Coronavirus Drastically Changes The US Presidential Campaign
Coronavirus: Cancellation Of Elections Highly Unlikely
The number of coronavirus cases in the US is steadily rising. The economy is drastically spiraling. Americans, like everyone else, are staying home and limiting their social contact with other people.
President Donald Trump is still campaigning ahead of the elections this November.
Given the circumstances, indeed, Trump might postpone, or cancel, the biggest political event of 2020, i.e., the elections.
However, Trump’s presidential power has its limitations.
The US constitution is pretty clear about the fact that the date of elections will be set by Congress as the Congress had in 1875. The text from that era reads:
“The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even-numbered year, is established as the day for the election.” There have been no exceptions since then.
Joshua Douglas, an election law expert at the University of Kentucky, says there’s nothing in Trump’s arsenal of powers that would let him rewrite that law.
“There is absolutely no way Trump could unilaterally change it,” he said.
Not even an executive order or a state of martial law would change things in this instance. Legal scholars agree that the Supreme Court would step in quickly against it if he tried. The only body with the formal power to change laws in the US is Congress.
Any amendment to the law would have to start in the US House of Representatives, which holds a comfortable Democratic majority.
Even if America’s opposition party agreed to a postponement, US politicians couldn’t go Olympic-style and put off the election for a year. They could only postpone things until January, thanks to the 20th amendment of the US constitution.
The way it’s written means that neither Trump nor Mike Pence can legally stay in office past inauguration date (that’ll be January 20, 2021) unless they are re-elected to that office.
Not even martial law could keep them in office longer. “The Supreme Court has long held that even the declaration of martial law does not change constitutional protections,” Douglas said.
