The House and Senate will meet on Monday in a Joint Session of Congress to certify the outcomes of the 2024 presidential vote.
The Capitol riot and contretemps over certification of the 2020 presidential election transformed the quadrennial, usually sleepy affair of certifying the Electoral College right into a full-blown nationwide safety occasion. Congressional safety officers started erecting 10-foot-high fencing across the outer perimeter of the Capitol advanced over the previous few days. Some of the fences lengthen past the same old “Capitol Square” which incorporates the Capitol constructing itself. One such fence was all the best way across the outer boundaries of the Russell Senate Park.
One of the nice ironies within the American political system is that the one that misplaced the race for the presidency usually presides over their very own defeat. In this case, Vice President Harris. Harris stays the Vice President till January 20. That additionally means she continues as President of the Senate.
Others have carried out this onerous process of certifying their very own defeat. Future President Richard Nixon was Vice President when he misplaced to President John F. Kennedy in 1960. Nixon then licensed JFK because the winner in January 1961. Former Vice President Al Gore ceded his election to President George W. Bush after the disputed 2000 election and tumult over which candidate really gained Florida. Gore was then on the Capitol to seal Bush’s victory in January 2001.
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Sunrise mild hits the U.S. Capitol dome on Thursday, January 2, 2025, because the 119th Congress is ready to start Friday. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc through Getty Images)
Here’s what the twelfth Amendment to the Constitution says about Congress signing off on the election outcomes: “The President of the Senate shall, within the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all of the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.”
This dictates a Joint Session of Congress. This is the place the House and Senate meet collectively, concurrently, often within the House chamber. The Speaker of the House presides alongside the President of the Senate: on this case, Vice President Harris.
But Harris form of runs the present.
The House and Senate solely meet in a Joint Session of Congress to obtain the President for State of the Union and to certify the election consequence. And because the House successfully elected a Speaker on Friday afternoon, the House and Senate can convene the Joint Session. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will co-preside over the session atop the dais within the House chamber.
Things are completely different in comparison with this train 4 years in the past.
The comparatively routine, virtually ceremonial, certification of the Electoral College endlessly modified on January 6, 2021, following the Capitol riot.
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Capitol Police started limiting vehicular site visitors on streets across the Capitol advanced early Monday morning. Access to the House and Senate Office Buildings are restricted to members, employees and guests who’re there are on official enterprise. There will solely be a number of entry factors for pedestrians to the Capitol grounds. Official Capitol excursions are suspended.
Speaker Mike Johnson giving press convention and speech with gavel (Getty Images)
Johnson will name the House to order round 1 p.m. EST on Monday. House Sergeant at Arms Bill McFarland will announce the arrival of Harris and senators as they enter the House chamber. Members of the House Administration Committee and Senate Rules Committee will function “tellers” to help within the tabulation of the electoral votes.
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Harris will declare that the House and Senate are assembly within the Joint Session and announce “that the certificates (of election) are genuine and proper in type.”
Starting with Alabama, it’s possible that one of many tellers will learn the next:
“The certificates of the electoral vote of the State of Alabama appears to be common in type and genuine. It seems due to this fact that Donald John Trump of the State of Florida obtained 9 votes for President and JD Vance of the State of Ohio obtained 9 votes for Vice President.”
And on we go.
In late 2022, lawmakers made a number of adjustments to the 1887 “Electoral Count Act.” Congress initially handed the Electoral Count Act in response to the disputed election of 1876. Multiple states despatched competing slates of electors to Washington. Lawmakers decided there was no formality to tabulating the Electoral College outcomes.
Democrat Samuel Tilden prevailed within the well-liked vote. But President Rutherford B. Hayes gained the White House – after a particular fee empaneled by Congress offered him with 20 electoral votes in dispute.
The Presidental Contest In America, Samuel Tilden, The Democratic Candidate and Rutherford Hayes, The Republic Candidate, 1876. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group through Getty Images)
The 2022 Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act clarified the position of the Vice President within the Joint Session of Congress. President-elect Trump and different loyalists leaned on then-Vice President Pence to claim himself within the course of. Many demanded that he settle for different slates of electors from the states in query. The up to date legislation states that the Vice President’s position is just “ministerial.” The new statute says the Vice President lacks the ability “to find out, settle for, reject, or in any other case adjudicate or resolve disputes over the right record of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.”
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The new legislation additionally established an expedited judicial appellate course of for litigation concerning electoral votes. Finally, the legislation altered how lawmakers themselves can contest a state’s slate of electors through the Joint Session.
The outdated system required one House member and one senator to signal a petition difficult a person state’s electoral slate. In 2021, Republicans deliberate to problem as many as six swing states. They in the end questioned two.
In 2001, a number of members of the Congressional Black Caucus tried to problem Florida’s slate of electors. But they’d no Senate co-sponsor.
FILE: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters within the U.S. Capitol after the final votes of the week on Thursday, September 12, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc through Getty Images)
After Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., made her entreaty to query Florida’s electoral votes, Al Gore – once more, presiding over his personal loss – requested if the California Democrat had a Senate cohort.
Waters replied that she didn’t and “didn’t care.”
Gore then responded with a statesmanlike proclamation that salved the political wounds of the rancorous election he had simply misplaced to President W. Bush.
“The chair will advise that guidelines do care,” pronounced Gore.
His takedown of Waters triggered an outpouring of bipartisan applause within the House chamber.
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A query emerged about Ohio’s slate of electoral votes when Congress started certifying the 2004 election in January 2005. But this time, late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, and former Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., joined forces to compel the House and Senate to debate and vote individually on Ohio’s electoral slate. But each the House and Senate rejected their petition.
The 2022 legislation made it harder to problem a state’s electoral certificates. Now it requires one-fifth of all House members and one-half of all Senate members to problem what the states ship in.
U.S. Representatives of the 119th Congress are sworn in through the first day of session within the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 03, 2025 in Washington, DC. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) retained his Speakership within the face of opposition inside his personal occasion because the 119th Congress holds its first session to vote for a brand new Speaker of the House. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The consequence of the 2024 election shouldn’t be in dispute. There’s no expectation of anybody forcing further Congressional critiques of the Electoral College. And regardless of further precautions, Capitol safety officers are usually not anticipating rallies and definitely no violence, not like 2021.
In 2021 – after the riot and two close to fistfights on the House ground – Pence licensed the result of the electoral vote simply earlier than 4 a.m. EST on January 7. This yr’s train needs to be wrapped up in about an hour or so. Vice President Harris will announce that Donald Trump gained the election “for a time period starting on the twentieth day of January 2025.” She will then dissolve the Joint Session.
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And two weeks later at midday, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts swears-in Donald John Trump on the West Front of the Capitol for his second time period.
