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When the democrats get massacred in 2024, I hope Kamala Harris refusesto certify the results. Thats the way its done righteously, yes?

Well do it the South American Way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/world/americas/jan-6-hearing-constitution-democracy.html++++++++In Constitutional Crises, Democracies Arent Always Democratic

When political leaders face a constitutional crisis, like that of Jan. 6,the process of collectively deciding how to respond can be messy, arbitrary,and sometimes change the nature of the system itself.

By Max FisherJune 18, 2022

If you look for international parallels to the moment last year whenVice President Mike Pence refused to bow to pressure from President Donald J. Trumpto help overturn their election defeat, something quickly becomes clear.

Such crises, with democracys fate left to a handful of officials, rarelyresolve purely on legal or constitutional principles, even if those might laterbe cited as justification.

Rather, their outcome is usually determined by whichever political elites happento form a quick critical mass in favor of one result. And those officials are leftto follow whatever motivation principle, partisan antipathy, self-interest happensto move them.

Taken together, the history of modern constitutional crises underscores some hardtruths about democracy. Supposedly bedrock norms, like free elections or rule of law,though portrayed as irreversibly cemented into the national foundation, are in truthonly as solid as the commitment of those in power. And while a crisis can be anopportunity for leaders to reinforce democratic norms, it can also be an opportunityto revise or outright revoke them. . .

Americans may see more in common with Peru. There, President Alberto Fujimoriin 1992 dissolved the opposition-held Congress, which had been moving to impeach him.Lawmakers across the spectrum quickly voted to replace Mr. Fujimori with hisown vice president, who had opposed the presidential power grab.

Both sides claimed to be defending democracy from the other. Both appealed to Perusmilitary, which had traditionally played a role of ultimate arbiter, almost akinto that of a supreme court. The public, deeply polarized, split. The military wasalso split.

At the critical moment, enough political and military elites signaled support forMr. Fujimori that he prevailed. They came together informally, each reacting to eventsindividually, and many appealing to different ends, such as Mr. Fujimoris economic agenda,notions of stability, or a chance for their party to prevail under the new order.

Peru fell into quasi-authoritarianism, with political rights curtailed and electionsstill held but under terms that favored Mr. Fujimori, until he was removed from officein 2000. . .

Modern Latin America has repeatedly faced such crises. This is due less to any sharedcultural traits, many scholars argue, than to a history of Cold War meddling thatweakened democratic norms. It also stems from American-style presidential systems,and deep social polarization that paves the way for extreme political combat.

Presidential democracies, by dividing power among competing branches, create moreopportunities for rival offices to clash, even to the point of usurping one anotherspowers. Such systems also blur questions of who is in charge, forcing their branchesto resolve disputes informally, on the fly and at times by force. . .

While other systems can fall into major crisis, it is often because, as in apresidential democracy, competing power centers clash to the point of trying tooverrun one another.

Still, some scholars argue that Americans hoping to understand their countrys trajectoryshould look not to Europe but to Latin America. . .

The phrase political elites can conjure images of cigar-chomping power-brokers,meeting in secret to pull societys strings. In reality, scholars use the term todescribe lawmakers, judges, bureaucrats, police and military officers, local officials,business chiefs and cultural figures, most of whom will never coordinate directly,much less agree on what is best for the country.

Still, it is those elites who collectively uphold democracy day-to-day. Much aspaper money only has value because we all treat it as valuable, elections and lawsonly have power because elites wake up every morning and treat them as paramount.It is a kind of compact, in which the powerful voluntarily bind themselves to asystem that also constrains them.

A well-functioning, orderly democracy does not require us to actively think aboutwhat sustains it, Tom Pepinsky, a Cornell University political scientist, told meshortly after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Its an equilibrium; everybody isincentivized to participate as if it will continue.

But in a major constitutional crisis, when the norms and rules meant to guidedemocracy come under doubt, or fall by the wayside entirely, those elites suddenlyface the question of how or whether to keep up their democratic compact.

They will not always agree on what course is best for democracy, or for the country,or for themselves. Sometimes, the shock of seeing democracys vulnerability willlead them to redouble their commitment to it, and sometimes to jettison that systemin part or whole.

