Freedom Caucus Chair’s Anti-Democratic Musings

Floating the idea that NC should just award its EVs to Trump.

This is a story for a few days ago that was still sitting in an open tab. On the one hand, this is just one guy musing about something that isn’t going to happen. On the other, it is a member of the US House of Representatives with a prominent position musing about the disenfranchisement of an entire state. Given the way the Republican Party has been evolving, it seems a noteworthy story.

Via Politico: Freedom Caucus leader endorses radical proposal for North Carolina to hand its electoral votes to Trump.

The chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus says the North Carolina Legislature should consider allocating the state’s presidential electors to Donald Trump even before votes are counted in the swing state.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said Thursday that such a step by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Legislature “makes a lot of sense” given the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in the western part of the state. Counties in that region are expected to vote heavily for Trump.

[…]

“You statistically can go and say, ‘Look, you got disenfranchised in 25 counties. You know what that vote probably would have been,’” Harris said during an exchange with a speaker at the dinner. “Which would be — if I were in the Legislature — enough to go, ‘Yeah, we have to convene the Legislature. We can’t disenfranchise the voters.’”

The potential affects on voters in North Carolina are real and there is no way to guarantee that they will all have easy access to the ballot box. The solution, however, is to do what all the hurricane-affected states are doing in terms of creating conditions on the ground for citizens to vote.

Members of Congress should not be pontificating about having the state legislature assign the electoral voters (which, I would note, is constitutional and underscores, yet again, the flaws in the way we elect the president).

Side note: the most populated area the Helene hit was Asheville, which is a heavily Democratic locale.

Regardless, as CBS News reported yesterday: Hurricane Helene’s devastation hasn’t stopped western North Carolinians from voting early.

election workers’ swift pivot to emergency measures and coordination with state administrators in the immediate aftermath of Helene have resulted in a relatively smooth early voting process for residents in the 25 FEMA-designated disaster counties. Statewide, more than 2 million cast their ballots within the first week of early voting in the battleground state.

In years gone by I would probably have ignored this story, but part of what we have here is a person in elected office listening to a kook. And we saw how that played out in 2020 (see, e.g., Powell, Sidney or Eastman, John, to name but two).

Harris’ comments were in response to a keynote speech by Ivan Raiklin, a pro-Trump activist who has long embraced a radical strategy of state legislatures guaranteeing Trump’s reelection if they deem the 2024 election tainted by fraud and corruption. Raiklin posted a video of his full speech on X as well as a separate clip of his exchange with Harris.

In his remarks, Raiklin argued that in addition to North Carolina, Republican-controlled legislatures in New Hampshire, Arizona, Nebraska, Georgia and Wisconsin could take similar steps by meeting on Election Day and awarding their electors to Trump. Harris asked Raiklin how he could justify his plan in other states that were unaffected by storm damage.

“It looks like just a power play,” Harris said. “In North Carolina, it’s legitimate. There are a lot of people that aren’t going to get to vote and it may make the difference in that state.”

Spoiler: it would be a power play (and an anti-democratic one) in NC as well.

FILED UNDER: 2024 Election, Democracy, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Argon says:

    With ‘EV’ in the headline, I initially thought you meant, ‘electric vehicles’.

    Which are probably A-Okay with Trump now that Elon is pimping for him.

    In any case, we always knew that ‘Freedom Caucus’ meant the opposite.

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  2. Not the IT Dept. says:

    “In years gone by I would probably have ignored this story…”

    Those years are well and truly gone, and the sooner we wake up to that, the better. No more taking intelligence or honesty for granted.

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  3. Grommit Gunn says:

    When I read “1984” as a teenager, I apparently lacked the imagination to consider that some folks would consider it an instruction manual.

    Freedom Caucus, indeed.

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  4. Jc says:

    File this under ‘another good reason to get rid of the EC’

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  5. wr says:

    @Jc: And the Freedom Caucus.

