The legislature doesn't have a role in deciding the election. The voters do. Any legislator who attempts to overturn the election result should be arrested.
Not that I'd expect this to happen, but if Biden wins but Rs win majorities in Congress and it's clear they have the numbers and intent to try to do a certification coup, then Capitol and DC security should be given orders to deny them entry. Convene rump Congress without them and vote to expel.
If the GOP insists on trying to steal an election they lost this is one of the real possibilities! Would be really bad and you should try to take affirmative actions to not let things get that far! bsky.app/profile/onbl...
How does this not end with two different congresses both claiming that they’re the real one that expelled the other one and then one of them moving to Avignon
But when I say that the Supreme Court Crisis will resolve in part by changing the locks on the building this is sort of what I mean bsky.app/profile/onbl...
How does this not end with two different congresses both claiming that they’re the real one that expelled the other one and then one of them moving to Avignon
Getting some replies like "on what authority, all of this would be technically legal," and no, it is not legal to attempt to overthrow the government of the United States
Both because there are several specific laws in the federal code that say so but even if there weren't "it's not legal to try to overthrow the government and the government is allowed to stop someone trying to do it" is implicit in the existence of the government.
For many people (and far too many elites), lawyer brain just completely wipes out the capacity for basic, rational thought and makes it impossible to comprehend elemental truths about the world such as "a functional state does not permit its own overthrow".
These are the same chuckleheads who will excuse any stupid illegal shit if it's in a contract.
"Well you agreed to it! It's in a contract!"
When it was page 69 of a click to proceed TOS for a basic necessity provided by a monopoly and a dozen superseding laws plainly say it's stupid illegal shit.
We really just WON'T have a democracy if this time bomb isn't diffused. It simply can't be the case that a Democrat needs 270 Electoral Votes in states with Democratic secretaries of state, plus at least one, if not both, Houses of Congress, to get elected.
Republicans/Conservatives have - correctly- realized the majority of the country has moved on from and rejects their worldview completely. They see no place for themselves in the future, and are trying to stop that future from happening
Everything we see from them is a byproduct of that
That's actual, no fucking joke civil war territory if they do that. It will be utterly obvious to every blue state that Dems will never be allowed to win an election again. Forever.
I can see California and some other states flatly refusing to recognize a POTUS installation scheme like that
So many talking heads acting like the only vote possible is for the President. All those 535 NPCs down Pennsylvania Avenue are just a bunch of bogie men acting totally independently, like we can't vote for them or any other elected officials.
a huge chunk of congressional seats are functinoally non-competitive because the GOP has rigged the maps. North Carolina will likely be 49-51 total vote and elect 10 GOP reps to only 4 Dems
School board.
Water management district.
District judges.
County council.
Governor.
State senators.
State representatives.
These clowns did not parachute into the Capitol overnight.
Or maybe just form an old fashioned posse and storm the Capitol ourselves???
Not that I'd expect this to happen, but if Biden wins but Rs win majorities in Congress and it's clear they have the numbers and intent to try to do a certification coup, then Capitol and DC security should be given orders to deny them entry. Convene rump Congress without them and vote to expel.
How does this not end with two different congresses both claiming that they’re the real one that expelled the other one and then one of them moving to Avignon
I mean, that's possible, but if it does, one of them will be in the place where Congress always meets and that everyone associates with Congress and the other won't.
They don't vote by delegation until there are fewer than 270 certified electoral votes. They need majorities in both the House and Senate to deny certification to a slate of electors. That was the plan in 2020, but they didn't have control of the House, and the Senate didn't go along.
It's not that the Senate has the power to send it to the House so much as a certain number of House members and senators can object to a slate's certification. This used to be just one member of each chamber but was raised to one-fifth of each chamber in 2022 in the ECA reform bill.
Once that slate is challenged, both the House and the Senate must agree to throw out the slate by simple majority vote. If they don't agree, the slate stands. This vote took place for both Pennsylvania and Arizona in 2021, but neither chamber voted to throw out the electors.
No. Vote by state for Prez in the House only happens if no one gets at least 270 EV. The Senate isn’t involved and can’t “send it” to the House. The Senate does pick the VP (by simple majority) if no VP candidate gets 270 EV.
They're very likely to get a majority in the Senate (it's a terrible map this year), they're less likely to get a majority in the House, but even if they have a minority in the House they're likely to have control of a lot of states' delegations.
If they do not have a majority in the House, I'm curious how they could actually prevent the certification of the election? If it's D+12 (doesn't seem unreasonable - but just as an example) it can just be party line, if necessary.
Okay well I obviously don’t think you are a Nazi but I do think you are calling for an action that has no constitutional foundation, like at all. Far exceeds the dubious legality of Lincoln suspending habeas corpus without an act of Congress, for example.
Way back in September 2020, I read Barton Gellman's chilling article in The Atlantic about extensive preparations the Trump legal team had been building since early in the year to challenge a loss. That was 2020. This time they're even better prepared. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
Trump being declared the winner by a bunch of Republican authorities, including the Supreme Court, when he clearly lost, and Dems unsure of how or unwilling to fight back is a very likely potential outcome and it feels like nobody is preparing for it on the Dem side.
Republicans saw the Democrats do nothing to fight back when the election was stolen from Al Gore and have correctly decided they can be as fascist and criminal as they want to be, as no one would stop them.
if that happens, we have to make things right ourselves. the first step is making sure that as many people as possible believe that process to be illegitimate and that they are right to oppose it.
