Trump's revenge plot would strip states of power to oversee elections: analysis

An enraged Donald Trump wants the federal government to commandeer state elections as he battles for the right to appear on ballots in Maine and Colorado, an MSNBC analyst said Thursday.

Trump's new obsession constitutes a dramatic reversal from a decades-old GOP policy goal and toward efforts put forth by Democrats, writes Hayes Brown.

"The Democrats made several attempts to pass bills aimed at strengthening voting rights and setting a new floor for how states run federal elections, but they all failed to get past Republican filibusters," Brown writes. "And so, heading into the 2024 cycle, the status quo remains the same. Each of the 50 states (and Washington, D.C.) has its own disjointed rules governing elections."

But ironically, Brown said, Trump and his Republican allies are asking courts to erode that system, and replace it with federal mandates for how states execute election law.

With notable exceptions like Bush v. Gore, said Brown, "the justices have traditionally shied away from overturning a state’s election law as ruled on by its Supreme Court."

But that's exactly what Trump wants them to do here.

"In his filing to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ... his lawyers’ argument does question whether state law was properly applied by taking aim at the process that led to his removal from the ballot," wrote Brown.

"However, Trump also asks the Supreme Court to overturn the state court’s finding that he engaged in insurrection on and ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, and rule that Section 3 can’t be used to block him from the ballot anywhere."

If the justices agree with Trump's argument here, Brown concluded, it "could weaken the control states have over their own elections within their borders. Republicans fought Democrats’ multiple attempts to add some standardization to our federal election laws because, until very recently, those Republicans argued that such state control should be seen as sacrosanct. The rush to abandon that principle showcases a constant truth: There is no principle they hold in higher esteem than protecting Trump."