We'll we've never had that happen before.
November 13, 1920 cover of Judge. I mean nothing by posting this at all, including commenting on "ads is ads" or "pigs is pigs", whatever that means. I just like the illustration and the wry sense of getting back to normal, as if we're getting back to normal. One thing we can't say about this year is Elections is Elections.
And by that I mean run a second "General Election" thread. Usually I run one, and then the election post mortems. This year has been dramatically different.
Yesterday Pennsylvania and Nevada certified their elections. The day prior, Michigan did. Georgia already has. There the states that were extremely close have officially called their elections and, while some litigating goes on, it's over.
Or not.
The Georgia Senate race remains up and running for January 5. And that race will determine who controls the Senate. If the Democrats win the Senate will be evenly split 50/50 and Vice President Kamala Harris will be the tie breaker. If the Republicans retain even one of the two Georgia seats then they'll control the Senate.
Either way, Joe Biden definitely won't have a carte blanche for whatever his agenda may be. He'll have to work with the Senate. He'll have an easier time working with a Democratic Senate than a Republican one, but he'll have to do that either way. If its a Republican Senate very little may get done indeed given as it'll be lead by Mitch McConnell who didn't work with President Obama much the last time there was a Democratic President. But even if its a Democratic one there are Democrats who are going to cross over from time to time. Indeed, such a Senate may be fairly moderate.
And the House is pretty evenly split as well A person could suppose that the American public voted for divided government. . . or they're extremely but evenly divided.
This thread will hopefully run until the end of the election, but we'll see. It should be interesting. More money will pour into the Georgia race than has ever been poured into a Senate race before, and more effort by both parties will have seen no equal.
The whole process in this atmosphere, which is highly polarized in the extreme, and which was prior to the General Election, would have been difficult in any event. The immediate post election atmosphere may have amplified that and may have pushed things towards the Democrats, at least temporarily. As the drama of the suits dies down, however, we suspect that this race will begin to resemble a more conventional one, even if it never becomes fully that.
November 25, 2020, cont:
A court in Pennsylvania ordered that Pennsylvania courts cease certifying results until Friday, when it will be hearing a motion.
This is likely to be one of those things inaccurately reported as being of huge significance, when in fact its the court most likely preserving the status quo until it can hear the motion and likely rule against the Trump side of it.
November 28, 2020
As predicted, a Federal Appeals Court dismissed a Trump appeal from a Federal District Court in Pennsylvania. In doing so, the judge from the three judge panel noted the lack of evidence to support Trump's claims. That judge was a Trump appointee.
November 30, 2020
A group of Pennsylvania legislators, none of whom were in key positions, drafted a resolution calling on the state not to certify its results. The party rejected it.
December 2, 2020
Attorney General Barr confirmed that the post election investigations he authorized have found no evidence of widespread fraud in the election. The evidence has been persistently clear that there was no widespread fraud, but as Barr is very much a Trump loyalist his finding is significant, and also anticipated by us here.
December 8, 2020
Contrary to expectations, President Trump continues to attempt to prevent the electoral college from voting Joe Biden into office. The electoral college will vote next week, on December 14. Today is the safe harbor date after which nothing can be done to prevent the electoral college results.
None the less pressure was put on Georgia to reverse its votes. Two recounts confirmed that President Trump had won. Yesterday the President was putting pressure on Pennsylvania officials once again to try to get them to reverse their state's results. This will also fail but the fact that its occurring is remarkable.
The final act now appears to be set for January when Congress will accept the results. The process allows for the vote to be challenged as long as a Senate member will go along with that. This has been tried by both Democrats and Republicans several times over the last twenty years, which now demonstrates how such a precedent can be dangerous. In those instances those were mere protests in which the Congressmen foolishly taking them knew that they were doomed and stood no chance, but this year there's a real chance that such a step could result in a procedural process by which the results will be briefly challenged.
At this point this is becoming a real strain on American democracy and presenting a real danger of semi permanent damage to the system that's going to take some time to repair. There's every sign that President Trump, in spite of his advanced age, does not intend to go away and instead plans on running again in 2024 with "stolen election" as his theme. The theme is accepted by many of his supporters and as a result American democracy is shakier at any point since its been since 1860.
The degree to which this is permanent, however, may be debated. The U.S. recovered from the 1860-65 test surprisingly well, if imperfectly, surprisingly rapidly. And the real ability of either of the septuagenarian contestants to realistically plan for 2024 would be in at least statistical doubt, given their advanced ages and the rigors of the role. Still, the strain being put on the system isn't doing it any favors, and at this point the GOP is sustaining extremely serious damage which it may not be able to overcome in spite of having done very well this year.
Georgia may prove to be the test. If the GOP loses in Georgia, which it now appears it will, Republicans may turn on him and those in Georgia already are. Those waiting for an excuse to do so, and they exist, may very well be provided that if the Republicans lose the Senate with Trump at the helm.
December 10, 2020
All fifty states have now certified the election results.
A group of thirty Wyoming legislators signed a letter to the state seeking to have Wyoming join Texas' suit to preclude electors from certain states from voting at the Electoral College. The suit as filed with the United States Supreme Court and is unlikely to be accepted by that court and certain to fail if it is accepted.
