I’ve seen similar ideas put forward, and can’t find a problem with this one:
Mike Johnson won’t be speaker. His term expires at the end of the previous Congress no matter who wins the majority.
Won’t the House still be in Republican hands at that point, regardless?
It’s really uncharted territory once we begin to discuss not seating the new House with its new Speaker. Yes, there are rules. Which aren’t perfectly clear for absolutely every possibility and which have never been tested.
IMO it’s pointless to try to rules-lawyer through a scenario like this. The “rules” will actually be whatever the bad guys can get away with, as slowed, or abetted by whatever the courts have to say timely enough to matter.
Revolutions do not proceed according to rule books and history will be (re-)written by whichever side wins.
If the Democrats win the majority? No. The 118th Congress ends at noon on January 3. Mike Johnson (assuming he wins his congressional election) becomes a regular member. The new Congress gathers, and the Clerk of the house presides over the election of the new speaker. The clerk doesn’t have any authority to accept or reject anyone as a member.
I don’t see any point in the procedure when Johnson (or any other MAGAt) can throw a wrench in that process.
I don’t think the Congress has the authority to refuse to seat a member unless they are constitutionally ineligible, per Powell v. McCormick. And if the basis is a challenge to the validity of a member’s election, there is a fairly well defined process that must be followed in 2 USC Chapter 12 that includes discovery and evidentiary processes.
If the Speaker tried to unilaterally refuse to seat a member on the basis of “election irregularities,” the elected member would file suit and very likely obtain a court order to be seated.
Even if the GOP takes the House, and even if they hold enough state delegations to win if the count goes to the House, they would need to have a pretty sizable majority to “refuse to accept” state electoral votes. And they would need the Senate too.
Also, Harris will be presiding over the joint session, so they won’t be able to use “non-standard order”.
Finally, the updated electoral count act would require 1/5 of both the House and Senate to object to a state’s certificate before it even goes to a vote. Remember in 2020 only 8 GOP Senators voted against certification, and 139 House members. It also limited the possible grounds for objection significantly - “we don’t think it was fair” is not one of them.
I mean this kind of thing has gone from “utterly bonkers conspiracy theory” to “yeah something like this will probably happen if Trump loses”. How far it goes, and whether it ultimately succeeds (the other posters make some criticism of the details of this exact hypothetical) but some attempt to prevent Biden being sworn is pretty much guaranteed. I think if there is an overwhelming Biden victory it would be a fairly token effort by hardcore Trump loyalists. But if its really close there would be a huge effort at the state and federal level GOP to overturn it, from the moment the votes start to come in, and there is no guaranteed it would fail. This will be doubly so if there is a perception that the court cases were the deciding factor in Trump’s loss (this will be the case on the Trump side no matter what IMO) as you know its not overturning the will of the people its just righting the injustice of using the corrupt judiciary to prevent Trump from getting elected.
Though since then the fact that trump had the election stolen from him has become GOP policy. Hell, it is literally part of the presumptive GOP candidate for president’s 2024 election pitch. In 2025 if the GOP are in charge of both houses, those numbers would absolutely be bigger.
Though what enforcement mechanism is there for that? If the GOP members object “because Trump says so” who’s to say that’s not a good reason (or just gives one of the allowed reasons, even though they clearly don’t apply)
The presiding officer rules the objection out of order. That officer will be Kamala Harris.
Title 3, Section 15(d)(2)(B)(ii), United States Code:
"Grounds for objections.—The only grounds for objections shall be as follows:
(I) The electors of the State were not lawfully certified under a certificate of ascertainment of appointment of electors according to section 5(a)(1).
(II) The vote of one or more electors has not been regularly given."
(5(a)(1): “Not later than the date that is 6 days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, the executive of each State shall issue a certificate of ascertainment of appointment of electors, under and in pursuance of the laws of such State providing for such appointment and ascertainment enacted prior to election day.”)
OK then probably the scenario described in the OP will fail. Even if the GOP legitmately (or illegitmately as described in the OP) end up in control of house and senate on Jan 6th 2025, they won’t control the VP, so it will likely fail.
I’d put money on the fact at least one spurious objection will be entered if Trump loses, a decent chance that they’ll be more than the 1/5 threshold if a democratic VP wasn’t around to rule them out of order. Which is still completely bonkers situation to be in (and even more bonkers that the likely GOP candidate for VP has said out loud she would go ahead and sabotage the vote count, if Trump winds and something like this happens in 2029)
And actually this is the much more likely avenue for ratfuckery, IMO. There are a few states where the GOP controls the executive, and I could possibly see them trying to submit a certificate of ascertainment that is not in line with the popular vote in their states. This update does remove the state legislatures from the equation (since the laws have to be in place prior to election day).
Fortunately, WI, MI, PA, and AZ all have Democratic governors. So good luck to Trump going that route. He’d have to convince somebody like Youngkin to flip Virginia or something like that.
Agreed, especially as “did not agree to let Trump overturn an election and become dictator” has been a mark of shame for any state GOP official in the party for the last 4 years.
lol…
TDS much ?..Fascists?..Look in the mirror, buddy.
name calling, labeling, that’s all your side has, certainly not the facts. Anything and everything you claim we conservatives are allegedly going to do, you and yours are in fact doing now.
You gotta love it and laugh at your pontifying labeling, if it wasn’t so insidious as to what is behind your " mask".
Sickening.
Voting for biden ( small “b” on purpose) makes that person an integral part of what led to Laken Riley’s death.
Sleep well tonight.
Whoa! What a burn!
I’m still seeing predictions that Trump will select RFK Jr. as his veep candidate.
There’s close to zero chance Trump will risk a younger version of himself getting a heavy share of attention, or that Junior will consent to being second fiddle in the Loony Orchestra.
Oh yeah…
“looney”…lol…see what I mean? …Nov. 5th, D-day. Literally.
Daily Kos community member generated articles are useless. My favorite bit from the article is that it says Johnson refused to swear in Tom Suozzi so that he’d have the votes to impeach Mayorkas. But the NY special election and the Mayorkas vote were on the same day – Suozzi couldn’t have been sworn in in time for the impeachment vote.