July, 2020
Washington – At last! Finally! Someone else, with much larger circulation than this blog, has described how the election of the next president might come down to who is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives this November. It is a frightening but totally plausible, even predictable scenario.
Former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth and Tom Rogers have described, in a Newsweek op-ed, a Trump strategy to stay in office despite a loss not only in the popular vote, but potentially in the electoral college as well, unless he is able to bypass the electoral college to set up a vote to select the president in the House, as provided in the Constitution.
The House is now in Republican control for purposes of a presidential election, as each state has one vote. All Trump needs to do is to hold that advantage, tie up the electoral college in litigation – which his attorney general is prepared to do – and he has another four year term.
So all eyes must be on the House elections, to see who controls the House for a presidential vote.
Of course if Democrats gain control of the House, they would potentially be in a position to bypass the electoral college as well, should key battleground states not be able to conduct free and fair elections, another real possibility. This is a scenario I have outlined previously.
So I am delighted to have eminent company in pointing out why the House elections are more important this year than ever.
Now, which House races could be key to selection of the next president? Democrats should look to House races in Michigan, Florida, and Montana for places to flip a district and simultaneously flip a state, all else being equal. Flipping a district in Kansas, Utah, and Wisconsin would result in tied state delegations.
Like most everyone, I get a lot of political fund-raising pleas for one cause or another. So far, I have yet to see one that even mentions why House races might be the key to the presidential election.
Which is why I was also so glad to see Wirth and Rogers argue that all of these frightening scenarios should be more widely known and analyzed, to make them less likely to happen. That is what I've been saying, too.
Here is what Wirth and Rogers recommend:
We must "out" this scenario—and do so loudly and consistently. We have an imperative to build a "people's firewall" that reaches deeply across the country and reflects public revulsion at the potential for Trump to undermine our entire democratic system of governance.
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, should immediately ask the Judiciary, Commerce, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees to hold hearings on how steps can be taken to safeguard against this scenario, especially how to confront any invocation of emergency powers by the president.
There needs to be an outpouring at all levels of society that this will not be tolerated—from government officials and lawmakers at all levels; to civic associations and civil rights groups; to business groups and trade associations, who have to recognize the economic chaos that would result from this kind of coup; to lawyers, academics and student groups practiced in resisting government policies; and, of course, to the editorial voices of the press, both local and national.
