Congress is scheduled to gather Monday amid a citywide snow emergency declaration to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, exactly four years after he stirred up a mob that attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to disrupt the certification of his 2020 election loss and keep him in power.
Four years ago, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the result and discount electors for President Joe Biden, even though Trump had failed to produce any evidence that the result was illegitimate.
This time, Democrats are not planning to respond in kind. They intend to return Jan. 6 to its historical roots as a boring and rote affair where the president-elect is certified without drama.
“Two months ago, the American people elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States of America,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech Friday, as Republicans clapped. “Thank you for that very generous applause. It’s OK. There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.”
“One should love America when you win and when you lose,” Jeffries continued. “That’s the patriotic thing to do, and that’s the America that House Democrats will fight hard to preserve, because we love this country. America is bigger than any one campaign, any one election or any one individual.”
Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has conceded defeat. And she is expected to preside over Trump’s certification Monday after she visited Capitol Hill to swear in senators Friday.
On Sunday, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a snow emergency that is expected to last through early Tuesday, raising travel concerns for members of Congress who left town over the weekend.
“We got a big snowstorm coming to D.C., and we encourage all of our colleagues: Do not leave town, stay here,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Sunday on Fox News. “Because, as you know, the Electoral Count Act requires this on Jan. 6 at 1 p.m. So whether we’re in a blizzard or not, we’re going to be in that chamber making sure this is done.”
Even if there are some absences, the certification process does not require full attendance. And many House Republicans stayed in Washington over the weekend for a retreat.
In late 2022, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a law overhauling the certification process in a bid to prevent another Jan. 6, 2021-type event and make it harder for future presidential candidates to steal elections.
Among the changes: The vice president’s role is clarified to eliminate any room for doubt that he or she cannot refuse to count Electoral College votes that have already been certified by the states. And the threshold for voting on an objection to counting certain electoral votes is up from just one House member and senator to one-fifth of each chamber. It also includes safeguards against injecting “fake electors” into the process.
Unlike in 2021, when Trump invited his supporters to come to Washington for the certification on Jan. 6 and then urged them to “fight like hell” during a speech that morning, widespread protests are not expected in Washington this time around.
Capitol Police and the Secret Service have raised temporary fencing around the Capitol for security, and Jan. 6, has been declared a “national special security event.” Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said the fencing will remain up through Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here: