10-04-2021, 04:05 PM
(10-04-2021, 03:30 PM)Dill Wrote: You bring up a truly interesting point here, and lay out the problem clearly. If you are correct, then if some Republican-controlled state legislatures reject their popular election results and choose electors themselves along party lines, their actions might result in a social or political, but not a "Constitutional" crisis.
It's a point worth exploring. My first question would be, aren't there, perhaps, some unstated assumptions about the "full authority" given to states to choose electors? E.g., could a state pass a law explicitly specifying that only members of one party can choose electors, and claim the sanction of Art. II? Would this be no different from a decision that all electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state? Can states "legally" stack enough anti-democratic moves (e.g., starting with gerrymandering) to place control of electoral votes outside democratic contest altogether?
The answer to all of those questions is yes, at least as far as our current view of the Constitution. Were they to be challenged in the courts it would be a very acrobatic opinion that would overturn those laws.
(10-04-2021, 03:30 PM)Dill Wrote: Seems to me that "moving the needle" right now isn't the only standard by which to judge arguments like Kagan's, and possibly not even his goal.
I believe people like myself and fence-sitting "independents" are his target audience. He's gambling that what he is saying will appear more illuminating to the latter as we approach the 2022 elections and anti-democratic legislation moves from state house debate into practice. For those who don't need convincing there is a problem, I do think Kagan deepens our understanding of the specific challenge Trump's party poses to the existing system of checks and balances. If I get that, probably so do others, and this may help focus counter-strategies.
But isn't that trying to move the needle?
(10-04-2021, 03:30 PM)Dill Wrote: *A Dahl fan. Me too.
Well, duh. Dahl has some of the best theories on democracy in the modern era.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
