House Dems’ Last-Ditch Effort To Derail Trump Fails

Democrat Hillary Clinton outpolled Republican Donald Trump by more than 2.8 million votes in November’s election – about 2.1 percent.

Mr. Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20 at the U.S. Capitol, was affirmed the victor of the November general election in a joint session of the House of Representatives and Senate presided over by Vice President Joe Biden.

Fellow Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland; Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington; Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; and Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., also attempted to protest the Electoral College results. Two Republican electors bucked their state tally and voted for someone other than Trump, although the result was not in doubt.

The end of the 2016 presidential election is at hand. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden will preside over the session.

Biden cut Jayapal off with a slam of the gavel.

The United States Constitution allows The United States Congress to choose someone other than Donald Trump when they are asked to certify the results of The Electoral College. That’s because Trump won states with 306 electoral votes, to Clinton’s 232. (The really problematic states were Florida, Louisiana and SC, and OR also had a single disputed electoral vote that year.) By leaving Congress in a position to answer that question, the situation meant that Congress was essentially going to choose who would be president.

But they have one more (ridiculously long) shot to deploy. The agreement, a legally enforceable compact among the states, would take effect only when signed by states representing a majority – 270 votes – in the Electoral College. “There is no debate”, he said, noting any such objection had to be in writing and signed by a member of the House and the Senate. During the course of the certification, House Democrats tried to object to electoral votes from multiples states, with Biden gaveling them down for failure to follow the rules. Jim McGovern (D-MA) objected to Alabama’s electoral votes, arguing that Russian Federation interfered in the democratic process. It didn’t stop President George W. Bush’s re-election, but it made a symbolic point that Democrats were willing fight for Americans’ voting rights.