WASHINGTON (OSV News) — An eventful week in Washington included the uneventful certification of the 2024 election by Congress four years after the violent riot on the same day. The late President Jimmy Carter also lay in state under the Capitol Rotunda before his state funeral.
The same week, a Biden administration regulation expanding Title IX protections from sex discrimination to include students who identify as transgender was blocked by a federal judge, while the U.S. Supreme Court declined to delay President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case.
Congress certifies 2024 election
Congress certified Trump as the winner of the 2024 election in unchallenged proceedings Jan. 6, a stark contrast to the Jan. 6, 2021, violence as a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Lawmakers were undeterred by a snowstorm that otherwise ground the capital city to a halt this Jan. 6.
The formal certification of the election usually goes by with little notice, but after then-President Trump sought to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally reject the results — which he refused to do — the proceedings were closely watched.
Notably, Vice President Kamala Harris, like Pence four years ago, certified an election in which she was on the losing ticket.
In remarks to reporters at the Capitol afterward, Harris said American democracy “is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”
“Otherwise it is very fragile, and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis,” she said. “And today, America’s democracy stood.”
Carter lies in state in Capitol Rotunda before state funeral
Carter lay in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the 35th person in American history to receive such an honor, prior to his Jan. 9 state funeral at Washington National Cathedral.
While in the Rotunda, members of Congress, Harris, Supreme Court justices were among those who came to see him there, as well as thousands of Americans who filed through to pay their respects to the 39th president.
The state funeral saw every living U.S. president gather in the same place to honor Carter, an increasingly rare occurrence in an era of bitter partisanship.
Biden administration’s Title IX rule blocked
A Biden administration regulation expanding Title IX protections from sex discrimination to include students who identify as transgender was blocked Jan. 9 after a federal judge in Kentucky found they exceeded the president’s authority.
In April, the Department of Education released the regulation under Title IX, the 1972 federal civil rights law requiring that women and girls have equal access and treatment in education and athletics, arguing it would ensure that at educational institutions that receive federal funding, no person experienced discrimination on the basis of sex — which it defined as sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics — including sex-based harassment or sexual violence at such institutions.
But that regulation was challenged by several states, which argued that broadening the scope of the law could dilute its intended purpose of protecting women’s athletics.
The Supreme Court in August allowed the regulation to remain blocked from enforcement while a legal challenge proceeded.
U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves reversed the regulation in his ruling, arguing the challenged provisions “fatally taint the entire rule.”
“As the Court has explained, the definition of discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ lies at the heart of Title IX and permeates virtually every provision of the law,” he said, which renders the regulation “invalid.”
Trump sentenced in hush money case after Supreme Court declines to intervene
Trump was sentenced to an “unconditional discharge” in New York Jan. 10 following his May conviction on felony charges after prosecutors said he falsified business records in paying hush money to an adult film actress in the closing days of the 2016 campaign.
The Supreme Court — which in 2024 ruled that presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution as it relates to core constitutional acts of their office, presumptive immunity for official acts, but none for unofficial acts — rejected Trump’s request to drop the proceeding, which took place just 10 days before he is scheduled to be sworn into a second term.
The unconditional discharge means that Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records will stand but will carry no further penalties, such as jail time. It also means Trump will be the first president to have been sentenced for a criminal conviction once he is sworn into office on Jan. 20.
In a social media post, Trump argued the “real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me.”
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
