Deadline President Has to Decide Whether or Not He Will Run for Office Again
What happens if the Business firm has to determine the side by side president?
The unlikely scenario has been discussed past the president and Nancy Pelosi.
A bitterly divided country deadlocked in a 269-269 Electoral College tie turns to the Firm of Representatives to select the next president.
The unusual ramble scenario is considered so far-fetched -- it hasn't happened since 1824 -- that it was written into the plot of the 5th flavour of HBO comedy series "Veep" and its send-up of the political class.
But in a year when coronavirus-related voting changes could have an unpredictable impact on an already competitive presidential race between President Donald Trump and sometime Vice President Joe Biden, information technology's a potential, if remote, election event Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have openly acknowledged.
"I don't want to end upwards in the Supreme Court and I don't want to go back to Congress either, even though we have an advantage," Trump said of the election at a Sept. 26 Pennsylvania rally.
Pelosi fired back in a letter of the alphabet to Business firm Democrats two days later, encouraging members to back up candidates in "fundamental districts" across the country.
"If Trump can't win at the ballot box, he wants the House to evangelize him the presidency," she wrote. "Information technology'south sad we have to plan this way, but it'southward what we must do to ensure the election is not stolen."
Republicans hold reward in the Firm
Under the Constitution'southward 12th Amendment, the Business firm would select the next president and the Senate would pick the vice president if no candidate has a bulk of Electoral College votes.
By police, states have until December. 8 to certify their results or have the state legislature appoint electors to the Balloter College, which is set up to convene on December. xiv. Congress is set to formally count electors' votes and declare a winner on Jan. half dozen.
In the scenario of a necktie, each state would but have a single vote in the Firm of Representatives. The party with more Firm seats would determine the presidential vote.
Republicans command 26 state delegations, while Democrats hold 23. Pennsylvania is split up between both parties, and Republicans likewise have a chance to break even with Democrats in Michigan and Minnesota if they capture one additional seat in each state.
That math is on the minds of Democratic leaders, donors and strategists in the concluding weeks of the ballot. With nigh Democratic candidates in Trump-leaning districts affluent with cash and leading Republican challengers in public and private polling, the party is working to expand the map and give the party a broader path to securing their House majority.
That includes investments in suburban contests in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida, just as well in newly competitive races in rural Montana and Alaska, which each accept a single seat in Congress and were carried by Trump past 15% to xx% in 2016.
Democrats control the delegations of several competitive presidential battlefield states -- such as Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota and Nevada -- past a single seat, while Republicans have a single-seat advantage in Florida.
Pelosi 'prepared' for every ballot scenario
Pelosi decided to admit the scenario of the House deciding a contested ballot in a public letter to colleagues subsequently Trump repeatedly mentioned the possibility and amid his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
"I had been working on this for a while. I've been working on almost every scheme he might have to steal the ballot. And kind of sub rosa -- since he went public, then so did I," she said in a tardily-September MSNBC appearance of Trump'southward comments about the House determining the outcome of the election.
In addition to signaling Democrats' preparations for any election upshot, Pelosi'southward comments besides served every bit a reminder to Democrats and donors not to lose sight of competitive House races amid the presidential contest.
"It'due south helpful to remind donors and other groups that the presidential race gets a ton of attention, the Senate gets a ton of attending, and we have to have all of the steps available to u.s. to brand sure nosotros aren't missing these opportunities," Caitlin Legacki, the communications director for the Autonomous House Bulk PAC, told ABC News, referring to securing more seats in the Firm.
Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato'due south Crystal Ball, a political newsletter published by the University of Virginia Middle for Politics, said information technology would be "unlikely" the presidential race would terminate in an Electoral College necktie, noting Biden's consistent pb over Trump for several months in national and battleground state polls, merely sketched out several possible scenarios based on the results of the 2016 ballot.
I would involve Biden winning every state carried past 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, flipping Michigan and Pennsylvania and carrying the electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd Congressional Commune. (Nebraska and Maine, different other states, award Electoral College votes by congressional district in addition to allocating balloter votes to the state's popular vote winner.)
But a world where Democrats are in position to retake House seats in Alaska and Montana and win command of their delegations, he added, is "a earth in which Biden is over 270 electoral votes" -- making the residuum of the House moot in determining the next president.
Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Iowa who wrote near the issue ahead of the 2016 election, called the possibility of the Firm determining the next president "very unlikely" in an era of two major political parties.
"Those scenarios come up closest when information technology looks similar a third political party swoops in and captures some set of balloter votes that sort of deprives the winner of a bulk," he said, pointing to the results of the 1824 presidential election - when a race between four candidates led to a deadlock, and eventually, the House selecting John Quincy Adams as president.
"Information technology remains a possibility, but I think a very remote ane," Mueller said.
David Mandel, who served every bit showrunner and executive producer of "Veep," isn't losing sleep over the odds, either.
"Nothing shocks me, only of all the many, many things that come up to fruition on Planet Earth that may hitting first, this is the least of them," Mandel, a Democrat who has helped raise money for the party, told ABC News.
Electoral College complications
Short of an Balloter College necktie, election experts have pointed to several other improbable scenarios that could throw the White House race into chaos into January, when Congress certifies results.
While 32 states and the Commune of Columbia require presidential electors to pledge their votes to the winner of the popular vote in their states, "faithless" electors could refuse to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote.
Another concern is the possibility of disputed results in certain contested states with divided governments -- such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which accept Democratic governors and GOP-held legislatures.
If the leaders of divided states can't agree on the results of the ballot, they could each send their own slate of electors to Washington, leaving information technology up to political party leaders to determine which group to recognize from a given country.
"There's a difference between Congress having to make the decision near which votes to count, which would requite a candidate 270 or more than, then its decision if nobody gets to 270," said Muller, who downplayed the likelihood of that possibility.
Information technology'due south simply happened once since the 1800s: In 1960, Hawaii sent two groups of electors to Washington, and Congress eventually recognized the Autonomous electors. Merely Hawaii's balloter votes wouldn't accept changed the outcome of the race betwixt then-Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-decide-president/story?id=73640149
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