Congress Republicans exploring overturning the electoral college?

[Leslie Goldstein]

In my view, the elimination of Florida's electors would shrink the size of the
EC by that number and thereby give Gore the majority.  It does seem to be a
political quesiton to be decided by the whole Congress voting in it s normal way
(i.e.not by state delegations)

"Conkle, Daniel O." wrote:

> Congress claims this power and describes this procedure in 3 U.S.C. Sec. 15,
> originally enacted in the wake of the 1876 Hayes-Tilden election.  This
> statute is incredibly verbose and poorly written, but it is quite clear, in
> context, that Congress generally must defer to state law and cannot simply
> reject votes on a partisan basis.
>
> Assuming that only one set of electoral votes is submitted from Florida, the
> pertinent language of Sec. 15 seems to be this:  Congress must accept
> electoral votes if the votes are "regular given by electors whose
> appointment has been lawfully certified" by the state, but may reject votes
> that "have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has
> been so certified."  Query, might Congress conclude that the votes were not
> "regularly given" or that the certification was not "lawful" if Congress
> thinks -- contrary to the state's own judgment, as a matter of state law --
> that the electors' appointment was tainted in some way, or that a competing
> set of electors actually should have been certified?  I tend to think not,
> but I also tend to think that this would be a political question not subject
> to judicial consideration.
>
> In the unlikely event that Congress were indeed to reject Florida's
> electoral votes, that would apparently mean that no candidate would have a
> majority of the "whole number of electors appointed," as required by the
> Constitution, and the election at that point would be thrown into the House
> of Representatives.  I say "apparently" because, if the congressional
> decision actually amounted to a rejection of the electors' *appointment* as
> invalid, one could argue that this would reduce the "whole number of
> electors [validly] appointed" by 25, reducing the denominator by that amount
> and giving Gore a victory with his remaining electoral votes.  In any case,
> a political question, I think, should it actually come to that.
>
> Dan Conkle
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Daniel O. Conkle
> Professor of Law
> Indiana University School of Law
> Bloomington, Indiana  47405
> (812) 855-4331
> fax (812) 855-0555
> mailto:conkle at indiana.edu
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: Howard Gillman [mailto:gillman at RCF-FS.USC.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 12:43 PM
> To: CONLAWPROF at LISTSERV.UCLA.EDU
> Subject: Congress Republicans exploring overturning the electoral
> college?
>
> CNN had a story yesterday reporting that Congressional Republicans are
> looking into whether they have the power, by a majority vote of the
> Congress, to reject the votes of Florida electors if Gore wins (which is
> unlikely).  The story can be found here:
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/16/congress.election/
>
> The key language is:
>
>                    According to both memos, any one member of
>                    the House joined by any one member of the
>                    Senate could object to the disputed Florida
>                    electoral votes during the joint session. At that
>                    point, each chamber would meet separately to
>                    debate and vote on the merits of the objection.
>
>                    Both chambers must agree to reject the electoral
>                    votes while only one chamber is needed to accept
>                    them, the Republican memo says.
>
> Do we all agree that a majority vote in each chamber to not accept a slate
> of electors can result in those electors' votes not being counted?  If so,
> why doesn't that mean that WHENEVER one party controls the Congress and the
> other party gets a majority of electoral college votes, then the
> congressional majority can just undue the results of the election (for
> example, by just not accepting California's electors)?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Howard Gillman
> USC Political Science