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(The Center Square) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would resume its joint session Wednesday night as soon as lawmakers are given the all-clear to do so after the violent incursion by protesters supporting President Donald Trump.

House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the session was expected to resume at 8 p.m. EST.

The House of Representatives and the Senate were meeting separately Wednesday afternoon to consider a challenge to Arizona’s electoral vote results when they were forced out of their respective chambers as protesters stormed the building.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told journalists Wednesday evening that his understanding is that there would be no further objections to the election results in the wake of the afternoon's violence.

By about 5 p.m. EST, the Capitol building reportedly had been cleared of those who had forced their way in. About 90 minutes later, Pelosi announced lawmakers would reconvene to confirm the results of the Electoral College and declare President-elect Joe Biden to be the next president.

“[A]fter calls to the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Vice President, we have decided we should proceed tonight at the Capitol once it is cleared for use,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, noted legislators already had prepared to work late into the night to accommodate the anticipated challenges to the slates of electors for six states. If a representative and a senator each sign on to challenge a given state’s results, the two chambers are obliged to exit the joint session called to ratify the results and go to their respective chambers for up to two hours of debate.

Only if both chambers agree to uphold a challenge would the electors for a state be thrown out, an unlikely prospect with Democrats controlling the House and eager to see their party’s nominee inaugurated Jan. 20.

If Paul's prediction that the expected challenges would not come to pass in the aftermath of the assault on the Capitol comes true, lawmakers should be able to move through recording the remaining electoral votes without much in the way of drama or spectacle.

Pelosi blamed Trump for the violence at the Capitol, saying it was “anointed at the highest level of government.”

“We now will be part of history, as such a shameful picture of our country was put out to the world, instigated at the highest level,” she said.

(The Center Square) – The fate of which party holds power in the U.S. Senate for the next two years is in the hands of Georgia voters.

Heading into the next session of Congress, Republicans hold a 50-48 advantage over Democrats with Tuesday's U.S. Senate runoff elections looming in Georgia.

Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue faces Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff, and Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is being challenged by Democrat Raphael Warnock. The runoff elections materialized after no candidate in either race garnered a majority of the vote in November's general election.

If Republicans win one or both of the elections, the GOP will retain control in the U.S. Senate. If Democrats win both elections, the chamber will be split, 50-50, with Democrat and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaker vote.

"We've got a job to do here in Georgia," Loeffler told supporters at a recent campaign rally. "America is counting on us. If you vote, we will win. If you don't, we will lose America."

"This election is about the difference that we can make in our lives when we elect people who care about the people more than they care about themselves," Ossoff said.

Perdue, who won 49.73% of the vote to Ossoff's 47.95% in the general election, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014. Before winning public office, Perdue was in business, and his previous jobs included serving as CEO at Reebok, Dollar General and Pillowtex.

Ossoff, an investigative journalist and media executive, ran for Congress in 2017 in the special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

Loeffler and Warnock emerged from a pack of 21 candidates in the general election, where Warnock won 32.9% of the vote compared with Loeffler's 25.91%.

Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler, a businesswoman and co-owner of Atlanta's WNBA franchise, in December 2019 to fill the seat vacated by former Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired.

Warnock is senior pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

The circus surrounding Georgia's presidential election and Perdue and Loeffler's support for President Donald Trump have dominated the conversation regarding the runoff elections, pushing policy to the background.

Perdue and Loeffler have framed the runoff elections as saving America versus radical socialism.

Perdue has said an Ossoff victory would lead to illegal immigrants voting, police being defunded, higher taxes, private health insurance being taken away, small businesses going out of business and the U.S. Supreme Court being packed.

Republicans need to win the two Senate seats "to protect everything that Donald Trump accomplished in these first four years," Perdue said.

Ossoff has attacked Perdue for his stock dealings in the aftermath of learning about COVID-19 and his opposition of Medicaid expansion, which Ossoff said would help keep rural hospitals afloat and make health care more affordable.

"We've lost nine rural hospitals in 10 years here in Georgia," Ossoff told supporters at a recent campaign rally. "Where's David Perdue been? While the people are forced to move hours across the state just to get to the emergency room. That's not right."

