Mitt Romey's Statement on Certification of U.S. Presidential Election Results

 I urge you to read this statement from Mitt Romney, a Republican, and the junior United States senator from Utah.  Thoughtful Republicans will realize that the issue of the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election goes far beyond partisanship.  It's a matter of preserving American democracy for future generations.  

- Joanne

Romney Statement On Certification of Presidential Election Results

Sunday, January 3, 2021

SALT LAKE CITY– U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) released the following statement in response to an announcement that several Republican senators plan to oppose certification of the presidential election results:
       
“The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic. The congressional power to reject electors is reserved for the most extreme and unusual circumstances. These are far from it. More Americans participated in this election than ever before, and they made their choice. President Trump’s lawyers made their case before scores of courts; in every instance, they failed. The Justice Department found no evidence of irregularity sufficient to overturn the election. The Presidential Voter Fraud Commission disbanded without finding such evidence.
     
“My fellow Senator Ted Cruz and the co-signers of his statement argue that rejection of electors or an election audit directed by Congress would restore trust in the election. Nonsense. This argument ignores the widely perceived reality that Congress is an overwhelmingly partisan body; the American people wisely place greater trust in the federal courts where judges serve for life. Members of Congress who would substitute their own partisan judgement for that of the courts do not enhance public trust, they imperil it.
     
“Were Congress to actually reject state electors, partisans would inevitably demand the same any time their candidate had lost. Congress, not voters in the respective states, would choose our presidents.
     
“Adding to this ill-conceived endeavor by some in Congress is the President’s call for his supporters to come to the Capitol on the day when this matter is to be debated and decided. This has the predictable potential to lead to disruption, and worse.
   
“I could never have imagined seeing these things in the greatest democracy in the world. Has ambition so eclipsed principle?”

EDITOR'S UPDATE (January 4, 2021): On Sunday, January 3, 2021,  Former House Speaker, Paul Ryan, a Republican who represented Wisconsin in Congress from  1999 to 2019.  He spoke out against members of his own party who were planning to reject congressional certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Paul Ryan

Here is Ryan's statement

"All our basic rights and freedoms flow from a fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.  This principle is not only fundamentally American but a central tenet of conservatism.  Under our system, voters determine the president, and this self-governance cannot sustain itself if the whims of Congress replace the will of the people."

I don't usually agree with Paul Ryan, but in this case, he's absolutely correct about the rule of law.  I wish more conservatives felt this way.

- Joanne