Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) joined calls on Saturday for Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) to resign after they supported objections to the 2020 Electoral College results on Wednesday.
Brown referred to the senators’ support of objections to the electoral college votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania — two key battleground states that broke for President-elect Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.
During a debate of the Arizona objection, a violent mob of Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol, breaching security and halting the certification process of the election results.
Both chambers of Congress were forced to evacuate due to the breach.
Brown took to Twitter early this evening, writing that both senators have “betrayed their oaths of office and abetted a violent insurrection on our democracy.”
He called for both GOP lawmakers to immediately resign.
Should they not do so, “the Senate must expel them,” said.
Both @HawleyMO and @SenTedCruz have betrayed their oaths of office and abetted a violent insurrection on our democracy.
I am calling for their immediate resignations.
If they do not resign, the Senate must expel them.
— Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) January 9, 2021
According to the Constitution, “Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings” and “punish its members for disorderly behavior.”
It further states that the “concurrence of two-thirds” of the Senate is needed to expel a member.
Thus far, only 15 senators have been expelled from the chamber since 1789.
Of that number, 14 were expelled for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War, according to the Senate’s website.
The statement from Brown is the latest call for Cruz and Hawley to step down in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
The mob attacked the building in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden as the next president.
Three Senate Democrats — Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Patty Murray of Washington state, and Ron Wyden of Oregon, have also called for Hawley and Cruz to resign.
“At the end of the day, our job is to keep this country a democracy where voices win, not brute force. Any senator who stands up and supports the power of force over the power of democracy has broken their oath of office. Senators Hawley and Cruz should resign,” Murray said in a statement.
Before lawmakers were poised to meet on Jan. 6, Hawley became the first member of the Senate to signal that he would support objecting to the election results during the joint session of Congress.
Cruz and several other Republicans later said the same.
Hawley has said he has done nothing wrong.
“I will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections. That’s my job and I will keep doing it,” he said.
Newspapers across Missouri have called on Hawley to resign.
“Sen. Hawley was doing something that was really dumbass,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse told NPR in an interview Friday. “This was a stunt. It was a terrible, terrible idea. And you don’t lie to the American people. And that’s what’s been going on.”
Former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, an influential Hawley mentor prior to this week, went further, telling the Kansas City Star that Hawley was responsible for the riot and that supporting him was “the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life.”
“I don’t know if he was always like this and good at covering it up or if it happened,” Danforth said Thursday. “I just don’t know.”
Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, has also been under fire in his home state.
“Senator, those terrorists wouldn’t have been at the Capitol if you hadn’t staged this absurd challenge to the 2020 results in the first place,” the editorial board of the Texas Tribune wrote Friday. “So, we call for another consequence, one with growing support across Texas: Resign.”
“We’re done with the drama. Done with the opportunism. Done with the cynical scheming that has now cost American lives,” the editorial concludes. “Resign, Mr. Cruz, and deliver Texas from the shame of calling you our senator.”