World Courant
Democrats have spent a lot of the 2024 marketing campaign reminding Individuals of what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. However on Capitol Hill, some are already getting involved about Jan. 6, 2025.
They’re hoping that Kamala Harris will win in November they usually’ll flip the Home, too — that means it might probably be Hakeem Jeffries holding the speaker’s gavel as the method of certifying a Harris victory will get underway.
Nevertheless it’s one other state of affairs that’s nagging high Home Democrats — that Speaker Mike Johnson may maintain his majority as Harris wins and discover himself ready the place he may hinder the counting of electoral votes and presumably throw the election to the Home beneath the constitutional provisions of the twelfth Modification.
Johnson, in spite of everything, led Home Republicans in submitting an amicus transient after the 2020 election asking the Supreme Courtroom to primarily overturn swing-state outcomes, an effort personally blessed by Donald Trump. Now, he’s main a cost suggesting that undocumented immigrants are voting en masse in what Democrats view as a coordinated effort to sow doubt within the election and lay the groundwork for mischief.
“It could be foolish to disregard the historical past right here,” stated Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the highest Democrat on the Home Administration Committee who has led his occasion’s pushback on GOP voting claims.
Including to the anxiousness is that Johnson, within the post-election interval, may also be in a management dogfight the place he is likely to be compelled to show his mettle to MAGA-minded members — to not point out Trump himself — by pledging to problem the election outcomes.
A Johnson aide dismissed the Democratic considerations as an try to lift cash to flip the Home and stated they had been a part of an alarmist narrative that helped result in the 2 assassination makes an attempt focusing on Trump.
Different Republicans shut with Johnson instructed us they doubted the speaker would succumb to Trump’s needs so simply. They famous he withstood MAGA strain on Ukraine funding, they usually drew a distinction between writing a authorized transient as a back-bencher and shifting to overturn the need of voters as a constitutional officer.
Different roadblocks are in place, as properly: For one, it will likely be Harris, as vice chairman, who will really preside over the certification of electoral votes, as Mike Pence famously did in 2021. And beneath a 2022 rewrite of the Electoral Depend Act, the legislation governing the method, it’s now a lot more durable to object to the counting of votes. Relatively than a single member, it now requires 20 % of every chamber to proceed with an objection.
But Democrats are nonetheless fearful, fretting over unresolved ambiguities within the Structure and within the legislation surrounding the certification course of, in addition to the truth that Johnson may very well be in cost for Republicans come Jan. 6.
They worry his constitutional-law background, conservative motion bona fides and aw-shucks demeanor may make him uniquely formidable in a contested-election state of affairs — sharp sufficient to give you novel authorized arguments that would throw the election to the Home and savvy sufficient to get his members on board.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Democratic constitutional legislation skilled who tangled with Johnson over his 2020 transient, paraphrased the traditional Greek poet Hesiod: “He has the muses say one thing like, ‘We all know tips on how to inform the reality once we wish to inform the reality. And once we wish to inform lies, we all know tips on how to inform lies that appear like the reality.’ And that is how I view Johnson’s jurisprudence.”
“He can state what the Structure actually says — after which he is aware of tips on how to make polished arguments for Trump which are totally false and would intestine our constitutional system,” Raskin (D-Md.) stated.
Whereas Raskin and different Democrats had been loath to invest about how precisely Johnson and different Republicans may presumably wreak electoral havoc after voting is finished, the next considerations have circulated on Capitol Hill:
— That Johnson may attempt to rewrite the principles that govern the Jan. 6 vote-counting session. For the previous century or so, the 2 chambers have unanimously adopted boilerplate, bipartisan procedures for the depend. Johnson may resolve to attempt to write his personal, inserting provisions that will open up new avenues to problem the outcomes, or just refuse to undertake a course of in any respect, creating ambiguity and doubt.
— That Johnson may muster sufficient Republicans to object to sure contested slates of electors — and, if the GOP additionally holds the Senate, presumably collect the votes to throw these slates out. If neither candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the Home may have authority beneath the twelfth Modification to decide on the winner.
— That Johnson may delay the vote-counting session. Whereas the Jan. 6 date is written in legislation, it’s the speaker who has to name the Home to order first. Democrats fear that Johnson may primarily push pause — a lot as Trump allies apprehensive after the 2020 election that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi may do the identical and go to the courts. (A associated worry: What if there is no such thing as a speaker in any respect on Jan. 6 — as there was two years in the past, when Kevin McCarthy was struggling to win the gavel?)
— That Johnson may problem the Electoral Depend Act totally. Below a novel authorized idea, he may ask a court docket to rule that the legislation on the books can’t bind Congress from exercising its energy beneath the Structure — once more defaulting to the method specified by the twelfth Modification.
Democratic suspicions about Johnson are nothing new. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) moved earlier this 12 months to kick Johnson out as speaker, Democrats confronted a dilemma on whether or not to guard him on a key procedural vote. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the Home choose Jan. 6 panel, warned her colleagues to consider carefully earlier than serving to a person they’ve derided as an “election denier.”
Most Democrats, together with Lofgren, swallowed their considerations and voted to maintain Johnson. Now some worry that warning shall be ringing of their ears. Simply hours after the vote, Johnson instructed POLITICO he had no regrets about his 2020 amicus transient: “I might do the very same factor immediately if the circumstances had been offered, as a result of I really feel like I’ve an obligation.”
“The Supreme Courtroom dodged the query — maybe they calculated that the reply was so profound, it might be so unsettling, and it was not value them addressing,” he stated. “However … I assumed that was an vital query to pose to the court docket.”
Jeffries blessed the choice to guard Johnson, and a few Democrats need to him to intervene with Johnson and head off any post-election drama. The 2 leaders have struck up a surprisingly heat private {and professional} relationship, and Johnson has beforehand spoken about their shared religion and rapport.
One Johnson ally additionally identified that Johnson can also be shut with Pence, one other conservative Christian who fell out of Trump’s favor when refused to do his bidding on Jan. 6, 2021. This individual predicted that whereas Johnson would attempt to keep in MAGA’s good graces after the election, he wouldn’t go rogue in the best way Democrats worry.
Once more, these worst-case situations are all fairly unlikely — beginning with the improbability of a state of affairs the place Harris wins and Republicans have majorities in each chambers. However the possibilities for havoc throughout the electoral vote depend 4 years in the past appeared unthinkable, too.
So Democrats aren’t leaving something to probability. Senior lawmakers are already privately assembly to game-plan for all of the other ways the post-election interval may go sideways. They’re additionally elevating their worries with donors, urging them to provide generously to verify the occasion flips the Home and nips any potential drama within the bud.
“I place confidence in folks,” Morelle stated, sharing his perception that Johnson would “do the appropriate factor” in a contested state of affairs. “However we’re ready for any eventuality and … we’ll be ready to press ahead and ensure there’s a peaceable switch.”
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
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The opposite Jan. 6 Democrats are apprehensive about
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