Today Congress will certify Donald Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. The 12th Amendment names today’s date, Jan. 6, at 1 p.m. as the time for the president of the Senate (Vice President Joe Biden) to read off the Electoral College votes.
But a 1948 law gives Democrats a chance to raise a ruckus today — as they raised a ruckus the last two times a Republican won the presidential election.
Under 3 USC § 15, members can file an objection to any elector. Any valid objection has to come in writing from at least one member of each chamber.
Democrats used this Jan. 6 meeting and this 1948 law as an opportunity for political theater in the two elections George W. Bush won, and they may do so again this afternoon (making them 3-for-3 over the past 20 years in protesting GOP victories).
In 2001, some House members rose to object to Florida’s electors. They claimed disenfranchisement and miscounted or uncounted votes improperly gave Bush a 537-vote victory. But no senator joined them, and so their objections were invalid.
Four years later, Democrats did it again, with on far thinner grounds, but this time they got Sen. Barbara Boxer to join in the objection to Ohio’s votes. That triggered a debate and a vote in both chambers. There was no argument that Ohio’s electors were improperly chosen or certified — or that John Kerry had really won Ohio. This was half an opportunity to bash Bush, and half an opportunity to attack Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a popular and rising black politician. Ohio’s electors, obviously, were approved.
So this year, Democrats may play this game again. But odds are they’ll have no grounds for it. Here’s the relevant, if confusing, text of the law:
no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified.
That is, Congress can only reject “votes … not … regularly given by electors whose appointment has been [lawfully] certified.” In other words, today’s meeting isn’t a chance to say Trump is horrible, or Trump lost the popular vote, or even Trump has committed a high crime or misdemeanor. It’s just a question of whether these electors were chosen and voted properly.
In the past this hasn’t stopped Democrats, though, who haven’t let a Republican president get past Jan. 6 without a ruckus since 1988.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
