[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 6, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S32-S38]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OBJECTION TO COUNTING OF PENNSYLVANIA ELECTORAL VOTES
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of my
colleagues allowing me to speak twice today. But my understanding is
that later this evening, objectors will object to the certification of
Pennsylvania's electoral votes because they disapprove of the process
that my State used in the last election. So in light of my expectation
of this objection, I rise to defend the right of my citizens, my
constituents, to vote in the Presidential election.
Let's be clear. That is exactly what this objection is about. It is
what it would do. It would overturn the results of the Presidential
election in Pennsylvania, and it would thereby deny Pennsylvania's
voters the opportunity to even participate in the Presidential
election.
Even if Congress did have the constitutional responsibility to judge
the worthiness of a State's election process, which it does not,
rejecting Pennsylvania's electoral votes would still be wildly out of
proportion to the purported offenses and very damaging to our Republic.
Let me go through a few facts about Pennsylvania.
First, some of the objectors and, in fact, even the President of the
United States this morning have observed that the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court disregarded existing law when it ruled that mail-in ballots could
be counted even if they arrived up to 3 days after election day.
Now, the objectors are right about that. In my view, the Supreme
Court of the United States should overturn that illegal decision. But
only 10,097 ballots arrived in Pennsylvania during the 3 days after the
election, and those 10,097 ballots have been excluded from the vote
count that resulted in President-Elect Biden winning Pennsylvania by
about 80,000 votes. What greater remedy could the objectors possibly
want than the complete exclusion of the late-arriving ballots? How
could we possibly invalidate the entire Pennsylvania election over
10,000 votes that were not even included in the vote count?
A second charge we heard--and the Senator from Missouri alluded to it
this evening--is that a 2019 Pennsylvania law that allows mail-in
ballots for any reason--that that might violate the Pennsylvania
Constitution. First of all, as Senator Casey observed, this was a
bipartisan law passed with nearly unanimous Republican support.
Clearly, the State legislators and the Governor believe it is
consistent with the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Secondly, this law was not challenged when it was passed. It wasn't
challenged when it was applied during the June primary election. It was
challenged only after President Trump lost the general election. But
2.6 million Pennsylvanians voted by mail-in ballot in the general
election. Over 37 percent of Pennsylvania voters, in good faith, relied
on a law to cast their votes, as they had done previously. Now, I
understand you can make a theoretical argument about whether this is
consistent with Pennsylvania's Constitution, and that needs to be
resolved for future elections. But because of this constitutional
question that some people have, the objectors want to prevent
Pennsylvania voters from participating in the Presidential election
entirely. That would be an outrageous remedy to this purported offense.
A third charge we have heard is that Pennsylvania officials did not
properly implement Pennsylvania election law in a variety of other
ways. But the Trump campaign has shown that many of these issues have--
well, first of all, none of these issues would have changed the
election outcome, but more importantly, the campaign had many
opportunities, of which it availed itself, to litigate these issues.
They did time and again, and they lost repeatedly, often in unanimous,
bipartisan decisions.
Some of the objectors also cite Congress's own failure to investigate
allegations of election irregularities, and that is their justification
for refusing to certify the election results. But the allegations of
election irregularities and fraud have been investigated. They have
been adjudicated. They were adjudicated in the States in which they
were alleged to have occurred.
In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign took their case of election
irregularities into the courtroom of Judge Matthew Brann of the Federal
district court. Judge Brann is a conservative Republican Federalist
Society member. Here is what he said about the Trump campaign case:
This court has been presented with strained legal arguments
without merit and speculative accusations . . . unsupported
by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot
justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone
all [the] voters of the sixth most populated state.
So the campaign then appealed Judge Brann's decision to the Third
Circuit, and they drew a three-judge panel, all Republican-appointed
judges, one appointed by President Trump. The panel concurred with
Judge Brann.
Certainly there were irregularities in this election--there always
are--but there is no evidence of significant fraud, conspiracies, or
even significant anomalies that cast any serious doubt on who actually
won the election.
You know, one of the ways you can tell is to look at the big picture
in Pennsylvania. Look at what happened. In 2016, President Trump won
Pennsylvania by eight-tenths of 1 percent. In 2020, he lost
Pennsylvania by a little over 1 percent. Is there anything at all that
is implausible or surprising about a 2-percent change in the election
outcome?
Relative to 2016, in Pennsylvania the President lost a little ground
in most of the rural counties he had carried. He lost a lot of ground
in the big suburban counties, and he slightly narrowed his large loss
in Philadelphia. There are no surprises here. This reflects a pattern
that occurred all across the country.
My colleagues, as I have said, it is not our responsibility to sit in
judgment of State election procedures in the first place, but if it
were, there would not be nearly sufficient reason to deny my
constituents their right to participate in this Presidential election.
