> Who would be President on Jan 20?' - if the vote to approve the electoral results on Jan 6th were not completed [...]
Bonus points if you can tell us how the 20th Amendment clarifies that for us.
Nancy Pelosi.
Amendment XX: “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [...] If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified."
3 USC § 19(a)(1): “If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.”
^ Exactly. There are lots of unclear and open to interpretation areas of law but this isn't one of them.
We have a well-established process with clear steps which apply in good times and bad times, whether any of the players like them at the moment or not.
It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason.
There is no 'conspiracy theory' in the clear and obvious observation of an insurrection on Capitol Hill wherein many attempted to thwart the Jan 6 validation of votes.
Despite Dragon's decent response, it is far from clear what the outcome would be where the vote to have been stopped.
It's also false to suggest that the laws are clear enough to disambiguate these situations.
At very least, there would be a constitutional legal war the likes of which the country has never seen.
But most importantly - the issue is one of populism: if 1/3 of the country does not believe the results of what was by all accounts an unambiguous outcome - and were capable of literally stopping the process - then it 'doesn't matter what the law is' because already the system will have gone beyond objective reality and due process. It's Game of Thrones then.
> It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason.
OTOH, one should not ignore conspiracy theories if one is trying to explain the actions of Q cultists.
Just because there is a clear reality doesn’t mean that every actor is motivated by that rather than a distorted, conspiracy-theory driven one on which fringe or outright untenable theories of law are among the basic operating premises.
"If a President shall not have been chosen before ..."
"If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify ...”
So Biden will not have been 'chosen' or did not 'qualify' ?
If the Jan 6 vote did not happen or if the results were not approved - Joe Biden was still unambiguously 'chosen' by in a free and fair election by all accounts?
Would the factual legitimacy of his election result in SCOTUS validating his claim to the Presidency?
Can the voting procedure (Act of 1887) [1] meaningfully deny the Biden his ascension to President?
VP Pence himself (a lawyer) indicated that he did not have the authority to stop the process.
It seems pretty ambiguous, and that legal scholars would be all over the place with this, no?
But my question was rhetorical - to illustrate that there's a wall of legal ambiguity in that situation, enough to enable considerable populist rancour to take hold, whereupon the winner may not have enough political momentum to actually take power, irrespective of what some entity like SCOTUS says.
Would Democrats even remotely accept anything other that Biden as President?
Why would they ever submit to 'Pelosi' as being President - which would be an admission of defeat, or even or possibly another election?
If the 'election was rigged' - doesn't that invalidate the entire Congress as well? Including Pelosi? And all the Senators?
If a free and fair election were already held in November, and it was overturned for political reasons, what would be the point of having another one, if the results can be ignored on the basis of populism?
> If the Jan 6 vote did not happen or if the results were not approved - Joe Biden was still unambiguously 'chosen' by in a free and fair election by all accounts?
The only account that has any force under the Constitution is the one made by Congress of the electoral votes cast by the States. That's why it was the target of the insurrection; if that could be manipulated, whether by giving courage to secret allies who might otherwise have a failure of conviction in Congress (what Trump overtly called on the crowd to do), or intimidation, or by forcibly removing members who were obstacles, then the election results could be undone; the “steal” could be “stopped”.
> Would the factual legitimacy of his election result in SCOTUS validating his claim to the Presidency?
Almost certainly not, and if it did it would be the Supreme Court voiding the Constitutional reservation of the role of judging electoral results from Congress, a different kind of coup.
> Would Democrats even remotely accept anything other that Biden as President?
No, if it was clear that the count was going to be obstructed and incomplete, rather than completed with a different outcome, but the House was capable of acting, they'd probably just elect Biden Speaker.
> If the 'election was rigged' - doesn't that invalidate the entire Congress as well? Including Pelosi? And all the Senators?
Legally, they are separate elections held at the same time, so, no, not in the eyes of the law, even if the first part was a conclusion of law, rather than a propaganda point to rationalize an application of raw power, which is what it would be.
> If a free and fair election were already held in November, and it was overturned for political reasons, what would be the point of having another one, if the results can be ignored on the basis of populism?
The same reason authoritarian regimes usually have elections; purely performative, rather than substantive.
Nancy Pelosi.
Amendment XX: “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [...] If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified."
3 USC § 19(a)(1): “If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.”