Nadene Goldfoot
Description
The oath of office that Pence took back in 2017 was simply stated:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Under the duties of his office, the important one is:
The vice president is also an officer in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate. In this capacity, the vice president is empowered to preside over Senate deliberations, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote.
Right now, a growing number of Trump loyalists in the Senate vow to challenge Biden's victory. The question has been, does Pence have the power of his vote in order to keep Trump in office? All the pundits say no, while Trump says yes and Pence is doing a good job of evading the pressure from Trump. Today is the 6th of January. The election says that Biden won by some 11,000 votes. It was very close.
"Biden’s total margin is more than 312,000. Joe Biden won with a wide lead in both the electoral college and in the popular vote. The electoral college gave Joe Biden a decisive majority of its votes on Dec. 14, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly congratulated Biden and Kamala D. Harris.
Trump has challenged certain ballots or the certification of the vote — and has lost more than 50 cases, including at the Supreme Court. Trump’s legal efforts have been struck down in federal cases in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania and in state courts in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, most recently on Jan. 4 and Jan. 5. Georgia has recounted 3 times already, once by hand. The governor refuses to change their vote and said he cannot do it. The pressure is now on Pence from the president..
- The Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit Dec. 11 that sought to void 20 million votes in four other states. The unsigned order found Texas lacked standing to intervene under the Constitution’s Article 3.
- Trump has told Pence the following in a tweet: " states want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!" It's these irregularities and fraud and corrupt processes that have not been proven legally. Neither Trump nor Pence are lawyers.
When the Founders were drafting Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the judicial branch and its powers, they sought to treat states with the dignity they deserved as sovereigns in their own right. They carved out an avenue for suits involving states. They said in Article III, Section 2, that “In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction.” The Judiciary Act of 1789 went further by stating that the Supreme Court had exclusive jurisdiction over suits between two or more states, between a state and a foreign government, and in suits against ambassadors and other public ministers,
Therefore, Georgia should be treated with dignity and their voting statement should be accepted: is how I interpret this, but then I'm not a lawyer.
Right now, Georgia Senate runoffs: Democrat Raphael Warnock projected to win first of the two Senate runoff elections, according to AP, NBC and ABC. Georgia already has voted in a Democrat, Raphael Warnock, who is the first Black Senator from Georgia now.
This challenging of elections has happened 8 other times in our history:
1. 1800 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams--Thomas Jefferson and his chosen V.P. pick, Aaron Burr, tied for first place 73-73 due to a communication error among Democratic-Republican electors (or a Burr-led conspiracy, depending on whom you believe). President John Adams, a member of the rival Federalist Party, managed only 65 votes.
2. 1824 John Quincey Adams and Henry Clay-with John Calhoun the VP. By this time, the Federalist Party had dissolved, and all four candidates for president were Democratic-Republicans. “Old Hickory” Andrew Jackson, hero of the War of 1812, won the popular vote by fewer than 39,000 ballots, and captured 99 electoral votes; Secretary of State John Quincy Adams took 84 electoral votes, with 41 going to Treasury Secretary William Crawford and 37 to House Speaker Henry Clay
3. 1860 Abraham Lincoln .and Stephen Douglas; Abraham Lincoln, the chosen nominee of the fledgling Republican Party and a steadfast opponent of slavery, wasn’t even on the ballot in most Southern states.
4. 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes and Sam Tilden This one was a doozy: Democratic Governor Samuel Tilden of New York won 250,000 more ballots in the popular vote than his Republican opponent, Rutherford B. Hayes, and snagged 19 more electoral votes. But Tilden was still one electoral vote short of the required majority (185), and 20 votes remained uncounted: Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina remained too close to call, as each party accused the other of fraud, while in Oregon an elector was declared illegal and replaced, with controversial results. As the crisis mounted, threats of another civil war loomed.
5. 1912 William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt Recently returned from the 10-month African safari he took after leaving the White House, Theodore Roosevelt found himself drawn back into politics as the 1912 election approached. After his close friend and handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, angered Roosevelt and fellow progressives by siding increasingly with the conservative wing of the Republican Party,
6. 1948 Harry S. Truman and Thomas Dewey The outcome of the 1948 election looked clear: President Harry S. Truman was on his way out. In the midterm elections of 1946, both houses of Congress had gone Republican for the first time in nearly 20 years, and opinion polls showed only 1 in 3 Americans approved of Truman’s leadership. Though Republican challenger Thomas Dewey was a strong candidate, having lost a close race to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Truman’s biggest struggle was opposition within his own party.
7. 2000 George W. Bush and Al Gore It was the election that went on forever—or at least that’s what it seemed like. In the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush, it all came down to the outcome in Florida: TV networks initially announced the state had gone in Gore’s favor, then said it was too close to call before finally calling it for the Texas governor. With just a few hundred votes separating the candidates in Florida, the lawsuits and recounts began in full force,
8. 2016 Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Bush v. Gore may have been the first time in modern history a president was elected despite losing the popular vote, but it wasn't the last. In 2016, businessman and reality TV host Donald Trump defeated former first lady, senator and secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, even though she received three million more votes than him in the popular vote.
And so it goes, our honesty with our Democratic way of life. Personally, I love the way we Oregonians have mail in voting. That way, such elders as myself can vote, though I remember going with my mother to my Abernethy School a block away and voting-rather she did the voting and I looked around the gym where it was taking place. Our gym was full of those voting booths ! Oh dear. Those were the good old days!
Update 11:30am, Congress is in lockdown because of Trump marchers outside
Resource:
https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/vice-presidents-swearing-in-ceremony/#:~:text=I%20do%20solemnly%20swear%20(or,that%20I%20will%20well%20and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20vice%20president%20is%20also,cast%20a%20tie%2Dbreaking%20vote.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-texass-election-suit-failed-to-reach-first-base-in-the-supreme-court
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1346808075626426371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1346808075626426371%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fsections%2Fc
https://www.thewrap.com/georgia-us-senate-runoff-election-raphael-warnock-kelly-loeffler/
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