Situations of a Home member and a senator teaming up are extra uncommon and final passed off in 2005. If it occurred, the joint session would instantly pause so lawmakers may return to their respective chambers to debate the objection for as much as two hours. They’d then vote on whether or not to toss out the electoral outcomes of the state in query. Each chambers must conform to reject the votes, one thing that has not occurred for the reason that Reconstruction period.
“By guaranteeing that each chambers should reject a submission, you scale back the danger of Congress going rogue electorally and repudiating the outcomes of a state,” mentioned Edward B. Foley, a constitutional legislation professor at Ohio State College who research the electoral course of.
Win or lose, Trump’s allies can reach casting a shadow on Biden’s victory.
Mr. Trump’s allies, led by Consultant Mo Brooks of Alabama, have their sights set on difficult 5 states — Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin — the place they declare that widespread voting fraud occurred, although all 5 states have licensed that the outcomes are legitimate and there’s no proof of any widespread impropriety.
The important thing will likely be recruiting a Republican senator to affix them, and to this point none has publicly dedicated to doing so. With no senator, their efforts will shortly fail and Mr. Biden may very well be formally declared president-elect in underneath an hour.
If a senator did signal on to problem the outcomes, Republicans may pressure Congress right into a ultimate, messy debate over Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede defeat and his baseless claims of election fraud, which have been roundly rejected in courtroom.
Given Democrats’ management of the Home and Republicans’ slender Senate majority, nearly nobody expects that they might have the votes to achieve disqualifying a state — a lot much less 5. However the debate and vote alone would put Republicans in a tough place, forcing them to decide on between an uncompromising president and their perception within the electoral course of. Their selections may doubtless go a great distance in setting the long run course of the occasion, religion in American elections and the perceived legitimacy of a Biden presidency by the Republican base.
Pence could have essentially the most uncomfortable activity of all.
On the finish of the method, it will likely be left to Mr. Pence to declare Mr. Biden the winner as soon as and for all, albeit in tangled prose.