Constitutional Conservatism and the Electoral College

At The New York Times, J. Michael Luttig, formerly a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, makes a compelling conservative case for clarifying the Electoral Count Act. Self-described constitutional conservatives like Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri exploited the Act’s ambiguity to attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election last January 6, adding oxygen to the fire that Donald Trump had lit and fanned with weeks of falsehoods. Luttig’s conservative case for the Electoral College is firmly rooted in federalism and equally firmly opposed to centralization. He writes: “It should be … Continue reading Constitutional Conservatism and the Electoral College

Avoiding the Chaos of a Another Jan 6

There’s a great We the People podcast, from the National Constitution Center with Jeffrey Rosen, on reforming the Electoral Count Act: https://constitutioncenter.org/debate/podcasts It clearly outlines the problems with the Act and how it could be reformed to avoid the sort of ambiguities that were exploited in the 2020 election. It’s with Ned Foley and Brad Smith who co-authored an op-ed in the Washington Post along with Michael McConnell and Richard Pildes: “to avoid a repeat of Jan. 6, or worse, Congress must rewrite the Electoral Count Act, the outmoded 1887 law that governs the certification of the presidential vote. There is a pressing need … Continue reading Avoiding the Chaos of a Another Jan 6