Biden won Michigan by 150,000 votes. The Republican Speaker of the House in Michigan refused Trump's request that he send Republican electors in place of Democratic ones.
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| Michigan House Speaker |
"I can't fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump."
Lee Chatfield
Lee Chatfield, the young Speaker of the House in Michigan, has a political future to protect. He wrote a two-page statement explaining why he defied Trump, much of it reiterating what a faithful Republican he is. He voted for Trump, he said. He worked for Trump. He desperately wanted Trump to win. He thinks Trump did a great job. He said repeatedly in the statement that there were questions and complaints about the voting in Michigan--but, alas!--no fraud or systematic failure had been proven in the courts, and--again alas!--a majority of Michigan voters supported Biden, the wrong guy.
The statement is curious for what it did not say. It did not challenge Trump's statements about national and international conspiracies and widespread systematic voter fraud. Chatfield did not reference Trump's own watchdog for the election, Christopher Krebs, nor Attorney General Bill Barr, both of whom said they looked for and did not find election failure. Chatfield's statement did not advance the value of bi-partisanship and political cooperation. It did not explain his decision by praising the value of self-rule, the sanctity of the vote, or cite the American civic religion of "We the People" and governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. He didn't give a civics-lesson defense of democracy, nor did he try to explain why his decision was factually correct or justified on the merits.
It came down to the fact that Michigan law said that the legislature had already established that the candidate with the most votes would be awarded the electoral votes, and that he had to do exactly what he was required to do, let Democratic electors be chosen, or it would cause state and national chaos.
"I fear we'd lose our country forever. This truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the Electoral College. And I can't stand for that. I won’t.
I know this isn’t the outcome some want. It isn’t what I want, either. But we have a republic if we can keep it. And I intend to.”
This was a good deed for the Republic, done under pressure. He deserves credit. President Trump brought him to the White House to impress and persuade him. Fellow Republicans joined in, begging him to over-rule the voters.
Trump is pressing an argument that is a game-changer in American elections and government. Trump argues that the election can and should be ignored, and that Republican state legislatures should take charge and cast their preference--for Trump--rather than Biden. Trump, and an apparent majority of Republican voters, are unapologetically urging the popular vote be over-ruled, at least if there are questions about the vote, even when those questions and accusations have been found meritless by election officials and the courts.
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| Michigan leaders brought to White House |
Chatfield says he shares that view. This makes Chatfield an odd, complex hero of democratic government. He defended the law that protected Michigan voters', but says he wishes he could over-rule them.
"I personally believe that the Legislature could pass a resolution changing the manner in which electors are appointed, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that once created, the right to a popular vote for President becomes fundamental, and the exercise of a fundamental right can’t be infringed retroactively for due process reasons. Maybe they were right. Maybe they were wrong. But that was the Court’s decision. And it still stands today."
This position makes sense if one considers that the real test for the strength of American democracy comes in two stages, not one. This election stood, notwithstanding Trump's effort to void it, but not because losing partisan voters questioned Trump's accusations of fraud. Republican gate keepers including Krebs, Barr, and Republican election officials, all vouched for the election, but they did not change minds. There is not yet consent from Republican partisans that Biden legitimately won.
Stage One. Trump was stopped because dozens of election decision-makers in the relevant counties and states did their jobs honorably; people like Lee Chatfield. Democracy held because election officials and judges refused to bow to pressure. Trump is overt about his expectation, complaining openly about the failure of Georgia's Secretary of State and Governor to have managed the election to get him the victory he deserved. The GOP U.S. senate candidates in Georgia agree; the Georgia Secretary of State should resign, not because the election was dishonest, but because the election result was unwelcome and he didn't arrange to have the result be different.
This demand by Trump has been placed out there in the public square, neither fully accepted nor rejected by the American people.
Stage Two is whether these officeholders who resisted Trump are immediately replaced in the next Republican primary election. Do Georgia's Governor and Secretary of State have a future in politics? Does Lee Chatfield? Chatfield appears to be scrambling to avoid being yet another person destroyed politically in Republican primaries. I am one of you, Chatfield is saying. I am loyal to the team! I am even with you on the really hard stuff, like over-ruling voters. Don't you see? My hands are tied. Really.
American democracy will be in surer position if by the time of the Stage Two elections in 2022, Republican voters have grown to respect people who stood up and defended an election, not a result. Possibly GOP voters will decide that people like Chatfield were the "real" Republicans. It is possible they will be respected and rewarded.
