{"id":853,"date":"2020-12-11T14:37:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T14:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/?p=853"},"modified":"2020-12-11T14:56:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T14:56:34","slug":"if-pennsylvania-et-al-did-violate-the-constitution-in-this-last-election-what-should-the-remedy-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/2020\/12\/11\/if-pennsylvania-et-al-did-violate-the-constitution-in-this-last-election-what-should-the-remedy-be\/","title":{"rendered":"If Pennsylvania et al. did violate the constitution in this last election, what should the remedy be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you’ve heard, Texas has filed a lawsuit<\/a> against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for violating the “Electors Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which vests the state legislature with the power to set the rules for choosing electors. <\/p>\n

Here is what we know. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification, government officials in the defendant states of Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania …, usurped their legislatures\u2019 authority and unconstitutionally revised their state\u2019s election statutes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s take Texas’ argument as true — that what these four states did contradicts the constitution. What’s to be done about it? <\/p>\n

There’s a legal principle called “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree,” which says that evidence illegally obtained can’t be used in a trial. The idea is to dissuade law enforcement from using illegal means to get the result they want. <\/p>\n

From that point of view, the proper remedy is to disqualify the votes from these states, to discourage states from taking similar actions in the future. <\/p>\n

That seems like a pretty harsh remedy. It’s not the voters’ fault that their officials broke the rules, so why should their votes be excluded? <\/p>\n

One possible remedy would be to require the states to vote again, but what a circus that would be! <\/p>\n

The more likely thing would be that SCOTUS would require each of those state legislatures to decide what to do. They’d have hearings to determine if they could trust the results as they have them, and then vote for the appropriate electors. That appeals to me because it seems very federal and very much against pure democracy, which I don’t like. <\/p>\n

I suspect it won’t come to that point. SCOTUS will find some grounds for dismissing the lawsuit and will avoid having to make that call. <\/p>\n

Still … it’s an interesting question. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you’ve heard, Texas has filed a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for violating the “Electors Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which vests the state legislature with the power to set the rules for choosing electors. Here is what we know. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification, government officials in the defendant … Continue reading “If Pennsylvania et al. did violate the constitution in this last election, what should the remedy be?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}