Seventeen states have joined with Texas in the doomed effort. The respondent states must reply by today by order of the Supreme Court which will reject the effort either late today or tomorrow.
The Electoral College meets next Monday.
December 11, 2020
Wyoming's Governor Gordon declared that he "supports" the litigation filed by Texas but that the state will not join it as it hasn't had time to analyze the complaint and he feared that it might trespass on state sovereignty.
In reality Gordon no doubt realizes the litigation is doomed and extremely ill advised, but he has to avoid saying that lest he anger certain sections of the state's GOP that support the action.
Time Magazine picked Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the People of the Year for its end of the year issue.
Time's tradition is to pick the people, supposedly, who made the most news. By that standard, while Biden and Harris certainly made news, they really wouldn't be entitled to the cover. Indeed, something COVID 19 related would be entitled to that spot.
Cont:
The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the suit filed by the State of Texas. This is no surprise whatsoever. There were two opinions to the contrary by Alito and Thomas, but only because it is their declared view that the Court has no option but to hear disputes between states.
This is the definitive end in what seems to have been an effort to reverse the results of the election through judicial action, something based on a gross misreading of the courts.
December 12, 2020
Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey called for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to refuse to seat the Republican Congressmen, approximately 2/3s of the GOP member of the House, who had supported the Attorney General of Texas' lawsuit against other states which sought to undermine their election results. The call is not well grounded in the law as it assumes that sedition equates directly with treason, which it doesn't perfectly, and that those signing on were seditious. There is a legally cognizable argument on the latter, but its not so perfect that this would occur or, for that matter, be a wise political move. It wouldn't be.
This is clearly a gadfly moment on Pascrell's part and I've never heard of him before. He followed it up by calling for Trump to be prosecuted, but it is interesting in that the real threat, minute though it is, that something like that would occur would be in the Senate, not the House, where the Democrats could increase their margins by arguing that any Republican Senators who signed on, and I am not aware of any, were seditious. The Senate's rules at least used to allow a seat refusal for less than that.
Again, I don't think any of this will occur, but it is an interesting example of "turnabout being fair play", which the Republicans now will need to be worried about, and also an interesting example of how American democracy appears to be teetering on the edge. The administration is refusing to play by the normal rules in turning over power, and now at least one Democrat is calling for some to suffer banishment.
It also points out how the oath of office, which requires members of Congress to obey the Constitution, doesn't mean very much as it is correct that Trump's efforts were outside of the Constitution. A person could argue that resort to courts was never unconstitutional, however. That's long been evident, however, given the constant introduction of facially unconstitutional bills on various things. It's interesting however as plenty of the same people who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution pretty routinely pretend that doesn't mean anything.
On other matters in what rapidly is winding down, but isn't wound out yet, into a state of odd farce, one of Trump's fired lawyers called for the invocation of the Insurrection Act to suspend the Electoral College. Note that this was a fired lawyer and the Trump Administration is not hinting at any such thing. Each side has its extremist, but that's really extreme.
I note that in part as yesterday I took a long drive, something I'm not getting much of since the pandemic really set in, from one town to another and noted that outside of where I was going a lot of Trump flags were still flying. One was one that had Trump images as the words "A Hero Will Rise".
This isn't the first time in recent years that a personality cult like that has developed around a political figure, but it's scary. The first time I can recall it was when President Obama was Senator Obama and was running 2008. His image was converted into a type of poster that really reminded me of the old Che Guevara image of the 60s, not something any American should aspire to. Now we're seeing that again in a sort of really fanatic end of things in regard to Trump. Again, of note, we've now seen that with two Presidents in a row, which really isn't a good thing at all. Some Presidents are heroic, but we haven't had such a President for at least 80 years. The fact that the last two have seemingly been looked at that was shows a really distressing polarization into an identity group politics and, as emphasized here in a long post just yesterday, shows how a section of the American electorate views itself as so disenfranchised it really is no longer looking at politics as a contest but as an existential struggle which it stands to lose, and which it feels it must absolutely not.
One good thing about all of this has been to demonstrate how Harvard Law is not all that. Both Ted Cruz, who delusionally believed that the administration would want him to argue at the Supreme Court level (why, why, on earth would they want that) and Kayleigh McEnay are Harvard law graduates who are not living up the shining examples that the image of that institution would have you believe about its products. The Ivy League law schools have had a lock grip for some time on the Supreme Court, which may have just ended, and graduating from one of them is an unwarranted ticket into government and wealth. Perhaps this will cause that to be questioned just a bit.
Cont:
The Texas GOP has actually suggested that perhaps succession from the union is the proper course of action in response to its losing its recent case in front of the Supreme Court
Chairman Allen West’s Response to SCOTUS Decision
POSTED 12.11.2020 - by RPT Staff
Austin, TX, Release: December 11, 2020. For Immediate Release
Below is Chairman Allen West’s statement regarding the decision by the Supreme Court to dismiss Texas’ constitutionally legitimate and critical lawsuit.
“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressman, has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law. Resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable. This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”
The Texas GOP will always stand for the Constitution and for the rule of law even while others don’t.
###
This is so thick with irony that its hard to describe. Texas has, of course, succeeded once before on dubious claims of upholding the Constitution and now the GOP, which stood for the Union the last time this was seriously suggested, is suggesting the departure.
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