Ned Foley in WaPo:

Sen. Ted Cruz’s 11th-hour effort to derail certification of Joe Biden’s election victory is the wrong solution to a non-problem at the wrong time. Fortunately, it also won’t succeed, but it nonetheless provides one more alarming sign of the perilous state of our democracy.

Cruz (R-Texas) and 10 colleagues announced Saturday that they will vote to challenge electoral college votes in “disputed states” when Congress meets Jan. 6, though it was unclear how many states that will be. In practical effect, the move adds nothing but numbers to the process that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had already vowed to set into motion: two hours of debate, in both the House and Senate, on each state the Republicans challenge.

This will greatly slow what should be a straightforward process, but the bottom line is clear: Unless Vice President Pence, in his presiding role as president of the Senate, were to unexpectedly deviate from the procedures established by Congress in 1887 — a truly lawless move that would be swiftly resisted by senators and representatives of both parties — the outcome remains inevitable.

Nonetheless, the fact that a dozen senators and senators-elect, along with apparently more than 100 House members, want to disrupt congressional ratification of the electoral college result is one more horrendous sign of the severity of the disease afflicting the United States’ democratic system. It will make it even harder for Biden to heal this pathology of partisan polarization, as he has promised to do.