The Daily Signal - How Does Congress’ Electoral College Certification Process Work?

Starting point is 00:00:05 This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, January 5th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Dildudis. Congress will be voting Wednesday to certify the results of the Electoral College vote. What is the Electoral College certification process and how does it work? How are challenges to the certification process handled? Tommy Binion, Vice President of Government Relations at the Heritage Foundation, joins me today on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave us a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and as always, please encourage others to subscribe. Now, onto our top news. President Trump harshly criticized Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas for saying he will not object to the outcome of the 2020

Starting point is 00:01:01 presidential election during the certification process on January 6th. In response to Cotton, Trump tweeted Monday, how can you certify an election when the numbers being, certified are verifiably wrong. And the president added, at Senator Tom Cotton, Republicans have pluses and minuses, but one thing is sure, they never forget. Cotton is not alone, however, as other GOP members, including Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, have criticized Republican members like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who are leading the way to challenge the electoral votes on Wednesday. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is okay. with efforts in the House to dispute the results of the 2020 election, as Congress prepares to

Starting point is 00:01:47 vote Wednesday to certify the results of the Electoral College vote. In an interview with the Hill newspaper, McCarthy said, I think it's right that we have the debate. I mean, you see now that senators are going to object. The House is going to object. How else do we have a way to change the election problems? A colleague of McCarthy's, however, Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney has made it clear that she does not support the challenge to the election. In a memo sent to Republican caucus members, Cheney said via Just the News, such objections set an exceptionally dangerous precedent, threatening to steal state's explicit constitutional responsibility for choosing the president and bestowing it instead on the Congress,

Starting point is 00:02:29 she wrote. This is directly at odds with the Constitution's clear text in our core beliefs as Republicans. Representative Ted Liu, Democrat of California, and Kathleen, Reyes, Democrat of New York, have asked FBI director Christopher Ray to launch a criminal investigation into the president after Trump spoke with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger on Saturday. Lou tweeted Monday, as former prosecutors at Rep. Kathleen Rice and I believe at real Donald Trump committed multiple crimes during the phone call in which he threatened GASOS Raffensberger to find 11,780 votes or to recalculate. Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois has also called for a probe into the phone call,

Starting point is 00:03:20 saying Trump's disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation. On Sunday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told reporters that she believes Trump's words during Saturday's phone call to be an impeachable offense. And Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, echoed AOC's statement in a tweet Sunday saying, this is clearly an impeachable offense. And I believe there is nothing under the law giving Trump immunity from criminal process and indictment for his conduct. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Tommy Binion on Congress voting on Wednesday to certify the results of the Electoral College vote. Do you have an interest in public policy? Do you want to hear some of the biggest names in American politics speak?

Starting point is 00:04:29 The Heritage Foundation hosts webinars called Heritage Events Live. These webinars are free and open to the public. To find the latest webinars and register, visit heritage.org slash events. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Tommy Binion, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation. Tommy, it's always great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Great to be here. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, too. So Congress will be voting on Wednesday to certify the results of the Electoral College vote.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Tommy, can you just start off by talking about the Electoral College certification process and what's happening here? Sure. This is the final stage of the election process. What happens as part of the electoral college is each state submits their electors and certified election to the United States Congress. And then the Congress counts the votes. The law governing that process allows for one senator and one member of the House of Representatives together to object to the counting of one state's slate of electors in writing. And if such an objection occurs, then what proceeds is a debate for two hours in both chambers,

Starting point is 00:05:56 a two-hour debate in the House and a two-hour debate in the Senate, followed by a vote on whether or not Congress should count that states electors. It turns out that is what's going to take place on Wednesday, at least one, but in the case of the House, 140 or so, and in the case of the Senate, upwards of 12 or so members have said that they will object to the counting of the electors from six of those states. And so on Wednesday, when Congress goes to count these electoral college votes, those objections will be made. And then the debate and the vote in the respective chambers will take place. This is obviously related to the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the six contested states in the 2020

Starting point is 00:06:45 election. You know, one other thing to point out, I, I, I think that that debate that's going to happen on Wednesday is going to be really consequential. You know, those that are making these objections are going to be given a chance to make their case, to present the evidence and make a compelling case that the fraud in this election did change the outcome. And those who believe it didn't will be able to make their case. And so, you know, I think this will be a process that has a process. a certain amount of value. And then also, it's a finite process. When this is over, it will conclude that Congress will certify some electors and someone will be sworn in as president on January 20th.

Starting point is 00:07:30 So there is some finality that will come with this as well. Well, the Washington Post is called Congress is voting to certify the Electoral College vote a formality. Is it a formality, Tommy, or is it more than that? It is very formal, but it is very consequential. The electoral college, you know, it didn't happen until Congress certifies the vote. And so it is a very important step in the process. Perhaps the Washington Post thinks that the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and that's what they meant. But I think there are a significant number of Americans who've lost their faith in our election system and a significant amount of members of the House and Senate that want to air their concerns, that want to examine these allegations. And so what's going to

Starting point is 00:08:19 take place on Wednesday is really important. Of course, one outcome is likely to take place, but that doesn't mean that it is a formality or a foregone conclusion. I think that I think the counting of the votes is a really important step in the process. Well, Tommy, can you take us behind the scenes a little bit? We talked about how Congress counts the votes. Is there any physical counting that occurs? or is it more of just a review of the records that states have submitted? It's a review of the record. So you can think of it as these certifications and records have been submitted by mail, actually, to the United States Congress. And you can think of it as those envelopes being opened and counted.

