Congressional Record/Volume 167/Issue 4/Senate/Counting of Electoral Ballots/Arizona Objection Debate/Shaheen Speech
Mrs. Shaheen. Mr. President, on January 3, I, along with 31 of my colleagues, stood in this Chamber and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is both ironic and deeply disappointing that only 3 days after swearing these oaths, some of my colleagues are coming close to breaking this promise.
Since 1797, each U.S. President has peacefully handed over power to the next, and that will happen again on January 20, when Donald Trump, despite the protesters today, the violence today—when Donald Trump leaves the White House at noon and Joe Biden becomes President.
We have heard tonight from both Democrats and Republicans about the importance of the voters speaking in the election and about the fact that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. But this is not just an issue for us here in the United States; this is an issue for nascent democracies around the world, which, as Senator Romney said, look to the United States as an example. We are the shining city on the hill. We give those struggling under oppression hope for a better future.
Now, like so many of us in this Chamber, I have traveled to developing democracies around the world—to Afghanistan and Iraq, to the Western Balkans, to Africa, to the country of Georgia. I went there with my colleague Senator Risch.
In 2012, we went to Georgia to observe officially, on behalf of the Senate, the election between outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement Party and the challenge by Georgian Dream, which was a newly formed party supported and funded by billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili. It was a battle for Parliament, but also for control of the government.
Senator Risch and I visited multiple polling places on election day, and we agreed with the international assessment that that election was free and fair and that Georgian Dream were the winners.
But there was real concern in the country that Saakashvili was going to refuse to give up power—that that would lead to violence, and it would end the nascent democratic reforms that were happening in that former Soviet Republic.
So Senator Risch and I, the day after the election, went to visit President Saakashvili to try and talk him out of staying in power. I remember very clearly going to his home, and we sat down with him, and we pointed out that the hallmark of a democracy—what he had worked so hard for in his 8 years as President of Georgia—the hallmark of that was to turn over power in a peaceful election to the person the voters chose. Well, President Saakashvili listened to us, and he did leave office peacefully.
But it is important that future generations recognize that America—like democracies everywhere—depends on a peaceful transition of power, on believing in what the voters say, and ensuring that happens.
Unfortunately, we have heard from some Senators today who have been enabling President Trump’s willful disregard of the votes of our citizenry, even as they speak out against foreign leaders who ignore their own people.
They will fail, and history will remember them.
I hope that future generations will view the actions of some of those folks today as little more than an unfortunate anomaly.
Future opportunists may use this ill-fated effort to seek short-term political gain over the long-term stability of our Republic. But for the sake of our great country and America’s standing in the world, I ask my colleagues today to fully endorse the results of the free and fair election and set aside this partisan attempt to subvert the will of the people. We should be venerating the peaceful transition of power, even if our own preferred candidate didn’t win. That is, after all, who we are in the United States of America.
Thank you, Mr. President.