The result is often a scramble of elites pressuring one another directly, as manysenior Republicans and White House aides did throughout Jan. 6, or through publicstatements aimed at the thousands of officials operating the machinery of government.

Scholars call this a coordination game, with all those actors trying to understandand influence how the others will respond until a minimally viable consensus emerges.It can resemble less a well-defined plot than a herd of startled animals, which iswhy the outcome can be hard to predict.

Before Jan. 6, there had been little reason to wonder over lawmakers commitment todemocracy. It had not been a question of whether or not they supported democracyin a real internal sense that had never been the stakes, Dr. Pepinsky said.

Now, a crisis had forced them to decide whether to overturn the election, demonstratingthat not all of those lawmakers, if given that choice, would vote to uphold democracy.Ive been floored by how much of this really does depend on 535 people, Dr. Pepinskysaid, referring to the number of lawmakers in Congress.++++

Wonder what theyll be teaching in high-school civics classes in 2030.

Read the rest here:
The Texas GOP party platform the madness continues - Freethought Blogs

The Rev. Helen Orr, at home in Cambridge

I wanted to share with you some good news, for once. What follows is the text of my last two Substack newsletters, to which you can subscribe here. I use the newsletter to focus on spiritual, religious, and aesthetic interests which is to say, no culture-warring or politics. Though I am unhappy to be a displaced person (Im in the UK, waiting on getting a visa to get back to Europe), graces abound. Read on. RD

[The first one, titled, The Abbess of The Moorings]

You readers are going to get two of these today. Im on my way back to England, having been deported by the Austrian authorities when I tried to return to Vienna last night. My papers werent in order. Totally my fault! And the border police were actually very nice about it. Still, I have to go back to the UK and appeal to the Austrian Embassy in London for a visa. Further bad news: my research trip to France is now impossible, because I cant get anywhere into the EU without a visa.

The good news is that I will now have more time to write. The further good news is that Ill be returning to The Moorings, the Cambridge home of my friends James and Helen Orr, who hosted me there this week. I have to tell you, their rambling home on the banks of the river Cam, north of the town, is an oasis of peace and Benedictine hospitality.

James Orr is one of the bravest men in British public life for instance, he led the resistance to the universitys attempt to crush free speech and keep Jordan Peterson from speaking there but Helen is the happy genius of their household. I had not met her until this trip. She is the daughter of a prominent Anglican bishop, the late Simon Barrington-Ward, and is herself an Anglican parish priest. She and James, and their two children, host Christian student boarders in their house, and have built a kind of Benedict Option community there. The place and its people are so welcoming, and I think its mostly down to Helen.

(Ive added her as a subscriber to this newsletter, so I know she will be reading this and will probably be embarrassed by my praise, but sometimes one has to push on ascetically through such trials.)

When I arrived there earlier this week, Helen took me on a walk through their back garden. One of the best things about England is their gardens. Im an ardent Francophile in most things, but on gardens, I much prefer to messy English approach to the Cartesian severity of the French style. Helen told me of her plans to build a chapel there, and to keep working to make it a real center of art and healing in Christ.

She knew about my divorce situation from her husband, with whom I have been friends for several years. We stood down by the river and she spoke to me about it with directness and pastoral compassion in equal measure. I sure needed to hear what she had to say. In an earlier time and place, she would have been a great abbess of a vast and famous monastery. Today, she is vicar ofthe countryside parish of Bassingbourn, which dates back at least to the 13th century.

Over the past few days, Ive watched Helen oversee people coming and going from her house, feeding us, taking her kids to their activities, running a lodger to the doctor, and so forth. It was really something to see, how much passion she poured into making us all feel at home and cared for. And then when she sat down to talk with me from time to time about life in Christ, her words were always deep, wise, and comforting in fact, comfortingbecausedeep and wise. She has a rare gift of being able to speak with casual cheerfulness about profound things. Helen makes one feel seen. Whatever one thinks of womens ordination I think its impossible for us Orthodox, but the Anglicans can do what they want Helen has a pastoral gift that might be more powerful than any I have ever seen.