It is also possible they won't be. Many Republican voters have decided that self- government is simply too risky. Too many of the wrong people vote the wrong way. The rising ethno-nationalism in Republican thinking brings fears of a blue wave of dangerous "others," concentrated in "Democrat cities," where rampant conspiracies of theft take place. Government is safer in the hands of Republicans, and the republic must be saved by keeping it away from dangerous popular majorities.
Is that what Republicans believe? Or should elections be respected? We will find out in 2022.
I would have preferred Chatfield defend his decision by saying that the Michigan law directing that voters choose their president is a good one--protecting both order and the right of the people for self-government. He didn't. Still, I hope he survives the Republican primary in 2022. My opinion doesn't matter. I don't vote in that primary. He needs to satisfy the people who do.
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Here is a sample of what he faces on Twitter and Facebook. No good deed goes unpunished.
And here is the full text of Chatfield's statement:
9 comments:
Kudos for focusing on the real issue: The Republican Party.
It's entertaining to watch the contortions as they walk the Trump tightrope. It's very reminiscent of a dysfunctional family trying to appease a disapproving father. I have felt from the beginning that Republicans had a love/hate relationship with it's far right wing and that the DC establishment would eventually lance the Trump boil, and I think that's what happened. We are seeing the beginning of the delicate amputation of Trump from the party while trying to retain the base. Will the operation succeed? Your guess is as good as mine.
The one intriguing possibility is the Trump base fracturing into several constituencies, each with it's own leader. I find it hard to believe Trump will continue to control the party in exile, and that he will be unchallenged.
I don’t think that a morally-oriented approach to this issue is necessary or useful. I would propose a much simpler and easier to agree upon standard: were the rules followed?
The rules allowed Donald Trump’s legal challenges. The rules rejected those challenges. People following the rules led to the affirmation of Joe Biden‘s victory.
The rules allow state legislatures to choose their state’s electors. It didn’t happen this time, but it could. That would also be following the rules.
To me, the question is not whether “elections should be respected.“ That’s too fuzzy a concept. When the presidency goes to someone who got 270 electoral votes but lost the popular vote, was that election “respected?“ I am sure there would be widespread disagreement about that. But we might hopefully all be able to agree whether the rules were followed.
Anyone who doesn’t like the rules is welcome to mount a campaign to amend The Constitution and change those rules.
The fact of the matter is that “corrupt Democratic cities” is code for African American voters. GA, MI, PA and WI all would have gone for Trump were it not for the Black and Brown voters in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia (“bad things happen in Philadelphia”) and Milwaukee. Trump’s and his enablers lies are transparent, racist and sickening.
Shame on them all.
If a state legislature passes a law saying the citizens choose the electoral votes by election, then I consider that they have, in fact, chosen the manner, and that they have bound themselves. They made, in effect, a contract or promise. To void that promise after the fact seems to me to be morally wrong and a clear violation of "due process." It would be, overtly NOT due process. So the Constitution did not just say that legislatures can name the electors. It says that legislators need to guarantee citizens due process, and their process was to allow voters to vote.
So, from my point of view, "good government" honesty and Constitutional prescription coincide. Happily, it isn't just me saying it. The Supreme Court also agreed that a legislature, having made a process, had to abide by it.
The shock to the system of democratic government is that Trump asserts that legislatures have no obligation to honor their promise nor the vote, and that they should make a nakedly partisan decision to break that promise, and do it proudly. Trump does not require a fig leaf of hypocrisy, beyond a disproven assertion that the vote was hugely systematically fraudulent--a charge that his attorney would say on camera in a press conference, but not in court to a judge, out of fear of being sanctions for presenting a false narrative to the court.
Peter Sage
Agree with Mr Trigoboff. Chatfield kept it simple.
Liberals often seem to have a belief that they can read the minds of conservatives. And what they often seem to find is … racism! This is convenient for them, because then they can dismiss any points that conservatives are trying to make.
Playing the race card like this is a corrupt tactic that feeds into the extreme polarization that this country is currently plagued with. Gratuitously being accused of racism is one of the more infuriating things that can happen in political discourse. I wonder what the people who do this expect will come back at them. I wonder if they expected something like Donald Trump.
“Dog whistles,’ “code,” etc are rhetorical weapons based on the notion that the liberals are mind readers. They would do better to try to listen and understand.
The current president is a narcissistic buffoon. He will be gone in about a month.
I think that too many people rent too much space in their heads to him. I pay very little attention to his assertions and tweets. I pay attention to the actions of his administration, which are typically much less extreme.
I don’t read the minds of conservatives; I listen to the words of Trump.
... and then you interpret those words. Many “interpreters” find things in those words that the more literal-minded among us do not see as necessarily being there.
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