CALIFORNIA ELECTOR FILES SUIT, JOINS ANTI-TRUMP ELECTORAL COLLEGE PUSH
A Democratic presidential elector from California has filed suit in support of an effort to block Donald Trump’s path to the presidency, the second such lawsuit filed in recent days.
Vinz Koller, chairman of the Monterey County Democratic Party, has become the 10th presidential elector – joining eight other Democrats and one Republican – to lend support to the anti-Trump effort. His lawsuit, filed Friday, seeks to overturn a California statute that requires him and the state’s 54 other members of the Electoral College to support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton when they vote on Dec. 19. A similar lawsuit was filed earlier this week in Colorado by two Democratic electors, Robert Nemanich and Polly Baca.
Their hope is that legal victories help undermine the 29 state laws across the country that force electors to support the winner of their statewide popular vote. Many of those laws apply in states where Republican electors have expressed wariness of Trump but have noted that they’re legally required to vote for him. Koller joins a group that calls itself “Hamilton Electors” and is working to convince at least 37 Republican electors to reject Trump and unite behind an alternative Republican candidate.
This lawsuit represents the most aggressive move in support of that effort yet, since a victory would effectively free more than one in 10 members of the Electoral College to vote for any candidate. Koller, like Baca and Nemanich, argues that the Founders intended presidential electors to have free choice in casting their votes.
“Though Hillary Clinton and Timothy Kaine won the majority vote in California and are qualified for office, Plaintiff cannot be constitutionally compelled to vote for them,” Koller’s attorney Melody Kramer wrote in a filing in the U.S. District Court of North California. “Plaintiff must be allowed to exercise his judgment and free will to vote for whomever he believes to be the most qualified and fit for the offices of President and Vice President within the circumstances and with the knowledge known on December 19, 2016.”
The 538 members of the Electoral College will meet on Dec. 19 in their respective state capitals to cast the official vote for president. Trump won the popular vote in states that include 306 electoral votes, while Clinton won in states that include 232 electoral votes. If all of the electors in Trump’s states support him, he’ll easily clear the 270-vote threshold to become president. That’s why the anti-Trump electors are pursuing 37 recalcitrant Republicans. So far, only one, Texas’ Chris Suprun, has publicly broken from Trump.
Even if no other electors join the effort, the anti-Trump push is already reaching historic levels. The most electors to ever break from a presidential candidate was six in 1808, when a small band of Democratic-Republican electors voted against James Madison.
Are Democrats Wasting Their Time Taking On the Electoral College?
Long-shot efforts to stop Donald Trump or change the election system risk taking up time and energy with little to show at the end.
As Donald Trump’s inauguration draws near, Democrats are channeling time and energy into long-shot political fights focused on the Electoral College. But while their efforts have generated media attention, they ultimately seem unlikely to win back the power liberals lost in the presidential election.
As Donald Trump’s inauguration draws near, Democrats are channeling time and energy into long-shot political fights focused on the Electoral College. But while their efforts have generated media attention, they ultimately seem unlikely to win back the power liberals lost in the presidential election.
A group of Democratic electors are leading the charge for an Electoral College revolt by attempting to convince electors to deny Trump the White House when they vote for president later this month. At least one Republican elector has also publicly advocated for his colleagues to reject Trump: “I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative,” he wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Monday.
At the same time, high-profile Democrats are calling for an end to the Electoral College entirely. That includes some congressional lawmakers. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California has introduced legislation to abolish the Electoral College by amending the Constitution, while a number of House Democrats met earlier this week at a forum focused on potential reforms to the institution. “The Electoral College seems to be getting more disconnected from the popular vote,” Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York said at the Capitol Hill event. “It’s time we got rid of the distorting influence of the Electoral College on the popular will,” he added. “The Electoral College seems to be getting more disconnected from the popular vote.”
At the same time, high-profile Democrats are calling for an end to the Electoral College entirely. That includes some congressional lawmakers. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California has introduced legislation to abolish the Electoral College by amending the Constitution, while a number of House Democrats met earlier this week at a forum focused on potential reforms to the institution. “The Electoral College seems to be getting more disconnected from the popular vote,” Democratic Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York said at the Capitol Hill event. “It’s time we got rid of the distorting influence of the Electoral College on the popular will,” he added. “The Electoral College seems to be getting more disconnected from the popular vote.”
