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The stock response to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the general election might be delayed because voting during a pandemic would involve a record number of mail-in ballots, a format he argues is unreliable and susceptible to fraud, is that he doesn’t have that power.
NBC News is typical: “The president has no power to delay an election.” (Emphasis is mine.)
What the president understands, and most mainstream commentators fail to accept, is that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission. That goes double when the powers in question are limited by a document that lies in tatters, repeatedly ignored.
Liberal politicians and news outlets point out that the Constitution assigns the scheduling of elections exclusively to Congress. Republicans tepidly (and troublingly) stopped short of denying Trump’s power to push back the big day, while insisting that the election ought to take place on time. “Never in the history of this country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. We will find a way to do that again this November 3,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
In an era of rampant cynicism, it is sweetly naive and musingly charming to see Americans put so much faith into the constitutional checks and balances they learn about in high school civics class. “‘Trump can’t delay the election,’ experts say,” reads a headline in The Washington Post.
Since when has a 221-year-old piece of paper stopped presidents from doing anything?
I think first of war powers. Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that the right “to declare war” resides exclusively with Congress. Such key founders as George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton — men whose right to define original intent can hardly be questioned — believed that presidents could not dispatch troops without legislative approval except in cases of immediate self-defense. Congress signed off on sending soldiers and sailors to the Quasi-War with France in 1798, naval conflicts with the Barbary States of Tripoli and Algiers, and clashes with Native American tribes in the West.
Congress has since abdicated its war-making powers to the executive branch. Congress hasn’t issued a formal declaration since World War II. Yet we have fought countless wars. Presidents have launched military attacks against Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, Serbia, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of these wars of aggression were legalistically constructed as “police actions” or “peacekeeping missions” under the aegis of the U.N. The fact remains, this is not what the drafters of the Constitution intended. And it has never been amended. Presidents do what they want; lawyers twist logic to justify their illegal slaughters.
President Abraham Lincoln earns democracy points for holding the 1864 election during the Civil War. Yet he suspended habeas corpus and ignored a ruling by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court saying that he didn’t have the power to do so. President George W. Bush’s Military Commissions Act of 2006 also suspended habeas for anyone the U.S. government arbitrarily defined as an “enemy combatant.” Until the Supreme Court ruled against him two years later, Congress was complicit with the MCA. Even after the court ruling, the internment facility at Guantanamo Bay remains open. Forty men remain there, not one of whom has ever been charged or tried under basic constitutional standards.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt almost certainly didn’t have the constitutional right to send 127,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II. Yet he did.
From domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency that violates the agency’s founding charter to asset forfeiture programs that allow the police to seize money and property from people who have never been charged, much less convicted of a crime, Americans live in a society oppressed by a political class that takes no notice of constitutional limits it deems inconvenient.
Does the president have the legal right to delay an election? No.
Does he have the power? Yes, unless We the People refuse to accept it.
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“We elect a king for four years and give him absolute power within certain limits which, after all, he can interpret for himself”. Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Henry Seward.
As long as they do not get stopped, they will keep doing it. Just like the Gov and mayors and their dictates.
I agree with this column as far as it goes concerning the trashing of the Constitution, turning Commander-In-Chief into a full time job.
But what does Mr. Rall think about the judicial arrogation of power — also foreborne by the craven Congress — over issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, busing of kids based on their race and other robe & gavel “affirmative actions”? Or the de facto erasure of the Tenth Amendment, sucking more governmental authority into Washington?
Don’t hold your breath waiting for answers ….. this Proggy lightweight never defends his hipshot bleats.
The president can dispatch troops via his station as commander in chief. By what mechanism would you think Trump could enforce delaying the election?
In the 1864 Presidential election, the eleven Confederate States either still resisting or under Union occupation did not participate and no votes were counted there. That reflected the 1860 Presidential election, where no votes at all, not just no Electorial College votes were counted for the Lincoln ticket in twelve States. The Lincoln ticket was not listed in eleven of those States vote counting. It is most likely the eleven States non participating in the 1868 election were the same as the eleven States not listing the Lincoln ticket in 1864. Most likely the one State that listed the Lincoln ticket but counted no votes for it was delinquent in its counting. So there is a precedent in time of civil war and disturbances in a U S State, there is no Presidential election. Right now it arguably all American States.
Should Indian tribes be called Native Americans when they were at war for independence from the American Federal Government?
Oh, please! Do go on. Trump has demonstrated a particular talent to not even be able to exercise proper executive authority.
Sorry. The correct sentence should be: It is most likely the eleven Staten non participaing in the 1864 election were the same eleven States non listing the Lincoln ticket in 1860.
Remember there was no secret ballot in 1860. When you went to vote, you requested the ballot of the party you intended to choose. What a surprise that none were printed for the Republican party in nine (not 11) of the future insurgent states. Almost as much of a surprise as the bully boys hanging around the polling stations armed with Colt revolvers and “Texas toothpicks” to discourage the wrong kind of men from voting.
Ballot fraud and voter intimidation were a way of life as much in the south as in the urban centers of the north, where corrupt party machines literally purchased votes for silver or whiskey. It is also interesting to compare how many votes were cast in the southern states in the November general election of 1860 versus the number of votes counted in the state secession referenda. Either half the voters had moved away in a few months, or voter suppression was undertaken on a massive scale.
Thanks for your reply. From what I can work out, elections in America and elsewhere until the secret ballot in the 1890s were rumbutuous public festivals. Who voted depended more on the crowd sentiments at the booths than on the eligibility laws. By 1860, all free white men were eligible to vote with tax requirements in a few States. Eligbility for freed slaves and for women had been through the nineteenth century made extinct. In practice, how many coloured men dared the white crowd to vote is debatable. how many eligible women too in an “immoral” environment. It would, I imagine, be like Daniel in the Lion’s Den or perhaps wolf’s lair to vote against secession in the State referenda. From my observation, most people in all countries want a quiet settled life and radical change is forced on them by organised agenda driven groups.
So true.
“Americans live in a society oppressed by a political class that takes no notice of constitutional limits it deems inconvenient.”
More like being oppressed by the Trump Administration in order to ensure his election.
Multiple sources within the postal service told Motherboard they have personally witnessed the [mail sorting] machines, which cost millions of dollars, being destroyed or thrown in the dumpster. USPS did not respond to a request for comment”. According to local union officials, USPS hasn’t announced any policy, explained why they’re doing this, nor what will happen to the machines and the workers who operate them.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkyv4k/internal-usps-documents-outline-plans-to-hobble-mail-sorting