Joe Biden won the election. That is not what I had hoped for, but
that is what happened. It was an honest victory with the usual minor
irregularities that occur in most elections.
We witnessed today the damage that can result when men in power and
responsibility refuse to acknowledge the truth. We saw bloodshed
because the demagogue chose to spread falsehoods and sow distrust of
his own fellow Americans. Let's not abet such deception. Let's reject
this motion
[[Page S33]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, with just a few minutes to speak, I am
going to get right to the point.
Gunfire in the halls here, IEDs on the Capitol grounds--I will say to
my colleagues, with the domestic terrorists roaming the halls just a
few hours ago, I have been stunned that this debate is actually going
forward, and that is because, colleagues, this is a fake debate on
electoral certifications; that is because it lends credibility to the
bogus idea that the Congress can actually toss out the results of the
election, and, as we saw today, it serves to fuel insurrection.
Contrary to what some of my ``aye'' voting colleagues believe by
votes cast just a few minutes ago, this debate has never been about
setting up some kind of routine election tribunal. This isn't about
election security. If the Republic majority for the last 2 years had
actually been interested in election security, they would not have
worked relentlessly to block my legislation to secure our 2020
elections with hand-marked paper ballots and post-election security
audits.
By the way, those are the kinds of approaches that are part of the
Oregon system, where for 25 years we voted by mail. I am the Nation's
first mail-in U.S. Senator. The second--and I see my colleagues from
Maine and Alaska here because they are very fond of him, like I am--
Gordon Smith, a Republican, was the second mail-in U.S. Senator in our
country. That is because we do the job right. It is efficient.
Our late-Republican secretary of state, Dennis Richardson, actually
told President Trump there was no evidence of fraud.
So if Republicans had been interested over the last 2 years in
actually working with me and colleagues on both sides of the aisle and
secretaries of state, we could have had an approach that would have
empowered the Oregon idea to go national. Instead, we are now debating
tonight the idea of--a discussion grounded in total fiction, brewed in
cauldrons of conspiracies online. These, colleagues, are fever dreams--
fever dreams laundered by people with election certificates and real
power. And I will tell you, it has been painful to watch colleagues
sidle up to some of those conspiracies that would inflict so much
damage on the American experiment.
Colleagues, I am going to close with one last point. We saw today an
effort by domestic terrorists to try to punch our democracy to the
ground, to the ropes. I am going to close by simply saying something
that hadn't been said tonight, and that is that Donald Trump can do
enormous damage to our country in the next 2 weeks. In the next 2
weeks, colleagues, Donald Trump can do enormous damage to our wonderful
country.
This afternoon--I don't know if my colleagues saw it--the National
Association of Manufacturers--an organization with thousands of
businesses, thousands of companies, and not exactly a leftwing outfit--
they called for moving forward with the 25th Amendment. That was all
over the news already this afternoon, colleagues. The National
Association of Manufacturers. That is what we are seeing in our country
with respect to the fear of Americans, having watched what happened
here.
I am just going to close by way of saying that I believe that for the
next 2 weeks, we have an enormous responsibility to watchdog Donald
Trump day in and day out, to do everything possible to prevent the
kinds of abuses that we saw today, where an American lost her life, and
we saw the fear among our citizens at what went on. Let's do everything
we can as leaders, Democrats and Republicans, to make sure that in the
next 2 weeks, Donald Trump's abuses are checked and we do everything we
can to protect this wonderful Nation of ours.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, over the last weeks and days leading up to
this vote here today, I have heard from a lot of people about this
vote, and I guess I want to address it as much to them as anybody else.
These are people I know. These are friends. These are neighbors. These
are longtime supporters, generally people on my side of the political
aisle.
And they are upset. They are upset. They look at the media, and the
media, they censored stories that might have been negative toward Joe
Biden or were negative toward Joe Biden, and social media companies
helped them out. And they saw how some States tinkered with and even
mutilated State election laws, and they have doubts that the election
was legitimate.
It gives this country this extraordinary crisis of confidence, which
is very dangerous because democracy is very fragile, and it is not held
together by elections. Democracy is held together by people's
confidence in the election and their willingness to abide by its
results.
So the notion was we need to do something; we need to fight. Several
of my colleagues have adopted the idea--and I respect it--that they are
going to object.
Now, listen, it is important to understand something. Even the people
objecting in the Senate recognize that it is not going to pass. It is
not going to change the outcome, but it is going to send a message, and
it is going to make a point.
The problem is I think it is a terrible idea at this moment. Just
hours ago, a young lady died in this Capitol. That means somebody,
somewhere in this country, got a phone call that their daughter was
dead. Their daughter was going to a political rally; she is dead--died
in this Capitol, somewhere not far from where we are standing.
We had police officers--the men and women we walk by every single
day, who guard the doors and we say hello to--out there with riot gear
getting spit on and attacked today--not 10 weeks ago; just a few hours
ago. I think it is important to think about all those things on a night
like tonight with everything that has happened.