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  6. just nutha says:

    Given that hurricanes and such are considered “acts of GOD,” it would seem that Representative Harris might ask why GOD decided to prevent these people from voting.

    Or am I going about this “GOD is in control” thing wrong again? My pastor warned me about just reading the Bible and interpreting the meaning myself when I was a teenager. 🙁

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  7. Scott F. says:

    Someone could point out to Rep. Andy Harris that the most persistent “example” Trump provides for how the 2020 election was stolen from him was the efforts of state election officials to reduce disenfranchisement without legislative changes, even during emergencies. (TFG provided this argument as the “top” or “easy one” when Joe Rogan asked for examples of 2020 rigging on his podcast last week.) Certainly, Trump wouldn’t want election officials to use their delegated powers like they did for COVID in this case with Helene.

    I was going to call out the Republicans on the inconsistency here, but my son pointed out to me that GOP pols are actually consistently being true to the law – the conservative law – “Wilhoit’s Law”:

    Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

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  8. Slugger says:

    In view of the arson of ballot drop boxes in OR, WA, and AZ, the electoral votes of those states should just be awarded to the Democrats’ slate.

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  9. Jen says:

    In his remarks, Raiklin argued that in addition to North Carolina, Republican-controlled legislatures in New Hampshire, […]

    As a resident of New Hampshire, a hearty, full-throated, F*&K OFF Raiklin, from me.

    I detest these types of “musings.” Yes, let’s disenfranchise a ton of people, just because the legislature is controlled by Republicans.

    5
  10. MarkedMan says:

    @Scott F.: Andy Harris. Sheesh. FWIW, Ol’ Andy is pretty representative of the Maryland Republican Party, which is run through with a “Friends of the Confederacy” level of racist fantasy group think. When I moved back into Maryland one of my county reps was an official in the local chapter of the”League of the South” (in case you’re not familiar, it’s an organization that doesn’t accept the outcome of the Civil War and calls for immediate succession of the Southern States) and was defended by all levels of Republican Leadership, either embracing the toxic racism, or with an “Well, I don’t know anything about that but I know he’s a man of good character” type of foot shuffling.

    Larry Hogan is very much of an anomaly in the Maryland GOP. Andy Harris is very much mainstream. And, typical of the bulk of today’s GOP, he keeps his voters by stoking their racism and grievance and does absolutely nothing about their issues. He doesn’t spend a minute on the the live-or-die needs of the watermen and farmers that make up his district, but is rather totally occupied with his racist scheming with other GOP hacks from around the country.

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  11. gVOR10- says:

    You’re likely correct it won’t happen. But given the Federalist Supreme Court, it’s not impossible. It is a valid indication of the leanings of modern Republicans. And were the election to come down to North Carolina, I’d have to regard it as likely, both in the NC lege and in SCOTUS. Actually, Roberts wouldn’t decide the election, he’d throw it into the House, pretending he didn’t know how that would come out.

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  12. Kathy says:

    Someone want to preempt the trolls on the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?

    Short version: as the Compact would award EC votes to the winner of the national popular vote, who voters in such states cast a vote for does matter. that is, their votes do count towards the national vote total. Ergo they are not disenfranchised.

    One may still rationally oppose it, just not on disenfranchisement grounds.

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  13. charontwo says:

    I think it not completely off-topic to describe Trump’s disenfranchisement plans:

    Frog Pond

    Annie Karni of the New York Times, took a crack at understanding what Donald Trump meant when he said at his Madison Square Garden rally that he and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson have a secret that will help them “do really well with the House.” Here is her set-up:

    snip

    The most innocuous interpretation of Trump’s remarks is that he was referring to maintaining majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives, but in context that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, which is why many people assumed he was referring to the House’s role in choosing or certifying the winner of the presidential election.

    When asked about it, Mike Johnson got very prickly, and he confirmed that whatever the secret might be, its main feature is that it “might help Donald Trump.”

    “… In a statement provided to The New York Times, the mild-mannered Mr. Johnson did nothing to alleviate those fears. Instead, he seemed to confirm that there was, in fact, a “little secret” — and that he planned to keep it that way.

