[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 211 (Monday, December 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7455-S7456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ELECTORAL COLLEGE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now one other note--today, members of the 
electoral college are gathering in all 50 States and the District of 
Columbia to formally select Joe Biden as the next President of the 
United States of America.
  Typically, the meeting of the electoral college is merely a 
formality. The Presidential election took place over a month ago. The 
result is not in doubt. In almost any other year, both major parties 
would have fully and publicly accepted the will of the American people 
by now--the peaceful passing of the torch, a hallmark of our grand 
democracy. But this year, it seems as if Joe Biden has had to be 
declared the winner of the Presidential election again and again and 
again--and still, our Republican colleagues have not fully come to 
grips with that reality. Just how many times does President Trump have 
to lose before rank-and-file Republicans--before most Senators--
acknowledge that Joe Biden will be the next President of the United 
States?
  Last week, more than 100 Republican Members of the House of 
Representatives signed their names to a lawsuit that would invalidate 
the results of the election in four swing States. For any serious 
person, much less a Member of the U.S. Congress, to sign their name to 
such an anti-democratic document is beyond shameful.

[[Page S7456]]

  To my knowledge, the Republican leader of the Senate still has not 
referred to Joe Biden as President-elect. Will he change his tune now 
that the electoral college has once again confirmed his victory? Will 
the rest of my Republican Senate colleagues do the same?
  After no evidence of widespread voter fraud was found in the country, 
after State election officials corroborated the accuracy of the results 
in every State in the country, after the Trump campaign's legal team 
racked up an astonishing win-loss record of 1 and 59, after the Supreme 
Court summarily dismissed two ludicrous efforts by Republicans to 
invalidate the results in swing States, will the Republican Party in 
Congress, here in the Senate, finally acknowledge the results of an 
election that was determined over a month ago?
  Just how long are Republicans going to keep up this charade, which 
has become a national embarrassment? Even now, the Chairman of the 
Homeland Security Committee is planning to hold a hearing this week 
about what he calls ``election irregularities.''
  Look, our Republican colleagues don't have to like the results of the 
election, but they have a solemn responsibility to accept them. They 
have a duty to confer legitimacy on them. Instead, for the past month, 
they have given President Trump the space to promote wild conspiracy 
theories about election fraud and poison Americans' faith in our 
democracy.
  As the electoral college casts the majority of its votes for Joe 
Biden--the same number of votes that President Trump called a landslide 
4 years ago--our Republican colleagues must do now what they should 
have done a month ago: Accept the legitimacy of Joe Biden's election to 
the Presidency of the United States.
  I yield the floor.

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