It might be that she made such a powerful impression on me because she reminds me of my Aunt Lois and Aunt Hilda, about whom Ive written a number of times over the years. Lois and Hilda were sisters of my fathers grandmother. They were born in the 1890s, and were very old when I was a little boy, and knew them. I would go to their tiny cabin at the end of a pecan orchard every day to visit, and to be dazzled by their presence, and their stories. Here they are with little me, about 1969:

Thats Hilda on the left, and Lois on the right. They were formidable, let me tell you. They had volunteered to be Red Cross nurses during World War I. I trace my abiding love of France to their stories about serving in the canteen in Dijon, and traveling around France after the war. Hilda was especially indomitable. In the great 1927 Mississippi River flood, she wanted to deliver relief supplies to the stranded in rural north Louisiana, but the Red Cross wouldnt allow its female workers to take that risk. So Hilda disguised herself as a man, took command of a supply boat, and went into the wild.

Thats the kind of women they were. So is Helen, I divine.

I wish I had been able to get through the border police and back to my apartment in Vienna. But it is not necessarily a bad thing that Im headed back to Cambridge, and to the home of the Orr family. Last night I bedded down in the airport chapel here in Vienna, comforted by the thought of sleeping where travelers pray. I was thinking that though my interrupted travel is unwelcome, maybe God allowed it to happen because He has something He needs to show me back in England. Helen is so full of life and curiosity about the world God has made that I can easily believe enchanted things are about to happen.

More later today I have to transcribe and publish here an amazing interview I did with an Anglican ordinand. And I want to share with you some things I read in the Venerable Bede last night, about St. Cuthbert. I had never really thought about the Anglo-Saxon saints until hearing about them this week in England. You just never know who you are going to meet, and what you are going to learn once you step off the everyday path.

The plane is boarding here in Vienna now. Back to Blighty!

[Here is the second one, titled The Pearls Of The Abbess]

Well, the adventure continues. Last night at the vacant terminal at the Vienna airport, I took comfort in the fact that the only place I could find to sleep not on the floor was in the airport chapel. It calmed me deeply, because I was resting where God is praised. It made me trust that despite the unpleasantness of being deported, and losing my pilgrimage to holy places in France next week (because I cant get back into the European Union/Schengen area until I get a visa, for which I have now applied), I felt assured that God was in it. That He has a plan here. I should have been quite distressed and unhappy, but somehow, I was calm, and thought, OK, God, what are you up to?

I arrived back at Londons Stansted airport, and waited in a very long passport control line. Theres a rail strike on here now, so trains were running off schedule. I finally caught a local up to Cambridge, and arrived in the sweltering heat not long after eleven a.m. I couldnt get an Uber none available, unusually so I decided to walk to The Moorings. Only twenty minutes away, though the weather was hot, and I was toting three bags. Still, I just wanted to get a shower and fall into bed, so off I went.

On the way, I began to pray the Jesus Prayer. I usually do when Im walking.Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.I walked a few minutes like that, but then the thought crossed my mind: back in the Before Times, I used to love calling my wife and sharing, in delight, the craziness of things like this (Can you believe it? I got deported! Isnt that just how it goes?). Now I cant do that. I havent been able to do this for about a decade. I miss it so much. That thought settled in, and brought with it sadness, and anger, and suddenly, I couldnt pray any more.

Dont surrender to it, I thought.Keep praying.But I remember making a deliberate choice to poke the sore tooth with my tongue, to linger on my unhappiness, and my sense of dislocation, of exile. I thought about this for the rest of the walk to The Moorings.

I let myself through the gate, and found the Abbess in her living room. I set my bags down, and flopped onto the sofa, while she flurried to the kitchen to get me something to drink. When she sat down, she showed me the handsome strand of pearls she was wearing.

I put them on today to remind myself to tell you the story about them, she said. The Abbess told me that she loved these pearls, but one day, she noticed they had gone missing. She looked everywhere for them, but couldnt find them. She was heartbroken, but figured that was just the way it goes sometimes.

As the year went on, Helen began to doubt whether she was doing the right things with her life. Finally, she prayed, Lord, if I am where Im supposed to be, doing the things Im supposed to do, please bring me back my pearls.

The next day, the Abbess got a call from her sister in Scotland. Did you lose your pearls? the sister asked. My friend found some pearls in the back garden. She thought maybe they were costume jewelry. I told her that no, I think those are my sisters pearls. Are they?

