Texas senator Ted Cruz launches bid to block Joe Biden

Republican senators led by the Texan say they will not vote this week to certify Joe Biden’s election win.

Ted Cruz and six other current senators along with four senators-elect assert that ‘allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes’. Picture: AFP

A group of Republican senators led by veteran Ted Cruz said on Sunday AEDT they would not vote this week to certify Joe Biden’s election win — the latest last-ditch move to support Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the vote.

The support for the US President came a day after Mr Trump was dealt a humiliating blow in his last days in office with the Senate voting overwhelmingly to override his veto of a sweeping defence bill — the first time congress has done so during his presidency.

In a statement on Sunday, Senator Cruz and six other current senators along with four senators-elect assert that “allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes”.

The group said when congress convened in a joint session on Thursday — for what normally would be a pro-forma certification of Mr Biden’s victory — they would demand the creation of a special commission to conduct an “emergency 10-day audit” of the election results.

The statement says individual states could then convene special legislative sessions and potentially revise their vote totals.

The initiative, which appears certain to fail, flies in the face of rulings in dozens of courts and the findings by officials in several key states, that there were no widespread voting problems.

“An attempt to steal a landslide win. Can’t let it happen!” Mr Trump tweeted. Posting a list of the 11 senators, Mr Trump added: “And after they see the facts, plenty more to come … Our Country will love them for it!”

They join senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said last week he planned to raise objections on Thursday.

A Republican member of the House of Representatives, Louie Gohmert, also announced his plan to oppose certification, and more than 100 house Republicans reportedly will back his challenge.

Mr Gohmert sought to raise the stakes with a lawsuit to give Vice-President Mike Pence — traditionally in a ceremonial role in Thursday’s session — the power to overturn the election result.

Mr Pence opposed that effort, and a federal judge in Texas on Saturday rejected the suit.

The Hawley and Gohmert challenges will ensure that congress must meet to hear the complaints. The congress sessions, sure to be contentious, will play out against a backdrop of pro-Trump rallies in Washington this week encouraged by the President himself. As with Mr Trump’s other attempts to reverse his election defeat, the latest manoeuvring appears doomed. Democrats control the house, and many Republicans are expected to vote on Thursday for certification.

The 11 senators conceded that most Democrats and “more than a few Republicans” would likely oppose their initiative.

Among them is Republican senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, whose state was a battleground that helped tip Mr Biden into the win column. Its result is expected to be among those contested on Thursday.

“A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders,” Senator Toomey tweeted. “The effort by Sens. Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.

“I voted for President Trump and endorsed him for re-election. But, on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.”

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has urged fellow Republicans to vote to certify and avoid a divisive political brawl, saying: “The Electoral College has spoken.”

Mr Biden won the Electoral College by a vote of 306 to 232.

“This is cynical, anti-democratic posturing,” presidential historian Tim Naftali told CNN.

Senator Cruz is considered a likely 2024 presidential candidate. Senator Hawley is also said to be positioning himself for a 2024 run — and so is Mr Pence.

On Saturday by a lopsided vote of 81-13, well more than the two-thirds of the 100-member chamber required, the Republican-controlled Senate approved the $US740.5bn National Defence Authorisation Act to fund the military for fiscal year 2021.

The Democrat-led House of Representatives had voted 322 to 87 on earlier in the week to override Mr Trump’s veto.

It came in an extraordinary New Year’s Day session necessitated by his veto, possibly the final act of the outgoing congress.

Mr Trump had bristled at language to rename military bases that honour Confederate leaders. He also insisted the bill should include a repeal of section 230, that provides liability protection to internet companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, which he accuses of anti-conservative bias.

New members of the Senate will be sworn in on Monday, 17 days before Mr Biden’s inauguration. They will not include the senators for Georgia, where Republican incumbents David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler are locked in tight run-off races on Wednesday against, respectively, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Senator Purdue went into quarantine last Friday after coming into contact with someone with COVID-19.

Republicans hold 50 seats in the Senate, and a victory in just one of the Georgia races will give them a majority and the ability to hamstring Mr Biden’s agenda after he takes office on January 20.

If Democrats win both, they will have 50 seats but will have a majority because Vice-President Kamala Harris has a tie-breaking vote.

AFP