Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) suggested that Congress may not certify electors from states that disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot in the 2024 election which means Congressional Republicans could select the next president.
“Maine, Colorado, and other states that might try to bureaucratically deny ballot access to any Republican nominee should remember the U.S. House of Representatives is the ultimate arbiter of whether to certify electors from those states,” Massie wrote in a post on X/Twitter.
Such a move would require Republicans to keep control of the House in the 2024 election.
Massie added that GOP lawmakers’ attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election by objecting to slate of electors from key swing states in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 “was doomed because Democrats controlled the House and Senate at that time. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House now. Whether we keep the majority remains to be seen.”
Colorado and Maine are the two states so far to have disqualified Trump from appearing on their state’s primary ballots under the 14th Amendment insurrection clause for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Trump faces similar challenges to remove him from the ballot in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, New York, and Texas.
Challenging electoral results in Congress in Jan. 2025 will not be as easy as it was in 2021. In previous years, all it took was one member from each chamber–the House and the Senate–to object to a slate of electors. The 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act raises the threshold to one-fifth of the members from both the House and the Senate.
