What About This? By Wayne William Cipriano

The idea that one of our United States of America Senators from Missouri is going to object to the Electoral College report as to the President and Vice President votes seems strange to me.

I have read the Twelfth Amendment to our Constitution several times and I find no provisions for the Senate or the House of Representatives to advise and contest, accept or reject, or have any other impact whatsoever on the Report of the independent and autonomous Electoral College other than to witness that Report as it is opened and tabulated by the Vice-President, who is the President of the Senate, and then to immediately act should there be no majority of Electoral College votes for President or Vice-President.

You can read the Twelfth Amendment for yourself. Although it is rather lengthy for an amendment, it is still less than four hundred words.

It seems to me that it is the province of the various States to select and certify their Electors however their individual legislators decide to do so, and I would be surprised to learn that any state would legitimately submit more than one properly signed and certified list of their Electors.

This reliance on the States to conduct their own business harkens back to the initial amalgamation of thirteen sovereign countries forming just one and the compromises that had to be forged in order to accomplish that end.

It appears that the Tenth Amendment to our Constitution controls here as to where the ultimate decision as to the validity of the Electoral Lists lies. You can read that amendment for yourself as well. It is much shorter than most, less than thirty words. And if we don’t like the procedure by which the Electoral Lists are produced, recorded, transmitted, etc., we have a modification process that we can employ – another Constitutional Amendment – and it might just be time for that. 

While the Senate and the House of Representatives and their individual members are free to say and do whatever they wish and have often done so exercising their Article I, Section Five, Paragraph Two Constitutional prerogative to make their own rules as to the operation of their respective chambers, those words spoken, that behavior can have no legal effect on our Constitution, unless provision for those actions lies within the Constitution itself. 

I am certain that should the Supreme Court soon entertain any sort of weird challenge to the Electoral College Votes the Justices will unanimously hold that such a challenge not only violates the spirit of the Constitution but in fact violates the exact text of the Twelfth Amendment. And such unanimity would of course include the three Associate Justices that have been nominated by President Trump and elevated to the Court.

It no longer amazes me when I note the lengths to which self-styled “patriots” will go to achieve short-term, nearly insignificant ends, such as currying the temporary favor of their constituents back home, as they jeopardize the sanctity, the strength, the binding potential of our Constitution.

It is as if these “patriots” are absolutely sure our Constitution will endure forever even if they inflict just a little damage upon it, from time to time, just here and there. And they are right, aren’t they? Nothing they say or do could really damage our Constitution seriously, right?

Right?