And no rules
A law professor sent Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick a chilling note suggesting, she said, “if Jim Jordan won the speakership, he would simply never certify a Biden election win.”
Erica Newland, formerly with the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice, did research on the matter for Protect Democracy. She concurs. If the current iteration of the GOP controls the House in January of 2025, there is no way they will certify a Democratic victory.
Ian Bassin, Protect Democracy’s co-founder and executive director, tells Lithwick that on the bright side a handful of Republicans thwarted Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) bid for House speaker:
And I think if that holds, and that’s a big if, this is one of the most important developments in this country over the last seven-plus years. And here’s why. I’m going to invoke another recent story in the news that I think is really important to pay attention to, which is the elections this past week in Poland. So, in Poland this past week, a coalition that ran from the center right to the left, united and pulled off a stunning upset of the illiberal nationalist and ever more authoritarian leaning Law and Justice party, which has governed Poland for the better part of the last decade or so.
Why is that important? Because history teaches that the way to defeat authoritarian movements is to form a very broad pro-democracy coalition of people who typically disagree about policy and politics. This is why I talked about how our strategy at Protect Democracy is build a broad coalition of pro-democracy progressives, moderates, and conservatives.
Bassin says that while for “most of the last six years, the American Republican Party, by and large, has chosen the German and Italian path” toward authoritarianism, he is “cautiously optimistic” that we may survive its attempt to undo the republic.
Meanwhile out here in the provinces, the news is mixed.
Jennifer Rubin celebrates Wisconsin Democrats’ state chair Ben Wikler for year-round organizing that has held the line against an authoritarian Republican majority in the Madison state house. Prepared and positioned, Democrats have fended off multiple GOP efforts to undermine the will of Wisconsin voters. Thus, a lesson for us all:
The Wisconsin lesson: Even in less than ideal conditions, defenders of the rule of law and democracy can organize, instill hope, drive public opinion and defeat authoritarian efforts to protect incumbents.
North Carolina Democrats will need some of that organzing given the latest set of aggressively gerrymandered district maps unveiled last week by Republicans in Raleigh. They have a supermajority and mean to keep it (Carolina Forward):
This is so plain and demonstrable a fact that even Republican leaders have not really bothered denying it since the maps dropped last week. Republicans are gerrymandering North Carolina’s election maps for partisan advantage simply because we can, says the Art Pope-John Locke Foundation. “Political considerations are now allowed to be used as one of the criteria,” said Republican State Senator Warren Daniel, a lead map-drawer. They are, of course, technically correct about this. Yet admitting so openly to rigging North Carolina’s democratic process is quite a departure from the elaborate pantomime staged last year, when Republican leaders pretended to take into account factors like compactness and communities of interest. It speaks volumes that virtually no Republican spokespeople have even bothered defending the fundamental fairness of these maps in public. Everyone concerned, it seems, knows the score.
A reworking of the court-drawn, one-election, 7-7 congressional map used in 2022 was expected.
But not so for the state legislative maps. North Carolina’s State Senate and State House maps were wholly and duly drawn and passed by Republican legislative leaders alone in February of last year. As such, the plainest reading of Article II, Sections 3 and 5 of the North Carolina State Constitution explicitly prohibits altering them now – most especially the House map, which was not even challenged in court. Yet that is precisely what Republican leaders of the legislature have done, with the full acquiescence of the new Republican majority of the state supreme court. This marks a major breach of constitutional order in our state.
If not hard rules, Dr. Peter Venkman at least had guidelines. As we’ve seen inside the Beltway, violating constitutional boundaries is no longer out of bounds for Antide. The law is what they say it is, to be followed when it works in their favor (and provides political cover), and to be ignored when it does not.
Democratic House Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) contrasted Democrats’ positions with Jordan’s in nominating Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York during Jordan’s third failed attempt at winning the speakership:
In her speech, Clark chided Jordan for voting against health care for children, veterans, and 9/11 survivors, opposing lowering the cost of insulin, wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, and never supporting a farm bill.
Also, Clark said, “The Republican nominee wants a national abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother. We want to make our own health care decisions in consultation with our families, our doctors, our faith, not with Jim Jordan!”
Antide is bereft of ideas. It has settled on one principle, one rule to follow: power. For its own sake. Not to improve voters’ lives. Not to perfect the union. And certainly not to embrace multiracial democracy (or any other kind). The only thing American about them is their birth certificates.
Update: Corrected the name of Carolina Forward.