“I think with our little secret we’re going to do really well with the House, right?” Mr. Trump said, addressing Mr. Johnson directly. “Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a little secret — we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
Since this is a dependent MC market, I will try to edit less specific options when more specific options are added so that there can't be two possible resolutions. If this is not possible, I will N/A the newest answer.
1,000
3.00https://manifold.markets/SaviorofPlant/will-trump-adjourn-both-houses-of-c
The plan outlined in the description of this new market seems like a plausible candidate for the secret.
@SaviorofPlant Does Trump need to definitively say that this was the secret? Or are we vibe-checking this?
@Quroe It doesn't have to be Trump (Mike Johnson or someone who's clearly in the know works as a source), but someone does need to say it, even if it seems obvious.
Someone please save me from doing a modicum of research: is the feasibility of this plan (whatever that feasibility may be) reduced if Dems win the House, or does it not matter because it could be implemented before the changes come into effect?
@BlueDragon it would be the new congress that votes on the president in a contingent election. The new congress is sworn in Jan 3, and the votes are counted Jan 6. If the dems win the majority of state delegations (votes are by state, not by representative), then this scheme would fail.
@IsaacCarruthers So what happens if Dems win control of the House but have fewer state delegations? That is possible, I presume? Could the current Republican House trigger a contingent election before losing power and then carry through with the plan after the transfer of power because they have more state delegations?
@NBAP to trigger a contingent election they would need the cooperation of enough state legislatures, they can't do it by themselves
@IsaacCarruthers Perhaps I'm thinking of a different specific plot, but I thought I heard (in regards to Trump and Mike Johnson's little "secret") that it would only take 20% of the House to trigger a vote to reject electors, which would somehow change the math and result in the House voting to choose the President. Is that something different from this Amendment 12 issue?
@SaviorofPlant this seems like a pretty clear subset of "a plan to block certification"; are you planning to edit the latter to make them mutually exclusive? Not sure how this would be fair to the YES holders on that option.
@IsaacCarruthers That's a good point, I suppose I could just resolve 50% each in this case to avoid scamming the YES holders out of mana
I read “a plan to block certification” as something like what Trump supporters did last time at the Capitol on that date. Certification happens in the Senate, with the VP presiding. Last time Pence, this time Harris. It’s pro forma, after the process with the Electoral College is done.
A plan to disrupt the appointment of electors would happen earlier, in December. The 12th Amendment says there is a deadline for appointing electors and that the House presides over the proceedings, so it would make sense for this to be Johnson and Trump’s “little secret”.
@BlueDragon disrupting the appointment of electors would also prevent certification, no? At least prevent the certification of the actual results.
@IsaacCarruthers No. Based on the terms of the 12th Amendment, per the article I posted, the idea is that the House could force a vote with just the electors that have been appointed, and break the tie if there is one. After that, presumably, the election would be certified.
Here is the text of the 12th Amendment, but also scroll down and click the link to read the article.
The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote
@BlueDragon I think there's some confusion over what "certification" means; as far as I can tell there are 3 steps that are sometimes called certification:
1. By Dec. 11, states certify which electors will represent the state
2. By Dec. 17, the electors sign and certify their votes
3. On Jan. 6, the VP counts the votes and checks the electors' certifications.
If there's no EC majority, as in the scheme you're talking about, then the House delegations vote for the president. There's no separate "certification" step that would happen after the House vote.
The scheme you're talking about would clearly disrupt parts 1 and 2 of the certification process as laid out above, and arguably prevents the intended functioning of part 3. Any "scheme" that gets us to a house vote for president does so by preventing the certification of the election one way or another.
Since this is a dependent market it’s important to be specific, as @SaviorofPlant explained.
For whatever reason I can’t edit the option I wrote, if I could, for clarity I’d rewrite it as:
“A plan to block the appointment of state electors in states where Trump lost, and use the 12th Amendment to force a vote presided over by the House”
To avoid any confusion, “A plan to block certification of the election”
can be modified to:
“a plan to block congressional certification of the election”
That will be a good change, to clarify the option is referring to what people think of as the election certification, on Jan 6.