G.O.P. Begins Jockeying in House
on Fate of Election
By ALISON MITCHELL
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 —
Representative Tom DeLay,
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the Republican leader who drove the House forward to impeachment,
has sent a staff memorandum to Congressional Republicans pointing out
that the House and Senate can reject a state's electoral votes
if they decide that the votes are tainted.
The memorandum, with the neutral title "Electoral College Process in the
Congress," is one of several research efforts under way by senior
Republicans as members of their party express fears that ballot recounts
could deprive Gov. George W. Bush of a victory in Florida, and as
scholars disagree over what would happen if there is no one to represent
a stalemated Florida when the Electoral College meets in December.
Mr. DeLay, a Texan who is the House majority whip, had his aides
distribute the two-page e-mail memorandum in recent days. It sets out
Congress's role in tallying and certifying electoral votes and the
circumstances that could lead to the House itself choosing the president.
Representative Bill Thomas, the California Republican who is
chairman of the House Administration Committee, has asked the
nonpartisan Congressional Research Service to report to him on
the constitutional and legal role of the House. And one senior House
Republican lawyer said that he and other party lawyers were boning up on
the arcana of Congress's role in the electoral process.
The research comes as partisan tensions are rising and are
beginning to remind some lawmakers of the impeachment battle
of two years ago, with the presidency at stake and fights brewing
over due process and the rule of law. House Republicans from
Florida and the Democratic compatriots had dueling news
conferences today, and one of the Republicans, Representative
Dave Weldon, called the recounting in his state "an outrage."
Speaking in defense of Florida's secretary of state, Mr. Weldon
said that Vice President Al Gore had "studied at the feet of Bill Clinton."
"And his classic technique with political opponents — we saw it
in the Lewinsky affair — is character assassination," Mr.Weldon said.
Republicans described the research as precautionary and
probably unnecessary, and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said he
and his senior lieutenants had not discussed the possibility of
invalidating a state's electoral votes. A spokesman for Mr.DeLay,
Jonathan Baron, said that Mr. DeLay was "confident" that Mr. Bush
would win the election and that staff members had prepared the
memorandum to answer questions from individual lawmakers.
"Members of the leadership have responsibility to perform due diligence
in these kinds of questions," Mr. Baron said. "The operating principle
must
be prepare for the worst and hope for the best."
Another Republican close to Mr. DeLay described the memorandum as
similar to the "impeachment book" his office sent out in 1998 when
Mr. DeLay began providing information about impeachment to Republicans
and subsequently driving it through the House.
"If there are feelings this is being stolen, there will probably be
calls for action," the Republican said.
The memorandum does not mention Florida or any other state. It
recommends no course of action, but explains a little-known
section of law, enacted after the contested presidential election
of 1876, which gives the House and Senate the ability to reject a
state's electoral votes by a majority vote of both houses. It also
spells out that under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, the
House chooses the president if no nominee has an electoral majority.
Democrats, too, are starting to study the law, the Constitution
and its ambiguities. Experts disagree over whether the election
would be thrown into the House if Florida was could not seat a
delegation in the Electoral College by Dec. 18, and there are also
questions of what would happen if majorities in the House and
Senate used their power to object to and reject the electoral
votes of some states.
Representative David E. Price, Democrat of North Carolina, has
introduced a resolution to have the archivist of the United States
provide the House with information about Electoral College
preparations. And aides to the House minority leader,
Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, said they had
asked the parliamentarian to give them a copy of any research
prepared for the Republicans.
No matter what happens in the presidential race, there are now
calls from members of Congress from both parties to review
everything from the elimination of the Electoral College to the
role of the television networks in calling elections to whether the
law allowing voter registration when getting a driver's license is
causing fraud.
Some of the calls for reviews were more pointed than others.
Mr. DeLay was quoted by CQ Daily Monitor, a Capitol Hill
newsletter, as calling for a wide-ranging review of the
presidential election including looking at reports of illegal
immigrants' voting in Florida and troubles that members of the
military may have had mailing their ballots from abroad.
Other Republicans said they wanted more generic review of
issues, not an investigation of the recent election. Several
Democrats said they wanted to study how state election laws
and practices varied and alternative voting methods.
Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon, and Jim
Leach, Republican of Iowa, introduced bipartisan legislation to
review the integrity of future elections.
Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who heads
a House Commerce subcommittee, has sent letters to news
organizations as part of an inquiry into whether election-night
predictions discouraged voters from going to the polls.
Mr. Thomas said Congress should examine the safeguards
against people voting in two states, "given the mobility of people
today particularly on the East Coast."
Such talk immediately prompted complaints from the Democrats.
"The Republican majority at some point is going to have to decide
if they are going to be a party that investigates or a party that
legislates," said Laura Nichols, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gephardt.
Despite the partisan tensions, Mr. Hastert and Mr. Gephardt met
today for the first time in several months in an effort to patch up
their relationship before the 107th Congress convenes.