Erwin Chemerinsky: How new House Speaker Mike Johnson tried again and again to overturn Biden's election
By: Erwin Chemerinsky (Twin Cities)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In less than 15 months, Congress will count and certify the votes from the electoral college. It is truly frightening that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., from the far right of the Republican Party, might have a prominent role in the process.
If Republicans keep control of the House in the November 2024 elections, it seems likely they will keep Johnson as speaker given their bitter divisions and difficulty in selecting someone for the position after Kevin McCarthy's ouster. Johnson was the primary proponent in the House of a way to overturn the 2020 election and keep Donald Trump in the presidency. He can be expected to do the same in 2024 if Trump is the Republican nominee and loses to President Joe Biden.
Johnson, a lawyer, led the House Republicans in promoting a baseless legal theory that state legislatures have sole power to select and appoint electors. This so-called "independent state legislature" theory maintains that a state legislature can allocate its electors however it wants, regardless of the popular vote and a law that requires that electors go to the presidential candidate who won the popular vote. The hope was that Republican-controlled legislatures in states won by Biden would allocate their electors to Trump and give him the presidency. This theory was rejected by the Supreme Court in June in Moore v. Harper.
Every court to consider any of the legal claims of Trump and his supporters like Johnson — whether state or federal judges, whether Democratic or Republican judges — found no basis for overturning the decision of the voters and the electoral college. None found evidence of voter fraud that would affect the outcome of the election, which Biden won by a huge margin.
Johnson, however, did all he could to promote false claims about the election process. He was a leader in supporting a lawsuit by Texas to have the Supreme Court decertify election results in four states won by Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
He argued that state officials had changed aspects of their election procedures, such as by making it easier to cast absentee ballots, before the November 2020 election. Johnson claimed these changes were invalid and therefore no electors should be counted from these states. Courts consistently upheld these changes by state election officials as necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnson even circulated an email asking his Republican colleagues to sign on to the amicus brief in the Supreme Court supporting the state of Texas' lawsuit and the suppression of electoral votes from four states. Johnson said in the email that Trump "specifically asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join on to our brief." He added, ominously, that Trump "said he will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review."
More than 100 House Republicans signed the brief. Law professor John Eastman filed a brief for Trump in the Supreme Court advancing this same unfounded theory. Eastman is now facing possible disbarment in California for his role in trying to undermine the election and has been indicted in Georgia on charges of trying to overturn election results in that state.
The Supreme Court quickly rejected the Texas lawsuit. In a brief opinion, the court explained that Texas had no basis to sue to block the ability of other states to participate in the electoral college.
Undaunted, Johnson tried to get the House to refuse to certify the results of the election. He and 138 other Republican members voted against certification on Jan. 6, 2021, despite Biden winning the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and decisively winning in the electoral college.
Johnson repeatedly spread Trump's false claim that the election was rigged. He said in a radio interview that a software system used for voting was "suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela." He declared, "You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there's a lot of merit to that."
Now that Johnson is House speaker, there is no telling what he will do to undermine the election should Trump become the GOP nominee. Given his extreme loyalty to Trump and his efforts to spread outrageous lies and to nullify the 2020 election, the peril for the democratic process is very great.
Erwin Chemerinsky is a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times Opinion section and the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. His latest book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism."
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We have a Sidney Powell/Rudy Giuliani wannabe second line now to the US presidency.
There appears to be no end to how low our country can be dragged by the right.
There's a good change that there will be less cheating by the Dems in the next election
Do you believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by the Ds?
No. But the Dems have a long tradition of "finding" votes .
Do you have actual evidence that the level of cheating that inevitably takes place in elections is substantial among Ds and insignificant among Rs?
I expect you will deflect or not respond.
In1996 an investigation into irregularities in the '96 election of Bob Dornan showed over 4000 questionable voters and at least 800 were non-citizens.
