In less than fifteen months, Congress will count and certify the Electoral College votes. What is truly frightening is that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), from the far right of the Republicans

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Party, could play a prominent role in the process.

If Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives in the November 2024 elections, it seems likely they will keep Johnson as speaker, given their bitter divisions and the difficulty of selecting someone for the post following the impeachment of Kevin McCarthy. Johnson was the leading proponent in the House of Representatives of a way to overturn the 2020 election and keep Donald Trump in office. He can be expected to do the same in 2024 if Trump is the Republican nominee and loses to President Biden.

Johnson, a lawyer, led Republicans in the House of Representatives in promoting a baseless legal theory that state legislatures have the sole power to select and appoint electors. This so-called independent legislature theory holds that a state legislature can allocate its electors as it pleases, regardless of the popular vote and a law requiring electors to go to the presidential candidate.

that who

won the popular vote. The hope was that Republican-controlled legislatures in states won by Biden would allocate their electors to Trump and give him the presidency. This theory was rejected by the Supreme Court in June in the case of Moore vs. Harper.

Every court that considered the legal claims of Trump and his supporters like Johnson, whether state or federal judges, whether Democratic or Republican judges, found no basis to overturn the decision of the voters and the Electoral College to make. No evidence of voter fraud was found that would affect the outcome of the election, which Biden won by a huge margin.

However, Johnson did everything he could to promote false claims about the electoral process. He was a leader in supporting a lawsuit by Texas to have the Supreme Court release the election results in four states won by Biden: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

He argued that state officials had changed aspects of their election procedures before the November 2020 election, such as making it easier to vote by absentee ballot. Johnson claimed that these changes were invalid and therefore voters from these states should not be counted. Courts consistently upheld these changes by state election officials, as necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Johnson even circulated an email asking his Republican colleagues to join the Supreme Court’s amicus brief in support of the lawsuit over the state of Texas and the suppression of electoral votes from four states. Johnson said in the email that Trump has specifically asked me to contact all Republican members of the House of Representatives and Senate today and ask them to join our mission. He added ominously that Trump said he will eagerly await the final list to review.

More than

100 House Republicans signed the letter. Law professor John Eastman has urged Trump to advance the same baseless theory at the Supreme Court. Eastman now faces a possible suspension in California for his role in subverting the election and has been charged in Georgia

for the charge of

trying to overturn the election results in that state.

The Supreme Court quickly dismissed the Texas lawsuit. In a brief opinion, the court explained that Texas had no basis to bring a lawsuit to block the ability of other states to participate in the Electoral College.

Undaunted, Johnson tried to get the House to refuse to announce the results of the election. He and 138 other Republican members voted against certification on January 6, 2021, despite Biden winning the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and a decisive victory in the Electoral College.

Johnson repeatedly spread Trump’s false claim that the election was rigged. He said Igood radio interview that a software system used for voting was suspect because it originated in Hugo Chvez’s Venezuela. He stated, “You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of which have been manipulated by Dominion with this software, there’s a lot of merit in that.

Now that Johnson is Speaker of the House of Representatives, there is no telling what he will do to undermine the election if Trump becomes the Republican nominee. Given his extreme loyalty to Trump and his efforts to spread outrageous lies and overturn the 2020 election, the danger to the democratic process is very grave.

Erwin Chemerinsky is a writer for Opinion and dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. His latest book is ‘Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism’.