Listening to: Amy Coney Barrett received’t say if Trump can delay the election. He can’t.

Supreme Courtroom nominee Amy Coney Barrett refused to provide a transparent response to a query that shouldn’t have been arduous for her to reply throughout her affirmation listening to on Tuesday.

Requested by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) if “the Structure provides the President of america the authority to unilaterally delay an election below any circumstances,” Barrett punted.

“Effectively, Senator, if that query ever got here earlier than me, I’d want to listen to arguments from the litigants and skim briefs and seek the advice of with my regulation clerks and discuss to my colleagues and undergo the opinion-writing course of,” she mentioned. “So, you already know, if I give off the cuff solutions, then I might be mainly a authorized pundit, and I don’t suppose we wish judges to be authorized pundits. I feel we wish judges to strategy instances thoughtfully and with an open thoughts.”

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However there’s actually no want for “an open thoughts” in the case of questions on whether or not Trump or some other president can delay the election, as a result of the regulation is obvious: the president doesn’t have this energy.

As my colleague Ian Millhiser detailed in July after Trump posted a tweet suggesting the nation ought to “Delay the Election” on account of unfounded fears of election fraud, the one manner the date of the election could possibly be modified could be by an act of Congress — and there’s no manner that the Democratic-controlled Home of Representatives would go together with that.

A trio of federal legal guidelines set Election Day for presidential electors, senators, and US representatives as “the Tuesday subsequent after the primary Monday in November.” If Republicans wish to change this regulation, they would want to undergo the Democratic Home.

The 20th Modification, furthermore, offers that “the phrases of the President and the Vice President shall finish at midday on the 20th day of January.” Thus, even when the election had been someway canceled, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence’s phrases would nonetheless expire as scheduled.

In fact, it’s customary observe for SCOTUS nominees to keep away from weighing in on sizzling button points throughout their affirmation hearings. Alongside these strains, Barrett on Tuesday dodged questions on her views on the Reasonably priced Care Act and Roe v. Wade.

However whether or not Trump has the facility to cancel an election just isn’t a sizzling button difficulty. The very fact of the matter is he doesn’t. And Barrett’s refusal to say so doesn’t converse effectively for her willingness to face as much as the president within the occasion that the Supreme Courtroom finally ends up listening to a problem to the outcomes of an election that it appears to be like like Trump is more and more unlikely to win on the poll field.

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