They were! The sister pointed out that her dog had gotten into Helens bag when she, her husband James, and the kids had been visiting last. The dog must have pulled the pearls out, and dropped them in the garden. For a year, people had been treading that garden, mowing it, and tending it, but no one had seen the pearls until that day. Until Helen had asked God to return them to her as a sign.

I wanted to share that with you because its a sign of enchantment, she told me. And of course I agreed.

We talked a bit more. She mentioned her late father, Anglican Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward, and how intimate was his friendship with C.S. Lewis and indeed, how before the bishop died in 2020, had been one of the last people left living who had been close to Lewis.

Soon I apologized to my hostess, and told her, My mind is so discombobulated that I cant form a coherent thought. I need to go down to the room, get a shower, and get some sleep.

At that moment, a neighbor showed up, poked her head in the back door, and gave Helen some information. I cant remember what it was about, but what I do remember was that the neighbor said that she felt so discombobulated. I dont know when I last used or heard that word, but now it had been spoken twice within four minutes. By now in my life, Ive learned to take that kind of thing as a synchronicity, as a meaningful coincidence. It always means, simply,pay attention, God is revealing something to you.

I went down to my room at the side of the garden, and got the last of my clean clothes to take to the bathroom for a shower. Ten minutes later, I was freshly washed and lying in the cool darkness of the room. Before I fell asleep, I looked at my e-mail. There was this from my friend Wesley J. Smith, a fellow Orthodox convert:

Just read of your travail in being barred from the EU.

If you are in England for a while, please spend a day or two at theMonastery of St. John in Essex.Founded by St. Sophrony the Athonite. Experience the Jesus Prayer service. Imagine hours of the JP chanted in different languages. It has to be experienced, it cant be described. I prayed at his tomb, and I have never felt the Holy Spirit so strongly. Completely off the grid. You have to call. Do. It is sublime.

Well, turns out that that monastery is not too far from where Im staying in Cambridge. Maybe I can get there.

Then there was a letter from another reader of this Substack, a priest, who sent this video. Its from eight years ago, with Helen interviewing her father, the late and much beloved Bishop Simon about the Jesus Prayer! I started watching it, and look, here is the first image, of Helen introducing her dad:

Shes wearing the pearls.

I thought, okay, this is a real synchronicity. I need to watch this video, but only when Im in my right mind. I closed my laptop and fell asleep.

A few hours later, when I woke up, I watched it. Here it is:

It is plain and gentle and like cool, clear water. The bishop who, Helen told me, wrote two books about the Jesus Prayer talks about what it is and why its so important. He mentions going to the Monastery in Essex, becoming close friends with the Abbot Sophrony, and learning the Jesus Prayer from him. In the video, the bishop holds a prayer rope that the future canonized saint gave him. Bishop Simon simply tells how to pray the Jesus Prayer, and why (e.g., he explainstheosis). None of it was new information to me, but it was like being stopped wandering off the road, and pointed back to the straight path by this dear old Christian Englishman, the father of my new friend the Abbess.

Do I even need to tell you that I am going to do my very best to get out to that Monastery this weekend, or at least while I am in England waiting on my visa problem to get sorted? I am so sorry to be missing Mont-Saint-Michel and Rocamadour next week, but I will get there eventually. There is something God has for me to learn here, in England, at St. Sophronys monastery.

When I finished the video, I came up to the house, and found the Abbess finishing her sermon for this Sunday. She told me that she has never watched that video of herself and her dad, but maybe now she should. What if it is, for Helen, another strand of pearls, lost in the garden, but now turned up at just the right moment?

I asked the Abbess if I could photograph her with the pearls. Yes, she said, but do so in front of this colorful painting hanging in her living room. She bought it many years ago, after a painful crisis in her life, one that she was coming out of with some professional success (before she became a vicar, Helen was a recording artist). She explained that she was walking in Notting Hill one day after signing a recording deal, saw the painting in a shop, and was so moved by the brightness of it, the warmth, and the life in its colors. But she figured it would be too expensive. It wasnt, so she bought it.

Helens husband James, a Cambridge professor, commented, That painting has enlivened every house we lived in, no matter how Dickensian. And there is the happy genius of her household, wearing pearls, in front of the painting.