I wouldn't even be here today--I doubt very much whether I would have
even been interested in politics--had it not been for my grandfather.
He died when I was 14, but I grew up at his knee. He would sit on the
porch and would smoke three cigars a day, and he loved history.
He was born in 1899 in rural Cuba. It was still governed by the
United States. It was a protectorate. Three years later, it gained its
independence and became a republic.
During my grandfather's first 60 years of life, he saw his country
have an armed insurrection after a contested election, multiple
Presidents go into exile, two military coups, and the rise of a Marxist
dictator--a tyranny that stands to this day.
My entire life--my entire life I have lived with and next to people
who came to America because their country was chaotic and their country
was unsafe. What I saw today--what we have seen--looks more like those
countries than the extraordinary Nation that I am privileged to call
home, and I think about the mockery that it makes of our country.
A lot of people say: Oh, well, China, China. Let me just say
something. In all modesty, no one here has worked harder on the issue
of China. They hate my guts. I am sanctioned--I don't know what they
are sanctioning--double sanctioned, and I can't travel there. I wasn't
planning to anyway.
China is laughing. They are loving this tonight. In Beijing they are
high-fiving because they point to this and they say: This is proof the
future belongs to China. America is in decline.
Vladimir Putin--there is nothing Vladimir Putin could have come up
with better than what happened here. It makes us look like we are in
total chaos and collapse--not to mention the Ayatollah, who is probably
bragging, if he has buddies, to his buddies: Look what is happening to
the Great Satan.
I think politics has made us crazy. Everybody in this country has
lost their minds on politics, and we have forgotten that America is not
a government, America is not a President, America is not a Congress.
Let me tell you what America is. America is your family. America is
your faith. America is your community. That is America. That is what
our adversaries don't understand, and that is what we need to remember.
That is how we are going to rebuild this country and turn the page and
have a future even brighter than our past.
So that is why I feel so strongly about this and why I hope those who
disagree with me will understand.
[[Page S34]]
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii is recognized
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, it has been hard, at times, to find the
words to describe the full harm that Donald Trump has inflicted on our
country. We can spend hours dissecting how his policies have made us
less safe and less healthy, but his Presidency has also been a profound
moral failure.
Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, a father from Hawaii joined
me at one of my talk-story sessions in my office, and he asked me a
question that struck me hard at that time and has stuck with me until
today. He said: How can I tell my son that lying is not OK when the
President of the United States lies every single day? I struggled to
answer his question then, and I am not sure I could offer an adequate
answer now.
But this conversation remains a clear example of how we do not live
in normal times. How is it normal as we and the world watched in horror
as an angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol? Blood was shed. People were
hurt. Vandalism occurred.
It is not normal when we have a President who lies every single day.
And even in the face of this vandalism, this mob, he really doesn't
have much to say except: I love you. You should go home now.
It is not normal when, in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed
the lives of over 350,000 Americans, which is nearly the combined
population of the islands of Maui and the Big Island, we have a
President who only seems to care about spreading conspiracies to
undermine confidence in our elections and our democracy.
It is not normal when duly elected Senators who took an oath to
uphold the Constitution pull a stunt to try and nullify millions of
votes in six States so that Donald Trump can remain President. I call
this effort a stunt because it is doomed to fail.
We have a strong bipartisan majority, as noted in the vote that we
just took, in both Chambers of Congress who reject this stunt, and
courts have ruled against Trump and his allies in more than 60 cases.
So whenever this farce ends, the result will be the same: Donald
Trump will have lost the election, and Joe Biden will become the 46th
President of the United States.
You can tell a lot about a person from the way they handle defeat.
The way Donald Trump has handled defeat says a lot about who he is.
Watching so many of our colleagues indulge the President tells us a lot
about them too.
We don't have to look back very far in history to find examples of
candidates who lost tough races but demonstrated their character in
defeat. Our colleague Senator Romney graciously conceded his defeat to
President Obama in noting:
At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering and
political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the
aisle to do the people's work, and we citizens also have to
rise to the occasion.
And in 2000, during an election with substantial irregularities and
partisan intervention from the Supreme Court, Al Gore, nevertheless,
put his country first and he said:
Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the
Court's decision, I accept it. . . . And tonight, for the
sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our
democracy, I offer my concession.
As I reflect on the service of these distinguished public servants
and the acts they took to maintain our democracy, I am also drawn to
remarks President Obama made 4 years ago in his farewell address to the
Nation when he warned that our democracy is threatened whenever we take
it for granted.
It is a particularly sage warning as we contend with the President of
the United States seeking to nullify a free and fair election simply
because he lost. We have to stand up, speak out, and fight back because
our democracy itself is at stake.
American democracy has endured over these centuries in large part
because our institutions serve as guardrails to keep us from going over
the cliff. As elected officials, we can strengthen these guardrails by
listening to our own conscience in moments of peril, by having what our
friend John Lewis called ``an executive session with myself.''
