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Erica Newland serves as counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit organization founded in 2017 to fight democratic breakdown in America. Before Joe Biden’s victory was officially confirmed in January, she researched some of the ways that Donald Trump’s allies in Congress might sabotage the process. She came to a harrowing conclusion. More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPolitical MemoDon’t Care for This Impeachment? Wait Until Next YearLeaders of both political parties suggest that impeachments, Electoral College standoffs and Supreme Court nomination blockades may become frequent fights in American politics.Representative Jamie Raskin, center, and other House impeachment managers spoke on Saturday after the Senate voted to acquit former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 16, 2021Updated 4:17 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The second season of impeachment had ended less than a day earlier, but Republicans were already talking about next season. It sounded ominous.“I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Sunday morning on Fox News.Mr. Graham seemed to be suggesting that the vice president might be punished because she had expressed support for a bail fund for Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota last summer. “She actually bailed out rioters,” Mr. Graham charged. That statement was false, but his threat was plain: Republicans can impeach, too.In recent days, former President Donald J. Trump’s defenders have darkly accused Democrats of opening a “Pandora’s box” of partisan retribution — leading to a kind of anything-goes future in politics, where impeachments get volleyed back and forth between the two parties like a tennis match, depending on which side controls Congress. “Partisan impeachments will become commonplace,” said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, as he argued the former president’s case before the Senate on Tuesday.There’s an element of plausibility here, given the hyperpartisan fervor that’s gripped American politics. But in the ensuing environment, Republicans seem to be saying that even the most outlandish accusations against a president — such as those hurled at President Biden by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia in her first days in Congress — should be treated the same as what Democrats impeached Mr. Trump over.In a broader sense, officials of both parties have suggested that regular impeachments may just become one of several regular features of a new and bitter normal in our politics. Previously rare or unthinkable measures could simply start happening all the timeDemocrats argue that, in fact, Republicans have opened several Pandora’s boxes in recent years. They have taken unprecedented actions, led by Mr. Trump, that have abused certain norms to a degree that has destabilized a set of once-reliable government traditions. Senate Republicans’ blockade of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, for instance, cast doubt on any future president’s ability to fill a Supreme Court vacancy when the opposing party controlled the Senate.By refusing to concede an election he clearly lost, and then maintaining repeatedly it had been stolen from him, Mr. Trump shattered what had been an undisturbed American custom ensuring a peaceful transfer of power between administrations.Mr. Trump’s false claims have persuaded a majority of Republican voters that Mr. Biden had not been legitimately elected, and led 147 Republican members of the House and the Senate to vote against the Jan. 6 certification of Electoral College votes. This level of support to overturn the election result raises the prospect of whether the once-pro forma exercise of certification might now devolve every four years into a heated partisan spectacle — or, worse, riots.Two of former President Trump’s impeachment lawyers, Michael van der Veen and Bruce Castor, spoke on Saturday after the trial concluded.Credit…Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesIt was the deadly assault on the Capitol, of course, that set into motion Mr. Trump’s second impeachment proceeding. His lawyers attributed the rebuke not to their client’s actions on Jan. 6 but rather to his opponents’ irrational “hatred of President Trump.” They implied impeachment was a vindictive and frivolous maneuver.Democrats bristle at such notions — that they have overused and thus cheapened the power of impeachment, a tool that has been employed only four times in 244 years, but twice in the last 14 months. They agreed that impeachment should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances, but argued that Mr. Trump had engaged in an extraordinary degree of dereliction.“Look, there’s a reason there’s been two impeachments of the same man,” said Senator Robert P. Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, in an interview Friday, on the eve of the final vote. “Trump has engaged in conduct that presidents of either party would never engage in.”It’s not like anything about this has been fun, he added. “The last thing I wanted to do these last five days is sit there and listen to this hour after hour instead of working on a full range of issues,” he said.Mr. Casey and others suggest that the Republican Party is now dominated by a former president who has convinced much of the party that any opposition to them is driven by “bad, sick and corrupt people” and should be met with extreme tactics.“The expectation from our base is for retribution,” said former Representative Tom Rooney, a Republican of Florida who did not seek re-election in 2018, in part to escape the extreme partisanship that has overtaken Congress. When asked if his former Republican colleagues would move to impeach Mr. Biden next year if they won back the House, even for something minor, Mr. Rooney rated the prospect as “absolutely possible.”