More than 170 top business executives urge Congress to certify Biden’s win

More than 170 business executives from major U.S. firms asked Congress in a letter to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory Wednesday.

“This presidential election has been decided and it is time for the country to move forward. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have won the Electoral College and the courts have rejected challenges to the electoral process,” the letter reads. “Congress should certify the electoral vote on Wednesday, January 6. Attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy.”

Signers include Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Microsoft President Brad Smith, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Hearst President and CEO Steven R. Swartz.

The letter comes as congressional Republicans have announced an almost-certainly doomed challenge to Biden’s electoral victory. At least 100 GOP representatives are expected to challenge the results in the House, while at least 13, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), are expected to do so in the Senate. Such an effort would need to pass both chambers to prevent Biden from being seated as president, and enough Republicans have said they will not support the measure for it to fall short in the GOP-controlled Senate.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a similar call Monday, followed Tuesday by the conservative Charles Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity.

“Joe Biden is the president-elect, and we support the process and certification of his election. Our top priority is building broad support around policies to end the pandemic and put Americans on a path to recover stronger while working against — and providing better alternatives to — destructive policies sold on empty promises that we know won’t work,” Lo Isidro, a spokesperson for Americans for Prosperity, said in a statement Tuesday.

More than 160 New York-based executives issued a similar call in November for the Trump administration to sign off on the transition process.

“Every day that an orderly presidential transition process is delayed, our democracy grows weaker in the eyes of our own citizens and the nation’s stature on the global stage is diminished,” they wrote. The letter had multiple signers in common with Tuesday’s, including Solomon, BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink and Deloitte CEO Joseph Ucuzoglu.