“There are not many of us that are going to be able to go because they’re limiting it pretty dramatically,” Scalise said. “There are a lot of people that haven’t been before that want to go.”
Lawmakers can’t bring guests, although some have announced “virtual” guests instead to tout notable constituents in their districts.
Pelosi, who normally has a box of seats available to fill, announced Tuesday that Kenneth Tai, the chief health officer at a community health center in San Francisco, will be her virtual guest.
The footprint from other branches of government is also being scaled back dramatically, with most Cabinet and executive officials watching remotely.
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That’s a faster pace than both the Clinton trial and the first Trump trial where both sides got 24 hours.
The deal also leaves the door open to calling witnesses. The House impeachment managers previously invited Trump to testify under oath, an offer his attorneys rejected. They haven t yet said if they will try to get the Senate to call other witnesses.
The trial will also be paused on Saturday to accommodate a request from one of Trump s attorneys to observe the Jewish Sabbath.
If both sides use all of their time, that would set up opening arguments to wrap on Sunday.
Journalist Zaid Jilani said Monday that Democrats’ recent success in Georgia was due in large part to a “motor voter” statute that increased voter rolls.
“In 2016 they enacted what’s called AVR, automatic voter registration,” Jilani said in a Hill.TV interview. “The DMV will automatically register you to vote. I think that will probably also end up skewing towards a younger population.”
More widely publicized efforts to increased voter registration, he said, were “a drop in the bucket compared to what the AVR law did… I think over 4 million people were registered through that.”
In 2022, he added, “even if there’s a midterm backlash against [President] Biden, the Democrats still have a chance of taking the governor’s mansion and they still have a chance of picking up seats in the legislature. Georgia is returning to its more purple-ish position that it was in in the early 2000s, where you had [former Gov.] Roy Barnes or someone like that being in actual
A growing number of Senate Republicans are acknowledging President-elect Joe Biden
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Top Senate Republicans have also publicly pushed back against talk of trying to object to the election results next month. McConnell didn’t address the issue during a press conference on Tuesday.
Blunt, the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said Thune had explained to GOP senators the futility of objecting to any state s electoral votes next month.
Thune on Monday said the effort was “not going anywhere.”
If both a House member and senator object, the two chambers would have to meet separately, debate the issue and then have a majority in both chambers vote to uphold the objection to a state’s slate. A lawmaker has never been able to successfully throw out a state s results.
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Georgia has also been at the center of controversy since Biden narrowly defeated President Trump
Trump has refused to concede despite the multiple recounts reaffirming Biden s victory in Georgia and the Electoral College certifying Biden’s 306-232 national victory on Monday.
Trump and his allies have made unsubstantiated claims about the election being stolen from him through widespread fraud. They’ve attacked the Republican leaders in Georgia, baselessly accusing them of colluding with Democrats to steal the election.
That s led to some Republicans worrying the accusations will dissuade GOP voters from casting ballots in the race.
The Supreme Court recently refused to hear a case brought by Texas, which was signed by 18 GOP attorneys general and more than 100 Republican members of the House, seeking to have the election results tossed out in Georgia and three other states.