Yeah, I know. I will forgive him. It’s just so frustrating when obvious flaws in a system basically bring the whole process to a standstill. I’m halfway joking.
I did notice in that same article that the list of 3000 “moved” NV voters that the Trump team is using as evidence of fraud includes a ton of APO/FPO moved-to addresses. Remind me again how much Trump loves the military?
Tweet with the list here: https://twitter.com/RileySnyder/status/1324524766837960704
I’m no expert, but it seems to me that every agency will have someone who is the highest level remaining person. Biden can invite that person to cabinet meetings.
That…is an interesting question. I’m sure such an issue would hit the SC in a heartbeat, and they would rule for Turtle Boy. But I bet Gorsuch would be a dissenter.
The individual must be “currently serving,” so ironically he could appoint any Trump holdovers he wanted but no Obama-era officials.
So, hire some former Obama-era head as a mailroom person and then promote them to acting head.
Hmm… getting a Joe Isuzu flashback there.
Y’know, Trump’s team doesn’t even have the panache of Muhammad “Baghdad Bob” Al-Shahhaf.
I think its safe to say that the authors of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act did not anticipate our current circumstances. There likely would be career civil servants at the agency that fit the criteria, but another aspect of the act is that an Acting Secretary may not serve for more than 210 days.
What happened in Arizona? One of the previously “called” counties on the Google/AP map went from solid red down to pink…
A couple of recent and slightly connected data points just came to my attention. One, Allegany County (Pittsburgh) just reported a batch of military absentee ballots came in four to one in favor of Biden.
Second, we’ve been sweating somewhat the military absentee ballots in the all too close Georgia race but one of the big Atlanta counties just reported that they have all of three of those types of ballots to count. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything much but I want a Biden Georgia very much.
A friend of mine just texted me a picture of a smiling Jeffrey Epstein with a photoshopped “I Voted!” sticker and I have to admit it got a giggle.
There is a lot of statutory authority granted to the heads of the federal executive departments. Without a cabinet head (or even an “acting” cabinet head temporarily appointed as dictated by law), a lot of government business grinds to a halt.
The only people who fix this are the ones who write the laws (i.e. Congress), which puts you back to square one.
Business grinding to a halt can happen even in a vastly smaller organization than the federal government, like my own agency, where everyone who had signing authority for large purchases (>$100K) took the day off or left early today. So a purchase order did not get signed today, and we were unable to put in an order for pipe materials today. It will have to wait until Monday.
If the Trump admin has taught us anything it is how easy it is to skirt the spirit of the law and go with the letter of the law because it did not quite manage to account for every possibility. Like, let the person work for 210 days. Give them a day off then start the clock again. That kinda thing.
I agree it is shitty but here we are.
If the senate wants to sue over it I am sure Biden can draw out the court case for 2-3 years at least and then find another end-run. Trump is a master at this. No reason not to steal a page from his playbook.
I hate to be shooting down all these scenarios, but the law requires a civil servant who is named Acting Secretary to have served in that agency for at least 90 days during the 365 days preceding the end of the previous Senate-confirmed officeholder’s service.
The larger problem with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act is that it’s designed to prevent exactly what you want to do – do an end-run around Senate confirmation and install who the President wants as a Secretary. Because that should be a bad thing!!! As I said, I don’t think the drafters ever imagined we’d find ourselves where we are now.
Then you keep marching down the employee list till you get to the mailroom person who has been there for 40 years, call him and and tell him he gets to be the acting head as long as he does as directed. He’ll get a nice pay increase and pension and a small mention in the history books.
My point being, there is almost certainly an end-run. Trump has shown us that.
Hey! Identifying ( R )s as ( D )s is OUR thing! Hands off!
That was actually a mix of different ballot types. Some were mail-in and some were overseas (which includes military, diplomatic, and ex-pat citizen ballots). I didn’t get the exact breakdown from the guy being interviewed on CNN.
Priceless
FWIW:
Hey! Identifying (R)s as (D)s is OUR thing! Hands off!
(I may be old but I can learn…sometimes.)
All right, well, if you want to hang your hat on “Trump has shown you can do anything you want and get away with it so Biden should just ignore the law” then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you’re right.
What is the alternative?
Shutting down agencies?
Running them with Trump lackeys?
Seriously, what would you do in Biden’s place?
I don’t see how we can get a call from any networks tonight. I know that doesn’t really matter, but I’m sure Biden’s team would have liked to get out in front with the “President-elect” language and the fait accompli messaging.
Maybe if the Maricopa results are really good for Biden the other networks will call Arizona, but that doesn’t get Joe there.
I think they won’t call PA unless/until Biden is up at least 0.5% there - which will require some big numbers out of those Allegheny ballots that they just started counting. Even then they may want to see some provisional numbers before calling anything.
Nevada (or at least Clark County which is all that matters) won’t announce anything else today.
Georgia is heading to a recount and I doubt any call will be made there until that is complete.
North Carolina isn’t reporting anything until the 12th, and Trump is pretty likely to win there anyway.