Republican Senator calls for Democrat to win Alabama Senate race
Since the allegations surfaced that Alabama’s Republican Senate Roy Moore sexually molested several underage girls including a fourteen year old, the national Republican Party has been left stymied. The GOP can’t convince Moore to drop out of the race, so instead it’s cut off his funding. It’s clear the national party leaders do not want to be seen as helping a child molester win. However, we’re now seeing evidence that the Republican Senate is hoping Moore will lose, and his Democratic opponent Doug Jones will win.
Susan Collins appeared on CNN this morning and flat out stated that she wants Moore to lose, which means she wants Jones to win. Thus far she’s the only Republican Senator to specifically say that she wants her party to lose the Alabama election outright. In the process, she appears to have given away why her entire party wants Moore to lose.
Collins stated that if Moore does win, the Senate will have no choice but to seat him, as it only has the power to reject newcomers if they fail the Constitutional age and residency tests. If Collins is saying this, it means she’s far from the only Senate Republican who feels duty-bound to seat the winner. This puts an end to the popular theory that the GOP Senate might reject Moore, thus vacating the seat and allowing the Republican Governor of Alabama to appoint someone else.
In such case, no wonder the Republican Senate is rooting for its own candidate Roy Moore to lose the election. It can’t reject him outright, and would instead have to go through the long and ugly process of investigating and expelling him for cause. It would be an ugly spectacle for the GOP for quite awhile. The party is better off just losing the seat, keeping its 51 seat majority, and making the Moore scandal no longer its problem.