“It might not necessarily be what some of those guys want to do, but it might be what the base expects,” he said. “People want Armageddon.”Let the healing begin!Or not. For as much as Impeachment II ended on Saturday with a significant number of Republican senators (seven) voting to convict Mr. Trump — and was accompanied by tough statements from some who voted not guilty, including the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell — other defenders of the former president turned their focus to a bitter future of impeachment roulette.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, suggested on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might start looking around for a good impeachment lawyer (because, really, what would partisan Armageddon be without the Clintons?).Mr. Rubio framed his statement around a somewhat tortured rhetorical question: “Is it not true that under this new precedent, a future House facing partisan pressure to ‘lock her up’ could impeach a former secretary of state and a future Senate forced to put her on trial and potentially disqualify from future office?”It was not exactly clear whether Mr. Rubio was criticizing Mr. Trump for whipping up his supporters into a frenzy that led to irrational demands to imprison Mrs. Clinton, or whether he was accusing Democrats of acting irrationally themselves by impeaching Mr. Trump a second time in two years.What was evident, however, was that Mr. Rubio was assuming the worst intentions by the opposition — and the feeling appears extremely mutual. Cable and social media chatter have been awash in bleak scenarios.“If Republicans take Congress, they could not only impeach Biden and/or Harris,” Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for President Obama, tweeted on Sunday, “they could potentially succeed in overturning the results of the 2024 election.”Not everyone believes partisanship has reached the point where Election Day will now merely become the start of a two-month brawl every four years that will build to a potentially ugly climax in January.“I don’t think we’re there yet,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican media strategist and former top leadership aide to two former Republican speakers of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and John A. Boehner of Ohio. He said that many House Republicans wound up voting against Mr. Biden’s Electoral College certification only because they knew it would not pass. If the result was more in doubt, he contended, they would have voted to certify.Trump supporters climbed the walls of the Capitol on Jan. 6.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Buck allowed that the current political and media environment rewarded behavior by lawmakers — and candidates — that is extreme or even unheard-of. “We’re in an era where you need to make loud noises and break things in order to get attention,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re breaking — as long as you’re creating conflict and appeasing your party, anything goes.”Mr. Trump himself is the exemplar of anything goes, both in terms of how effective and destructive the approach can be, said Adam Jentleson, who was a deputy chief of staff to former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy,” a new book about legislative leadership dynamics.Mr. Jentleson said Republicans had abandoned any coherent policy goals in lieu of pursuing a “negative partisanship” agenda — which he defines as “doing simply whatever will terrorize your opponents the most.” In essence, Trumpism.This shows no signs of abating anytime soon. “That’s clearly what Republicans will continue to run on,” Mr. Jentleson said. “And that includes impeaching whoever is in power on the other side.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesHouse Introduces ChargeMcConnell Said to Support ChargeHow Impeachment Might Work25th Amendment ExplainedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMcConnell Privately Backs Impeachment as House Moves to Charge TrumpThe House was poised to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to move to wrest power from the president, as Republican support built for impeaching him of inciting violence against the nation.Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, walking past security forces to his office during a break in the Senate session that reconvened last week after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman and Jan. 12, 2021Updated 9:40 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell has concluded that President Trump committed impeachable offenses and believes that Democrats’ move to impeach him will make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party, according to people familiar with Mr. McConnell’s thinking.The private assessment of Mr. McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress, emerged on the eve of a House vote to formally charge Mr. Trump with inciting violence against the country for his role in whipping up a mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol while lawmakers met to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.In a sign that the dam could be breaking against Mr. Trump in a party that has long been unfailingly loyal to him, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the House, announced her intention to support the single charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, as other party leaders declined to formally lobby rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose it.