Freedom Caucus Chairman Voices Support for Direct Appointment of North Carolina's Electors To Electoral College
By: Noel Fritsch (National File)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Freedom Caucus Chairman Voices Support for Direct Appointment of North Carolina’s Electors To Electoral College
Noel Fritsch4-5 minutes 10/25/2024
Last Updated on October 25, 2024
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris expressed support for the direct appointment of North Carolina’s electors by that state’s majority-Republican legislature.
The move to call a special session to directly appoint North Carolina’s electors would likely result in all sixteen electoral votes going to Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.
Twenty-five counties in Western North Carolina were decimated by Hurricane Helene, destroying the prospects for a free, fair election in the Tar Heel State.
Congressman Harris made the comments in a meeting in Maryland on Thursday night.
Such a move would not be novel, and has long-standing historical precedent, going back to the founding of the republic.
The majority of the states’ legislatures directly appointed electors for many of the nation’s first presidential contests.
Direct Appointment of electors to the Electoral College was practiced regularly by many legislatures in the United States up until and even after the Civil War.
It was not until legislatures learned that they could avoid accountability for choosing a state’s selection for president — a vote that might be seen as a contentious vote by many constituents — that legislatures began to institute statewide popular elections in order to let themselves off the hook for a potentially controversial vote.
Crucially, the Direct Appointment of Electors by legislatures is rooted firmly in the U.S. Constitution, and not in the capriciousness of newly written state or federal statutes.
Nor is Direct Appointment of Electors by legislatures grounded in the mercurial nature of the federal judiciary, which in 1857 enforced the Dred Scott decision, which held that black Americans were not citizens, and which in 1897 enforced outright racism of the “separate but equal” doctrine, as the Supreme Court did with Plessy v. Ferguson.
Instead, the U.S. Constitution makes it abundantly clear that the power to Directly Appoint electors resides directly and exclusively with the legislature.
In fact, the governor is not even required, should the North Carolina legislature desire to directly appoint the Old North State’s electors to Donald Trump.
The reason for this is that the parameters for the appointment of Electors to the Electoral College falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Constitution, and does not follow any state’s constitution.
READ: U.S. Constitution Allows North Carolina Legislature to Award Electors to Donald Trump in 2024The United States Constitution gives every state legislature the power to award its electors in each of the fifty federal election contests for President of the United States.
The U.S. Constitution vests in the State legislatures – and only the legislatures – the power and the duty to select the members of the Electoral College, according to Article II, Section 1, clause 2.
Article II, Sec. 1, Clause 2 reads as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
During the contested 2000 Bush vs. Gore election dispute in Florida, George W. Bush’s attorneys highlighted the constitutional legal precedent that provides the rationale North Carolina’s Republican legislature needs to deliver that state’s electors to Donald Trump this November.
You can hear Rep. Andy Harris’s comments here:
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A member of the US House of Representatives, Andy Harris, the chairman of the far right Freedom Caucus in Congress, actually suggested that the North Carolina legislature could give the states electoral votes to Trump no matter who got the most votes there. Because the hurricane.
Well, China's doing pretty good without needing the common people to vote, so let's give it a try, eh?
No, I dont think so.
Your suggestion should be taken seriously.
China doesn't respect human rights... just as Trump proposes to not respect human rights - "LOCK HER UP!!!"
America‘s economy operates under an unbridaled capitalism. China operates under a capitalism moderated by the People's Party.
America‘s economy benefits primarily the already-rich. China's economy benefits the general public.
If we look at the situations of the two countries forty years ago... and today... there is absolutely no doubt which country's general public has done better.
In America, Musk and Bezos have done very well... John Doe not so much.
I don't know what a Chinese "John Doe" is called, but his life has improved VASTLY more.
Although there have been some incidents of human rights violations here that have concerned me, such incidents have declined considerably. Keep in mind that maintaining a peaceful country of 1.4 billion people is a lot more difficult and necessarily requiring more control than nations with much smaller populations. There have in the past been incidents that upset me, and I even took the chance of posting them on NT, such as the silencing of the deserved lawsuits from the 2008 massive earthquake, the silencing of the doctor who sounded the alarm about the Covid virus outbreak, but I do not disagree with the reeducation of the terrorist, separatist and fundamentalist Uighurs. And I do NOT believe there is slave labour any more than American prisoners are required to work and I detest hypocrisy. However, things are getting better all the time here, abject poverty has been eradicated, the government IS listening to the people as proven by the government's compliance with the popular "blank paper" protest, and the people here appear to be generally pretty happy.
China has contradictions. Tienanmen was government action. At the same time, there are all those high-speed trains.
Trump says he wants to use the military against "the enemies within". Sounds like Tienanmen... and there are not many high-speed trains on the horizon.
I think the US will fall in the next few election cycles - the fascists only need one victory. The US will become a plutocracy. The EU will hang on for a while, and then follow either the American model or the Chinese model.
Any excuse.
They are going to try and steal the election. Hopefully the legitimate government is ready.
Another reason the EC needs to go.
BTW, the National File is a far right site filled with conspiracy crap. Two of todays stories are about Seth Rich and Ashley Biden's diary.