HAPPY BIRTHDAY CONGRESSWOMAN SHEILA (& THANK YOU)

THE OBJECTION CANNOT BE ENTERTAINED

Today is Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee's birthday. With all that has and is unfolding in our nation's capital this week it probably skipped your mind to send along a birthday greeting. And come to think of it perhaps a thank you note too although flowers and candy are nice but I think for this birthday a thank you is more appropriate- A thank you note that includes the words- for standing up to the disaster that is about to happen to our country when the Republicans ram their freight train of indecency, bigotry, and repression down the collected throat of our shamefully silent republic. This presidential election - if anything- has opened up the poorly stitched wound of our nation's violent and hate-filled history of racism. It was the culmination- still being played out- of a cynically announced and coordinated, reprehensible gambit to insult ( as much as possible) and obstruct (everything) and misrepresent ( in the aggregate) our nation's first elected African-American President - and the tainted (yes) victory of a sociopath whose business connections are treated like a state secret and whose foreign interests and bias are treated as normal; whose crazed inarticulateness is accepted as worthy of the leader of a (once) great democracy; who lost the popular ballot by close to three million votes and whose party treats this as a mandate to inflict unspoken harm among the less fortunate in our land of plenty (for the rich) and we are not even mentioning the machinations of Mr. Putin ( he would need such a candidate as Trump to do what is being considered a coup of sorts) and our own Mr. Comey (who I won't say should have known better- so why?); in short it will take another century to recover from such a debacle - in the meantime our grandkids better hope the climate change deniers are right.

But in our own time we can sheepishly say that a few people did stand up- if only for a minute- to protest the spectacle of accepting such an appalling outcome- not because they are sore losers but because there is a genuine love of what this country -up until this week anyway - once stood for. 

So, yes, a thank you note- For also putting up with all the right-wing dreck that was hurled at her for doing this "standing up' (wait a sec I'm getting to it)- In fellow Queens kid David Horowitz"s publication/blog she was disrespected and dismissed. Horowitz just had his birthday on Tuesday. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is from Jamaica, Queens- at least she attended high school there- and the letters she addressed to Vice President Biden had to do with the election of another (spoiled) kid from around Jamaica who will be sworn in as President of the United States next week:

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Washington, DC, January 6, 2017.

Basis of Objection: Failure of one or more

elector to reside in district from which elected.

Hon. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate, Washington, DC.

DEAR VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN:

    We object to the 15 votes from the State of North Carolina for Donald J. Trump for President and Mike Pence for Vice President. Notwithstanding the certification by the Governor of the State of North Carolina, it is the opinion of the undersigned that these 15 votes were not regularly given because at least five electors were not ‘‘lawfully certified’’ and their votes were not ‘‘regularly given’’ since one or more electors does not  reside in the district for which he or she was elected as required by state law. 

Additionally, several activities engaged in by state officials in violation of the Voting

Rights Act of 1965 disenfranchised thousands of North Carolina voters and resulted in the unlawful certification of electors. Accordingly, no electoral vote of the State of North

Carolina should be counted for Donald J. Trump for President or for Mike Pence for

Vice President.

Respectfully,

SHEILA JACKSON LEE,

U.S. Representative, State of Texas

.

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Washington, DC, January 6, 2017.

Basis of Objection: Violation of state stat-

utes prohibiting dual-office holding.

Hon. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Vice President of the United States and Presi-

dent of the Senate, Washington, DC.

DEAR VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN:

      We object to the 20 votes from the State of Pennsylvania for Donald J. Trump 

for President and Mike Pence for Vice President. Notwithstanding the certification 

 by the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania, it is the opinion of the undersigned 

that these 20 votes were not regularly given because they were cast by

electors not lawfully certified since they are in violation of state law prohibiting 

dual-office holding.

Additionally, it appears that illegal activities engaged in by individuals and entities

allied with the Government of Russia that were undertaken for the purpose to benefit-

ting the candidacy of Donald J. Trump deterred and dissuaded thousands of voters

from exercising their franchise and resulted in votes not regularly given by electors not

lawfully certified. Accordingly, no electoral vote of the State of Pennsylvania should be

counted for Donald J. Trump for President or for Mike Pence for Vice President.

Respectfully,

SHEILA JACKSON LEE,

U.S. Representative, State of Texas.

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Washington, DC, January 6, 2017.

Basis of Objection: Failure to provide ‘‘dis-

tinct lists of votes’’ for the President and

Vice President.

Hon. JOSEPH R. BIDEN,

Vice President of the United States and Presi-

dent of the Senate, Washington, DC.

