Elie Mystal: That "Little Secret" Between Trump and Johnson? Here's What It Could Mean.

[Gaugamela]

4. As for the ECRA, which is over 4000 pages and I have no intention of reading:

In 2022, Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act. This is the only thing our government actually did to address the failed coup attempt launched by Trump after the 2020 election. Its most important provisions essentially provide a legal fast track for election-certification challenges, which would take these disputes out of partisan legislatures and meandering state courts and put them in front of federal judges.

That might sound comforting, but it shouldn’t. Putting any of these challenges in front of federal judges sets them on a collision course with the Republican-controlled Supreme Court. As John Roberts and his cabal of antidemocratic goons (and their wives) have repeatedly shown this year, the Supreme Court is willing to do Trump’s dirty work. In 2020, the Supreme Court rejected almost all of Trump’s various nonsensical claims to overturn that election. But I wouldn’t be so sure they’ll do so again, especially because this time the Trump people will not necessarily be asking the court to overturn the results of a state’s election. They’ll just be asking them to delay certification of those results, until some later date. In addition to ruling for the Trumpers outright, the court could simply delay hearing the case for as long as the delay is helpful for Trump. The Supreme Court can put its thumb on the scale for Trump simply by pretending to “stay out of it” and allowing the “process” to play itself out.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/little-secret-trump-johnson-election/

Mystal is a graduate of Harvard Law.