I’m just using it as an example because it’s the state I live in and am familiar with its state legislature.
Trump losing Ohio would open up some delicious blowout scenarios
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GOP State Republicans are even more insane than the GOP Congress folks - they are true believers. They will go along with literally anything.
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Yeah I get this, but the legislature has already proscribed how this is done. They passed a law. That law was signed by the governor. They can’t undo that law without passing another law that is also signed by the governor. It also appears to be written into the PA constitution itself, Article VII. Again, there are lots of ways that trump cheats and steals this. The hypothetical where the PA legislature just ignores a vote total and passes a different slate by itself is not one of them.
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Florida’s legislature considered choosing its own electors in 2000.
Both committees approved the measure in the form of a resolution that could be enacted without the signature of Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother of the Republican presidential nominee.
[Yale law professor Bruce] Ackerman warned that if the Legislature took action, it could unleash a process that would end in a constitutional deadlock. If the Legislature named its own slate of electors, Mr. Ackerman said, and Florida’s popular vote eventually favored Vice President Al Gore, Congress would likely be unable to agree on which slate to choose.
Should that occur, Mr. Ackerman said, the decision would return to Florida, where the state’s Republican governor and its Democratic attorney general would probably also fail to agree.
After that, Mr. Ackerman said, the law was unclear. But he said a 200-year-old precedent existed for the president of the United States Senate – in this case, Mr. Gore – to choose Florida’s electors, given the 50-50 split of the Senate along party lines. Such a situation, he said, amounted to a ‘‘constitutional train wreck,’’ with no palatable solution.
I don’t know if Pennsylvania is like Florida, but:
Rep. Kevin Boyle (D., Phila.), minority chair of the House State Government Committee, said the GOP, in theory, could pass a resolution that doesn’t require Gov. Tom Wolf’s approval.
It seems pretty obvious that the argument is going to be that Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says that state legislatures can direct how electors are appointed and that governors should not have veto power over that since they aren’t mentioned explicitly in the text of the Constitution. That sort of sophistry is going to be good enough for results-oriented conservatives who are willing to ignore lawbro norms.
There is a parlay involved of enough Pennsylvania Republican legislators being willing to go against those norms and enough conservative Supreme Court justices being willing to go against those norms. The impeachment of Bill Clinton and the Bush v Gore decision should be ample evidence that norms are like tissue paper when they are what stands between Republicans/conservatives and power and the right wing has only gotten more shameless and power-hungry since then.
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Honestly they put some shit like that and were burning down the white house. Just to start.
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It says the State itself makes the Appointment of electors, and the State Legislature sets the Manner in which the State makes the Appointment.
Think Jman is saying that the State Legislature has already set the Manner the State makes the Appointment via previously passed laws, and if they want to change those laws they have to do it in accordance w/ those previously passed laws that are subject to Governor veto.
That’s much harder to overcome than I thought when I heard the simplistic summary of “state legislatures appoint the electors.” As a recovering law bro I’m back to a 2 out of 10 in the worried about this meter.
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It also runs afoul of the faithless elector decision recently handed down by the SC - Chiafalo v. Washington
These are the questions you need to answer.
Will they try to overcome the established procedure? If they do, will the conflict reach the Supreme Court? Which way will a SCOTUS with a 6-3 majority rule if a case gets to them?
I mean while I’m sure the SC justices would be happy to install a right wing dictator, Trump obviously is not their guy. They’ll give him, and more desirably to them, their R Senator buddies, a nudge in throwing out the ballots where they can but don’t think they are going to engage in tortured logic to install Trump. I had previously worried about this because I thought the SC would have to engage in tortured logic to avoid letting the state legislatures pull a coup but I think Jman is correct…
Do you have an unerring faith in the Supreme Court to feel bound by precedent in deciding any election-related case (just like they were in Bush v Gore)?
I think the Rs might try, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will tell them to fuck off, and the actual Supreme Court will let the Penn SC decision stand.
Assume Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed before the election. What do you expect the vote breakdown to be in that hypothetical SCOTUS case?
I’m 15% 5-4 with Roberts joining the minority, 85% 6-3 because Roberts won’t want it to be a 5-4 decision.
I think it will be 7-2 or 8-1 to not even hear the case if Pennsylvania SC court goes against Trump. Now if the Pennsylvania SC also decided to join the State Legislator in installing Trump, I’d be very surprised if the US SC decided to do anything about it and WAAF.
Clarence Thomas is the only one that I would bet on doing everything he possibly can to get a Trump dictatorship.
Yeah this is my concern. Essentially SCOTUS could strike down the PA State Constitution and the law in question as unconstitutional.
See you in DC and when it doesn’t work out, if we’re in the same camp let’s try to get a NLHE game going.
I agree with Jman on what should happen, I’m just not confident in this SCOTUS to do the right thing.
PA Supreme Court is liberal iirc. It’s the federal circuit court that would be trouble.
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048231221178373?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048232244596737?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048233288957954?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048234484338692?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048235763617794?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048236690477056?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048237537730563?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048238510886914?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048239777447938?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048240620593154?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048241597816833?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048242507939841?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048243355283457?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048244659728384?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048245494382595?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048246366801922?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048247197208578?s=21
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1311048248036073475?s=21
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All good points but not sure the last sentence is true.
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https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1311039031346638849?s=21
Matty is on a heater lately
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