Before making a big decision, John would say: Listen self, this is
what you must do; this is where you must go. Today, we can follow
John's example, listen to our conscience, stand up for our
Constitution, and do what is right
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me begin my remarks tonight by
expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the law enforcement
community and the National Guard whose hard work and courage made it
possible for us to resume our deliberations tonight.
We return to this Chamber tonight undeterred by the violence we
witnessed and strengthened in our determination to fulfill our
constitutional duty. The Constitution is the foundation of our American
democracy, and the Constitution is what must guide our decisions on the
Presidential election.
The process the Constitution sets forth for electing Presidents
through the electoral college is straightforward. The people vote.
Electors are chosen. The electors vote. Then Congress counts the
electors' votes.
That final step in the process is why we have convened today.
Counting the votes of the electors, a function that the 12th Amendment
assigns to Congress, is an administrative and largely ceremonial act.
Our job is simply to count the votes certified by each State--nothing
more. We should not attempt to usurp the roles of the voters, the
States, or the electoral college.
The American people have done their job, turning out in record
numbers to vote in the midst of a frightening pandemic. Indeed, as a
percentage of the voting-eligible population, the turnout was the
highest in 120 years. Similarly, in the midst of this pandemic,
hundreds of election officials and volunteers have done their job,
staffing polling places and faithfully counting and often recounting
votes. The States have done their job by certifying the election
results.
Now, I have heard the proponents of these objections raise questions
about whether the various States conducted their elections properly.
When disputes over elections arise, candidates are able to appeal to
our legal system, not Congress, for recourse.
In the 2 months since the 2020 election, the President's lawyers and
allies have had the opportunity to make their arguments and challenge
election results before the courts. Notably, every one of nearly 60
lawsuits they have brought forward have been rejected. In fact, the
Supreme Court has twice refused to hear their election challenges.
We must abide by these rulings. The time has now come for Congress to
do its job. We should affirm the certified results of each State by
counting the votes of their electors. Altering the results of the
electoral college would set a terrible precedent in which the party in
control of Congress could override the will of the voters and overrule
our courts to unilaterally choose the next President. One Senator
attempted such a maneuver after the election in 2004, and the Senate
overwhelmingly rejected that effort. The Senate has demonstrated by its
vote tonight that it will follow that precedent and do so again.
Today--tonight, Mr. President, I will continue to vote to reaffirm
the foundation of our democracy, the Constitution of the United States.
And I will reject these challenges to the electoral college.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I invite all of my colleagues to cast
your eyes upon these three boxes sitting on the table in front of the
dais. These three boxes contain the certified results from every State
in our Union regarding how that State voted, how their electors have
voted for the President of the United States of America.
You cast your eyes on these three boxes, and you know that there is
something special. You see that there are straps on them holding the
top on and straps around the side and they are engraved--beautiful
handle, beautiful leather work, crafted in the cabinet shop of our very
Senate to say to the world that their cargo is precious.
There are three of these boxes. The third box is brand new. It was
crafted
[[Page S35]]
because so many States were celebrating this process that they started
to use very large forms, very large envelopes, very large seals to put
those ballots into and, thus, a third box was needed. These boxes
contain the voice of the American people weighing in, as they have
election after election after election. They have been used--these two
smaller boxes--for the last 14 elections. They are transported through
those doors to the House of Representatives, where the Senate and House
gather to witness the opening of the envelopes to determine who will be
the President of the United States. It is our constitutional
responsibility to witness the counting. That is what the Constitution
calls for.
Tonight, when this Senate Chamber was under attack by domestic
terrorists, we were held here in this room, doors locked to protect us
with the help of the Capitol Police. They did an excellent job. And
then they escorted us to a safe room. That announcement came quickly.
And when that announcement came, our senior assistant parliamentarian,
Leigh Hildebrand, organized the team to rescue these boxes and keep
them safe.
Thank you to her and the entire team that rescued the voice of the
American people. Had they not done so, then the hooligans outside,
disrespecting the Constitution, would have come in here and opened
these boxes and burned the ballots, destroying the voice of the people
symbolically. I know no one in this Chamber wanted something like that
to happen because we are here to defend the Constitution, to defend the
integrity of the election process, not to allow it to be destroyed.
But, colleagues, although we are 100 Senators--or 99, actually, now
because there are only 99 of us who are duly elected at the moment. We
are 99 Senators united across party, defending these ballots from the
hooligans outside.
There is more than one way these ballots can be destroyed, and that
is for this Chamber and the House Chamber to vote that one of those
envelopes representing the State will be shredded, will be burned, that
those votes will be discounted.
