It certainly does not grant the president the power to change the outcome of an election or overstay his term in office. But invoking it does not put the military “in charge” or suspend the normal functions and authorities of Congress, state legislatures, or the courts. The Insurrection Act has significant potential for abuse in the form of federal troops being deployed to suppress political dissent. Their role is then limited to quelling the violence or removing the obstruction to enforcing the law. Troops may be deployed to suppress armed insurrections or to execute the laws when local or state authorities are unable or unwilling to do so. However, the purposes for which the Insurrection Act may be used are not infinite. This statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act does give the president broad latitude to deploy the military domestically. Nor could the president overturn the election results by invoking the Insurrection Act. Far from giving the president total authority over these matters, the Constitution grants most of the relevant powers to Congress. According to well-settled principles of constitutional law, the president cannot act in a way Congress has forbidden unless the Constitution gives the president “ conclusive and preclusive” power over the disputed issue. Any attempt to do so would be barred by the web of laws that Congress has enacted to govern the domestic activities of the armed forces - including the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federal troops to execute the law without express congressional authorization. While state officials have declared martial law many times and Congress has authorized its use in the past, the president currently has no authority to declare martial law. This term does not have an established definition, but it usually refers to the military taking over civilian government in an emergency. Take the rumors that Trump would declare martial law. To be sure, emergency powers give the president a frightening amount of discretion in a crisis - but none allows the overturning of an election. Now that the transfer of power is complete, however, it is important to talk about why none of these plots would have worked. Some feared that discussing these schemes, even to debunk them, could give them more currency. Talk of these potential end-runs around democracy even reached the White House, where individuals who had the ear of the president seemed to believe that simply saying the words “emergency powers” would somehow allow the president to remain in office indefinitely.īiden supporters for the most part refused to be distracted and kept their focus on the transition. In the weeks leading up to President Biden’s inauguration, Donald Trump’s supporters urged him to take various drastic measures to overturn the election results, including declaring a national emergency, invoking the Insurrection Act, imposing martial law, and “temporarily suspending the Constitution”.
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