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Democrats have spent a lot of the 2024 marketing campaign reminding People of what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. However on Capitol Hill, some are already rising 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 seemingly 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 prime Home Democrats — that Speaker Mike Johnson may preserve his majority as Harris wins and discover himself ready the place he might hinder the counting of electoral votes and probably throw the election to the Home beneath the constitutional provisions of the twelfth Modification.
Johnson, in any case, led Home Republicans in submitting an amicus temporary after the 2020 election asking the Supreme Court docket 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,” mentioned Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the highest Democrat on the Home Administration Committee who has led his get together’s pushback on GOP voting claims.
Including to the nervousness is that Johnson, within the post-election interval, may also be in a management dogfight the place he may 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 mentioned they have 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 temporary as a back-bencher and transferring to overturn the need of voters as a constitutional officer.
Different roadblocks are in place, as properly: For one, it is going to be Harris, as vp, who will truly 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 regulation governing the method, it’s now a lot tougher to object to the counting of votes. Quite 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 regulation surrounding the certification course of, in addition to the truth that Johnson could possibly be in cost for Republicans come Jan. 6.
They worry his constitutional-law background, conservative motion bona fides and aw-shucks demeanor might make him uniquely formidable in a contested-election state of affairs — sharp sufficient to provide you with 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 regulation knowledgeable who tangled with Johnson over his 2020 temporary, paraphrased the traditional Greek poet Hesiod: “He has the muses say one thing like, ‘We all know tips on how to inform the reality after we need to inform the reality. And after we need 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 completely false and would intestine our constitutional system,” Raskin (D-Md.) mentioned.
Whereas Raskin and different Democrats have been loath to take a position about how precisely Johnson and different Republicans might probably wreak electoral havoc after voting is completed, the next considerations have circulated on Capitol Hill:
— That Johnson might attempt to rewrite the foundations 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 might resolve to attempt to write his personal, inserting provisions that may 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 might muster sufficient Republicans to object to sure contested slates of electors — and, if the GOP additionally holds the Senate, probably collect the votes to throw these slates out. If neither candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the Home might have authority beneath the twelfth Modification to decide on the winner.
— That Johnson might delay the vote-counting session. Whereas the Jan. 6 date is written in regulation, it’s the speaker who has to name the Home to order first. Democrats fear that Johnson might primarily push pause — a lot as Trump allies frightened 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 might problem the Electoral Depend Act totally. Underneath a novel authorized concept, he might ask a court docket to rule that the regulation on the books can not 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 will probably be ringing of their ears. Simply hours after the vote, Johnson instructed POLITICO he had no regrets about his 2020 amicus temporary: “I might do the very same factor in the present day if the circumstances have been offered, as a result of I really feel like I’ve an obligation.”
“The Supreme Court docket 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 mentioned. “However … I believed 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 particular person 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 scenario 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 might go sideways. They’re additionally elevating their worries with donors, urging them to present generously to verify the get together flips the Home and nips any potential drama within the bud.
“I place confidence in folks,” Morelle mentioned, sharing his perception that Johnson would “do the proper 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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