We just held a vote on whether or not the envelope containing the
electoral votes from Arizona should be burned. We defended these
ballots against the hooligans outside, but there are those in this
Chamber supporting the destruction of the voice of the citizens of
Arizona--six voted. And we are coming back later tonight to vote on
whether to shred or burn the ballots for the people of Pennsylvania.
We have to stand together to say absolutely not. The constitutional
responsibility is for us to defend the process, not to proceed to
destroy these ballots.
Now, in spite of all the troubling things that have happened in this
Chamber this evening, something beautiful happened, and that is, we sat
here in this Chamber, all of us listening to each other, 5-minute
speeches, hearing each other out, diverse views, wrestling with a
complicated issue. It is really the first time that has happened in the
12 years I have served in the Senate.
We need to restore the process of struggling with America's issues
together on the floor of the Senate. That is the Senate I saw when I
first came here as an intern for my home State Senator in 1976. That is
the Senate that I saw when I worked for Congress in the 1980s. That is
the Senate that has disappeared.
There is a conversation going forward between Democrats and
Republicans to restore the ability to hold debate on the floor, to
restore the ability to have amendments on the floor so that we
deliberate and wrestle with--in a very public and transparent fashion--
the big issues.
So let's take this moment, when we are rethinking how to restore the
institutions of our government, to restore and improve how this Senate
operates to deal with the issues ahead of us, so that this moment is a
moment where we come together rather than be divided; where, in a
bipartisan fashion, we craft a strategy to restore issues to the
floor--bills and amendments--and debate and decisions before the
public.
Out of a dark moment can shine a bright light, a renewal, and it is a
moment much needed now--a moment much needed in the executive branch as
we, on the 20th of January, welcome new leadership.
And it is a moment much needed for us to restore the Senate to be the
deliberative body once renowned and respected around the world. Let's
defend these ballot boxes, both from the hooligans outside and those
who would vote to destroy the ballots from any given State. And let us
come together and restore the Senate and fight for the vision of our
``we the people'' Republic
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, ``Free, fair elections are the lifeblood
of our democracy. Charges on fairness are serious.'' I think we will
all agree. ``But calling an election unfair does not make it so.
Charges require specific allegations and then [they require] proof. We
have neither here.''
Those are not my words. Those are the words of a judge on the U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejecting President
Trump's legal challenges to the Pennsylvania election. I might add, a
judge who was a longtime member of the conservative Federalist Society
and was nominated to the bench by none other than Donald Trump.
The 2020 Presidential election was hard-fought--we will all agree.
But the American people spoke clearly, and they spoke decisively: 81.2
million voters voted for Joe Biden--81.2; 74.2 million voted for Donald
Trump; 51.3 percent of the vote went for Joe Biden; 46.8 percent of the
vote was for Donald Trump; 306 electoral college votes for Joe Biden;
232 electoral college votes for Donald Trump. Four years earlier,
Donald Trump referred to that kind of outcome as a ``landslide'' for
him, and he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.
But accepting the outcome of the election can be difficult when our
political party doesn't win. We have all felt that before. 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 Donald Trump--are all in agreement.
That is pretty amazing, isn't it? All in agreement. No evidence of
widespread fraud, wrongdoing, or other irregularities have been
uncovered during the 2020 election. That is a victory for democracy,
for our democracy.
Unfortunately, some of our colleagues today ask us to do the same
thing that Donald Trump asked of the secretary of state for the State
of Georgia--to overturn the results of the 2020 election without
specific allegations and, more importantly, without any proof. Our
colleagues are asking us not to abide by the will of the people but to
bend to the will of one man--one man--Donald Trump.
In 1787, delegates from the Thirteen Colonies convened in
Philadelphia to debate the future of what would become the United
States of America. Our Founders disagreed on a lot of things, but, you
know, they all agreed on one thing for sure: They did not want a King;
they did not want a Monarch. Many of them had been there, done that.
They didn't want to see it and feel it again, and they set up this
intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that we would never
have that all-powerful King in this country.
That system of checks and balances is being pushed to a dangerous
limit here today, but that system will prevail--along with it, our
democracy.
Here are just some of the claims Donald Trump and his legal team have
made and that our colleagues lend credence to here 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; 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 then they shredded
Trump votes.
Not one--let me repeat--not one of these things is true. There is no
evidence--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 circuiting online.
This misinformation and dangerous rhetoric from the President and his
allies--including calls for violence--have
[[Page S36]]
polluted our discourse and imperiled our peaceful transfer of power.
When our colleagues show indifference to outright support for these
unsubstantiated claims and conspiracy theories, they lead our Nation
and our Constitution down a dangerous, dangerous path.
All of us who serve here swore an oath to support and defend our
Constitution. I swore that same oath as a naval flight officer many
times and as midshipman before that. But all of us here have sworn 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. We must 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.
In 2 weeks, on January 20, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn
in as President and Vice President of the United States, as they should
be. We have serious and urgent challenges that will require working
together with our new President and new Vice President, with one
another in this Chamber--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--and
with our colleagues over in the House of Representatives.
