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And here is the final stand. The President asserts that the Vice President has authority (presumably unreviewable) to determine which electoral votes count. This is dangerously incorrect, and it's worth going into detail about why. A thread:
This is what @lessig and I have called the "VP Super Power Theory" in our course on disputed presidential elections @Harvard_Law. We do a deep dive into it on the Another Way to Elect a President podcast
What's the backstory of this radical theory of the VP's power? Poor drafting of the Twelfth Amendment, which says: "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."
Note the passive voice: the VP opens the certificates, but who does the counting? (Writing tip: avoid the passive voice, especially when drafting a constitutional provision that allocates critical powers among political actors.)
So, the VP Super Power Theorist argues, the VP is the only actor mentioned in the sentence so it *must* be the VP who does the counting (and thus can reject electors' votes). Wrong. Every single method of interpretation demonstrates otherwise. Let's go through them:
The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2021
This is what @lessig and I have called the "VP Super Power Theory" in our course on disputed presidential elections @Harvard_Law. We do a deep dive into it on the Another Way to Elect a President podcast
What's the backstory of this radical theory of the VP's power? Poor drafting of the Twelfth Amendment, which says: "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."
Note the passive voice: the VP opens the certificates, but who does the counting? (Writing tip: avoid the passive voice, especially when drafting a constitutional provision that allocates critical powers among political actors.)
So, the VP Super Power Theorist argues, the VP is the only actor mentioned in the sentence so it *must* be the VP who does the counting (and thus can reject electors' votes). Wrong. Every single method of interpretation demonstrates otherwise. Let's go through them:
The BBC boat is not about to be rocked by its newly appointed Chairman; but the blame for which lies with a blustering, but backsliding & bottling Boris Johnson.
My latest for
"The BBC needs a chairman committed to demolishing its institutional groupthink. . . . . . .it isn't going to get one, thanks solely to the timidity & duplicity of Johnson and his flaccid government"
As pretty much confirmed by @Madz_Grant's perceptive sketch of the new BBC chairman's not so much grilling as gentle warming by an unthreatening DCMS Select
"He fluently deployed trendy corporate jargon and phrases like 'matrix of diversity'. The licence fee, he added, was the 'least-worst' model, although 'when we next get a chance to review ... it may be worth reassessing'."
Doesn't exactly suggest a radical reformer, does it?
Already clear from Maitlis' continued blatant editorialising, despite new #BBC CEO's instruction to curb it, that Davie's executive writ barely runs to his own office door.
Sadly, BBC's new chairman looks unlikely to change that.
#DefundTheBBC
My latest for
"The BBC needs a chairman committed to demolishing its institutional groupthink. . . . . . .it isn't going to get one, thanks solely to the timidity & duplicity of Johnson and his flaccid government"
As pretty much confirmed by @Madz_Grant's perceptive sketch of the new BBC chairman's not so much grilling as gentle warming by an unthreatening DCMS Select
"He fluently deployed trendy corporate jargon and phrases like 'matrix of diversity'. The licence fee, he added, was the 'least-worst' model, although 'when we next get a chance to review ... it may be worth reassessing'."
Doesn't exactly suggest a radical reformer, does it?
Already clear from Maitlis' continued blatant editorialising, despite new #BBC CEO's instruction to curb it, that Davie's executive writ barely runs to his own office door.
Sadly, BBC's new chairman looks unlikely to change that.
#DefundTheBBC
ICYMI: \u201cThere are millions of Americans who are very worried one man can create a lie so huge that his supporters believe in him over the principle of democracy."@maitis pushes Tea Party Movement co-founder @michaeljohns over his belief the election was "stolen"#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/SENIYKdbsd
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) January 14, 2021
@lornarichardson Big plus one for the @UkNatArchives research guides - they're my go to for any new topic - obviously, for place-based work if there's an @VCH_London entry available (and we know that the east of England is a gap) then that's a useful place to start. Many are on @bho_history 1/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history Along with lots of other material (there are some useful subject guides for @bho_history here: https://t.co/loHRv7JvZq - I wrote the Local History one). 2/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history If you have access, a simple placename search on the Bibliography of British and Irish History will almost certainly pull up anything published in local and national journals. Declaring an interest, I'm a section editor on that, but it is invaluable. 3/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history With @CHPPC_IHR we've put together some online training/seminars/events which address some key themes (and there are more on the way; please let me know if there's a particular topic you'd like covered): https://t.co/ujY5aYIek8 4/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history @CHPPC_IHR My colleagues @IHR_Library have put together an excellent guide to free/open access online resources (some grouped under local history but many more are applicable):
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history Along with lots of other material (there are some useful subject guides for @bho_history here: https://t.co/loHRv7JvZq - I wrote the Local History one). 2/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history If you have access, a simple placename search on the Bibliography of British and Irish History will almost certainly pull up anything published in local and national journals. Declaring an interest, I'm a section editor on that, but it is invaluable. 3/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history With @CHPPC_IHR we've put together some online training/seminars/events which address some key themes (and there are more on the way; please let me know if there's a particular topic you'd like covered): https://t.co/ujY5aYIek8 4/x
@UkNatArchives @VCH_London @bho_history @CHPPC_IHR My colleagues @IHR_Library have put together an excellent guide to free/open access online resources (some grouped under local history but many more are applicable):