    “Speaking of secrets,” Mr. Johnson said, “Harris knew Biden was physically and mentally impaired and kept it a secret. The F.B.I. knew the Hunter Biden laptop was real and kept it secret. They also knew Russia collusion was fake and kept that a secret, too.”

    Mr. Johnson added: “It appears that all those secrets didn’t matter to the media because they all helped Democrats. But this one might help Donald Trump, and now they care? By definition, a secret is not to be shared — and I don’t intend to share this one.” … ”

    Now, if Donald Trump wins the Electoral College, he won’t need any help from Mike Johnson. But if he loses the Electoral College and still wants to become president somehow, he most definitely will need Johnson’s help. And here is how they can pull off a coup.

    Let’s start with what happened in 2020. Trump lost the Electoral College so he went to court to challenge the results and lost in state after state. When he couldn’t prevent the states from certifying the results, he set up “alternate electors” to certify phony results in a half dozen states, and asked Vice-President Mike Pence to use these fake electors on January 6, 2021 when Congress met in Joint Session to certify Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the winners. When this effort failed, he unleashed a violent mob on Congress to try to do by force what he could not do by persuasion. This coup attempt was deadly and destructive, but it ended in six hours or so with Trump defeated. But please keep in mind that he was prepared to try to serve out a second term in office using whatever force was necessary to stop the backlash against a nakedly stolen election. Remember this if you think what I’m about to say is outlandish.

    So, to begin, this plan will probably not work unless the Republicans maintain control of the House. They are not currently favored to stay in the majority, largely because they are expected to lose a bunch of seats in New York and California. If you’re wondering why Trump has been campaigning in New York and California when they are not considered competitive in the presidential race, you now have your answer.

    So, in the event that the Republicans win the House but Trump loses the election, the coup will look like this:

    The first step is to dispute the results and say he was robbed. This will again involve fruitless court cases and a firehose of lies. This is just to create a lack of consensus about the winner.

    The second step comes on January 5th, 2025, when the new Congress is sworn in. In the House, this will involve all 435 members. Their first order of business will be to elect a new Speaker. If the Republicans have a narrow majority, as would be almost inevitable, they may not be able to settle on a Speaker in one day, or two days, or even three weeks. That’s what happened in 2023 when both Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson struggled to win the Speakership. But dysfunction won’t be part of the secret plan. The plan is to intentionally fail to elect a Speaker on the fifth of January.

    Then comes January 6th when, in this scenario, Vice-President Kamala Harris is to preside over a Joint Session of Congress to count and certify her victory with Tim Walz over Trump and J.D. Vance. This is when the House Republicans will use their lack of a Speaker to refuse to cooperate. They might not have a leader but they will have a majority, and they’ll be able to defeat any motion to force them into the Joint Session. They’ll throw a lot of arguments in the air. They’ll say the election was rigged but also that they need to settle on a Speaker first. And so they’ll go into private caucus meetings and pretend to be working on electing a Speaker. But they will not choose one.

    And this will go on, day after day, as the country howls in outrage, until noon on January 20, 2025, when President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris will constitutionally no longer be in charge. Without a president or vice-president, the Speaker of the House becomes president. Since this will now be an emergency, the Republicans will quickly elect Trump as Speaker and immediately elevate him to the presidency.

    This will again leave them without a Speaker. It will also mean that Harris, since she is no longer vice-president, could not preside over any resumption of the Joint Session to certify the November election results. They will argue that the November election is constitutionally mooted anyway because it wasn’t certified before noon on January 20, and Trump is the rightful and constitutional president.

    Then they will challenge anyone to do something about it.

    The Supreme Court will not likely be an eager participant in this process, but they are sympathetic to Trump and intimidated by his supporters, and most importantly, they will have to acknowledge that Trump assumed the presidency because of he was in the line of succession when the country found itself without a president or vice-president. In other words, they’d have to invent some theory for why none of this should have ever happened and is illegitimate.