What is on our ``to do'' list?
We can start with making sure that hundreds of millions of Americans
get vaccinated--that we get off the dime and start vaccinating. We
vaccinated 4 million people last month. We were supposed to have
vaccinated 20 million. How are we ever going to get to 250 million at
this rate?
What else is on our ``to do'' list?
We are getting our kids back to school. We have kids who are unable
to get on the internet, who are unable to participate in their classes,
and who may not have any adult supervision at home. They are
struggling, and they are falling even further behind. We need to do
something to help them.
What else is on our ``to do'' list?--getting their parents back to
work, just to name a few things. Think of all of the millions of people
who have lost jobs and don't have skills anymore to fill the jobs that
are needed. They need our help. They need to be retooled and retrained.
It is time to stop overturning the will of the people. Let's get back
to working on their behalf.
Abraham Lincoln has been quoted a couple of times here tonight, but
he observed at the end of the Gettysburg Address that ours is a
``government of the people, by the people, 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 at this moment, at this special moment, in our Nation's
history.
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. The people have spoken. Our job here today is to
listen to them. I intend to do that. I trust that my colleagues will
join me in doing that as well.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, first, I want to thank all of the first
responders who helped to protect this sacred Chamber today and protect
those electoral college ballots.
Today is a special day. On a day when some 2,500 or more Americans
will lose their lives to the coronavirus, when another 130,000 will be
hospitalized with it, when hundreds of small businesses will close
their doors and put thousands of Americans out of work--on this day--
the U.S. Senate is not debating how to get more lifesaving vaccines
into Americans' arms or how to put 2,000 badly needed dollars into
their pockets. No. Instead, we are using the first days of the new
Senate and Congress to give time to our radical Republican colleagues'
baseless and damaging claims of election fraud--all in an attempt to
keep Donald Trump in office in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
There is a word for this. It is called ``sedition.'' All of these
unfounded objections to State electors are seditious. They are nothing
short of an insurrection against the established order of the U.S.
Constitution and our democratic Republic.
This is a historically shameful day for the Senate and for our
country. To be clear, the notion that there is any meaningful voter
fraud that has been identified in the 2020 Presidential election is a
dangerous, anti-democratic, treasonous fiction. Joe Biden won. Donald
Trump lost--period--but that hasn't stopped the President and his
supporters from making allegations of voter fraud in some 60 legal
challenges across the country, heard by some 90 judges, including Trump
judicial appointees. Not one of these challenges succeeded--not one.
Despite this reality, my radical Republican colleagues claim we must
have a commission to investigate the fraud.
Well, we do know one of the most undeniable instances of substantial
and significant election fraud ever. We even have a recording and a
transcript of it. It is of President Trump, talking like a Mafia boss
to the Georgia Secretary of State--a Republican no less--pressuring and
threatening him to fix the election in Trump's favor, and holding out
the prospect of criminal prosecution if he doesn't.
``Find me 11,780 votes,'' Trump said. Well, someone should find
Donald Trump a real lawyer and measure him for an orange jumpsuit,
because the list of statutes that this latest, shocking Presidential
phone call may violate is too long to recite. The President's words on
that phone call--indeed, his conduct since his election--demand a
serious response, one much more serious than the sham before us today.
First, Federal and State law enforcement authorities should
investigate Donald Trump for election fraud, extortion, conspiracy, and
whatever other charges fit the bill and, if warranted, indict and try
him for any crimes he has committed.
Second, we must recognize that Donald Trump is and will remain a
danger to our Constitution and our democracy. So, while time is
certainly limited, we should impeach Trump again and bar him from
holding office in the future.
Finally, we should abolish the electoral college. It is a vestige of
a racist Jim Crow America, and we have outgrown it. Every person's vote
in every State should count just the same--one person, one vote.
Election fraud and reform are very serious issues. Election reform
absolutely should be debated in Congress, which is why, instead of
today's Kabuki theater, I invite my Republican colleagues to stand up
and say: Yes, we need to protect and expand voting rights and election
security. We need automatic voter registration. We need online voter
registration. We need same-day voter registration. We should make
election day a Federal holiday. We should restore voting rights to
people with prior felony convictions. We should support independent
redistricting commissions. Let's spend our time debating that on the
floor--debating how to reduce the influence of big money in our
political system, to slow the revolving door between government
officials and lobbyists, to stop gerrymandering and voter suppression.
That is the real election reform that we should be debating and
supporting, not these shameful, craven, baseless objections.
More than 350,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. That is
the truth. Nearly 8 million people have fallen into poverty because of
the economic crisis caused by this virus. That is the truth. Wearing a
mask saves lives. Vaccines are safe and effective. That is the truth.
Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. That is the truth.
