Let’s talk about Mike Pence and the little procedural change he made that saved the United States of America from civil war or worse (at least for the time being) and inspired Donald Trump’s followers to try to execute him on January 6, 2021.
As you know, each state produces “electors” for the US Presidential election that are provided to the Senate where the Vice President presides over a ritual where the electors are counted and the winner of the election is officially declared. At the beginning of this ritual, the Vice President reads some instructions, and a crucial sentence from these instructions used to (2005, 2009, 2013, 2017) read:
After ascertainment has been had that the certificates are authentic and correct in form, the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors of the several States.
Which basically means, “We are going to count all the electors.” The words “authentic” and “correct in form” are left to the Vice President to interpret. Now, compare this to the new procedure that Pence chose to read in 2021:
After ascertaining that the votes are regular in form and authentic, the tellers will announce the votes cast by the electors for each state, beginning with Alabama, that the parlimentarian has advised me is the only certificate of vote from that state that purports to be a return from that state that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state purporting to appoint or ascertain electors.
Hm, that sure is a lot more words. The intent is to change the meaning, with the new meaning being: “We are going to count all the official electors and I’m going to let the parlimentarian decide which ones are official.” With this new procedure — approved by Mike Pence — the Vice President no longer is allowed to decide which electors are the real ones and has instead tasked the parlimentarian with that decision.
Who the heck is the parlimentarian?
The Parliamentarian of the United States Senate is the official advisor to the United States Senate on the interpretation of Standing Rules of the United States Senate and parliamentary procedure. Incumbent parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has held the office since 2012, appointed by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentarian_of_the_United_States_Senate
Let me just emphasize three important details here:
First, Mike Pence chose to change the procedure.
Second, the parlimentarian is only an advisor regarding the rules and has no actual power. While it is considered very naughty to overrule the parlimentarian, there’s absolutely nothing stopping the Presiding Officer (in this case, Mike Pence) from doing that.
Third, the parlimentarian at the time was appointed by a Democrat; it is not an elected position.
The fact of the matter is that Trump’s electoral coup could have worked. Mike Pence could have announced the alternative slate of electors as being the electors, thus handing Trump the Presidency a second time. There’s nothing in the Constitution that would have stopped this and anyone claiming that such a scheme is either illegal or impossible is simply wrong about that; our interpretation of the associated law might be more correct, but that’s really just our opinion on the matter. Certainly, there would have been an enormous brouhaha, and quite likely civil war if Mike Pence had chosen this action, and that would be why he chose to change the procedures instead.
If Pence had declared Trump the winner (by declaring the alternative electors), then Trump would have been the defacto President — end of story. To change that, the Democrats would have had to choose between a long legal battle — that could literally take years and would ultimately end at the Republican-controlled Supreme Court — or violence. Trump would definitely have found a reason to call for a State of Emergency, and that would have been the end of elections in the USA. Mike Pence looked at that possible future and chose to make that little tweak to the procedure to enforce the false idea that he had no power in that moment.
The entire purpose of the electoral college is to protect the “opulent minority” from the majority vote of the people — i.e., to circumvent democracy. Yet, for some reason, people are still absolutely unable to accept that a system meant to circumvent democracy might be used to circumvent democracy. There are all sorts of rules about what electors can do and how the electors are counted, but if people choose not to follow those rules, it creates ambiguity that the person holding power (in this case, the sitting President) can leverage for the purpose of maintaining that power. An ambiguous situation favors the sitting President, because he is the person that has the power.
Killing our democracy is illegal, but if the President kills it, who exactly is going to avenge the murder? Do you recall how the military promised not to get involved in the election? Were you aware that the police mostly supported Trump? The same goes for the Secret Service. Who, exactly, would have dragged Donald Trump out of the White House if Pence had cooperated in Trump’s scheme? Nancy? Chuck? You?