Loeffler has painted Warnock as a radical liberal and Marxist who "wants to raise taxes, socialize health care, rip away our rights, and crush our economy with the Green New Deal." She has attacked Warnock for failing to support law enforcement.

"Violent crime in Atlanta is the highest it’s been in 20 YEARS – yet [Warnock and Ossoff] are totally silent," Loeffler tweeted. "By refusing to stand with law enforcement – and instead supporting defunding the police – they’re enabling the violence."

Warnock also has questioned Loeffler's stock trades after a senators-only briefing in January regarding the coronavirus, and he said Loeffler helped stall a second round of coronavirus aid for Americans for nine months.

"[Loeffler] made her priorities clear when she sold $3 million of her own stock, called unemployment relief 'counterproductive,' and stalled relief for nine months," Warnock tweeted. "Georgians learned long ago they can't trust Kelly Loeffler to look out for anyone but herself."

(The Center Square) – U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, sued Vice President Mike Pence in an attempt to challenge the results of some states’ Electoral College votes.

Another attempt is being made by U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, who says he and “dozens” of House members plan to challenge some of the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 when the Joint Session of Congress meets to certify the votes and ratify the president-elect.

Gohmert’s lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, asks a federal judge to give Pence “exclusive authority” to decide which Electoral College votes should be counted. Eleven others joined the lawsuit, including Republican electors from Arizona.

The lawsuit argues that Section 15 of the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which established procedures for determining which of two or more competing slates of presidential electors for a given state are to be counted in the Electoral College, or how objections to a proffered slate are adjudicated, violates the Electors Clause and the Twelfth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Section 15 designates the vice president, acting as the president of the Senate and presiding officer of the Joint Session of Congress, to “count the electoral votes for a state that have been appointed in violation of the Electors Clause.”

It also “limits or eliminates his exclusive authority and sole discretion under the Twelfth Amendment to determine which slates of electors for a State, or neither, may be counted; and replaces the Twelfth Amendment’s dispute resolution procedure – under which the House of Representatives has sole authority to choose the President,” the complaint states.

“Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act unconstitutionally violates the Electors Clause by usurping the exclusive and plenary authority of State Legislatures to determine the manner of appointing Presidential Electors, and instead gives that authority to the State’s Executive. Similarly, 3 USC § 5 makes clear that the Presidential electors of a state and their appointment by the State Executive shall be conclusive,” the complaint states.

Gohmert is asking the judge to determine if Pence is subject solely to the requirements of the Twelfth Amendment, in his capacity as president of the Senate and presiding officer of the Joint Session of Congress, to on Jan. 6 “exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State, and must ignore and may not rely on any provisions of the Electoral Count Act that would limit his exclusive authority and his sole discretion to determine the count, which could include votes from the slates of Republican electors from the Contested States,” the complaint states.

Steven Vladeck, professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, debunked Gohmert’s lawsuit. One day later, he tweeted, “If the Twelfth Amendment somehow gave the Vice President the power to unilaterally throw out electoral votes for the other guy in favor of their own party (and even themselves), one might think that one of them would’ve noticed by now.”

Neither the White House nor the Vice President’s Office has issued a statement on the lawsuit.

GOP-selected electors cast votes in several states for Trump in which lawsuits alleging election fraud are ongoing. Electoral College votes certified by state governors or other state officials finalized Dec. 14 gave former Vice President Joe Biden 306 votes, and Trump, 232.

Gohmert says he’s joining Rep. Brooks’ challenge. Brooks told Fox News, “There are dozens in the House of Representatives who have reached that conclusion, as I have; we’re going to sponsor and co-sponsor objections to the Electoral College vote returns.”

The objection requires at least one member of the House and one member of the Senate to object in writing on Jan. 6. Next, a two-hour debate would occur, followed by each chamber voting.

Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, indicated he would be open to objecting, Forbes reported. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also left the door open, saying he would let the legal process play out. According to Politico, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, has also left the door open to challenge the votes.

Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-Kansas, says the challenge effort is doomed to fail regardless of who objects. In order to throw out any Electoral College votes, the U.S. Constitution requires a majority vote cast in both the House and the Senate for each of the states’ votes in question. Neither chamber has a majority of votes.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, said Brooks’ effort is “a scam.”