Starting point is 00:09:04 You know, it isn't as if, oh, you know, Senator Mitch McConnell is going to be down there using his fingers and toes to count up to two. 170, but this is the way that the electoral college vote becomes official. We did talk about how Tommy that lawmakers can challenge the results. Can you walk us through what happens when someone challenges a result? Well, it has to be two people. It has to be one member of the House and one member of the Senate. And they will do so in writing. And they will submit that objection to the well of the meeting.

Starting point is 00:09:37 That objection will be heard. And then what happens next is this is all taking place in a joint session of Congress. The two bodies will break up into their respective chambers, the House and Senate, and there will be a two-hour debate on each state. So, you know, let's say the objection takes place on Pennsylvania's electors. Then the House and the Senate will have a debate about whether or not to count Pennsylvania's electors. that debate will be, I think, equally divided between the Republicans and the Democrats, and members have a maximum of five minutes each. So we will see, you know, 12 members per side if each of them uses the maximum amount of time,

Starting point is 00:10:22 making their case that either the elector should or shouldn't be counted. This is the moment where all of the evidence is going to be seen. that, you know, there is no more time, there is no further opportunity for evidence to impact the election. So certainly any evidence that President Trump has compiled or his legal team or, you know, his staff in those states, that that evidence will be given to the members of the House and Senate that are conducting this debate and it will be put on display. And so the American people will have a chance to look at it all in its totality and assess for themselves what they think about it. Well, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 10 other Republican senators

Starting point is 00:11:08 per press release from Senator Cruz's office are asking Congress to immediately appoint an electoral commission with full investigatory and fact finding authority to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in disputed states. Tommy, what is your perspective on this request from Senator Cruz and won't hold any water. How would this work? Well, I think any effort to take a look at the facts and inject transparency into this process is a welcome one. And what Senator Cruz is proposing is as close as he could find to a historical precedent. This is similar to what took place in the aftermath of the 1876 election in 1877. And so what they have said, is that they will vote against the counting of the electors from the six states

Starting point is 00:12:00 unless and until this commission takes place. It also means that they are going to propose this commission and have a vote on the commission whether or not that commission shall come to be. So essentially what they're asking for is a 10-day pause and some official body to take a look at this. you know, again, I mean, I think the goal of Americans in this process and the goal of policymakers and the goal of, you know, groups like heritage should be that to restore America's faith in our electoral system. And transparency and sunlight, if we are ever going to restore our faith in our election system, transparency and sunlight are going to be two of the most important. medicines we're going to use in that treatment. And so that is what would happen if this commission

Starting point is 00:13:01 came to be. And that's why Senator Cruz is proposing it. Senator Tom Cotton and Senator Lindsay Graham have pushed back against contesting the Electoral College vote certification. In the House, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who is in leadership, also objects. Tommy, do you think there will be long-term splits among conservative lawmakers due to this issue? No, I don't think that I don't think there would be a long-term split. I mean, you know, I think on the right there is a healthy diversity of opinion. We have robust debate and we challenge one another and we subject ideas to scrutiny. And, you know, there are reasonable perspectives on both sides of this issue. And by the way, the motives of both sides are completely reasonable. The motives of both sides are to stick to the

Starting point is 00:13:48 Constitution and have election results we can count on. They're very smart people. And we're very smart people, and very patriotic, conservative Americans on both sides of that debate. And I think it's okay that there is a budding of heads, that there is some debate about what the right way to go about this. This is what we want. We want the Congress to debate about what its role under the Constitution is. So I think that's a good thing as well. It is, you know, it is up to them to interpret the limit.

Starting point is 00:14:23 the Constitution places on them. Of course, there are checks and balances that are external to the Congress, but the very first step is for the members themselves to decide what the Constitution requires of them. So it's okay to have debate. It's okay to have disagreement. In fact, it's a good thing to have debate and disagreement. And I would just lastly say, you know, this really isn't about the 2020 election, and it really isn't about President Trump. It is about our election process. It is about whether or not we can trust our election process and trust the election results. And it looks to me from my vantage point that the members of the House and the members of the Senate that are on both sides of that divide you just brought up, have that same goal in mind.

Starting point is 00:15:06 And I think that's a good thing. Well, believe it or not, Democrats have in past years objected to Electoral College certification. Fox News reported that the last three times a Republican has been elected president. So Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush, both in 2000 and 2004, Democrats in the House brought objections to electoral votes in the states, the GOP won. And in 2005, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat in California, along with another House member, objected to Bush's 2004 electoral votes in Ohio. So tell me, are Democrats being hypocritical to Republicans who have questioned the election results, given that they have done the very same thing in the past? Well, yes and no. I mean, you know, this has happened before, as you pointed out. And it is a feature of the statute that governs this process, that there is an opportunity for the House to debate and vote on these things. It's a pretty high hurdle to clear that you need a member of the House and a member of the Senate together to object in writing and then both chambers.

Starting point is 00:16:17 need to debate and vote on that. And so it's not surprising that it has happened before. It's not surprising that it's happening now. And we should all be comforted by the fact that, you know, if the election results are going to be changed, you know, passing that hurdle is an extremely high bar. So, yeah, I mean, you know, this has been used by Democrats before, and I expect it will be used again.

Starting point is 00:16:50 And so, you know, in a sense there is some hypocrisy in that. But, you know, I just think we all need to take a step back and realize this is part of the process. And in order for these results to be final, the process needs to take place. And we shouldn't be afraid of that. Well, Tommy, thank you so much for unpacking this and for joining us today on the Daily Sigma podcast. It's always great having you. It's great to be with you. Happy New Year again.

Starting point is 00:17:15 and let's all pay attention to what happens over the next few weeks. It's going to be a wild ride. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening, and we look forward to being back with you all tomorrow. Have a great day.

Starting point is 00:17:47 The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - How Does Congress’ Electoral College Certification Process Work?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.