I urge all of my Senate colleagues to vote against these objections,
affirm our democracy, and recognize that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
will rightfully be sworn in on January 20 as the President and Vice
President of the United States
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, today was a stomach-turning, gut-
wrenching moment in our history. Truly, it was an assault on the heart
of our democracy.
I want to join in thanking the first responders and the police.
I also want to thank others who have been heroes of our democracy--
unsung in many instances. First, they are all of the election
officials, all of the poll workers, all of the members of boards
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of election who actually counted the votes--who went to the polls and
made sure that votes could be cast--and who, ultimately, stood firm for
the integrity of that voting system.
I want to thank the judges. There are now about 90 of them who,
except for one or two who ruled the other way on a technicality, have
stood firm for the integrity of that voting system. In those 60 to 70
cases, except for that one who ruled on a technicality, they went with
the integrity of our voting system and the rule of law.
Today was, indeed, disgusting and sickening. It was shocking and
despicable. It was heartbreaking, but it was not surprising. In fact,
today's assault on our democracy--the mob violence, the riots, the
thugs and goons who were inspired and incited by the President of the
United States--all were of a piece, in these past 4 years, of a
President who has no respect for the truth or the rule of law.
Donald Trump's Presidency is coming to a close in the very same way
it began--with an attack on our democracy. In 2016, the Trump campaign
welcomed hostile foreign interference with our election. The President
refused to acknowledge that he would accept the results of the election
if he lost. Then, again and again, he demonstrated his contempt for the
rule of law and for laws themselves. He obstructed justice, and he
would have been charged with it had he not been the President of the
United States. He invited a foreign government to interfere in our
elections and find dirt on his political opponent.
Most disturbingly, these actions by a President who demonstrated that
contempt for the rule of law were met with silence from many political
leaders, our colleagues here in the Senate among them--silence in the
face of that contempt for the rule of law and disrespect for the law
enforcers.
So we could have seen today coming. In fact, we did. I warned about
it, and others did because the fantasies and falsehoods that drove
those rioters--not protesters but the mob who assaulted the temple of
democracy--were fueled by the President's misstatements and lies and
contempt for the truth, and he was enabled. He had enablers.
Today, we are stopping, in one instance, that enabling, but we must
also make sure to stop it going forward. The political stunt that
brought us here today offers no great solace that it will. These stunts
have consequences. We say words have consequences, and the actions
today will have significant consequences. They are an attack on our
democracy that undermines the core tenets of our American Government
and a disrespect for the will of the people and a peaceful transition
of power. The political stunts themselves, driven by opportunism, blaze
a path that can be followed by more competent challenges just as the
dictatorial instincts and actions of this President can be followed by
more effective would-be tyrants intent on destroying our Republic.
Yes, we have more important tasks that we should be addressing as
well--the pandemic, the economic revival. Yet, today, we must be
mindful of the threat to our democracy that we face down and come
together on a bipartisan basis, but silence is never excusable in the
face of lawlessness at the very top of our political structure.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have a question for all of my colleagues
this evening, which is this: What happened here today, and how is it
different from what we expected as we assembled in this Chamber early
this afternoon?
Sadly, much like the impeachment trial of just a year ago, I think as
many of us slogged our way to the Nation's Capital and dutifully filed
into this Chamber, we expected hours and hours of debate and
discussion, knowing the outcome, knowing that what was being engaged in
by a handful of our colleagues was a political stunt, feeding the ego
of our President, who is chasing conspiracy theories about how he
actually won the election 2 months ago that he lost and indulging his
belief that somehow, somehow, the Congress could still, at the last
moment, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Even in the last day, President Trump had been haranguing his own
incredibly loyal Vice President, Mike Pence, as if somehow Vice
President Pence would simply declare him President today.
We knew that President Trump had been stirring up the spirits of
thousands, urging them to come to Washington. We had an inkling that he
might go out and speak to them, but I don't think, as we filed into
this Chamber, any of us--any of us--expected that, for the second time
in our Republic's history, the perimeter of this Capitol would be
breached, Members of the Senate would be rushed to safety; that not
just the Capitol Police but U.S. Marshals and FBI officers and fully
combat-geared soldiers would be in the U.S. Capitol, taking it back
from a riotous mob of thugs.
Just a few moments ago, I went to the Rotunda to see the litter and
the trash, the residue and the remnants of those who took over this
building today, and to say thank you to the men and women of law
enforcement who helped secure it after it fell to an angry mob.
But, folks, we have to think about the consequences of what happened
here today, why this happened, and what it means and what it teaches,
because, frankly, tonight, now, the whole world is watching. The entire
world is watching a montage of scenes--of folks cavorting in the
Capitol, half-naked men taking that seat, scrawling things on different
surfaces, parading up and down the Capitol corridors with a Confederate
flag and a Trump flag, and in other ways signaling that they had done
something significant. No. In fact, what they have actually done is
weakened our democracy, showed some of its fragility, and encouraged
our opponents around the world.
