After the Senate reconvened Wednesday night to count the Electoral College votes, Sen. Josh Hawley used his condemnation of the violence that disrupted Congress’s proceedings earlier in the day to argue that challenging the election results was the “appropriate means” to address claims of widespread voter fraud.
“We cannot say emphatically enough — violence is not how you achieve change. Violence is not how you achieve something better,” Hawley said.
He added: “There’s no place for that in the United States of America, and that’s why I submit to my colleagues that what we’re doing here tonight is actually very important. Because for those who have concerns about the integrity of our elections, those who have concerns about what happened in November — this is the appropriate means, this is the lawful place where those objections and concerns should be heard. This is the forum that the law provides for our laws, provide for for those concerns to be registered — not through violence.”
“And so, to those who say that this is just a formality today, an antique ceremony that we’ve engaged in for a couple of hundred years — I can’t say that I agree,” Hawley said. “I can’t say that our precedents suggest that. I actually think it’s very vital what we do. The opportunity to be heard, to register objections is very vital because this is the place where those objections are to be heard and dealt with, debated, and finally resolved in this lawful means peacefully. Without violence, without attacks, without bullets.”
Other senators condemned both the violence and lawmakers’ attempts at overturning the results of the November election. Sen. Mitt Romney called the chaos “an insurrection, incited by the president” and said lawmakers who continue to support President Trump’s “gambit” by challenging the certification were “complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.”
Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who initially had expressed support for challenging the certification of the Electoral College vote, rescinded her support following the day’s events, calling the spectacle “abhorrent.”
“When I arrived in Washington this morning, I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes,” said Loeffler, who early Wednesday morning lost her runoff election against Rev. Raphael Warnock. “However, the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider, and I cannot now in good consciousness object to the certification of these electors. The violence, lawlessness, and siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent and stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was intended to protect, the sanctity of the American democratic process.”
Kelly Loeffler states she believes there were significant election irregularities & she had every intention of objecting today, but changed her mind after a few dozen people stormed the Capitol. She sends her regrets to the 74,222,560 of you who didn’t.pic.twitter.com/1YLiOOvmeN
— Brandon Straka (@BrandonStraka) January 7, 2021
“I hope that this body will not miss the opportunity to take affirmative action to address the concerns of so many millions of Americans,” Hawley closed. “We need to find a way to move forward on that together so the American people from both parties, all walks of life can have confidence in their elections and that we can arrange ourselves under the rule of law that we shared together.”
