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Old 11-24-2020, 12:37 PM   #477
GrantDawg
World Champion Mis-speller
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Covington, Ga.
Let me recommend the latest Hell & High Water podcast. Hell & High Water with John Heilemann on Stitcher



Two legal experts talking about the attempted coup, why it failed (at least to this point), and how it showed a weakness in our Democracy. What I found most interesting was the description of the debate about what powers the State legislatures have. Basically the disagreement comes from Rehnquist's concurrence in Bush V. Gore that quotes from a Senate report from the late 19th century that says the legislature has almost a super authority to select delegates that goes beyond even their own states constitution. It was from this that Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani started in September to move the President toward this idea that he could use Republican state legislatures to supersede the election.

The problem with that plan (other than they couldn't get those legislatures to play along) is two fold: First, the constitution does not give the legislatures the right to pick the electors. It gives the right to pick the manner in which the electors are chosen. The Constitution could have left it to the legislatures like it did with Senators, but used expressly different language in this article. Secondly, the Constitution clearly gives US congress the responsibility to set date in which the electors are chosen, and that date has to be the same for the whole country. So if the legislatures decided after the election to change the way of selecting, it would be too late.

It feels better to hear the actual arguments, even if that doesn't mean the Supreme Court might ignore them.
It makes it extremely difficult to see how, though.
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