Maybe if they actually called for sedition. then :Article I, Section 5, of the United States Constitution provides that "Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.
But she can certainly keep them off plum committees.
You’re moving from ‘can she?’ to ‘should she?’ to ‘what would be the political ramifications if she did?’ in each of your responses. There may be clearer answers to each of those questions, but not all of them in alternate succession.
Huh?
No I didn’t.
And yeah…the thread is about “can she” mainly but feel free to comment on “what if she did”.
The “can she” actually seems a hard question to answer.
This is the part where I think your logic breaks down. The Republicans have already shown they are willing to ignore every norm. So there is no reason to assume that the Democrats doing so in this one case would change how they would act in the future.
In fact, the actual intent is the opposite. The idea is to provide consequences for those Republicans who have chosen to ignore the most important norm that matters, the one that a functioning democracy depends on. You don’t try to overturn the results of an election. You don’t try to install your own party to power in a coup.
And the concept does have precedent–though it requires going back to the Civil War. Those who were in rebellion against the US were not seated. And that is exactly what is going on right now.
And, yes, I would cite that precedent as saying that the power exists to not seat them. Though I note that the Speaker didn’t do it alone, and needed the support of others in Congress.
I dont think she can:
. Powell v. McCormack (1969) limited the powers of the Congress to refuse to seat an elected member to when the individual does not meet the specific constitutional requirements of age, citizenship or residency. From the decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren: “Therefore, we hold that, since Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was duly elected by the voters of the 18th Congressional District of New York and was not ineligible to serve under any provision of the Constitution, the House was without power to exclude him from its membership.”
The Federal Contested Elections Act of 1969 currently lays out the procedures by which each House determines contested elections.
I think I have a problem with calling what they did a coup.
They went to court and used the process in place. It was ridiculous but it was technically within their rights and not a violent overthrow of the government. I have no doubt they’d have been been happy to support a violent insurrection but they didn’t do that.
I hate defending them here but someday maybe I will want to bring a case against a republican (or whoever really) who I think stole an election. I should be able to do so.
I get they had no evidence and it was all absurd. But if you want to stop that who gets to decide?
I think the remedy to this is sanctioning the lawyers who filed all these bogus cases.
Probably a discussion for another thread.
I think it likely at least one GOP congresscritter will say something between now and 1/20/21 that will pretty clearly suggest violent action. FFS, Texas GOP Chair Allen West has already suggested secession as a solution. The three I think are most likely to do something along these lines are, in order of likelihood:
All three have already shown a propensity to mouth off and say idiotic and irresponsible things at the drop of a hat. And they have spent most of the last four years fellating our current President on a regular basis so they are capable of just about anything.
Bonus alternate: TX Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick - this guy is as much of a loudmouth shitstain as the three above.
I think the republican’s hope was their stacking the courts with conservative judges would pay off here.
Even the most conservative judges couldn’t find a way to support the plaintiff’s arguments. No amount of legal contortions could remotely work and they had no choice but to shoot it all down.
In this I think the republicans jumped too far assuming their appointed judges would just rubber stamp whatever they put before them. Their judges still think you need at least the slimmest rationale for a favorable ruling and they didn’t even get that. That’s how bad this was.
That’s not what they did. If they were just asserting their rights to litigate questionable issues of law, that would be a different matter. That had already happened in the state courts.
This suit was not that. In this suit, they knew or should have known that no one in the suit had standing. Because if they had standing, it would have allowed states to question the legality of other states’ elections.
That’s why this suit, and joining in on it, was seditious.
Questioning the legality of a certain election is not seditious. I’m going to separate this lawsuit from the others that may have been without merit because those lawsuits did not have enough evidence. That might have been for a court to decide. This case is different because if the courts decided in their favor, democracy would cease to function. Each state could then question the validity of another states’ election.
The people who joined in on it knew or should have known that, which is why it deserves to be acknowledged in some way.
I’m 1,000,000% with you on how absurd and ridiculous this all was.
My question to you is who gets to decide if your lawsuit should be allowed to be filed and heard by a court?
This is why I think the solution to this is sanctions from the Bar Association on these lawyers.
But guess what…self-policing is a joke.
The courts. Backed by the law and the Constitution. That’s why the Supreme Court didn’t take the case.
That’s a different question of what the political ramifications should be or will be in this case.
But they were allowed to file the case and make the Supreme Court answer them. That is working within the system. It doesn’t matter if their case was absurd.
What a concept. Someone should tell Trump and the MAGAs.
The same Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) is calling for that too.
Naw. I like the thought of Dems advocating staging a coup against elected officials because how dare Pubs advocate staging a coup against an elected official. Very Ouroboros.
I think we are in a place where Dems are playing by Queensberry rules for boxing and Republicans are playing by MMA rules. Or actually no rules at all.
At some point Dems need to get dirty.
Removing domestic terrorists from the legislature is not a “coup”.
I agree there should be some penalty, Biden also should open the door to those who are loyal to the US and the Constitution no matter what side they are on and ostracize those how have forsaken it and us and followed that traitor who tried to overthrow the election.
This is serious, we almost lost our democracy with Trump. We will be dealing with the damage and removing those swamp monsters he populated the swamp with for decades.
I absolutely believe that Democrats should refuse to seat Pennsylvania Republican Representative Mike Kelly. He has raised serious allegations in his lawsuit against Pennsylvania that the election of Joe Biden in that state was riddled with fraud. Since the same election also re-elected him to the House, it is only appropriate to refuse to seat him until the body can fully investigate this matter.