“The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement. “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”Even before Mr. McConnell’s position was known and Ms. Cheney had announced her plans, advisers to the Senate Republican leader had already privately speculated that a dozen Republican senators — and possibly more — could ultimately vote to convict Mr. Trump in a Senate trial that would follow his impeachment by the House. Seventeen Republicans would most likely be needed to join Democrats in finding him guilty. After that, it would take a simple majority to disqualify Mr. Trump from ever again holding public office.In the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader and one of Mr. Trump’s most steadfast allies in Congress, has asked other Republicans whether he ought to call on Mr. Trump to resign in the aftermath of last week’s riot at the Capitol, according to three Republican officials briefed on the conversations. While he has said he is personally opposed to impeachment, he and other party leaders did not mount an official effort to defeat the push, and Mr. McCarthy was working on Tuesday to build support for a censure resolution to rebuke the president for his actions.Taken together, the stances of Congress’s two top Republicans — neither of whom has said publicly that Mr. Trump should resign or be impeached — reflected the politically fraught and fast-moving nature of the crisis the party faces. After four years of backing the president at nearly every turn and refusing to condemn even his most extreme behavior, party leaders were racing to distance themselves from a president many of them now regard as a political and constitutional threat.Mr. McCarthy backed the electoral challenges Republicans lodged last week during Congress’s electoral count, voting twice to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in key swing states even after the siege at the Capitol. Mr. McConnell had broken with Mr. Trump just as the rioters were breaching the building, warning of a descent into a “death spiral” for democracy if the efforts were to prevail.Mr. Trump has shown no trace of contrition. On Tuesday, in his first public appearance since the siege of the Capitol, he told reporters that his remarks to supporters at a rally that day — in which he exhorted them to go to the Capitol and “fight” so Republicans would reject the election results — had been “totally appropriate.” It was the specter of his impeachment, he said, that was “causing tremendous anger.” But with Twitter having suspended his account for good, Mr. Trump no longer has his favorite weapon to train on lawmakers who cross him, which could curtail the blowback they face for voting against him.Nonetheless, Mr. Trump’s advisers used their own Twitter feeds to highlight his hold on the party’s voters to keep Republicans in line. Jason Miller, a senior adviser, tweeted from an internal poll: “80% of Trump voters and 76% of Republicans in Battleground states are less likely to vote for a Member of Congress/U.S. Senator who votes for impeachment.”The Republican Party’s rapid turn against Mr. Trump unfolded as the House met into the night on Tuesday to debate and vote on a resolution formally calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip the president of his powers, a move that Mr. Pence shot down hours before the House planned its action.In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Pence argued that the amendment was meant to address medical emergencies or presidential “incapacity” and that using it as “a means of punishment or usurpation” would set a “terrible precedent.” In a veiled reference to impeachment, he urged Congress “to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment” and pledged work in “good faith” with Mr. Biden’s transition team.“Last week, I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our nation,” Mr. Pence wrote.With Mr. Pence refusing their call, Democrats planned a Wednesday vote on a single article of impeachment charging Mr. Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States.”The White House expected roughly two dozen Republicans to support the charge, according to a senior administration official who insisted on anonymity to share a private assessment. Along with Ms. Cheney, Representatives John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan announced they would support the charge. Just over a year ago, House Republicans rallied unanimously against Democrats’ first impeachment of Mr. Trump.Forgoing a lengthy investigation, Democrats released a 76-page report collecting public information about the attack — including social media posts, news articles and other statements — and laying out a legal justification for impeachment.“It is true that the president’s remaining term is limited — but a president capable of fomenting a violent insurrection in the Capitol is capable of greater dangers still,” they wrote. “He must be removed from office as swiftly as the Constitution allows. He must also be disqualified to prevent the recurrence of the extraordinary threat he presents.”In the clearest sign to date that Ms. Pelosi plans to press the case to trial just as quickly as she brought it, she named nine Democrats as “managers” to serve as prosecutors in the Senate. Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, will be the lead manager, she said. He will be joined by Representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado, David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Joaquin Castro of Texas, Eric Swalwell of California, Ted Lieu of California, Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, Joe Neguse of Colorado and Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.Mr. McConnell has indicated he wants to see the specific article of impeachment that the House is set to approve on Wednesday, and to hear the eventual arguments in the Senate. But the Senate Republican leader has made clear in private discussions that he believes now is the moment to move on from Mr. Trump, whom he blames for causing Republicans to lose the Senate. Mr. McConnell has not spoken to Mr. Trump since mid-December, when the senator informed the president he would be recognizing Mr. Biden as president-elect after the Electoral College certified it.David Popp, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, declined to comment on Tuesday, instead pointing a reporter to a speech the Kentucky Republican made when he returned to the Senate floor after Wednesday’s siege.