Kansas’ Marshall signs onto Hawley’s effort to contest Biden’s presidential victory
Kansas Senator-elect Roger Marshall will support Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s objection to President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory, the Kansas Republican and 10 other GOP lawmakers announced Saturday.
Marshall, a Great Bend Republican who will take the oath of office Sunday, was one of 11 Republicans to announce they will back Hawley’s plan to object to Biden’s win on Jan. 6 in what will amount to a symbolic protest against the election outcome.
“We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy,” said a joint statement released by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s office on behalf of Marshall and the other signatories.
Marshall, who served two terms in the U.S. House, had previously signed onto an amicus brief in support of Texas’ unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to overturn the election.
The release invoked the 1876 election, an infamously close contest decided by one electoral vote, and asserted that Congress should follow the precedent set in 1877 and appoint an electoral commission to investigate claims of voter fraud.
The senators asserted in their statement that “the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes,” but the only evidence provided to support was polling data showing that 67% of Republicans believe the election is rigged— which comes after President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of fraud as he refuses to concede the election.
Trump’s campaign has offered scant evidence in court of fraud, and its speculative arguments have repeatedly been rejected by federal and state courts. A federal judge in Pennsylvania scolded Trump’s lawyers in November for “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” in their unsuccessful bid to disqualify millions of votes.
“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state,” U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann said at the time.
But despite dozens of court rulings, Trump and his allies have continued to allege fraud in public statements without offering evidence in court.
In a personal statement, Marshall tied his decision to back the effort to object to Biden’s electoral votes to his medical background.
“A good physician always listens to the patient’s symptoms and concerns, and then isolates the main issue for treatment. This election was no different, we must hold accountable any state that disregarded the law and our constitution,” Marshall said in a statement first provided to The Star.
In supporting Hawley’s challenge to the election results, Marshall is defying former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, a Kansas Republican icon who recorded multiple campaign ads on behalf of Marshall during his Senate campaign.
Dole told The Star last month that the “election is over and Biden will be president on January 20. I know the president has not conceded and he may never concede, but he will not be in the White House on January 21. It’s a pretty bitter pill for Trump, but it’s a fact he lost.”
Dual efforts by Hawley and House Republicans to contest the election will trigger debates and require roll call votes in both chambers of Congress, but the measures stand little chance of success in the Democratic-controlled House or in the GOP-controlled Senate, where multiple Senate Republicans have indicated their opposition.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2012 election despite winning a greater share of the popular vote than Trump received in 2020, blasted the effort Friday.
“It continues to spread the false rumor that somehow the election was stolen. Look, I lost in 2012 I know what it’s like to lose… I have people today who say, hey, you know what you really won, but I didn’t, I lost fair and square,” Romney told reporters.
“Spreading this kind of rumor about our election system not working is dangerous for democracy here and abroad.”
Hawley hasn’t specified which states’ electoral votes he plans to object to next week, but in his release he singled out Pennsylvania, which Biden won by 1.2 percentage points, for extending its deadline for mail-in voting.
Both Pennsylvania and Kansas accepted mail-in ballots up to three days after the Nov. 3 election. The late-arriving ballots did not change the outcome in the presidential election in either state. Missouri enforced a strict Election Day deadline for mail-in ballots.
Hawley’s decision to bring the objection has largely been interpreted as a political maneuver aimed at 2024 when Hawley may be a candidate for president. Hawley followed his Wednesday announcement with a grassroots fundraising plea the following day.
The GOP senators signing onto the motion Saturday include Cruz, another likely presidential contender, and some of Trump’s most ardent allies: Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, Montana Sen. Steve Daines, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Indiana Sen. Mike Braun.
In addition to these senators, every newly elected Senate Republican joined Marshall in backing the measure: Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. The four Republicans will officially join the Senate on Sunday at noon.
Their decision to support the measure comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sought to persuade the GOP caucus against forcing a protest vote. The vote will put pressure on Republicans up for re-election in 2022, including Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran.
Blunt, the No. 4 Republican in the Senate, said he won’t support any objections to the electoral votes. Moran hasn’t explicitly stated how he’ll vote on Hawley’s objection, but last month the Kansas Republican said it was “time for Americans to pull together” after the Electoral College formally affirmed Biden’s victory with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
Hawley said on Fox News earlier this week that he is bringing the motion to stand up for 74 million Americans who voted for Trump “who feel disenfranchised, who feel like their vote doesn’t matter.”
That statement overlooks the fact that 81 million Americans supported Biden.
Hawley has repeatedly pointed out that Democrats have objected to Republican presidential victories in the past.
Factions of House Democrats brought objections in 2000, 2004 and 2016. In 2004, then-California Sen. Barbara Boxer objected to Ohio’s electors, but her objection was voted down 74 to 1.
But the number of House Republicans expected to object to Biden’s victory will be unprecedented with as many 140 reportedly considering it.
At least four of them will be from Missouri: Reps. Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler, Billy Long and Jason Smith. In a joint op-ed, the four Missouri Republicans acknowledged that the effort has no chance of success in the Democratic-controlled House.
“We have no illusions about the outcome, at the end of the day, this is still Nancy Pelosi’s House. Our only hope is that more will join us - that more will value protecting the vote of every American living in their state as much as we do fighting for yours,” said the op-ed, which advocates for disqualifying the electoral votes of other states.
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 11:34 AM with the headline "Kansas’ Marshall signs onto Hawley’s effort to contest Biden’s presidential victory."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly included Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe on the list of Republicans who had signed the joint statement.