Later, she loaned me one of her late fathers prayer ropes (not the one from St. Sophrony, which is with a friend at the moment), so I can pray the Jesus Prayer on it while Im here. I will pray it tonight, and ask for Bishop Simon and his friend St. Sophrony to join me in prayer. Im onto something. Turns out I was right to be calm in the airport chapel last night, and to trust that God was going to use that crisis to show me something I needed to see.

But what? Ill soon find out. And you know Ill report back!

Helen just showed me something she wrote down a while back to comfort her husband in a time of stress, and has kept near to hand in their bedroom. She wants me to share it as the Abbesss pastoral message to you all this evening:

Read more:
The Abbess Of The Moorings - The American Conservative

The Republican Party in Texas made a series of far-right declarations as part of its official party platform over the weekend, claiming that President Biden was not legitimately elected, issuing a rebuke to Senator John Cornyn for his work on bipartisan gun legislation and referring to homosexuality as an abnormal lifestyle choice.

The platform was voted on in Houston at the state partys convention, which concluded on Saturday.

The resolutions about Mr. Biden and Mr. Cornyn were approved by a voice vote of the delegates, according to James Wesolek, the communications director for the Republican Party of Texas. The statements about homosexuality as well as additional stances on abortion that called for students to learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child were among more than 270 planks that were approved by a platform committee and voted on by the larger group of convention delegates using paper ballots. The results of those votes were still pending on Sunday, but Mr. Wesolek said it was rare for a plank to be voted down by the full convention after being approved by the committee.

The resolutions adopting the false claims that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen election in 2020 as well as the other declarations were the latest examples of Texas Republicans moving further to the right in recent months. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature, the governors mansion and every statewide office, and have used their dominance to push tough anti-abortion legislation, create supply-chain problems by temporarily adding additional state inspections at the border and renominate the Trump-backed state attorney general over a member of the Bush family in a primary runoff in May.

Mr. Wesolek disputed the notion that the declarations were tied to the state partys rightward tilt. That was the will of the body, Mr. Wesolek said on Sunday. We pride ourselves on being a grass-roots party.

State party conventions in Texas have at times been venues for publicly airing internal rifts. In 2012, Gov. Rick Perry was loudly booed at the state Republican convention when he said he was backing the powerful lieutenant governor over Ted Cruz in a contested primary for Senate. On Friday, Mr. Cornyn a key negotiator in the gun talks with Democrats was booed by convention goers during a speech in which he tried to assure Republicans that the new legislation would not infringe on the rights of gun owners.

The state partys resolution embracing the baseless 2020 stolen-election claims stated that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Mr. Biden. The state party, the resolution continued, rejected the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.

The resolution encouraged Republicans to show up to vote in November, and to bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans and overwhelm any possible fraud.

State Representative Steve Toth, a Republican who represents part of Montgomery County, a Houston suburb, said he left the convention before voting on the resolutions, but he expressed support for them. He said he hoped the Biden resolution would encourage Republicans and Democrats to come together and to call for a forensic audit of the 2020 election.

Jason Vaughn, 38, a Republican delegate from Houston, claimed credit for adding the show up to vote language in the Biden resolution. My fear is that if we keep telling people the election was stolen, theyre going to not go and vote, Mr. Vaughn said.

Mary Lowe, a delegate from the Fort Worth suburbs who was focused on education issues at the convention, said she was surprised the 2020 election results were a focus of attention by her Republican colleagues. But, she added, I dont know too many people that felt that Biden won.

Ms. Lowe, the chairwoman of the Tarrant County chapter of a group known as Moms for Liberty, said she was among those delegates openly critical of Mr. Cornyn. But she added that she was embarrassed by the booing and did not participate in it.

I dont believe that booing is polite, Ms. Lowe said. I feel elected officials should be treated with proper decorum.

Jamie Haynes, 47, a Republican delegate who lives in the Texas Panhandle with her husband and who says that, together, they own a lot of guns, said the boos directed at Mr. Cornyn showed there was a resounding strong opinion that Republicans do not want their gun rights shaved not just taken away but even just shaved in any form.

