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Democrats spent much of the 2024 campaign reminding Americans of what happened on January 6, 2021. But some on Capitol Hill are already worried about January 6, 2025.
They’re hoping Kamala Harris wins in November and flips the House — meaning Hakeem Jeffries will likely hold the speaker’s gavel as the process to vindicate a Harris victory begins.
But it’s another scenario that nags top House Democrats — that Speaker Mike Johnson could retain his majority when Harris wins and be in a position to block the electoral vote count and possibly under constitutional provisions of the House. the 12th amendment.
After all, Johnson led House Republicans in filing a petition after the 2020 election asking the Supreme Court to essentially overturn the swing-state results that Donald Trump personally blessed. Now he’s leading a charge that suggests undocumented immigrants are voting in droves in what Democrats see as a concerted effort to cast doubt on the election and set the stage for a fiasco.
“It would be foolish to ignore the history here,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (DN.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, who has led his party’s pushback against GOP voting claims.
Adding to the anxiety is that Johnson could be involved in a leadership dogfight in the post-election period where he will be forced to prove his mettle to MAGA-minded members – not to mention Trump – by vowing to challenge the election results. .
An aide to Johnson dismissed the Democrats’ concerns as a fundraising attempt to flip the House, saying they were part of an alarmist narrative that helped fuel the two assassination attempts on Trump.
Other Republicans close to Johnson told us they doubted the speaker would give in to Trump’s wishes so easily. He was found to have resisted MAGA’s pressure on Ukraine funding and distinguished between writing a legal brief in the background and overturning the will of the electorate as a constitutional official.
Other hurdles are in place: For one thing, Harris will be his vice president, who will actually preside over the verification of electoral votes, as Mike Pence did in 2021. In 2022, the voter counting law will be rewrittenunder the law governing the process, it is now much more difficult to challenge the counting of votes. Instead of a single member, 20 percent of each chamber is now required to file an objection.
But Democrats remain apprehensive and concerned about unresolved ambiguities in the constitution and the law surrounding the certification process, and that Johnson could be the Republican leader on Jan. 6.
They fear that his background in constitutional law, bona fide conservative movement, and magnanimous demeanor could make him uniquely formidable in a contentious election scenario — sharp enough to come up with new legal arguments that could carry the election to the House of Representatives, and savvy enough to hire members on board.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Democratic constitutional expert who clashed with Johnson over his 2020 brief, paraphrased the ancient Greek poet Hesiods: “The Muses are telling him something like this: We know how to tell the truth when we want to tell the truth. . And when we want to lie, we know how to tell a lie that looks like the truth. And that’s how I see Johnson’s jurisprudence.”
“He can say what the Constitution actually says — and then he knows how to make polished arguments for Trump that are completely false and would gut our constitutional system,” Raskin (D-Md.) said.
While Raskin and other Democrats declined to speculate on exactly how Johnson and other Republicans might wreak electoral havoc after the vote, the following concerns were circulating on Capitol Hill:
– That Johnson could try to rewrite the rules governing the January 6 vote-counting session. In the past century, the two chambers have unanimously adopted bipartisan procedures for the count. Johnson can choose to try to write his own, inserting provisions that open up new avenues to challenge the results, or simply refuse to accept a process that creates ambiguity and doubt.
– Johnson was able to rally enough Republicans to protest some controversial electoral rolls – and if the government also takes a seat in the Senate, the votes may have to be gathered to throw out the cards. If no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the House is empowered under the 12th Amendment to choose a winner.
– That Johnson can postpone the vote-counting session. While the January 6 date is written into the law, the speaker must first put the House in order. Democrats fear that Johnson could essentially take a break — just like Trump’s allies after the 2020 election — that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi might do the same and go to court. (A related fear: What if there are no speakers at all on January 6 – like two years ago when Kevin McCarthy was fighting to win the gavel?)
“That Johnson can totally challenge the Electoral Counts Act.” Based on a novel legal theory, he can ask the court to declare that the law on the books cannot compel Congress to exercise its powers under the Constitution – he repeatedly failed to follow the procedure set forth in the 12th Amendment.
Democratic suspicion of Johnson is nothing new. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) moved earlier this year to fire Johnson from the speakership, Democrats faced a dilemma over whether to protect him in a key procedural vote. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), member of the House, Jan. 6 panel, he warned his colleagues think carefully before helping a man who has been taunted as a “pro-choicer”.
Most Democrats, including Lofgren, swallowed his concerns and voted to keep Johnson. Now some fear the warning will ring in their ears. A few hours after the vote Johnson told POLITICO he did not regret his 2020 amicus brief: “I would do the exact same thing today if the circumstances were presented, because I feel I have an obligation.”
“The Supreme Court dodged the question — perhaps they calculated that the answer would be so profound, so unsettling, that it wasn’t worth bothering with,” he said. “But…I thought it was an important question to ask the court.”
Jeffries blessed the decision to defend Johnson, and some Democrats expect him to intervene in Johnson’s case and avert any post-election drama. The two leaders have developed a surprisingly warm personal and professional relationship, and Johnson has previously spoken about their shared faith and relationship.
A Johnson ally also pointed out that Johnson is also close to Pence, another conservative Christian who fell out of favor with Trump when he refused to do his bidding on Jan. 6, 2021. This person predicted that while Johnson will try to stay in MAGA’s good graces. he will not go rogue after the election as the democrats fear.
Again, these worst-case scenarios are all quite improbable — starting with the improbability of a situation where Harris wins and Republicans hold majorities in both chambers. But during the electoral vote counting four years ago, even the chance of destruction seemed unimaginable.
So Democrats leave nothing to chance. Senior lawmakers are already holding private meetings to plan different ways to deal with the post-election period. They are also raising their concerns with donors and urging them to give generously in order for the party to turn around the House and avert any potential drama.
“I believe in the people,” Morelle said, sharing his belief that Johnson is “doing the right thing” in a controversial scenario. “But we are prepared for any eventuality and … we will be in a position to move forward and arrange for a peaceful transfer.”
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
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