In the last 2 months since the election, we have one man who has
abandoned his post, who has mostly spent his time golfing and tweeting
and indulging himself in conspiracy theories and been less and less
attuned to our national security and to a raging pandemic, and another
man, our President-elect, who is preparing to take over the
responsibility for leading this country out of this pandemic and out of
its current state of deep, deep division.
President Trump has abandoned his post. He does not deserve to be
President any longer, and he poses a real and present threat to the
future of our democracy.
But let me also say this to my colleagues, half of whom changed their
intended vote today after seeing what happened in the Capitol. There
were, as we began, roughly 13 Senators--Republicans--who said they were
going to vote against the certification of the election, and when we
actually finally called the roll, it was just 6--7 of them having been
chastened by the events of today. But two who continue on this quest
clerked for the Supreme Court Chief Justice, are deeply schooled in the
law, and know better than what they did today. And in the House, in the
debate going on over in the House even now, more than 100 House
Republicans continue with this effort.
On this floor earlier today, this evening, there were strong and
clear and brave speeches by Republicans and Democrats alike.
So I have a question as we move forward. When will this fever break?
When will we finally say to each other: Enough is enough of indulging
and following populism and demagoguery. Is it time to finally show who
the leaders are and to uphold our Constitution that every one of the
House Members and a third of us swore to uphold just 3 days ago?
I will tell you, as I look ahead, that I am confident that 2 weeks
from now, Joseph Biden will be sworn in as the next President, Kamala
Harris sworn in as the next Vice President, and we have a unique moment
in my lifetime, because, as Presidents and leaders in the Senate of
both parties over the last decades have observed, the Senate has
steadily shrunk in its significance, its role, in its power, and the
Presidency has steadily grown. Not in my lifetime--not since LBJ--have
we had an incoming President who spent 36 years in this Chamber.
We have a chance with Joe Biden, a President-elect who ran on
bringing our country together, a President-elect who ran on turning the
page from our moment of national division, and a
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President-elect who respects and honors and understands the
significance of this body.
So we have to take this opportunity to heal, to hear each other, to
compromise, to work together, and to see the real challenges facing the
American people and take this last best moment.
What happened here today should leave all of us gravely concerned
about the health and the future of our democracy, and the opportunity
we will have 2 weeks from today is one we should not let pass us by.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, more than 350,000 of our loved ones have
died from a terrible disease. Small businesses have gone under, never
to reopen. Millions have lost their jobs, and too many families don't
know how they are going to pay the rent or put groceries on the table.
It is tough out there, but Americans are fighters, and despite all
the challenges, in November they did what Americans do when they are
unhappy with their leadership--they voted for change. They turned their
backs on a sitting President who fans the flames of hatred while bodies
pile up in the morgue. Instead, they elected a new President who wants
to save lives, to save our economy, and to save our democracy.
Even as the pandemic raged, Americans showed up for democracy. States
worked overtime to set up safe systems, ballot drop boxes, early
voting, and gallons of hand sanitizer. Voters mailed their ballots
earlier, put on masks, and stood in line at the polls. The election of
2020 shattered voting records.
So here we are on the floor of the U.S. Senate in the aftermath of a
historic election held in the middle of a pandemic. People are
suffering, and we should be working to get them the help they need.
Instead, we are here because Donald Trump wants to overturn the results
of that election. The Republicans objecting to the results of this
election will be judged by history, but the rest of us will be judged
as well.
It is our responsibility to stand up for our democracy even while
other Senators work to undermine it.
Losing is hard. I ran for President myself. It was a hard-fought
primary, but Joe Biden won and I lost. I am not the only one to live
through that; a number of Senators in this room have run for President.
None of us was successful, and when we lost, we conceded and we got out
of the race because that is how democracy works. None of us lied about
the results. We didn't throw temper tantrums. We didn't tell our allies
in Congress or the States to overturn the results. We didn't feed
poisonous propaganda to our supporters. We didn't urge people to march
on State capitals or to descend on Washington. We accepted the will of
the voters.
And it is not just us; it is everyone who has run for President since
the beginning of America. Only once in America's history have the
people who lost tried to burn down our democracy on the way out. They
caused a civil war that nearly destroyed our Nation.
Make no mistake, the violence we witnessed in this Chamber today was
the direct result of the poisonous lies that Donald Trump repeated
again and again for more than 2 months. His words have consequences.
Our democracy has been grievously injured by this lying coward.
This effort to subvert our democracy is not merely one last
Presidential tantrum. This effort is designed to knock out the basic
pillar on which democracy is founded: the idea that the voters--not the
sitting President and not the Members of Congress but the voters decide
who will lead this Nation.
A democracy in which the elected leaders do not bend to the will of
the voters is no democracy. It is a totalitarian state. And those who
pursue this effort are supporting a coup.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on this effort to overthrow our
democracy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
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