it, like you and I? Or are they merely passing the buck?
Here is the reality. Look, I believe this was not a fraud-free election. I believe that there were problems in Pennsylvania and in Georgia. But the Constitution gives us the right to fix that at the State level, not throw out the electoral college. We do not want to absolve the responsibility of the people in those States to hold their own lawmakers accountable.
I, as a Washington State Congresswoman, don’t know better than the people in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Folks, we can’t vote to undermine the electoral college today. We have to uphold it.
Mr. Posey. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the objection.
The Speaker. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Posey. Madam Speaker, as you have heard from both sides of the aisle over and over and over today and tonight, Members of Congress take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.
Clearly, the Constitution says State legislatures make voting laws, period, end of subject. And, clearly, in Pennsylvania and some other States, non-legislators changed those voting laws.
No matter who wins or who loses, those are violations of the Constitution whether you, me, or anyone else likes it or not.
As Congressman Davidson pointed out, over a dozen FBI agents were immediately dispatched to fully investigate Bubba Wallace’s garage door. But, sadly, the FBI never responded to my request to investigate massive voting irregularity accusations, like the video footage from Georgia that we all wished we didn’t see.
Neither has the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Postal Inspector General, the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and, saddest of all, the U.S. Department of Justice.
The right to vote is not only a constitutional right, it is also a civil right, and we must protect it. Running a fair and transparent election is not something America should run away from. It is something we must live up to.
Every eligible American has a right to have their vote counted and the right to feel confident that his or her vote was counted, not neutralized by an illegal vote.
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Otherwise, I fear our Republic is doomed. That is why I implore you to support a full investigation.
Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the fine gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).
Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, this has been an interesting day. And I know we want to debate this, and we brought up all kinds of things, all kinds of points of history and what happened and where it happened and all the rest of this, and we are very, very grateful to the Capitol Police and all those who came in to protect us.
But the real debate right now about Pennsylvania is Pennsylvania’s Act 77. Was it constitutional or was it unconstitutional? All the rest of the trimmings you can set aside and just decide: Was it constitutional or unconstitutional?
Act 77 changed Pennsylvania’s voting law and Pennsylvania’s Constitution.
Now, Pennsylvania could change that law, but it is done through an amendment to the constitution. It is not just done because somebody would like to see that done.
We had a mail ballot that was available. It was an absentee ballot. We did not have a no-excuse ballot.
What did Pennsylvania have to do to get to the point where they would have a no-excuse mail-in ballot?
Number one, in two successive sessions of the Pennsylvania Legislature, that had to be passed in that legislation, one session after the other. If it passed both times, then it had to be published in every one of the 67 counties of Pennsylvania, twice. When that was finished, it then had to go before the Pennsylvania voters to decide whether they wanted the constitution amended.
Pennsylvania did the first one. They actually did take a vote, and it was overwhelming. But then they scrapped it, and they put it in an omnibus bill. That is an unconstitutional change. You cannot do it. It is that simple.
So I love the idea about Washington crossing the Delaware. I love the idea about Washington going through a terrible winter.
I hate the idea of what we had to go through today. But if oaths don’t matter, and we have all taken them, and if the Constitution doesn’t matter, why do we even do it? Why go through this charade that somehow we are really close friends, except when it comes to the really important things?
We have driven this country apart through the people’s House, and we wonder what happened?
The biggest loss on November 3 was not by Donald Trump; it was the faith and trust that the American people lost in this voting system because we have allowed it to happen. It is unconstitutional.
Mr. Schiff. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition.
The Speaker. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Schiff. Madam Speaker, 80 years ago today, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his third inaugural address. “Every realist knows,” he said, “that the democratic way of life at this moment is being directly assailed in every part of the world—assailed either by arms, or by the secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who would seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations still at peace.”
Today, the principal threat to our democracy comes from a different but also poisonous propaganda of those who seek to destroy our unity and promote discord.
According to this propaganda, America cannot conduct a free or fair election. Our elections are rigged and doomed.
According to this propaganda, the voters can no longer decide who shall be President. The Congress must decide for them.
At a time when our Nation faces an unprecedented health crisis, with thousands dying every day, with Americans struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head, who are we to say that the man America chose to lead us out of this calamity shall not take office?
The coronavirus will claim more American lives than all of the casualties in World War II. To meet that moment will require unity, not discord; will require an abiding faith in our country, in our democracy, in our government’s ability to function and provide for the needs of its citizens.
The Members of this body cannot continue to challenge the merits of an election that was fairly conducted and overwhelmingly won by Joe Biden. It must stop.
Look at the damage that was wrought in this House today, to this country today. Is that not enough?
Roosevelt said: “This Nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women. … Our strength,” he concluded “is our unity of purpose.”
Let us unite once again in defense of the greatest hope of freedom-loving people around the world, this precious democracy.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).
Mr. Raskin. Madam Speaker, the baseless attack on Pennsylvania and its electors brought to mind, for me, the great Tom Paine, the champion of popular democracy, who came over to America to fight with us in the Revolution against the king. He lived in Philadelphia, where he wrote “Common Sense” and “The Age of Reason.” And Paine said: In the monarchies, the king is the law; but in the democracies, the law will be king.
When you think about it, the peaceful transfer of power is the central condition of maintaining democracy under the rule of law. That is why the famous election of 1801 was such a big deal.
When John Adams relinquished the Presidency to his passionate adversary and lifelong friend Thomas Jefferson, it was the first peaceful transition of power between democracies in a democratic republic in the history of the world.
And he said, as he rode back to Massachusetts from Washington, Adams said that he did this because we are a government of laws and not of men. We will betray this principle if we trade a government of laws for a government of men or, even worse, a single man, or an impressionable and dangerous mob
