A thread on moving/fucking with the 2020 election:

@realDonaldTrump tweeted this morning that the November election be postponed.

As others have pointed out, he possesses no such power.

Here's why:

1/

Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the election's date. Since the mid-1800s, the date has been set for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Trump can't do anything about that without Congress going along. And it won't.

2/

But that's not the whole story. Just because Trump is powerless to move the election's date doesn't mean he is powerless to interfere with the election. That's the real threat.

Here's why:

2/

Article II gives state "legislatures" the power to determine the manner by which a state's electors to the Electoral College are selected. By custom, each state legislature in the U.S. currently chooses its electors based on the state's popular vote. But they don't have to.

3/

It would be *perfectly constitutional* for state legislatures sympathetic to Trump to decide to adopt a different manner of choosing its electors, effectively cancelling the popular vote. Then they could empower themselves to choose the state's electors.

4/

Looking only at states in which the GOP is in complete control of the legislature (meaning a majority in both houses), the electoral votes from those total 291 -- which is 21 more than 270 needed to win the electoral college.

5/

Now, some states with GOP-controlled legislatures have Democratic governors, who would certainly argue that the to the degree state law gives them a right to veto legislation, they could veto selection of electors.

6/

This includes KS, WI, MI, KY, NC, LA, and MT. So maybe the governors could save us.

But there's a problem: Remember that Article II empowers state "legislatures" to select the state's electors. It says nothing about governors playing a part.

7/

So maybe Democratic governors and GOP legislatures would end up in court to decide who gets a say in choosing electors. Where would such a suit inevitably land? In the Supreme Court, which gets the final say-so on the Constitution's meaning.

8/

And the last time a presidential election ended up before SCOTUS, things didn't end well. It was a partisan decision by a partisan court that handed the election to George W. Bush. No reason to think this could end differently.

9/

The point is that the Constitution won't save us. Norms do more work than the law. And DJT and his enablers have shown they are willing to crash through norms to keep power.

Fin.