Wednesday’s congressional vote to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory is putting California Republicans in a no-win position. Either they’re with President Trump — whom California voters overwhelmingly rejected — or they’re against him.
Most of the 11 Republicans in California’s congressional delegation have dodged the issue, but that won’t be an option Wednesday. So far, only two have had the courage to say publicly they’ll go against the defeated president.
But many of the rest are sure to side with Trump and defy the facts — that every state has certified its election results, and that courts have rejected nearly five dozen legal challenges to them by the Trump campaign and its allies. They’ll go against fellow conservatives, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who tell them that Biden indeed won the Electoral College by 74 votes and that there’s no basis for challenging Biden electors from six states that Trump claims he somehow won.
The reason: Most of the California Republicans fear Trump. Or more accurately, the 6 million Californians who voted for him. It is another sign that while Trump will be out of the White House come Jan. 20, Trumpism will live on — certainly in many of their districts.
“The dilemma for Republicans is that you can’t live with him and you can’t live without him,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.
Wednesday’s drama will unfold over many hours, possibly into early Thursday. In the end, Trump will lose — Democrats control the House, and enough Republican senators oppose the challenge to ensure the election results will be upheld there as well.
The Republicans who vote to essentially endorse the baseless election conspiracies Trump has spread hope to avoid the wrath of his supporters, who even in California now constitute the core of the Republican Party. That wrath can bring something every officeholder dreads: a primary challenge from a fellow party member.
If they vote contrary to Trump’s wishes, they fear he will turn against them — first on Twitter, then by personally campaigning against them.
Trump, of course, encourages that fear. On Tuesday, he ripped Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton, who has been one of the president’s most faithful allies but who says he won’t support the challenge to Biden’s victory.
“How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG,” Trump tweeted. “@SenTomCotton Republicans have pluses & minuses, but one thing is sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!”
How can you certify an election when the numbers being certified are verifiably WRONG. You will see the real numbers tonight during my speech, but especially on JANUARY 6th. @SenTomCotton Republicans have pluses & minuses, but one thing is sure, THEY NEVER FORGET!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2021
If Trump would do that to Cotton, he would do that to any Republican.
“The most important reason for a member of Congress (to oppose certification) is that they’re afraid of him, afraid of his populist base,” said Terry Moe, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
“This is authoritarianism,” said Moe, author of the book “Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy.” “We’re in the midst of a crisis of democracy. The Republican Party has become an anti-democracy party.”
One California Republican who doesn’t fear Trump or his legions is Rep. Tom McClintock, who represents parts of 10 counties from Truckee to Fresno. He joined 11 fellow House Republicans in announcing he wouldn’t back Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results.
McClintock is not afraid of bucking his party, usually on the basis of his strict adherence to states’ rights. He supported legalizing cannabis in California in 2016, before Vice President-elect Kamala Harris or some Democrats in the state, let alone other Republicans.
“I abhor the use of marijuana and believe we should do everything we can through education and persuasion to discourage its use,” McClintock said then. “But our current laws have failed us, and have created a violent and criminal black market that actively and aggressively markets to young people.”
It was the rare I-abhor-the-thing-I’m-endorsing endorsement. But that’s McClintock.
He’s not a never-Trumper. He voted with the president 94% of the time in the last session of Congress. But McClintock won’t back Trump’s position Wednesday.
“If the Congress can refuse to count electoral votes — for whatever reason — then it has the inherent power to seize the decision for itself and render the Electoral College superfluous,” McClintock wrote in a recent opinion piece that appeared in the Union, a Nevada County publication.
“Unlike the judiciary, Congress has an obvious conflict of interest: If it invalidates enough votes, it gets to elect the president and vice president directly. If the founders had intended to give this power to the Congress, why did they go to all the fuss and bother of designing an Electoral College at all?
“And here’s a bonus question: Does anyone seriously believe that a body of 535 intensely partisan politicians is a safe repository for the power to adjudicate the integrity of the vote?” McClintock wrote.
Taking a strict constitutional position used to be a no-brainer for Republicans. But now, more Republicans are like Rep. Mike Garcia, who was just elected to his first full term in a battleground Los Angeles County district. He’s backing Trump’s challenge.
He, too, sought to assure his supporters that his position was rooted in the Constitution. Only that it was the opposite position from the one McClintock took.
“While I am a federalist, I believe there is enough evidence of compromised processes and breakdowns in election integrity by certain state legislatures that do in fact warrant a closer examination,” Garcia said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Garcia’s move to “hitch his political star to Trump” surprised Cal State Los Angeles’ Sonenshein, especially in a district where he needs Democratic and independent voters to stay in office.
Newly elected GOP Rep. Young Kim, who just won a battleground district in Orange County, acknowledged that reality, saying she will vote to uphold Biden’s victory.
“Congress does not determine which electors states send, and we must respect the authority of the states. The Electoral College has voted and I will respect their vote,” Kim said in a statement. “My focus, as always, is being an independent representative for the 39th District of California.”
Garcia, on the other hand, is banking on that “everyone’s memory is short,” Sonenshine said. “The calculus is, ‘I’ll do this now and stay on the good side of Trump and then in two years people will have other things to think about and won’t remember this.’”
Garcia wrote that Wednesday’s vote “is not about Trump versus Biden or left versus right. It is about seeking assured security ... in knowing that not only will every legitimate vote be counted, but that every illegitimate and fraudulent vote will NOT be counted.”
Don’t believe it, said Moe, the Hoover Institution fellow.
“You can’t expect these people to tell you the truth about why they’re doing this,” Moe said. “Politicians won’t say why because they’re afraid of the Trump base.”
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
"choice" - Google News
January 06, 2021 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/394lhlD
California Republicans’ choice: Respect election results or honor Trump - San Francisco Chronicle
"choice" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2WiOHpU
https://ift.tt/3c9nRHD
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "California Republicans’ choice: Respect election results or honor Trump - San Francisco Chronicle"
Post a Comment