“This failed attempt to obstruct the Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our republic,” Mr. McConnell said as the Senate reconvened to complete the electoral count disrupted by the mob. “Our nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our nation.”President Trump told reporters on Tuesday that his remarks to supporters had been “totally appropriate,” and that it was the specter of his impeaching that was “causing tremendous anger.”Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Monday, Mr. Biden telephoned Mr. McConnell to ask whether it would be possible to set up a dual track that would allow the Senate to confirm Mr. Biden’s cabinet nominees and hold a Senate trial at the same time, according to officials briefed on the conversation who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity. Far from avoiding the topic of impeaching Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell said it was a question for the Senate parliamentarian, and promised Mr. Biden a quick answer.After whipping votes to ensure Mr. Trump was not found guilty in the impeachment trial last year, Mr. McConnell has turned sharply against Mr. Trump. Last week, in a memo to Senate Republicans, he indicated it would be difficult to hold a trial before Jan. 20, but notably did not defend the president..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}The Trump ImpeachmentFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and at the ongoing fallout:This video takes a look inside the siege on the capitol. This timeline shows how a crucial two hour period turned a rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.House Democrats have begun impeachment proceedings. A look at how they might work.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, called on Mr. McConnell to use emergency powers to call the Senate back for a trial as soon as the articles were adopted.“The bottom line is that Leader McConnell has the ability to call us back into session and we can then move to convict Donald Trump, draw on the impeachment trial and try him,” Mr. Schumer told reporters in New York. “And that’s what we hope McConnell will do.”But because the Senate is in recess, the two leaders must agree to do so or else a trial would begin no sooner than Jan. 19, when they return. The next day, with Mr. Biden’s inauguration, Democrats will take operational control of the Senate, where they will have a working majority by dint of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s power to cast tiebreaking votes.For Mr. McConnell and other Republicans, the crisis offered an opportunity to bar Mr. Trump from seeking the presidency again in 2024, as he has repeatedly mused with allies about doing.“Congressional Republicans must evaluate this latest Trump situation and look at the best long-term solutions for the country,” said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist. “This is now totally about Trump, not his supporters, and a permanent purge must be on the table.”But that prospect has created a conundrum for Republicans who, understanding the deep affection for Mr. Trump among a powerful segment of their party’s core supporters, are concerned they could pay a steep political price for abandoning him.In the days since the attack, Mr. McCarthy has veered from asking Republican colleagues if he should call on Mr. Trump to resign to privately floating impeachment to his current posture, opposed to impeachment but open to a censure. After he and over 100 other House Republicans opposed the certification of the Electoral College, Mr. McCarthy is now finding anger and regret among his Republican colleagues and is moving to take a tougher line with the president.Reports emerged Monday from Axios that the House Republican leader had had an intense conversation with Mr. Trump, during which the president floated conspiracy theories about the rioters and Mr. McCarthy pushed back forcefully.Unlike Mr. McCarthy, Mr. McConnell strongly opposed the effort by Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas to object to electoral votes from certain states.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, voted to oppose the certification of the Electoral College, along with well over half of his House Republicans colleagues.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe two senators have received a hefty share of criticism from across the ideological spectrum, but there has been fallout for other Republicans who joined their ranks as well.A number Republican lawmakers and aides were worried that Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who is taking over the party’s Senate campaign arm, would find it highly difficult to raise money with corporate America moving to freeze out Republicans who refused to certify the Electoral College. Americans for Prosperity and its political action committee, funded by the influential conservative Koch network, will evaluate future support of politicians based on their actions last week, its chief executive told The Wall Street Journal.Mr. Biden has made clear, in public and private, that he will not oppose the Democratic push to impeach Mr. Trump, even though his advisers and some lawmakers in his party are concerned about the impact it could have on his first days in office.When he spoke with Mr. McConnell about the matter, the Senate leader left Mr. Biden with a bit of welcome news.Mr. McConnell, who led the 2016 blockade against confirming Judge Merrick B. Garland when he was President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, told Mr. Biden that he would vote to confirm Judge Garland as attorney general.