MORGANTOWN — The Republican-led U.S. Senate unanimously passed on Thursday a Joe Manchin resolution expressing a commitment to a peaceful transition of power come January if President Trump loses the Nov. 3 election.
The resolution follows Trump’s most recent refusal to commit to a peaceful transition. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Trump said at a news conference, “We’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the [mail-in] ballots, and the ballots are a disaster. … You’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer frankly. There’ll be a continuation. The ballots are out of control, you know it, and you know, who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else.”
Trump has claimed widespread mail voting will lead to massive fraud, the AP reported. But the five states that routinely send mail ballots to all voters have seen no significant fraud.
Trump added on Thursday that he would accept a Supreme Court decision in favor of his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, according to news reports.
Manchin said Thursday on the Senate floor, “It’s a shame that we have to come and reaffirm our commitment to our country, to our constitution, and who we are as a people and how we became a great country, the greatest country on Earth, with the freedoms we all take for granted
What we are doing with this resolution is saying that basically the bedrock of democracy is the orderly and peaceful transfer of power when the president transitions out,” he said. “There should not be a question…We’re in the most difficult times right now, and for the president to even address the subject of maybe not knowing if he would accept or not is beyond all of our comprehension that this could ever happen in America.
“We have come through a lot in our country,” he said, “and we continue to be challenged, but I believe to have the leader of the free world talk as if we are an autocracy, authoritarian versus a democracy, is something that alarmed me and alarmed a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, even those quiet as some may be, I know they’re alarmed.”
Manchin teamed with Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., to present the resolution. It says, in part: Whereas our domestic tranquility, national security, general welfare, and civil liberties depend upon the peaceful and orderly transfer of power; and Whereas any disruption occasioned by the transfer of the executive power could produce results detrimental to the safety and well-being of the United States and its people:
“Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Senate reaffirms its commitment to the orderly and peaceful transfer of power called for in the Constitution of the United States; and intends that there should be no disruptions by the president or any person in power to overturn the will of the people of the United States.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito voted with all of her colleagues to pass the resolution. Her office said in an email exchange, “We have had peaceful transitions of power for hundreds of years and Sen. Capito believes that we will continue to have them.”
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Here is the full text of the resolution:
Reaffirming the Senate’s commitment to the orderly and peaceful transfer of power called for in the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes.
Whereas the United States is founded on the principle that our Government derives its power from the consent of the governed and that the people have the right to change their elected leaders through elections;
Whereas our domestic tranquility, national security, general welfare, and civil liberties depend upon the peaceful and orderly transfer of power;
and Whereas any disruption occasioned by the transfer of the executive power could produce results detrimental to the safety and well-being of the United States and its people: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate —
1. reaffirms its commitment to the orderly and peaceful transfer of power called for in the Constitution of the United States; and
2. intends that there should be no disruptions by the President or any person in power to overturn the will of the people of the United States.