In 2005, Christine Gregoire was installed as the governor of Washington state duspite over 1500 questionable an illegal ballots found and using three separate recounts that included counting votes from ballot boxes that's mysteriously were found and were uncounted. The counting of those vote were contrary to the election làws in place at that time.
There were irregularities reported in the election that put al franken in the Senate.
There have been reports of voting irregularities in the 1960 election of JFK.
No, arkpdx, I did not ask you to give evidence that there are irregularities in USA elections and then cherry-pick only D irregularities. We all already know that not all USA elections are perfect.
I asked you this:
Try answering honestly.
With this new speaker there’s an absolute chance that there will be more cheating by the Republicans in the next election.
We would all be much better off if he had been successful.
You support a successful violation of the CotUS and the disenfranchisement of USA voters?
We are in a clown show.
The second in line to the presidency thinks Venezuelan voting machines robbed Trump of re-election. We are living in a plot out of a bad political thriller novel.
I didn't say that. I said we would be better off if Biden was never president.
LOL. What you said was you wish he had been successful at overturning the election. Its right there.
There's no use denying your own words.
No, he did not say he wished it were the case. What he said we would be better off if Trump were president instead of Joe. Stop adding things he never said.
Agree. Try reading what he actually said.
I copied and pasted his comment. maybe you missed it.
I saw it, maybe you missed understanding what he actually said. What he actually said was we would be better off if Trump were president. And even after he explained that you still hold onto your interpretation.
That might be what he meant, but he clearly did not think through what he wrote.
arkpdx quoted from the seed:
He then wrote this @3:
The 'he' is Mike Johnson
The 'successful' act was "Overturn Biden's Election"
If Mike Johnson had been successful in overturning Biden's demonstrably legitimate election, he would have violated the CotUS and disenfranchised USA voters.
So arkpdx's words state that we would be better off if Trump remained in power as an illegitimate PotUS, violating the CotUS and disenfranchising USA voters.
Its not an interpretation, it was his exact words. You are the one who is interpreting them, not me and Sandy.
This attempt to rehabilitate his comment is ridiculous.
That is a lie. We can all read what he actually wrote.
This is laughable. You are claiming literal words that everyone can see are not as you claim.
It is always amusing when people keep insisting they know what you said/meant better than you do, even after you clarify it.
I acknowledged what arkpdx claims to have meant.
You, however, are trying (absurdly) to argue that what he literally wrote is NOT what he literally wrote.
People are arguing with you about your obviously ridiculous claim about what arkpdx actually (literally) wrote.
The top line is the article headline, the bottom line is his comment. The meaning of the comment is clear and denying it is bizarre. Another word for trolling in my book.
“This is laughable.”
If it was a parody.
The sad fact is that this it is our reality, and thus our responsibility to protect the rights that are being threatened by his words and deeds by calling them out at every opportunity.
There are people here who routinely derail seeds and discussions with this sort of junk. I guess NT is helpless against it.
I can at least understand (logically) what drives partisans to defend their party. Party loyalty is a strong force.
What continues to blow my mind is the daily attempts (in general) to defend the indefensible with feeble (at best) arguments. To what end??
To what end??
To troll.
“To what end??”
Passing a self-imposed litmus test, parroting the party line at all times…even if it means doing so is in direct contradiction of their basic tenets.
Or more likely, too many are just willfully ignorant and don’t understand the ramifications of their specious arguments and constant obfuscation of the facts.
Indeed to what end?
I read what he actually said. Are you going to deny the meaning of a sentence written in plain English, too? To what end?
that sounds treasonous
I'm sure some people regret not being there on Jan 6th so they could display their "patriotism".
Great bumper sticker
The Republicans put in a total fraud as the Speaker... not much different than McCarthy, though.
The Hakeem Jeffries fan club mad about election denial.
good stuff.
You would be happy enough if Trump gets back in office. I give your opinion on these sorts of things zero credibility.
He'd sure be better than the shit for brains idiot that's in there now