Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a longtime supporter of President Trump, broke with some of his GOP colleagues in the House and Senate and said he will not dispute the electoral college results when Congress meets this week to certify them.
Cotton said the effort led by Sens. Ted Cruz from Texas and Josh Hawley from Missouri in the Senate and Rep. Mo Brooks would set an “unwise precedent” in the House and exceed their authority under the US Constitution.
“The founders entrusted our elections mainly to the states, not to Congress. They entrusted the election of our president to the people, acting through the electoral college – not congress. And they entrusted the trial of election disputes to the courts – not to Congress, ”Cotton said in a statement released Sunday.
“Under the constitution and federal law, the power of Congress is limited to counting electoral votes submitted by states,” he continued. “If Congress claimed to destroy the results of the electoral college, it would not only exceed that power, but also set unwise precedents.”
On Wednesday, a joint meeting of Congress will convene to certify the results that earned President-elect Joe Biden 306 electoral votes to President Trump’s 232.
Contesting the Electoral College’s results to tip the election to Trump would rob the people of power to elect the president and place that power in the “hands of the party that controls Congress,” said Cotton of Arkansas. .
Due to concerns about election irregularities due to ‘relaxed standards’ for voting by mail, Cotton said he would support the appointment of a congressional committee to investigate the elections, as Cruz and his group of Republicans have called,’ to maintain integrity. to protect. of our elections. “
He said he is “grateful” for what Trump has accomplished during his four years in the White House, but “objecting to certified electoral votes will not give him a second term – it will only encourage those Democrats who want to further erode our constitutional system. government. “