In what might be (for me, anyway) the absolutely scariest decision to get handed down by the US Supreme Court could come from Moore vs Harper, commencing this Wed. (Oct.7).
Normally I’d try to avoid posting a Daily Beast opinion piece, especially for an OP, but I thought Mr. Wu provided a fair enough overview of what’s to come, with the possible ramifications of, um, the wrong decision in allowing Independent State Legislature Theory to get enacted. A little astonished this story isn’t getting any recent traction anywhere else - hopefully tomorrow? (The NBC one had too many pop-ups.)
Really, I could quote the whole piece. I wouldn’t put it past the increasingly toxic Alito to give this the nod. Kavanagh I’d see as the next likely cretin to ok this - the others, I have this (naive?) hope that sanity will still be a thing with them by thinking otherwise.
Would the SC stoop low enough to green light ISLT?
Wisconsin Republican legislators are rubbing their hands and licking their lips. If this case gets decided in their favor, the state votes for the GOP presidential candidate for decades to come and the popular vote won’t matter until the state electorate is as blue as California’s.
I fear that they will. AIUI, there was no reason for them to take this case up after having decided one on the very same issue out of North Carolina within the last couple of years. Unless of course the reason is to reverse themselves now that they have their “conservative super majority.”
And I haven’t heard one person say what, if anything, could be done about it.
I think it’s a done deal, or they wouldn’t have taken the case in the first place. If he has one, Trump’s legacy as president is that he poisoned the SCOTUS for a generation, at least.
Fortunately, like the rest of us, Supreme Court justices die off, so at some point, it may swing back in the other direction, depending on who is in office at the time.
Well, one of the fears is that this would mean there would never be another Democratic president ever.
I do have a couple of “practical” questions here:
The OP article stated that there’s a brief filed that advocated overturning all previous precedent rejecting the theory. Why is that desirable for them? Wouldn’t the “right” ruling in this one case do that anyway?
This case would create, as far as I can tell of rules and terminology, an absolute power. The President’s pardon power is absolute, as we’ve heard a lot these past few years. What, if any, other examples of absolute powers are there in whatever level of US government right now?
Republican-controlled legislatures in swing states just discarding Democratic votes and/or sending delegates for the Republican candidate regardless of vote counts.
Well, you asked about the fear, and that’s the fear: that this case would render such a move completely legal by our Constitution and be unreviewable by any court.
This seems to be exactly why they are pursuing this though. What other reason would they be trying to create absolute power for state legislatures? If not to make sure that only they can win elections from now on, what would be the reason?
Tolerated? This is absolutely the plan. The Republican Party has had its fill of free and fair elections and they’re hoping to get the clearance from the SC with a favorable decision.
If SCOTUS allows a state legislature to throw away votes it doesn’t like, that would signal the end of our Democracy, and disenfranchised people would rise in arms. And since the Republican-controlled US military could put down any such uprising, that would be my cue to find a genuinely democratic country to live in. Fortunately, I have the financial resources to leave.
Not likely. Some folks would tweet vigorously for a day or two. If there were even protests, martial law and a few dozen dead protestors would soon put an end to that.
This would indeed be the end of the United States as you know it, and that is
EXACTLY what these people want and are planning for. One party totalitarian rule is what they are trying to achieve with this.
I think lumping all Republicans together is a mistake. Some wouldn’t want to see this happen and would even fight against it. I think most Americans wouldn’t want this to happen, and it would lead to fighting in the streets, not just a few tweets. If an anti-democratic president wanted to stomp out the protests, I suppose they could, but there would be at least some soldiers who wouldn’t obey those orders. I doubt it will ever get to this, and I hope SCOTUS does the right thing… although I’m worried they won’t.
We’re talking about legislatures throwing away votes. You can’t gradually do that without anybody noticing. As soon as that happens, and they get away with it, that will signal the end of democracy in the US. Nothing to do with frogs in pots of warm water, which by the way, is a myth. Frogs will jump out of a pot, assuming they physically can, as soon as the water gets too warm for them.
They’re not going to throw away any votes. To the contrary, the legislature will be securing the sanctity of the election by not allowing the obvious cheating, letting dead people vote, and the nefarious hacking into voting machines that the Democrats have pulled. They will be only reporting the True and Real Votes That Actually Count.
And if you disagree with them that the Democrats cheated in the election then obviously you are part of the scheme and will be dealt with accordingly.
Throw away votes? NEVER. They would never, ever do that. They are only concerned with getting the correct vote tally.
I’m so glad to see this thread as I’ve been following this case, not as closely as some but close enough for me, and I know this might be my own failure of imagination but I just don’t see how this plays out down the line. It’s just baffling to me.
I’m assuming that even if the ISLT wins that elections in wisconsin, and elsewhere for that matter, will still be ran the same way. Meaning that, votes will still be cast, those votes will be collected and counted accurately and reported on in the same way they normally are. If the State Legislature decides that they’re going to award an election to someone who receives the lesser amount of votes and damn the consequences, what happens next? It’s difficult for me to imagine that people will just accept that even if it is technically legal as decided by the Supreme Court. I know I’m probably missing something. At least it feels that way.