Let's Do This: How You Can Stop Mike Johnson From Overturning a Kamala Harris Victory
House Democrats are worried about four ways Johnson could try a repeat of January 6, 2021
In late 2022, Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act, which updated, clarified, and improved upon the 1887 Electoral Count Act. The Brennan Center for Justice summarized the new law as aiming "to fix confusing and ambiguous provisions in the original law [the 1887 Electoral Count Act] that helped pave the way for the unprecedented attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the January 6 assault on the Capitol." This includes:
Clarifying that the Vice President's role is only ceremonial;
Clarifying that only governors can certify slates of electors, unless state law explicitly says otherwise;
Expediting the process for any legal challenges to the outcome in any given state;
Raising the threshold for any objections to slates of electors to trigger a vote on those slates in the House and the Senate. Notably, the 2020 challenge would not have met the current threshold, as there would have been an insufficient number of objecting U.S. senators.
If you have any questions about how the Electoral College is certified by Congress, please read the excellent Brennan Center explainer on the new law. We should be very grateful that Congress passed Electoral Count Reform Act, as it does away with a lot of the trickery that Donald Trump attempted four years ago and will make overturning future presidential elections much more difficult.
That said, according to Politico, Democrats in Congress are still gaming out at least four possible ways that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who was one of the leaders of the attempt in the House of Representatives to overturn the 2020 election, and who has not committed to respecting the results of the 2024 election, could prevent the certification of a Kamala Harris victory. These include:
Johnson could try to rewrite the rules that govern the Jan. 6 vote-counting session.
Johnson could muster enough Republicans to object to certain contested slates of electors and, if the GOP also holds the Senate, possibly gather the votes to throw those slates out.
Johnson could delay the vote-counting session. While the Jan. 6 date is written in law, it’s the speaker who has to call the House to order first.
Johnson could challenge the Electoral Count Act and Electoral Count Reform Act in the Supreme Court.
This is definitely worrying. However, Mike Johnson can't prevent a single thing if he isn't Speaker of the House.
In order to safeguard our democracy, we need to make sure that Hakeem Jeffries is Speaker of the House on January 6, 2025, when the 2024 presidential election is certified. To this end, by looking at the U.S. House race ratings and district-level partisan voting index from The Cook Political Report, I have identified six U.S. House seats currently held by Republicans, listed as "toss-ups," that President Biden won with 53% or more of the vote in 2020. The Democratic nominees in these six crucial districts are: Adam Gray (CA-13), Rudy Salas (CA-22), George Whitesides (CA-27), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Mondaire Jones (NY-17), and Janelle Bynum (OR-05).
We only need to flip a net of four seats to retake the House, and I figure that these six districts are our best bets to pull that off. As such, I have put the Democratic nominees in all six of these districts on a single Act Blue page, allowing you to contribute to all six of their campaigns at the same time.