the late Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones objected to the slate of electors from Ohio. They rightfully drew attention to the fact that many African-Americans and other communities suffered disproportionate wait times at the polls, broken voting machines, and high ballot rejection rates. Raising this objection led to some of these issues being remedied and more Americans having the precious opportunity to vote. That is a legacy our Senate and every American should value today.
Thank you.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina, Senator Graham.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Many times, my State has been the problem. I love it. That is where I want to die but no time soon.
Tim and I have a good relationship. I love Tim Scott. In 1876, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida sent two slates of electors--they had two Governors, by the way--and we didn't know what to do. Why did South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana do it? To hold the country hostage to end Reconstruction. It worked.
The Commission was 8 to 7. It did work. Nobody accepted it. The way it ended is when Hayes did a deal with these three States: You give me the electors. I will kick the Union Army out. The rest is history. It led to Jim Crow. If you are looking for historical guidance, this is not the one to pick.
If you are looking for a way to convince people there was no fraud, having a commission chosen by Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and John Roberts is not going to get you to where you want to go. It ain't gonna work. So it is not going to do any good. It is going to delay, and it gives credibility to a dark chapter of our history. That is why I am not with you, but I will fight to my death for you. You are able to object. You are not doing anything wrong. Other people have objected. I just think it is a uniquely bad idea to delay this election.
Trump and I have had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he has been a consequential President. But today, the first thing you will see, all I can say is, count me out. Enough is enough. I tried to be helpful. But when the Wisconsin supreme court ruled 4 to 3 that they didn't violate the Constitution of Wisconsin, I agreed with the three, but I accept the four. If Al Gore can accept 5 to 4 he is not President, I can accept Wisconsin 4 to 3.
Pennsylvania went to the Second Circuit. So much for all the judges being in Trump's pocket. They said: No, you are wrong. I accept the Pennsylvania Second Circuit that Trump's lawsuit wasn't right.
Georgia, they said the secretary of state took the law in his own hands, and he changed the election laws unlawfully. A Federal judge said no. I accept the Federal judge, even though I don't agree with it.
Fraud. They say there is 66,000 people in Georgia under 18 voting. How many people believe that? I asked: Give me 10. I haven't had one. They said 8,000 felons in prison in Arizona voted. Give me 10. I haven't gotten one.
Does that say there are problems in every election? I don't buy this. Enough is enough. We got to end it.
Vice President Pence, what they are asking you to do, you won't do because you can't.
Talk about interesting times. I associate myself with Rand Paul. How many times will you hear that? The mob has done something nobody else could do to get me and Rand to agree. Rand is right. If you are a conservative, this is the most offensive concept in the world that a single person could disenfranchise 155 million people.
[T]he President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all certificates and the votes shall then be counted;-The person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be President.
Where in there does it say that Mike can say, ``I don't like the results; I want to send them back to the States; I believe there was fraud''?
To the conservatives who believe in the Constitution, now is your chance to stand up and be counted.
Originalism, count me in. It means what it says.
So Mike--Mr. Vice President, just hang in there. They said: We can count on Mike. All of us can count on the Vice President. You are going to do the right thing. You are going to do the constitutional thing. You have a son who flies F-35s. You have got a son-in-law flying F-18s. They are out there flying so we can get it right here.
There are people dying, to my good friend from Illinois, to make sure we have a chance to argue among ourselves, and when it is over, it is over. It is over.
The final thing. Joe Biden. I have traveled the world with Joe. I hoped he lost. I prayed he would lose. He won. He is the legitimate President of the United States. I cannot convince people, certain groups, by my words, but I will tell you by my actions that maybe I, above all others in this body, need to say this. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected and will become the President and the Vice President of the United States on January the 20th.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield back the balance of our time.
Vote on Objection to Counting of Arizona Electoral Votes
The VICE PRESIDENT. All time has expired.
The question is, Shall the objection submitted by the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar, and the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cruz, and others be sustained?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 6, nays 93, as follows:
YEAS--6
CruzHawleyHyde-SmithKennedyMarshallTuberville
NAYS--93
BaldwinBarrassoBennetBlackburnBlumenthalBluntBookerBoozmanBraunBrownBurrCantwellCapitoCardinCarperCaseyCassidyCollinsCoonsCornynCortez MastoCottonCramerCrapoDainesDuckworthDurbin ErnstFeinsteinFischerGillibrandGrahamGrassleyHagertyHarrisHassanHeinrichHickenlooperHironoHoevenInhofeJohnsonKaineKellyKingKlobucharLankfordLeahyLeeLoefflerLujanLummisManchinMarkeyMcConnellMenendezMerkleyMoranMurkowskiMurphyMurrayPaulPetersPortmanReedRischRomneyRosenRoundsRubioSandersSasseSchatzSchumerScott (FL)Scott (SC)ShaheenShelbySinemaSmithStabenowSullivanTesterThuneTillisToomeyVan HollenWarnerWarrenWhitehouseWickerWydenYoung
The VICE PRESIDENT. On this vote, the yeas are 6, the nays are 93.
The objection is not sustained.
The Secretary will notify the House of the action of the Senate, informing that body that the Senate is now ready to proceed to joint session for further counting of the electoral vote for President and Vice President.
The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. So, colleagues, here is where we are. We have a few more speakers now as we wait for the House to finish their debate and vote. We expect the House to finish voting on Arizona between 11:30 and midnight.
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