The Electoral College is a convenient target. Before a presidential election takes place, political parties in each state select a slate of electors that’s equal in number to the state’s representation in the House and Senate. In nearly every state, electors for the party whose candidate wins the popular vote in that state then meet on December 19 to vote for president. And they typically vote for whichever candidate won that in-state popular vote. As it stands, Hillary Clinton has amassed a popular-vote lead of more than 2.6 million votes over Trump.
“There is very little indication that the political will currently exists for either of these scenarios to come to pass,” said Edward Foley, an election-law expert at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. “For the Electoral College to repudiate Trump, there would have to be a groundswell of Republicans turning against Trump that we have not seen happen within the party. As for abolishing the Electoral College, it’s extraordinarily difficult to amend the Constitution, and despite the fact that a majority of Americans support the idea, we have never been able to pass an amendment to achieve that.”
Focusing attention on the mismatch between the popular vote and the outcome of the presidential election allows Democrats to make the case that Trump does not have a mandate from the American public. But that doesn’t mean it’s good political strategy for Democrats to take aim at the Electoral College now.
To start, Democrats may feel increasingly demoralized if they attempt to channel their post-election angst into political causes they ultimately fail to win. And if Democrats blame the Electoral College for their loss, that could distract the party from the task of building up support in the rural counties and other parts of the country where Democrats struggled to win votes in the 2016 election. It may also be more difficult for Democrats to win over Trump voters in the future if his supporters interpret efforts to stop him from taking office, or do away with the Electoral College, as evidence of unfair backlash against their preferred candidate.
On top of that, it might be harder for Democrats to credibly argue that Trump poses a threat to democratic institutions if they themselves appear willing to subvert or do away with one of those institutions—particularly if liberal lawmakers face accusations from Republicans that they are doing so for partisan gain.
“Defending values, whether it’s protocol, precedent, or legal, we have to be consistent,” Representative Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, said in an interview. Though he is not currently advocating for any specific changes to the Electoral College, Grijalva thinks it’s important to highlight Clinton’s popular-vote victory, and consider whether potential reforms to the Electoral College might make sense. “I’m concerned the popular vote doesn’t carry the weight that it should, even in a loss,” he said. But he also cautioned that “you have to be very careful to not accept the premise that because it’s Trump for president therefore everything is open game.”
Still, long odds and political risk won’t dissuade liberals hoping that the Electoral College will deliver an 11th-hour rebuke of Trump. Two Colorado Democratic electors filed a lawsuit on Tuesday contesting state law that requires them to back the winner of the state’s popular vote as part of their fight to deny Trump the White House. Larry Lessig, a law professor and activist who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, also launched an initiative called the Electors Trust. The project is intended to “give electors free and confidential legal service,” according to a description Lessig wrote on Medium.
In an interview, Lessig rejected the idea that activism focused on the Electoral College will waste resources on the political left. “I don’t think that Democrats are squandering an opportunity if they focus their energy on achieving what should be the core principle of our democracy, which is that we’re all equal and that our votes should count equally,” he said.
There isn’t much time left until the Electoral College casts its votes for president, leaving Democrats and anti-Trump activists with a narrow window to influence the outcome of the election. In the meantime, the party and its followers will have to be careful not to chase politically unrealistic goals at the exclusion of more feasible campaigns to rebuild their political power. If the last-ditch effort to block Trump from the presidency fails, Democrats will need to be ready to counter the Republican agenda, and time is running out to prepare a potentially enduring and effective strategy.
There isn’t much time left until the Electoral College casts its votes for president, leaving Democrats and anti-Trump activists with a narrow window to influence the outcome of the election. In the meantime, the party and its followers will have to be careful not to chase politically unrealistic goals at the exclusion of more feasible campaigns to rebuild their political power. If the last-ditch effort to block Trump from the presidency fails, Democrats will need to be ready to counter the Republican agenda, and time is running out to prepare a potentially enduring and effective strategy.
Why Didn’t Obama Reveal Intel About Russia’s Influence on the Election?
His decision may have cost Clinton the presidency.