DEAR VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN:

    We object to the 10 votes from the State of Wisconsin for

Donald J. Trump for President and Mike Pence for Vice President. Notwithstanding

the certification by the Governor of the State of Wisconsin, it is the opinion of the

undersigned that these 10 votes were not regularly given because they fail to comply

with 3 U.S.C. § 9, which requires that ‘‘electors shall make and sign six certificates of

all the votes given by them, each of which certificates shall contain two distinct lists,

one of the votes for President and the other of the votes for Vice President[.]’’

Additionally, it appears that illegal activities engaged in by individuals and entities

allied with the Government of Russia that were undertaken for the purpose to benefit-

ting the candidacy of Donald J. Trump deterred and dissuaded thousands of voters

from exercising their franchise and resulted in votes not regularly given by electors not

lawfully certified. Accordingly, no electoral vote of the State of Wisconsin should be

counted for Donald J. Trump for President

or for Mike Pence for Vice President.

Respectfully,

SHEILA JACKSON LEE,

U.S. Representative, State of Texas

from the Congressional Record

HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

OF TEXAS

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Friday, January 6, 2017

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the House Committees on the Judiciary and Homeland Security Committee; Ranking Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, and the Congressional Voting Rights Caucus, I rise today to

offer thoughts and reflections on the congressional responsibility to bear witness to the counting of electoral votes to determine formally the persons elected President and Vice President of the United States and on the campaign and election that brought us to this day.

Historians will surely record that the 2016 presidential campaign was one for the ages. The two leading protagonists could not have been more dissimilar.

The Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton of New York, was widely considered the most qualified person ever nominated for the office, having served as Secretary of State; elected by landslide margins to two terms as U.S. Senator from New York, the nation’s only First Lady to win high elective office in her own

right; valedictorian of her class at Wellesley University, a graduate of Yale Law School, and the first woman ever to win the presidential nomination of one of the nation’s two major political parties. Republican Donald Trump of New York, the

other candidate, was sui generis as well, since he is the first person to gain an Electoral College majority with no experience whatsoever in elective or appointed governmental office or public service but possessing a remarkable talent for attracting media attention.

The 2016 was notable also for a number of other unprecedented occurrences.

For example, it was the first time in history that a Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had ever injected himself and his agency, unintentionally or not, in a presidential campaign when FBI Director James Comey held a July 5, 2016 news conference, during which he announced that the FBI had completed its investigation regarding the email server of former Secretary of State Hillary

Clinton and had concluded that no violation of law had been committed but offered unfavorable personal opinions ex cathedra regarding Secretary Clinton’s conduct. Compounding the damage inflicted on Secretary Clinton’s campaign by his gratuitous commentary, FBI Director Comey exacerbated the damage already done when, a mere eleven days before Election Day, he sent a vaguely worded letter to partisan Congressional Republican opponents of Secretary Clinton allow-

ing them to leak the letter to the media and claim falsely that the FBI had reopened the investigation for the sole purpose of inflicting electoral damage on Secretary Clinton.

These actions were taken in contravention of long-standing Department of Justice policy, practice, and custom enjoining Justice Department officials and employees from engaging any conduct or taking any legal action that could impact the outcome of an election to be held within the ensuing 60 days.

The 2016 presidential election was historic in another respect as well; it is the first American presidential election that the Intelligence Community has confirmed was the subject of cyberattacks and other subversive activities of entities allied with the Government of Russia that were undertaken for the express purpose

of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election to secure the election of its preferred candidate, Donald Trump. It is also worth noting that the 2016 presidential campaign was the first in history in which one of the two leading candidates, Donald Trump, openly invited a hostile foreign power to launch cyberattacks against his political opponent. In at least one respect, however, the 2016 presidential campaign was not unprecedented. It was the fifth time in history, and the second in the last 16 years, that the candidate winning an Electoral College majority lost the popular vote.

But what is unusual is the historic margin of the popular vote defeat produced by the 2016 campaign that saw Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump by an astounding 2.86 million votes: 65,844,610 votes to 62,979,636, nearly

six times more than Vice-President Al Gore’s popular vote win in 2000, the next highest victory margin. Indeed, Hillary Clinton received more votes for president than any person in history not named Barack Obama, which means that the

two greatest vote getters in American political history are an African American male and white female, which in itself is a testament to how far America has travelled on the path to equality and opportunity for all in the past 240

years.

While it is true that a switch of less than 80,000 votes in just three states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—would have secured an Electoral College majority for Hillary Clinton, that fact is of little consolation and

practical consequence to the situation and task now before us, which is to count the electoral votes cast for President and Vice-President of the United States and announce the results to the country and the world. It is, as I noted at the outset, a duty imposed on Members of the House and the Senate by the Constitution and laws of the United States. But because we are all called upon to bear

witness to the counting of electoral votes does not mean our role is to be passive observers.

