Moran will affirm Biden’s victory, criticizes GOP efforts ‘undermining our democracy’
Sen. Jerry Moran will be the only Kansas Republican to oppose an effort to contest President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when Congress meets Wednesday to certify the election.
Moran, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs committee, was the first congressional Republican from the Kansas City region to acknowledge Biden’s status as president-elect. He has met with Biden’s pick to run the Department of Veteran Affairs, Denis McDonough, since the Electoral College affirmed Biden’s victory last month.
But until Tuesday, Moran had not said how he would vote Wednesday when a handful of Senate Republicans, including Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, plan to object to Biden’s electoral votes.
Moran confirmed that he would oppose the effort to discard swing states’ electors.
“I am a conservative Republican. Therefore, I must strictly adhere to the United States Constitution. The Constitution clearly limits the role of Congress with respect to presidential elections to the counting of electoral votes that have been certified by the states. The states, consistent with the principles of federalism and a limited national government, possess the sole authority to determine and submit their electors,” Moran said.
“To vote to reject these state-certified electoral votes would be to act outside the bounds of the Constitution, which I will not do.”
Moran joins Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt in opposition to the challenge, which stands virtually no chance of reversing the election outcome. But divisions created by the objections of Hawley, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and others are likely to cloud the early months of Biden’s presidency, as outgoing President Donald Trump refuses to concede the election despite losing the Electoral College by the same margin he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
At least 13 Republicans in the U.S. Senate and 140 in the House will oppose certification of Biden’s victory, including every House Republican from Kansas: Reps. Ron Estes, Jake LaTurner and Tracey Mann.
Moran will join Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids as the only two Kansans who will vote to certify.
“I want to commend Senator Moran for upholding our democratic values and affirming President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory. This has never been a partisan issue in the past, and it shouldn’t be now,” Davids said Tuesday.
The objection effort led by Hawley and Cruz, two potential contenders for the presidency in 2024, is widely seen by Congressional colleagues and political professionals as a bid to appeal to Trump’s base, rather than a serious attempt overturn the election.
Trump’s continued popularity with the Republican electorate will make voting the down measure politically difficult for Republican senators, such as Moran and Blunt, who are up for re-election in 2022 and could face primary challenges from Trump-backed candidates.
Moran, the senior member of the Kansas delegation, said in his statement that the political gains for voting in favor of the measure would pale in comparison to the costs to the nation’s democratic institutions.
“Voting to object to the electoral process without a constitutional basis to do so may be expedient and lead to short-term political benefits for some, but would risk undermining our democracy—which is built upon the rule of law and separation of powers. No victory for one’s cause today can be worth what we would lose tomorrow,” Moran said.
Moran noted that federal and state courts have repeatedly rejected post-election lawsuits from Trump’s campaign, which have provided scant evidence to support Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
“President Trump had every right under the Constitution to challenge the results of the election in the courts, and I publicly supported his right to do so given the allegations and reports of irregularities and fraud,” Moran said. “But in every instance, the judgments were clear, and no judge or Supreme Court justice – including those appointed by President Trump – determined there was evidence sufficient to change the results of the election.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 1:24 PM.