    At this point, the country will be in crisis. Somewhere around 80 million people will have voted for Harris and Walz and many of them will be willing to use violence in an effort to set things right. Trump and Johnson know this, but they’re prepared to do this anyway, just as they were prepared to do it four years ago.

    Now, you probably have some objections. And I’m here to tell you that many of your objections are probably, hopefully correct. This is a hare-brained scheme that should not work, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be attempted.

    What we know is that Trump and Johnson have a secret plan to help Trump get elected and that it involves the U.S. House of Representatives. There are very few ways that Trump can become president, even in theory, using the House of Representatives if he loses the Electoral College. The scheme I have laid out here is the only one I can think of that would work in theory.

    6
  14. Jack says:

    Deleted for being off topic and for contributing nothing but insults.

    Please do better.

    6
  15. Kevin says:

    This is where things get scary. If it’s a close election, but the ridiculous rules we have for electing a president end up resulting in Trump, that’s one thing. But if Trump looses the popular vote by a large margin, but the rules end up selecting Trump, or, worse, Trump looses both the popular vote and the electoral college, but somehow ends up as President? I don’t see that going well. For whom, I don’t know.

    People are angry. And people are really angry that their vote, which was the majority vote in the country, has been ignored multiple times over the past decades. The Supreme Court is, in many ways, illegitimate. I don’t know what happens then. But it won’t be good.

    8
  16. Paul L. says:

    Spoiler: it would be a power play (and an anti-democratic one) in NC as well.

    Whataboutism So doing the same as Maine. is now anti-democratic.
    Even when progressive legal savant Ian Millhiser say that the Electoral College, Senate and Supreme Court are anti-democratic institutions.

    1
  17. Rick DeMent says:

    @Paul L.:

    … Maine. is now anti-democratic

    Actually it’s more Democratic then winner take all. The Senate is actually anti Democratic but it was designed that way.

    3
  18. DK says:

    The chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus says the North Carolina Legislature should consider allocating the state’s presidential electors to Donald Trump even before votes are counted in the swing state.

    “Don’t call us fascist!!11!!”

    4
  19. Jen says:

    @Jack: Yes, sure, the people who take issue with this “why bother to vote” scheme being thought-experimented out are the loons, not the jackasses suggesting it. SURE.

    @Paul L.: Do you genuinely not understand the difference between proportional allocation after voting, and this ridiculous suggestion that no one need bother voting, as they are proposing just GIVING the electoral college votes to the party that currently controls the legislature?

    You’re both ridiculous. Utterly and completely ridiculous. There is no defense for this “idea,” it belongs back in the freshman dorm room where it was apparently hatched.

    10
  20. Kathy says:

    Re living brain dead: someone engaging in whataboutism doesn’t label their argument whataboutism.

    3
  21. Jay L Gischer says:

    I wonder what the people of North Carolina think about some dude from Maryland telling them how to run their affairs?

    I wonder what the people who have been working hard to make sure everybody got food, water, shelter and the opportunity to vote in NC think of this suggestion?

    I know what I would think.

    3
  22. Mister Bluster says:

    @Jack:..looney
    Since you continue to comment at OTB we must assume that you mean yourself.

    2
  23. @Kathy: There was an attempt to explain whataboutism to him (more than once, I think). It didn’t take.

    2
  24. Kathy says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    “I am shocked and appalled,” Kathy said deadpan.

    3
  25. Gustopher says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: I think he has learned to recognize his whataboutism and label it, so I think he’s halfway there. Our Paul L. is learning, just slowly.

    Definitely a glass half-full/half-empty moment.

    0
  26. Paul L. says:

    @Gustopher:
    I am mistaken about assignment of electoral college votes. Can’t let a crisis go to waste. Like laws and selecting judges elected officials are a proxy for the ignorant voters.
    But outrage from the gun violence and catastrophic anthropogenic climate change crowd demanding President Biden/Harris take bold action to address them with executive orders ignoring the Judiciary and Legislature.