That and that unlike the House, the start of a new session for the Senate is just heavily driven by continuity. Get the 33-34 Senators starting a new term sworn in, vote on the rules (which is almost always a formality to be what the rules just had been), and get on with it. My understanding is the the Senate cannot get locked down without a leader the way the House can.
It’s also worth pointing out that president pro tem in the Senate is in practice less of a leadership position. It’s basically impossible for the Majority Leader position to deadlock because of the VP tiebreak and the pro tem (currently Patty Murray), while important, doesn’t wield the day to day power of the Majority Leader. By custom it goes to the senior Senator of the party controlling the chamber by unanimous consent. So again, the works could get gummed up some but I’m sure that position could get forced through.
Sorry guys. Looks like my OP was wrong. I’ll check better next time. It was also almost a month old, so things/rules may have changed.
It may depend on the state - especially those with “faithless electors” laws.
California, for example, has this:
“If, after the nomination of a candidate for President or Vice President by a political party and before the meeting of electors described in Section 6917, the candidate dies or withdraws as a candidate for that office in accordance with the rules of the political party, the pledge described in subdivision (a) applies to the successor candidate for that office nominated by the political party in accordance with the party’s rules.”
(“The pledge” is, “If selected for the position of elector, I agree to serve and to mark my ballots for President and Vice President for the nominees for those offices of the party that nominated me.”)
Yes, a state law as described would be absurd, but there are some absurd state laws on the books. There was a big kerfluffle here in Ohio, for instance, because the state law officially required the Democratic candidate to be chosen before the date of the convention. This has happened before, but every previous time, an exception was made without any drama. This time, though, many (though not all) state-level Republicans tried to make it as hard as possible.
Right, but what should set off alarm bells about the absurdity of this story (that the DNC couldn’t nominate anybody other than Biden) is that when the Ohio story was in the news other states weren’t also mentioned as having problematic state laws. Because they don’t. Every other state has deadlines that occur after the DNC (or has already updated their laws to comply with the later-than-usual DNC).
Now, if Biden were to attempt to drop out after being named the candidate by the party at the DNC, that would probably be an issue in a number of states. But that’s not going to happen unless he dies.
The comments on the OP’s article (God help me for reading them) illustrate exactly why this bullshit was put out there - comment after comment talking about how the Democrats will steal the election by breaking state laws, even though there are no such laws being broken. This is all setting the groundwork for de-legitimizing the results if someone other than Biden is nominated and wins.
Speaker Mike Johnson on “This Week” this morning stating that Republicans likely will pursue legal challenges should Biden be replaced at the DNC. IMO these challenges are meritless, but all it could take is a sympathetic judge to stall things until it’s too late for ballots to be changed. . .
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/21/biden-johnson-2024-elections-laws-00169973
So is Johnson saying that the debate really was because of a cold, and Biden is well-qualified to serve his next term?
Perhaps Johnson would say that today’s Biden is the same one who won the New Hampshire primary. But I’ve posted links from physicians who look at him and say he has changed.
If the Republicans try to keep a nominee off the ballot in one or two states, swing voters nationwide will dislike that.
It’s nonsense, and Mike Johnson knows it’s nonsense. But it fits in with the GOP’s “Democrats are cheating at elections” narrative so he will continue to push it.
The default will be that in every state whomever the DNC nominates will be printed on the ballot. The notion that the GOP will sue to get Biden’s name put on the ballot even if he isn’t nominated at the DNC is bonkers, and clearly isn’t going to happen.
Now, if Biden were to be replaced after being nominated at the convention that’s totally different. But it’s also not what is being discussed.
off-topic post hidden by What Exit?
I am sure it makes Biden happy to know that Speaker Johnson is doing what he can to try to make Democrats afraid to have him step down.
I’m taking a different approach for a second:
Let’s assume that polls right now are completely worthless. Ignore them.
Last time these two went up against each other was at the peak of Trump’s menace, with Biden about as good as he ever was. Only down side was an overhyped progressives upset feeling they done Bernie wrong. Biden pretty much squeaked by.
Recency being as important as it is, the danger of current Trump seems less to many potential voters than it was then (and shouting more hysterically about concentration camps does not change their minds). He is certainly no worse in the public mind than 2020 Trump. Current Biden is far from as good as he was, a shocking level of off his previous ability to some of us.
Consider it a boxing rematch after a very close first fight, in which in this corner we have, weighing in lots more than he’d ever admit, a boxer as good as he was, and in this corner the winner of the last fight, clearly slowed down. Where would the odds go?
A fundamentals argument could go advantage to the incumbent and to a good economy. But across the world voters are rejecting incumbents of all stripes, and whatever the facts of the data may be, voters perceive the economy as bad. Hard to buy that knee jerk application of those fundamentals apply.
Ignoring the polling deficits this would be a time that seeing your champion coming into the ring stumbling would cause pitterpats.
Interesting post, but not on this topic. Not sure where you should have posted it, but I know there are plenty of threads about Biden’s viability as a candidate. This is specifically about the false report mentioned in the OP.
So I will hide your post before it starts a hijack and suggest you might want to repost it in a suitable thread.
Moderating
FIFY:
If the Republicans try to keep a nominee off the ballot in one or two states, swing voters nationwide will barely notice and, if they do, not give a shit.
Yes, the vote would be along party lines. But, each state gets one vote and the Republicans tend to win all the small states. So even if the Dems win the house (not certain, but possible) they will probably not control enough state delegations.
What’s interesting is that if, say, there are 25 Rep state delegations and 25 Dem delegations (or even 24 with one state divided), then nobody would be elected and the winning VP candidate would become president. Quite clearly, the people who set up this whole insane system did not consider all the possibilities.
Then what if the senate is also evenly divided and cannot choose a VP? No one knows.
In 1800, there was an EC tie (that was before electors voted separately for Pres and VP and Jefferson and his VP choice tied). It took 36 ballots and a lot of political maneuvering for the house to choose Jefferson.
Funny, all these GOP shenanigans- what would happen if trump had a heart attack and died before November? I bet their tune would change immediately.
Not quite: AIUI, if nobody could get 26 votes in the House, the Senate would elect a Vice President, who would then become acting President. But if, at any time during the next four years, the House did elect someone, that person would become President.
If the Senate can’t agree, then the Speaker of the House would be Acting President. In the highly unlikely event that the House is unable to elect a Speaker, the President of the Senate is next in line. After that, it’s turtles all the way down.
If Democrats have the majority in the House next year then Nancy Pelosi has an opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.