The resolution rebuking Mr. Cornyn that passed at the convention opposed red flag laws, which allow guns to be seized from people deemed to be dangerous. Those laws, according to the resolution, violate ones right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.

The homosexuality plank passed the platform committee by a vote of 17 to 14, according to Mr. Vaughn, an openly gay member of the committee who voted against it.

It does nothing to move us forward as a party and gain voters, he said in a video of the committee meeting. In an interview, Mr. Vaughn said the shift at the convention was the result of a small number of people who make the process miserable because they want to do all this extreme, far-right stuff.

Mr. Toth disagreed, saying that on abortion, gay rights and the 2020 election, the Republican Party has been consistent in sticking to its conservative principles. Defense of marriage? Abortion? Second Amendment? Where have we moved to the right? he asked. The Republicans have always been strong defenders of constitutional family values.

One Texas congressman and Democrat, Representative Colin Allred, called the Republican Partys actions regressive.

The Texas Republican Party is trying to take us back to a time when women couldnt make decisions about their own bodies and when Americans lived in fear that they would be punished for being themselves, Mr. Allred said in a statement.

Excerpt from:
Texas Republicans Approve Far-Right Platform Declaring Bidens Election Illegitimate - The New York Times

William Barrs testimony before the Jan. 6 committee forms part of the former attorney generals strategy for saving his reputation in the history books. Thats a heavy lift, given Barrs distinguished service to Donald Trumps presidency via distortion of the conclusions of special counsel Robert Muellers report and his politicization of the Department of Justice.

But Barrs depiction of Trump as being detached from reality after the election does have independent significance. It demonstrates that it is possible to have been a loyal Trump supporter nay, an enabler through the investigation of the possible collusion with Russia and the Ukraine-related first impeachment, yet still draw the line at Trumps efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election.

This in turn matters for what it might mean for the future of Republican politics. Maybe, just maybe, Barrs position can help signal to Republicans that election denialism shouldnt be the future of the party and that Trump can be left behind.

In this admittedly idealized scenario, it is not precisely that Republicans at all levels of government could be expected affirmatively to deny the existence of fraud in the 2020 elections. Rather, they would just gradually stop talking about it.

And because Trump himself clearly cannot and will not acknowledge his defeat, changing the subject would be a sign for Republicans, including his current supporters, to get over Trump himself. They could transfer their attention to would-be Trumps like Ron DeSantis and J.D. Vance.

Listening to Barrs testimony was a reminder of just how convincing the lawyer can be and why he demonstrates a kind of evil genius for bureaucratic self-preservation. To hear Barr tell it, before the election he found it possible to deliver hard truths to Trump. There was sometimes wrangling, but Barr said he felt able to get his message across.

Weekly

The week's top opinion content and an opportunity to participate in a weekly question on a topic that affects our region.

The idea that Barr could, before the election, somehow speak truth to power to Trump sounds pretty far-fetched at best. Trump badly needed his attorney general to help get through the Mueller investigation debacle. Barr joined the administration knowing full well that the president needed him. If Trump listened to Barr or appeared to, it was no doubt because Barr had leverage over his boss while his administration was at its most vulnerable juncture.

After the election defeat, Trump no longer needed the nearly unique legal and political skills that Barr deployed in saving the president from the consequences of his actions. He needed lawyers who would take affirmative steps to overturn the election. Once he understood that Barr wasnt going to do that, he was able to dismiss Barrs advice that the claims of election fraud were bull----.

The thing is, the plausibility of Barrs assertion about his relationship with Trump before the election is irrelevant to the deeper issue of whether Barr can help the Republican Party free itself of Trump now. Barr is no popular (or populist) politician, to be sure. Hes a D.C. insider, the political appointees political appointee.

Barrs testimony provides a useful, usable story Republicans might be able to accept, albeit quietly. Simply: Trump was a great president. There was no Russia collusion. The first impeachment was illegitimate. Then Trump lost the election. What followed was regrettable and should now be repudiated or at least forgotten.

So far, the would-be post-Trump Trumpists are too worried about alienating his followers to do so. But that could change if politicians like DeSantis and Vance sense that there is room for them to say, Trump is dead, long live Trumpism. To the extent Barrs testimony contributes to that possibility, thats something everyone should welcome.

