Quayle Makes It Official: Clinton, Gore Win Election
In a time-honored ceremony, Vice President Dan Quayle formally announced to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday that he and President Bush had lost last November’s election to Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Quayle, in his role as president of the Senate, presided over the counting of votes cast last month by state delegates to the Electoral College and forwarded to Capitol Hill for the quadrennial ritual.
As the counting progressed, Quayle drummed his fingers on the desk, apparently eager to finish the chore mandated by the Constitution. A small group of senators, mostly Democrats, joined with a few dozen House members for the half-hour ritual roll call of the states, starting with Alabama’s nine votes for Bush and Quayle and continuing through the alphabet to Wyoming, which cast three votes for the Republican ticket.
When Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), acting as one of four tellers, reported that California’s 54 electoral votes went to Clinton and Gore, there was an outburst of applause and cheers from California Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Atherton).
The reaction seemed to start a trend: Republicans cheered when Indiana’s 12 votes were placed in the Bush-Quayle column and applause erupted from Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) when his state’s 23 votes were cast for Clinton and Gore.
Handed the tally, Quayle confirmed that Clinton and Gore both received 370 votes while he and Bush had received 168.
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