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(snip)
The speaker has two formal roles on Jan. 6, Levitt said: selecting the two tellers who read out the votes and overseeing the House during any debates over objections to the Electoral College votes.
Levitt said the teller portion could likely be handled by majority vote or unanimous consent and objections would be unlikely under the new, higher threshold to sustain them established by the 2022 overhaul to the law governing the counting of presidential electoral votes. Dubbed the Electoral Count Reform Act, the law was enacted as part of a bipartisan reaction to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and laid out specific procedures for presidential election certification, challenges and more.
The speaker has two formal roles on Jan. 6, Levitt said: selecting the two tellers who read out the votes and overseeing the House during any debates over objections to the Electoral College votes.
Levitt said the teller portion could likely be handled by majority vote or unanimous consent and objections would be unlikely under the new, higher threshold to sustain them established by the 2022 overhaul to the law governing the counting of presidential electoral votes. Dubbed the Electoral Count Reform Act, the law was enacted as part of a bipartisan reaction to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and laid out specific procedures for presidential election certification, challenges and more.
I posted a link to the Electoral Count Reform Act upthread (along with an excerpt in the post).
I.e., the SOH basically "hosts the session" and "a presiding officer" (doesn't explicitly say "Speaker of the House" ) would need to select the House's "Tellers" (and the Senate will select their own "Tellers" ), however each chamber agrees to do so. This is where they indicate the House could actually vote on some resolution to name those people (probably staffers who might be still there who have done it before).
I think there were 2 for each Chamber and they sit at the dais and tally and then compare.
Here is Al Gore in 2001 presiding AS VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE -
Vice President Al Gore presides over the counting of his narrow Electoral College loss on Jan. 6, 2001.
Kenneth Lambert/AP
The 2 seated on the bottom row to the right (when facing the dais) appear to be 2 Tellers. The other 2 would be to the left (when facing the dais) but are not there (there are 2 empty chairs there).
In order to "Object" to a state's submission (where they then break out into their individual chambers to debate), the threshold is much higher so there will be little chance of any "objections" actually proceeding like they did in 2021.
More from that article -
Levitt also said that although the regular House cannot do business without a speaker, it is a different body — constitutionally — when it is part of a joint session to count the votes. “I don’t think, as a constitutional matter, there is an impediment to members of the body proceeding with the electoral count if the body can’t do any work on its own without electing a speaker,” Levitt said.
The House, along with the Senate, also typically passes a concurrent resolution to enter in the joint session and lay out the procedures they will follow. Levitt pointed out that those same procedures are also laid out in the 2022 electoral count law, and Harris could rely on the statute to proceed with the count.
“As far as the Constitution goes, all the things you need are the Senate, the House and the president of the Senate, who is the sitting vice president,” Levitt said.
The House, along with the Senate, also typically passes a concurrent resolution to enter in the joint session and lay out the procedures they will follow. Levitt pointed out that those same procedures are also laid out in the 2022 electoral count law, and Harris could rely on the statute to proceed with the count.
“As far as the Constitution goes, all the things you need are the Senate, the House and the president of the Senate, who is the sitting vice president,” Levitt said.
As a CSPAN junkie, I *watched* the ENTIRE certification process on CSPAN - literally until just after 4:00 am ET on January 7 when they finally finished up. This included each chamber in their own "break out" sessions (with CSPAN on my TV and CSPAN2 streamed on my laptop) debating the objections. They originally objected to 4 states but after the mess of the invasion of the chambers, they eventually decided to just do 2 - my state of Pennsylvania and Arizona.
And it is correct that NO HOUSE BUSINESS will get done - i.e., "legislation". But the House doesn't have a role in "Certification" except to "host the Joint Session of Congress".
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