Josh Hawley claimed during the “debate” over accepting the Arizona EVs (I didn’t hear a single congressman even mention Arizona during this debate) that PA had violated its own constitution by allowing anyone, with a small number of exceptions, to vote by mail. I don’t have a copy of the PA constitution, but can anyone explain what he was talking about.
My HS poly sci course did briefly discuss the PA constitution. The only things I remember about it were that it was very hard to amend (IIRC, it took supermajorities in two successive sessions of the legislature followed by a popular vote that required a majority of all the people voting so that just voting on candidates was equivalent to a no vote); it limited Philly and Pittsburgh to no more than 1/8 each of the legislature; and that the legislature routinely ignored by not having redistricted after the last five censuses.
So what provision of it was Hawley referring to?
BTW, even if Hawley was correct, the only reasonable objection would be before the mail ballots were issued. Once people had voted with them, there could be no plausible argument that those votes should be discarded, let alone the entire state’s EVs. And absolutely nothing in the US constitution gives congress any role in this except to count the votes and name the winner (unless there is no majority). I think Hawley & Co. should be prosecuted for perjury, having violated their oaths to defend the constitution.
I don’t want to quote the whole response but the tl;dr answer is “misleading”.
The courts have not ruled on the constitutionality of Act 77; the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a postelection challenge on the basis that it was filed too long after the law was enacted. But legal experts have broadly rejected Mr. Hawley’s argument, and the Pennsylvania Constitution says that the state’s elections may be conducted “by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law,” indicating that the legislature has the authority to authorize new voting methods.
The key point is that it says that the Legislature “shall” provide a means for these categories of voters to vote absentee. It does not say “only these categories”.
A question to previous posters, who clearly know your stuff. In the US system is there an obligation on representatives / senators to correct the record if they said something incorrect or deliberately untrue? In the Westminster system ‘misleading Parliament’ can be a fairly serious charge, and the expectation is that someone will stand up and issue a mealy-mouthed correction at some point onto the official record.
I think the equivalent in the US is “lying under oath”, which can have different consequences depending on the circumstances. It could lead to censure or criminal prosecution.
A lot of Republicans are looking for places to hide, realizing that they have their fingerprints all over this shit. I really, really don’t want to let them get away with it. For some time, I have pledged never to vote Republican, even for so-called “good ones;” it’s to the point where I am questioning whether I can even have a conversation with one. I am that goddamned disgusted with them, and everyone else ought to be as well.
There were a bunch of Missourians who told Danforth that back in 2018 when Hawley rand for the Senate. Hell, there were a few who warned of that in 2016 when Hawley rand for Attorney General.
But what if they are called to testify during a hearing, wouldn’t they be under oath then? That’s what I had in mind as a parallel. I thought there were consequences for lying under those circumstances.
ETA: I expect this to apply to anyone testifying though.
In fact, the Constitution basically says they can’t get in legal trouble for crimes for anything they do as part of their job in Congress. They were very worried about debate being stymied or false charges drummed up by the party in power to stop the other party from voting.
The remedy does require “We the People.” And since Missouri has historically been a bit purple, I think their might be room for a primary challenge that is slightly to the left… Or even just run a mostly pro-life Democrat.
(Given how my mom reacted, I actually think the best strategy is to kinda redefine pro-life. People think it means anti-abortion, so use that, while also saying that the doctor is in the best place to decide if an abortion is necessary. It gets you a soft pro-choice position, but still keeps the “anti-abortion” pro-life label.
My mom considered herself pro-life until the end, but she also said it should be up to the woman or the doctors and not the government, so I think there’s room there.)
I don’t understand why this wasn’t the Dem’s response. They didn’t refute what he said, and just went to the “will of the people” argument. By not directly addressing Hawley’s point, it creates enough uncertainty in the minds of the viewers, that invariably causes a proportion of them to believe Hawley.
I started a thread a while back that Biden should appoint a “Fake News Czar” to directly attack the numerous lies and conspiracy theories that are so easy to spread in our age, and this is kind of the same point. If you can get just a small portion of a group to question their misguided beliefs, it can be just enough of a tailwind in future elections. If Trump just faked kindness and pretended to be sane for a couple of months, he could have won. Seeing what we are now, can you imagine how the next 4 years would have gone?
It’s a breach of the rules of parliament, and must be corrected, at the risk that if the member doesn’t correct a knowing misstatedment, the Speaker can order the member out of the chamber until the member purges the error.
A Senator or Representative testifying under oath in the congress would be an extremely rare thing, if it has ever happened at all. Hearings are to gather the testimony of others, not the members of congress.
Yes, correct - colloquial use of ‘charged’ to be accused of something, not a legal sanction.
Only an impression, but it only seems to be pursued where a parliamentarian has given a direct answer to a direct question, and either lied or been mistaken. If every bit of dodgy logic, stretched truth or bullshit statement was chased up for correction, we’d still be resolving to join Britain in condemning the Austro-Hungarian attack against Serbia.
Hawley in a statement responded to Simon & Schuster’s decision by calling the move “Orwellian” and a “direct assault on the First Amendment” — even though as a graduate of Yale Law School he likely knows the First Amendment is about government restricting free speech and not forcing a private company to publish his work.
Maybe he should sue Yale for giving him a bad education.
I think it’s a tough response to make. Because when you start to argue the specifics then you have ceded the basic ground that you aren’t in the right forum to debate the argument.
Even if PA violated their own state constitution, the correct forum for adjudicating that is the PA Supreme Court. And the correct time to adjudicate that is before the election. And the correct people to claim harm are people from Pennsylvania, not the junior Senator from Missouri. And the correct remedy is to modify the rules going forward not throw out millions of votes that were made by voters that were doing exactly what they were told they could do.
I think trying to debate Hawley’s “argument” on the merits gives up far too much ground in the larger picture. Because there might be some debate on whether Act 77 violated some portion of the PA Constitution. If not that, then some other state- or local-level violation of election procedures.
Maintaining that the counting of the votes by the joint session of Congress is not a forum for challenging individual state’s electors except in the exceedingly rare case where multiple slates have been submitted by the authorities of those states is the paramount goal.
To your larger point about a “fact checking” czar, I’d support it if I thought it had a chance in hell of working. Gabriel Sterling (a Republican) went over the Georgia claims point by point, rebutting every single one of them. Didn’t change a damn thing. The only person that Trump supporters will believe on election fraud is Trump himself. Or, more broadly, conspiracy theorists will only walk back their support of conspiracy theories when disabused by folks they trust. So, maybe, if Tucker Carlson or Hannity or Rush or somebody started walking back the claims then maybe they could put some of this genie back in the bottle (because Trump surely won’t).