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyHow to Ensure This Never Happens AgainThe election and its aftermath have revealed weaknesses in our democracy. Here’s how we can fix some of them. Beverly Gage and Ms. Gage is a professor of history and American studies at Yale. Ms. Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.Jan. 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Illustration by The New York Times; from left: Eli Durst for The New York Times, Angela Weiss, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, Drew Angerer, via Getty Images and Pool photos by J. Scott Applewhite.The path from the Nov. 3 election has been harrowing for American democracy. Though state and local officials ran clean, well-functioning elections, leaving no doubt that Joe Biden was the victor, President Trump and a sizable faction of Republicans in Congress have relentlessly tried to subvert the results. Their assault culminated in yesterday’s insurrection at the Capitol, a physical attack on the home of our democracy, incited by the sitting president.This dark reality owes much to Trump’s malign political style — his narcissism and demagogy, his willingness to sell lies to his political base — and to the ways that the Republican Party has fed his worst tendencies. But certain aspects of the electoral system also helped bring us to this point. With even the soon-to-be Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, now conceding that elections are not supposed to look like this, the months ahead may present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix what’s wrong with American democracy — or risk losing it altogether.Generally speaking, politicians don’t like to run on a platform of small “d” democratic reforms. Structural change can seem abstract and the obstacles to success too great. But history shows that it can — and must — be done. In other fraught moments, under pressure from an outraged American public, politicians have managed to transcend party and regional divisions to strengthen the democratic process.During the Progressive Era, Congress and the states approved two constitutional amendments that changed the nature of national elections. The first, ratified in 1913, allowed Americans to vote directly for their senators rather than leaving the choice to their state legislatures. The second was the 1920 women’s suffrage amendment, which roughly doubled the size of the electorate.By the 1960s, the civil rights movement finally forced Congress, with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, to end the exclusion of most Black people from voting. A few years later, both parties reformed their primary systems to give their voters a real say in choosing their party’s presidential candidate. And in 1971, it took the states less than four months to ratify a constitutional amendment lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 in response to widespread protests over the Vietnam draft, which called up men starting at age 18.Since then, bipartisan majorities in Congress have passed more technocratic but still useful reforms. The 1993 National Voter Registration Act (also known as the motor voter law) required states to offer voter registration materials to people who get or renew a driver’s license or apply for public assistance. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 addressed meltdowns in the 2000 election — when an estimated four to six million ballots were not counted — by providing federal funds to replace faulty punch-card and lever-based balloting.Now we are once more in dire need of reform. But some proposals will be far easier to enact than others, and each will require a different strategy. Here are some ideas for fixing what ails, from the most feasible in the short run to the biggest reach.Fix the Electoral College ProcessThe 1887 Electoral Count Act, which is supposed to govern the resolution of a disputed presidential election, is “impenetrable or, at the very least, indeterminate,” according to Edward B. Foley, a scholar who has spent his career studying it. If we’re stuck with the Electoral College, we should at least make the rules for how it operates in the event of a dispute crystal clear.Congress could detail narrow circumstances in which a state election would be deemed to have failed (in the event of a natural disaster on Election Day, for example). A new law could also clarify that state legislatures have the power to choose electors only in those circumstances or not at all (the Constitution leaves the door open to more meddling). And it could outline what happens if a state submits dueling slates of electors, along with the current rules for choosing a president in the House if all else fails.Establish national best practices for voting and election securityAmerican elections don’t follow a set of best practices to enhance both access and security. Better election laws could provide for equitable access to polling places, early voting, and vote by mail, while protecting eligible voters from being purged from the rolls and ensuring that no one could vote twice. States could also build infrastructure that’s safe from hackers.Legislation in the House provides one possible blueprint. A bill it passed in 2019 would set national standards and fund election infrastructure. It also would grant the right to vote to people who have been convicted of a felony if they’ve been sentenced only to probation or released from custody (several states have since introduced their own such laws). And it sets up a pilot program to give high school students information about registering to vote before they graduate.Register voters automaticallyAutomatically registering voters — through drivers licenses, for instance — would add up to 50 million people to the rolls, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. When the House passed national automatic voter registration in 2019, no Republicans voted for it. If national legislation proves unlikely, states can enact automatic voter registration on their own. