There are plenty of never Trumper’s here at Free Republic who are glad Pence did what he did. They claim he had a constitutional obligation. They are wrong.
Not to overturn an election, not to stage a coup... but to prevent an election from being stolen, to prevent a coup from occurring.All he had to do was to declare what everyone knew: that there was a cloud over certain states' elector slates, and turn the question back to the state legislatures of those states, asking them to either approve or replace the slate of electors that their bureaucrats had sent up for the count.
Yup.
Pence is slime and that was recognized by many long before that January 6 debacle.
The only reason Trump picked this loser was the Access Hollywood tape. Were there no other Republicans with strong Christian credentials who believed in his MAGA agenda ?
I think the states like PA my state failed to give the ammunition. i.e. a second slate or a vote of some kind to decertify the Secretary of states certification of the electors based on the fraudulent results. About 29K more mail in votes counted than mail in voters in the SURE system just in delaware county alone, 400K statewide as Frank Ryan’s audit shows. But no state legislature set forth any alternate slate of electors or decertification for Pence to use. My disappointment with Pence is that he is using the commie speak when he says he couldn’t overthrow the election. His job was to be the final arbiter of what was actually going on at the state level. I think he had the same issues with his covid team.
Pence treated the January 6 joint session of Congress as an event, not a process. As an event, he would just show up; as a process, he would assert his position throughout.
Throughout American history, scholars would always talk about how the Constitutional separation of powers was a tug of war between the branches: we sometimes had a strong President and a weak Congress, and sometimes we had a strong Congress and a weak President. It came down to the personality of the people in office and the needs of the country at the time. The branches were always accusing the others as engaging in "power grabs," and would often try to preempt a branch from acting strongly by prematurely leveling this charge.
I think most people would agree that Pence exhibits a weak personality compared to the other senior office holders in government, and would shy away from being seen as a "power grabber."
Setting that aside, let's look at the so-called "ceremonial roles" in the Constitution. The author is correct that we should not expect high office officials to neuter themselves in ceremonial roles. The Framers of the Constitution would not have done that to the people who achieved the highest offices in the nation. If these roles devolved into ceremonial care-taker positions, it's because the people who held them at pivotal times were weak and not assertive people, or they chose to subordinate themselves to another branch of government.
The most ceremonial role in the Constitution is that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who presides over the impeachment trial in the Senate. A strong Senate has, over time, cowered the Chief Justice into being a clerk of the court, reducing the meaning of what it is to preside over a court. A strong Chief Justice could easily assert traditional court roles and make the Senate act for or against the Chief Justice (see how Tom Harkin (D-IA) bullied Chief Justice William Rehnquist during the Bill Clinton trial, playing on Rehnquist's reputation for being easygoing and non-confrontational).
As an event, the Chief Justice could just show up and keep time. As a process, the Chief Justice could participate in advance of the trial, laying down his expectations on how the trial would proceed, and telling Senators what to expect from him as the presiding officer. Look at how Chief Justice John Roberts told the Senate that he would not preside over the second trial of Donald Trump.
Vice President Pence should have treated the role of presiding over the counting of the Electoral College ballots as a process, too. Instead of just showing up on January 6 and gaveling in a joint session of Congress, he should have asserted his role all along, reminding Congress of what he will do when January 6 arrives if certain things do not happen between Election Day, the day of the Electoral College vote, and the day of counting the votes in Congress.
As the steward of the entire process, Pence should have spoken out immediately after Election Day, calling out the irregularities and telling the state legislatures that they should be asserting their Title 3 Chapter 1 powers immediately, because the clock was ticking.
Pence just showed up on the January 6 event to perform a ceremonial role of opening envelopes and reading votes, because he is not an assertive person and he chose not to be engaged in the process from beginning to end.
-PJ
Clap, clap, clap.
This slimeball is my main suspect for ALL the leaks that came out from Trump’s White House . . . every one.
Well, since the appointment of Electors is the (only) plenary power assigned to State Legislatures in the Constitution, and since there were 63 days between November 4, 2020 and January 5, 2021 for them to do that if they wanted to, why do you suppose they didn't?