On Friday, the Obama administration turned a bright spotlight onto the Russian government’s attempts to influence America’s presidential election. The White House announced that the president had ordered the intelligence community to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking, kicking off a sweeping investigation that officials say should be complete before President Obama’s second term ends in less than six weeks. That evening, administration officials leaked the results of a secret CIA investigation into Russia’s motives for launching election-related cyberattacks to The Washington Post. The CIA had concluded that Russia “intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency.”
Members of Congress who called on the White House to release more information about Russian involvement in the 2016 election—and who repeatedly hinted that the administration hadn’t publicized everything it knows on the issue—were vindicated by the revelations. But the news came too late to make a difference in the election.
The CIA only shared its latest findings with top senators last week, the Post reported, but it’s not clear when the agency made the determination. In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, however, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid—who is known for making bold accusations—said FBI Director Jim Comey has known about Russia’s ambitions “for a long time,” but didn’t release that information.
If that’s true, why didn’t the Obama administration push to release it earlier?
For one, the White House was probably afraid of looking like it was tipping the scale in Hillary Clinton’s favor, especially in an election that her opponent repeatedly described as rigged. Though Obama stumped for Clinton around the country, the administration didn’t want to open him up to attacks that he unfairly used intelligence to undermine Trump’s campaign, the Post reported.
Instead, top White House officials gathered key lawmakers—leadership from the House and Senate, plus the top Democrats and Republicans from both houses’ intelligence and homeland security committees—to ask for a bipartisan condemnation of Russia’s meddling. The effort was stymied by several Republicans who weren’t willing to cooperate, including, reportedly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (On Sunday morning, a bipartisan statement condemning the hacks came from incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Jack Reed, a Democrat, and Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham.)
It’s also possible that the administration, like most pollsters and pundits, was overconfident in its assessment that Clinton would win the election. Officials may have been more willing to lob incendiary accusations—and risk setting off a serious political or cyber conflict with Russia—if they had thought Trump had a good chance to win.
The silence from the White House and the CIA was a stark contrast to the Comey’s announcement just weeks before the election that it was examining new documents related to its investigation into Clinton’s emails.
The closest the administration came to accusing Russia of trying to get Trump elected came in October, just over a month before Election Day. In a statement, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies announced that they were “confident” that the Kremlin directed intrusions into “U.S. political organizations,” and that the leaked materials that were popping up on Wikileaks, DCLeaks.com, and on the website claimed by a hacker called “Guccifer 2.0” were likely connected to Russia. The statement said the thefts and disclosures were “intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” but it didn’t say whether they were meant to help one candidate more than another.
Clinton raised the findings during the third presidential debate. “We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election,” she said. “We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin.”
Clinton raised the findings during the third presidential debate. “We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election,” she said. “We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin.”
Trump shot back that “our country has no idea” who was behind the hacks, despite the agencies’ reports. (After the CIA’s assessment leaked on Friday, Trump’s campaign team tried to discredit the agency: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” it said in a statement.)
In his campaign appearances, Obama didn’t make a big deal of the intelligence community’s October announcement, which may have helped the revelation slip out of headlines and away from the consciousness of voters.
In his campaign appearances, Obama didn’t make a big deal of the intelligence community’s October announcement, which may have helped the revelation slip out of headlines and away from the consciousness of voters.
Perhaps the latest intelligence from the CIA—that Russia was trying to help Trump win—wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the vote. But if it would have given voters reason to doubt Trump, the administration’s unwillingness to publicize the specifics of the Kremlin’s meddling may have helped cost Clinton the election. President Obama may have reason to reflect on that decision for a long time.
WHY VLADIMIR PUTIN’S RUSSIA IS BACKING DONALD TRUMP
Officials from two European countries tell Newsweek that Trump’s comments about Russia’s hacking have alarmed several NATO partners because it suggests he either does not believe the information he receives in intelligence briefings, does not pay attention to it, does not understand it or is misleading the American public for unknown reasons. One British official says members of that government who are aware of the scope of Russia’s cyberattacks both in Western Europe and America found Trump’s comments “quite disturbing” because they fear that, if elected, the Republican presidential nominee would continue to ignore information gathered by intelligence services in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