On the contrary, the Constitution and the law, specifically Section 15 of the Electoral College Act, 3 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., vests in Representatives and Senators the power and responsibility of objecting to the counting of any vote cast by an elector if in their judgment the vote was not ‘‘regularly given’’ or the person casting the vote was not ‘‘lawfully certified’’ as an elector. The Constitution devolves this solemn duty upon the people’s representatives, the Congress, because the linchpin of representative democracy is public confidence in the political

system, regime, and community. That confidence in turn rests upon the ex-

tent to which the public has faith that the system employed to select its leaders accurately reflects its preferences.

At bottom, this means that all citizens casting a vote have a fundamental right and reasonable expectation that their votes count and are counted.

This concern is particularly salient when it comes to today’s counting of the electoral votes occurring in the aftermath of the unprecedented interference by a hostile foreign power to secure victory for its preferred candidate.

And the salience is heightened by the fact that the November 8, 2016 election is the first presidential election held since the Supreme Court issued the notorious decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which neutered the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act and adversely affected the ability of hundreds of thousands of persons to cast a ballot and have their vote counted.

For these reasons, I owe it to my constituents and to the American people to consider each electoral vote certificate as it is presented and accept those that appear to be meritorious but to oppose those which in my judgment do not appear to satisfy the statutory requirement that the votes reflected on the lists were ‘‘regularly given’’ by ‘‘lawfully certified’’ electors. I am particularly skeptical that this legal standard is met where there is evidence to support the following conclusions:

1. There is a failure to provide ‘‘distinct lists of votes’’ for the President and Vice President as required by U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1 and Amendment XII; and by 3 U.S.C. § 9;

2. There is a failure of one or more elector to reside in the district from which elected as required under state law;

3. There appears to be a violation of state statutes prohibiting electors from holding multiple governmental offices of trust, honor, or profit;

4. There is compelling evidence that the illegal activities engaged in by individuals and entities allied with the Government of Russia that were undertaken for the purpose of benefitting the candidacy of Donald J. Trump deterred and dissuaded thousands of voters from exercising their franchise; or

5. There is compelling evidence that activities engaged in by state officials violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and disenfranchised thousands of voters and resulted in the unlawful certification of electors.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me say for the record that where, as is the case this year, the results in the Electoral College and of the popular vote diverge by the largest and most astounding margin in American history, it is particularly fitting, appropriate, and necessary to examine the electoral vote certificate presented for acceptance as carefully and fairly as possible and for as long as time permits.

The fate of our democracy is at stake. I now submit formal letters to the Vice President regarding objection to certification of Electors in certain states-

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the deputy GOP leader in the Senate, called the protest "kind of embarrassing," arguing that the reason no senators signed on was because they did not take it seriously.

After the process was completed, Biden headed straight to the group of House  Democrats to hug and make up with them after shutting down their revolt. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., took a photo of Jackson Lee arm-in-arm with Biden and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on the House floor with Jackson Lee’s cell phone. 

Jackson Lee said afterwards that she wished the Democrats had been given more time to explain their reasoning for the protests, but she understood that Biden had to follow the rules.

House Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Maryland and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, did not participate in the efforts. But the pair sat next to the group, appearing to provide some guidance at times and motioning for the protesting Democrats to hurry up at others.

“I guarantee you, had Donald Trump gotten 2.8 million more votes than Hillary Clinton, had the Russians interfered in the election to help Hillary Clinton, those galleries would have been full of -- with Trump leading the charge -- angry people saying I want to look into the rigging of this election,” Hoyer said afterwards, offering support to the effort.

Cornyn and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told senators not to leave town on Friday until after the process was completed just in case they needed to take a vote on it to overturn the objection.

As Biden wrapped up the process, three audience members in the House gallery stood up to launch their own protest. They were individually escorted out of the room by security officials, while Waters yelled from the floor, pleading with the officials to leave them alone.

Jackson Lee said she played no role in organizing the public protests in the gallery, but she said it almost brought tears to her eyes.

“The American people, many of them, are hurting,” Jackson Lee said. “We know that there will be a peaceful transfer of power, but one of the issues we spoke of was voter suppression and ... the citizens that stood up in the gallery felt the pain that they didn’t believe their vote was being counted.”-

from the Dallas News (Jamie Lovegrove)1/6/17

During the Joint Session various House Members rose to make a point of order,  object to the counting of the electoral votes from Alabama, Florida, Geor-

gia, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming or to make a motion. The presiding officer and

Chair, Vice President Biden, held that each case required a writing signed by both a Member of the House and a Senator. None were signed by a Senator and none were received.

(then again, its not as if something like this hasn't happened before)