I thought I’d start one just in case. I expect it will be very boring considering Vice-President Harris has released a video saying she will not commit an insurrection to overthrow the election.
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin van Buren and George H.W. Bush are the four Presidents of the Senate to certify their own election as President. Al Gore, Richard Nixon and now Kamala Harris are the three PotS to certify their opponent’s election. Do I have that correct?
You left out Humphrey, Johnson’s VP. He certified Nixon’s election in 1969.
I thought the list of VP’s losing the general election to succeed the president they served under was a lot longer, but apparently not.
My one hope is that she gets snarky. Every time she announces a total for Trump, it should be in the form, “And the votes go to convicted Felon Donald J Trump”; “And the votes go to twice-impeached Donald J Trump”; “And the votes go to adjudicated rapist Donald J Trump”.
Indeed I hope she does not do that.
Apparently, one of the changes prompted by the 2021 count was, it now takes 87 (well, 86, as there are only 434 as Matt Gaetz officially resigned from the current Congress just before the Speakership vote started) Representatives and 20 Senators to object to a state’s count, instead of just one of each. Still, I wonder how many states that voted for Trump will be objected to anyway, on the grounds that “Mr. Trump is Constitutionally ineligible to be President under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”
I just watched it in the background to support Harris. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to stay classy and professional but she did a great job. Funny how nobody broke windows, nobody smeared feces on the walls of Congress and nobody set up a gallows and threatened to hang her for certifying the results. This is how a democracy should work. I worry that we may never see it again.
Humphrey declined to attend the joint session to certify Nixon’s victory. It was presided over by the Senate President Pro Temp instead.
I will admit that I am a little surprised that the number of objection attempts was zero.
Why? Prior to 2016 that was the norm. We should really do everything possible to uphold the norm at this point in our history.
Prior to 2016, there were objections to every single insurrectionist who got electoral votes.
Precedent doesn’t mean anything in unprecedented situations.
There were objections to GWBush’s certification in 2001. Gore ruled them out of order.
They were “out of order” only in that none of the Senators signed on to any of them, as was required.
There was one objection that did end up being voted on - for Ohio in 2004 (the whole “Diebold” thing). I think Senator Boxer, who raised the objection, was the only Senator who voted to refuse the Ohio votes. The 2008 and 2012 elections weren’t close enough to make any Republican objections worthwhile.