Hi, I have a question. I got into a long discussion with my law-student brother who, while very conservative and a Trump voter, is certainly no anon and very by the books. He said to me about Pence’s decision on the 6th that it was his constitutional duty to certify the votes, even though they may have been fraudulent, because the states had given him their already certified votes. In other words, the states came to pence and said, “we elected this guy, we’ve already certified it.” This left Pence, even if he knew the votes were fraudulent, no choice but to push them through because the constitution dictates it so. The VP “shall” certify the votes, notwithstanding the validity of them, since they’ve gotten to that point. Hopefully this makes sense.
What are your thoughts on this?
The senate rules committee changed the certification rules shortly before the certification date, and it was a very shady move. Tell your friend to look into the technical legal details of how they changed the rules.
Basically, the senate rules making body blocked the dueling (republican) electors from being recognized as legal challengers. That in turn left Pence with only one set of electors (democrat electors) to view as eligible electors for certification. In effect, Pence was never [technically; legally] given the opportunity to hear the contesting (republican) electors, because the senate rules committee blocked their challenge by ruling that they did not exist.
Well, pence destroyed his political career by doing the “right thing”. He’ll never get past being a traitor to 70+ million citizens, if not more.