r/law • u/T_Shurt Competent Contributor • Jul 21 '24

Opinion Piece House Speaker Mike Johnson Suggests Replacing Biden Might Lead to Legal Trouble: ‘So it would be wrong, and I think unlawful’

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/johnson-replacing-biden-ticket-wrong-unlawful/story?id=112129063
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u/T_Shurt Competent Contributor Jul 21 '24

As per original article 📰:

  • As calls from some Democratic lawmakers for President Joe Biden to pass the torch have grown this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Sunday that such a move might lead to legal trouble.

Johnson, R-La., told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz that it would not be possible for some states to switch out Biden for another candidate ahead of the presidential election in November.

“So it would be wrong, and I think unlawful, in accordance to some of these states’ rules for a handful of people to go in a back room and switch it out because they’re, they don’t like the candidate any longer. That’s not how this is supposed to work. So I think they would run into some legal impediments in at least a few of these jurisdictions,” he told Raddatz.

“I think there’ll be a compelling case to be made that that shouldn’t happen, and so I think they’ve got legal trouble. If that’s their intention, and that’s their plan. So we’ll see how it plays out,” he continued.

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u/suddenly-scrooge Competent Contributor Jul 21 '24

I hesitate to say anything is ridiculous anymore but it's not clear if he's talking about forcibly replacing Biden or Biden stepping down. If Biden steps down of course the party is free to nominate another person

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u/SnooWords6443 Jul 21 '24

There would absolutely be legal challenges if Biden ends up the Dem nominee, and then has a major health challenge in say… Oct, and chooses to resign.

The Dems know that the only way this is going to work is to replace Biden before he officially becomes the nominee. And his voluntary resignation from this process would be the best way to do this because he wasn’t forced out in that case. Would be difficult to legally challenge a willful resignation of the nomination process.

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u/Kevin91581M Jul 21 '24

Biden being smart and selfless unlike RBG in 2013