The Democrats who not so secretly hope Trump runs for president again, gambling that he would be far less electable than another Republican, have to consider whats good for the country. Even if a clear majority of voters reject him, we have come too close to seeing how one man could pave the way for the eventual democratic failure in the United States.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery and the Refounding of America.

See the original post:
Opinion: William Barr is handing Republicans a Trump exit strategy - The Virginian-Pilot

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court seems poised to take on a new elections case being pressed by Republicans that could increase the power of state lawmakers over races for Congress and the presidency, as well as redistricting, and cut state courts out of the equation.

The issue has arisen repeatedly in cases from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where Democratic majorities on the states highest courts have invoked voting protections in their state constitutions to frustrate the plans of Republican-dominated legislatures.

Already, four conservative Supreme Court justices have noted their interest in deciding whether state courts, finding violations of their state constitutions, can order changes to federal elections and the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional districts. The Supreme Court has never invoked what is known as the independent state legislature doctrine, although three justices advanced it in the Bush v. Gore case that settled the 2000 presidential election.

The issue is almost certain to keep arising until the Court definitively resolves it, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in March.

It only takes four of the nine justices to agree to hear a case. A majority of five is needed for an eventual decision.

Many election law experts are alarmed by the prospect that the justices might seek to reduce state courts powers over elections.

A ruling endorsing a strong or muscular reading of the independent state legislature theory would potentially give state legislatures even more power to curtail voting rights and provide a pathway for litigation to subvert the election outcomes expressing the will of the people, law professor Richard Hasen wrote in an email.

But if the justices are going to get involved, Hasen said, it does make sense for the Court to do it outside the context of an election with national implications.

The court could say as early as Tuesday, or perhaps the following week, whether it will hear an appeal filed by North Carolina Republicans. The appeal challenges a state court ruling that threw out the congressional districts drawn by the General Assembly that made GOP candidates likely victors in 10 of the states 14 congressional districts.

The North Carolina Supreme Court held that the boundaries violated state constitution provisions protecting free elections and freedoms of speech and association by handicapping voters who support Democrats.

The new map that eventually emerged and is being used this year gives Democrats a good chance to win six seats, and possibly a seventh in a new toss-up district.

Pennsylvanias top court also selected a map that Republicans say probably will lead to the election of more Democrats, as the two parties battle for control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections in November. An appeal from Pennsylvania also is waiting, if the court for some reason passes on the North Carolina case.

Nationally, the parties fought to a draw in redistricting, which leaves Republicans positioned to win control of the House even if they come up just short of winning a majority of the national vote.

If the GOP does well in November, the party also could capture seats on state supreme courts, including in North Carolina, that might allow for the drawing of more slanted maps that previous courts rejected. Two court seats held by North Carolina Democrats are on the ballot this year and Republicans need to win just one to take control of the court for the first time since 2017.

In their appeal to the nations high court, North Carolina Republicans wrote that it is time for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the elections clause in the U.S. Constitution, which gives each states legislature the responsibility to determine the times, places and manner of holding congressional elections.

Activist judges and allied plaintiffs have proved time and time again that they believe state courts have the ultimate say over congressional maps, no matter what the U.S. Constitution says, North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger said when the appeal was filed in March.

The Supreme Court generally does not disturb state court rulings that are rooted in state law.

But four Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have said the court should step in to decide whether state courts had improperly taken powers given by the U.S. Constitution to state lawmakers.

That was the argument that Thomas and two other conservative justices put forward in Bush v. Gore, although that case was decided on other grounds.

If the court takes up the North Carolina case and rules in the GOPs favor, North Carolina Republicans could draw new maps for 2024 elections with less worry that the state Supreme Court would strike them down.

Defenders of state court involvement argue that state lawmakers would also gain the power to pass provisions that would suppress voting, subject only to challenge in federal courts. Delegating power to election boards and secretaries of state to manage federal elections in emergencies also could be questioned legally, some scholars said.

Its adoption would radically change our elections, Ethan Herenstein and Tom Wolf, both with the Brennan Centers Democracy Program at the New York University Law School, wrote earlier this month.

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Justices seem poised to hear elections case pressed by Republicans - Press Herald