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have some version, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Turn D.C. and Puerto Rico into statesThe Senate’s structure, with each state, regardless of population, having two senators, favors rural, white, Republican-leaning states, creating a body that fails to reflect the national electorate. Diverse, blue-leaning California, with almost 40 million residents, has just two senators, while the states of South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Alaska — all red-leaning and mostly white — have a combined 10 senators for fewer than five million residents overall. Statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico would not only provide representation in the national government to millions of Americans who now lack it, but would begin to address (though not eliminate) the imbalance in the Senate by adding four new Senate seats representing racially diverse, densely populated urban areas.The Democratic House passed a statehood bill for D.C. for the first time last year. Statehood itself would require both approval by Congress and by the state’s residents.End gerrymanderingPartisan gerrymandering reduces the number of competitive electoral districts, contributing to the polarization of Congress and state legislatures by pushing candidates away from the center and all but guaranteeing one party’s success in most races.In 2019, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims are beyond the reach of federal courts. But state courts can limit gerrymandering based on state constitutions, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did in 2018. States can also adopt nonpartisan redistricting commissions, as several have done. Research shows that these commissions have succeeded in drawing electoral maps that neutralize partisan bias.Make People VoteCompulsory voting is, hands down, the most effective way to increase turnout. It also changes politics: Suppressing the vote is no longer a strategy. “Campaigns have to focus on persuasion, not demobilizing voters,” says Nathaniel Persily, co-director of the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.A city or a county could pass an ordinance imposing a penalty on people who fail to vote. The idea wouldn’t be to force voters to pick a candidate. They could turn in a blank ballot. But they couldn’t ignore the election without some penalty. (A potentially more popular alternative — giving people a tax credit or another benefit in exchange for voting — would probably require a change in federal law.)Shorten the TransitionIn the early 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, Congress and the states came together on a constitutional amendment to shorten the presidential transition from four to two-and-a-half months. That change came too late to prevent a disastrous and lengthy transition between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, which accelerated the country’s banking crisis and deepened the depression. Now, the period from Nov 3 to Jan 20 itself seems too long, given the fast-paced nature of political events. Rather than a time of peaceful transition, it has this year became an opportunity for mischief that can rattle democracy to its core. A new constitutional amendment could update the transition timeline, with no partisan implications.Eliminate the Electoral CollegeThe Electoral College, which apportions its electors based on the size of each state’s congressional delegation, skews elections by concentrating attention on a handful of swing states. One result is that a candidate can lose in the Electoral College while winning the popular vote. Ask Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.Eliminating the Electoral College altogether would require a constitutional amendment. As a more viable alternative, reformers have proposed a National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. States would pledge to award all of their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The compact would take effect once states with the winning minimum total of 270 votes join. So far, states with 196 electoral votes combined have signed on.Beverly Gage is a professor of history and American studies at Yale. Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyTracking Viral MisinformationWatch out for this misinformation when Congress meets to certify the election.Jan. 6, 2021, 6:00 a.m. ETJan. 6, 2021, 6:00 a.m. ETDavey Alba and An audit of election ballots in Atlanta in mid-November.Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressAs Congress meets on Wednesday to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the November election, President Trump and his supporters continue to spread rumors, conspiracy theories and misinformation about the vote.Here are six false voter fraud claims that may be repeated during the proceedings on Wednesday.No, ‘glitches’ in Dominion Voting Machines did not change vote tallies.Claim: Dominion Voting Systems, which makes software that local governments around the nation use to help run their elections, deleted votes for President Trump.Fact: There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, including the machines with Dominion software, according to the federal agency that oversees election security.Background: In the weeks after the election, President Trump and his supporters spread baseless claims about Dominion. The claims included theories that “software glitches” changed vote tallies in several states, including Michigan and Georgia. No such changes were ever found.Mr. Trump and his supporters subsequently claimed that Dominion had hidden evidence of voter fraud, both by destroying machines or removing parts within the machines. Mr. Trump repeated those claims during a call with Georgia’s secretary of state last weekend. Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia, said Monday of the claims of election fraud in the state, “This is all easily, provably false.”No, politicians in Georgia did not prevent an analysis of absentee ballots.Claim: President Trump and his supporters have claimed that absentee ballots in Georgia were rife with fraud and that state officials have not fully investigated.Fact: Election officials have audited absentee ballots and found “no fraudulent absentee ballots.”Background: The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, ordered law enforcement and election investigators to conduct an audit of more than 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes in Cobb County, based on a complaint that signatures were not adequately checked there. The audit found no fraud. Mr. Raffensperger has said that he also plans a statewide audit of each county’s signature-match policies and procedures.Georgia has already conducted two recounts, both by hand and machine, of all five million ballots cast in the state. No voting fraud was found.No, thousands of votes in Arizona were not changed to favor Biden.Claim: In an interview on the conservative cable channel Newsmax in December, the Arizona Republican chairwoman, Kelli Ward, said 200,000 ballots were digitally changed to give the victory to Mr. Biden, and Representative Paul Gosar amplified the falsehood on Twitter.Fact: Audits in Arizona have found no evidence of voter fraud, or changed vote tallies.Background: While early results in Arizona showed a close race, the final count revealed that Mr. Biden had won the state by more than 10,000 votes.Audits in Arizona’s four largest counties, which make up 86 percent of all votes in the state, turned up no evidence of systematic voter fraud.No, election workers didn’t stuff fraudulent ballots into suitcases.Claim: President Trump’s supporters have pointed to a video as proof that ballots were pulled from a “suitcase” at a vote-counting center in Atlanta.Fact: Election officials have said the surveillance video shows normal ballot processing. It is not unusual practice for poll workers to store ballots that still need to be counted on-site at the polling center.Background: As reported by The New York Times, late on Nov. 3, election workers in Fulton County, Ga., heard that they would be allowed to stop the vote-counting and retire for the evening. So they packed uncounted ballots into suitcases and prepared to lock up. When word came that they couldn’t leave yet, they dragged the suitcases back out and began counting the ballots again.But that scene of election workers taking out suitcases of ballots was selectively edited and pushed by allies of President Trump as one of the many false theories purportedly proving widespread election fraud. The conspiracists also named the election worker Ruby Freeman as a specific player in this false conspiracy event.No, there isn’t evidence that Pennsylvania election officials violated state law.Claim: President Trump’s campaign has claimed that Pennsylvania election officials improperly handled tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in violation of state election law.Fact: The Trump campaign’s legal efforts to disqualify votes in Pennsylvania have been unsupported by evidence.Background: The Trump campaign filed several claims in court seeking to invalidate Pennsylvania’s election results, and one ally of Mr. Trump, Senator Josh Hawley, has said he would challenge the results because he believed “some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws.”But the Trump campaign has included no evidence that any vote had been cast illegally.In a hearing on Nov. 17, President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, acknowledged he had no proof to back up his claims of voter fraud in Pennsylvania. “This is not a fraud case,” Mr. Giuliani said.Four days later, the judge overseeing the case dismissed the lawsuit. It was also shot down last month by Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who said in a ruling, “Calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”No, Pence does not have the power to change the election result.Claim: Vice President Mike Pence can reject state electors in the Electoral College.Fact: Federal law stipulates that the vice president’s role is to count Electoral College votes, not decide whether they are valid.Background: President Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed on Twitter that Mr. Pence has the power to reject electors when the Electoral College vote is certified.As president of the Senate, Mr. Pence is expected to preside over the pro forma certification of the Electoral College vote count in front of a joint session of Congress. The only electoral certifications available for Vice President Pence to preside over are the ones approved by each state.Ben Decker and Jacob Silver contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Electoral College Isn’t Supposed to Work This WayThe 1887 Electoral Count Act is a clear and present danger to democracy.Trevor Potter and Mr. Potter is a former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Election Commission, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and the founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center. Mr. Fried was the solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan and serves on the board of the Campaign Legal Center.Jan. 6, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETRep. Louie Gohmert with members of the House Freedom Caucus in December.Credit…Al Drago for The New York TimesThe 2020 presidential election has been a disaster for people who think the Electoral College is still a good idea. Joe Biden’s clear victory has been followed by attempts by the incumbent president to induce Republican legislators and other elected Republican officials in five states he lost to ignore the certified vote counts in their states and substitute their partisan preferences for the voters’ decision. Now Congress will formally receive the electoral votes, after a series of attempts to subvert the democratic process, all made possible by the Electoral College.An early salvo was a suit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by the State of Texas and supported by 126 Republican House members and 18 Republican attorneys general asking the court to throw out the electors chosen by those same five states because Texas said it did not like the way they conducted their elections.Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas filed suit asking the courts to declare that Vice President Mike Pence has the legal right to pick the next president himself under the 12th Amendment — by ignoring the electoral votes for Mr. Biden cast by those five states. Instead, the Gohmert suit asks Mr. Pence to replace them with “votes” cast by the losing Trump elector slates in those states.In response to public pleas from President Trump, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has announced that he will join Republican members of the House in objecting to the votes of some states cast for Mr. Biden, thereby requiring separate votes by the House and Senate on those electors. This, in theory, could result in a deadlock that could be broken by the House voting — with one vote for each state delegation — for president, resulting in the election of Donald Trump to a second term after losing in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. The fact that Democrats hold a majority in the House makes this outcome unlikely, of course, but it is a viable gambit for future elections.When the Electoral College was created, many conceived the United States as a confederation of “sovereign states.” And only a small percentage of the adult population could vote at all — property-owning white males in many states — and senators and the president were not elected by popular vote. Today the country is one of the longest-lasting democracies in the world, with almost all adult citizens entitled to vote for the president and members of Congress — our Constitution and body politic are not what they were in 1787.The presidential election is really 51 elections, each conducted and certified by its jurisdiction. Those who support the continued use of the Electoral College system say that the states “speak” to one another through it and so it performs a vital role in promoting national unity and the constitutional system.But the multiple challenges to the votes of the people this year — expressed through the states and their votes in the Electoral College — teach us that the Electoral College is a fragile institution, with the potential for inflicting great damage on the country when norms are broken. Many of the attempts to subvert the presidential election outcome this year are made possible by the arcane structure and working of the Electoral College process and illustrate the potential for the current Electoral College to promote instability rather than the stability the framers sought.When some state legislatures were pressed by President Trump to consider changing the outcome of the election, they all declined — this time. But what would have happened if a majority of legislators in one or more states had decided to overrule the voters and “reassert” their constitutional authority to choose electors? The Electoral Count Act of 1887 gives the final say to governors — the electors they certify are entitled to the presumption of legitimacy. What would have happened if some of the governors of the states Mr. Trump targeted had given in and certified Trump electors despite the official vote count in their states for Biden? We would have had a constitutional crisis of the highest order, calling into question our national commitment to democratic elections.So as some Republicans have persisted in the view that a legislature or governor could have certified electors other than those chosen by the people and certified by state election officials, they have shown the Electoral College to be potentially dangerous. The possibility that politicians of either party could change an election’s outcome through postelection manipulation of the Electoral College is destabilizing.And the idea that the vice president, sitting in the chair as presiding officer of the joint session of Congress to “count the electoral votes,” could decide on his own to ignore electors certified by the states and replace them with impostors certified by no one leads straight to the end of democracy. The push by Senator Hawley and Representative Gohmert and other Republicans to challenge duly certified electoral votes and attempt to have the citizens and states they represent be disenfranchised is another path to the same destination.All of this will, and should, propel calls for modernization of the Electoral College. Many will seek its abolition and replacement by a single nationwide poll. But at the very least, the irrational intricacies of the 1887 Electoral Count Act should be replaced by a uniform system guaranteeing that the popular vote in each state controls the ultimate allocation of that state’s electors. The 2020 election has highlighted the destabilizing tendencies in the current system and the need for reform.Mr. Potter is a former commissioner and chairman of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, was general counsel to John McCain’s two presidential campaigns and is founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center. Mr. Fried was the U.S. Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, is a professor at Harvard Law School and serves on the board of the Campaign Legal Center.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
