Sen. Tom Cotton wanted to get out ahead of colleagues in defying President Trump’s demand that electoral votes for Joe Biden be rejected when Congress counts them on Wednesday, according to a source close to the Arkansas Republican.
Cotton concluded weeks ago that Congress had no constitutional authority to reject Electoral College votes certifying Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election, the source said. But he announced sooner to prevent a bandwagon effect among Republicans pressured to join various objections.
A close ally of Trump and an aspiring 2024 contender, Cotton shocked political observers with his opposition to efforts by Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri to object to Electoral College votes from a half-dozen swing states that narrowly delivered Biden the White House. Their bid to overturn the Nov. 3 election and deliver Trump a second term is being stoked by the outgoing president, and it enjoys strong support among grassroots Republicans.
But Cotton, a Harvard-trained lawyer, determined in mid-December that there was no basis in the Constitution for Congress declining to accept state-certified Electoral College votes. The source close to Cotton said the senator made the decision after reviewing an exhaustive study of federal law and related information prepared for him by his Senate staff and informed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Cotton intended to stay mum until Wednesday, ahead of the joint session of Congress being convened to certify Biden’s victory that is usually a formality. He privately urged fellow Republicans to do the same to avoid infighting that might undermine GOP prospects in a pair of key Senate runoff elections in Georgia being held on Tuesday. After Cruz and Hawley went public with their plans, Cotton, after further consultation with McConnell, moved his timeline up to Sunday.
In doing so, Cotton hoped to lend some of his political muscle to colleagues who agreed with his approach to Biden’s ascension but were facing political pressure to acquiesce to Trump and join Cruz and Hawley in objecting. Unknown is whether Cotton sullied a sterling reputation with the GOP base earned through leadership on major domestic and foreign policy issues, a willingness to do battle with Democrats and the media, and a close alliance with Trump.
“I’m really surprised Cotton isn’t getting involved in the attempt to overturn the election. He is the senator I saw as the most likely to carry the Trump mantle in the 2024 GOP presidential primary,” Republican operative Jim Dornan said. “Does this hurt Cotton? In the end, he will be proven correct. The question then becomes, does that really matter to Trump’s base?”
Cotton explained himself again on Tuesday in an op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the method and venue he had previously planned to reveal his opposition to attempts to block Biden from the White House.
“Of course, I share the concerns of many Arkansans about irregularities in the election, especially in states that rushed through election-law changes to relax standards for voting by mail,” Cotton wrote. “Nevertheless, the founders entrusted our elections chiefly to the states — not Congress. They entrusted the election of our president to the people, acting through the electoral college — not Congress. And they entrusted the adjudication of election disputes to the courts — not Congress.”
Congress is set to meet Wednesday in a joint session to count and accept all Electoral College votes that were certified by the states. After the states, plus Washington, D.C., tallied and certified their votes on Dec. 14, as mandated by the Constitution, Biden defeated Trump 306 to 232 (270 was the threshold for victory). But Trump, claiming the election was stolen in a broad conspiracy, wants Republicans in the House and Senate to step in.
Aside from Trump’s failure to convince any federal or state court that voter fraud or irregularities of significant measure occurred and aside from the constitutional conundrum, Democrats control the House. That ensures votes to delay or prevent Biden’s certification will never materialize. Additionally, the GOP majority in the Senate is so thin, existing Republican opposition to objecting guarantees it will fail there as well, even if the party wins both runoffs in Georgia on Tuesday.
Cruz, a likely presidential candidate in 2024, remains undaunted, as does Hawley, who also is mentioned as a contender for higher office in 2024. Meanwhile, Cotton is not alone among conservative Republicans typically aligned with Trump, who are opposing attempts to object to Biden’s victory. In the House, about a half-dozen Republicans said they would vote to certify, citing constitutional issues similar to those raised by Cotton.
Trump continues to insist he won the election. In a tweet on Monday in which he tagged Cotton, he said: “How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG.” In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump argued that Vice President Mike Pence “has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.”
