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Opinion | Jan. 6 Was Worse Than We Knew - The New York Times
Jan. 6 Was Worse Than We Knew
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
However horrifying the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol appeared in the moment, we know now that it was far worse.
The country was hours away from a full-blown constitutional crisis — not primarily because of the violence and mayhem inflicted by hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters but because of the actions of Mr. Trump himself.
In the days before the mob descended on the Capitol, a corollary attack — this one bloodless and legalistic — was playing out down the street in the White House, where Mr. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a lawyer named John Eastman huddled in the Oval Office, scheming to subvert the will of the American people by using legal sleight-of-hand.
Mr. Eastman’s unusual visit was reported at the time, but a new book by the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa provides the details of his proposed six-point plan. It involved Mr. Pence rejecting dozens of already certified electoral votes representing tens of millions of legally cast ballots, thus allowing Congress to install Mr. Trump in a second term.
Mr. Pence ultimately refused to sign on, earning him the rage of Mr. Trump and chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” by the rioters, who erected a makeshift gallows on the National Mall.
The fact that the scheme to overturn the election was highly unlikely to succeed is cold comfort. Mr. Trump remains the most popular Republican in the country; barring a serious health issue, the odds are good that he will be the party’s nominee for president in 2024. He also remains as incapable of accepting defeat as he has ever been, which means the country faces a renewed risk of electoral subversion by Mr. Trump and his supporters — only next time they will have learned from their mistakes.
That leaves all Americans who care about preserving this Republic with a clear task: Reform the federal election law at the heart of Mr. Eastman’s twisted ploy, and make it as hard as possible for anyone to pull a stunt like that again.
The Electoral Count Act, which passed more than 130 years ago, was Congress’s response to another dramatic presidential dispute — the election of 1876, in which the Republican Rutherford Hayes won the White House despite losing the popular vote to his Democratic opponent, Samuel Tilden.
After Election Day, Tilden led in the popular vote and in the Electoral College. But the vote in three Southern states — South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana — was marred by accusations of fraud and intimidation by both parties. Various officials in each state certified competing slates of electors, one for Hayes and one for Tilden. The Constitution said nothing about what to do in such a situation, so Congress established a 15-member commission to decide which electors to accept as valid.
The commission consisted of 10 members of Congress, evenly divided between the parties, and five Supreme Court justices, two appointed by Democrats and three by Republicans. Hayes, the Republican candidate, won all the disputed electors (including one from Oregon) by an 8-to-7 vote — giving him victory in the Electoral College by a single vote.
Democrats were furious and began to filibuster the counting process, but they eventually accepted Hayes’s presidency in exchange for the withdrawal of the last remaining federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction and beginning the era of Jim Crow, which would last until the middle of the 20th century.
It was obvious that Congress needed clearer guidelines for deciding disputed electoral votes. In 1887, the Electoral Count Act became law, setting out procedures for the counting and certifying of electoral votes in the states and in Congress.
But the law contains numerous ambiguities and poorly drafted provisions. For instance, it permits a state legislature to appoint electors on its own, regardless of how the state’s own citizens voted, if the state “failed to make a choice” on Election Day. What does that mean? The law doesn’t say. It also allows any objection to a state’s electoral votes to be filed as long as one senator and one member of the House put their names to it, triggering hours of debate — which is how senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley were able to gum up the workson Jan. 6.
A small minority of legal scholars have argued that key parts of the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional, which was the basis of Mr. Eastman’s claim that Mr. Pence could simply disregard the law and summarily reject electors of certain key battleground states.
Nothing in the Constitution or federal law gives the vice president this authority. The job of the vice president is to open the envelopes and read out the results, nothing more. Any reform to the Electoral Count Act should start there, by making it explicit that the vice president’s role on Jan. 6 is purely ministerial and doesn’t include the power to rule on disputes over electors.
The law should also be amended to allow states more time to arrive at a final count, so that any legal disputes can be resolved before the electors cast their ballots.
The “failed” election provision should be restricted to natural disasters or terrorist attacks — and even then, it should be available only if there is no realistic way of conducting the election. Remember that the 2012 election was held just days after Hurricane Sandy lashed the East Coast, and yet all states were able to conduct their elections in full. (This is another good argument for universal mail-in voting, which doesn’t put voters at the mercy of the weather.) The key point is that a close election, even a disputed one, is not a failed election.
Finally, any objection to a state’s electoral votes should have to clear a high bar. Rather than just one member of each chamber of Congress, it should require the assent of one-quarter or more of each body. The grounds for an objection should be strictly limited to cases involving clear evidence of fraud or widespread voting irregularities.
The threats to a free and fair presidential election don’t come from Congress alone. Since Jan. 6, Republican-led state legislatures have been clambering over one another to pass new laws making it easier to reject their own voters’ will, and removing or neutralizing those officials who could stand in the way of a naked power grab — like Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, did when he resisted Mr. Trump’s personal plea to “find” just enough extra votes to flip the outcome there.
How to ensure that frivolous objections are rejected while legitimate ones get a hearing? One approach would be to establish a panel of federal judges in each state to hear any challenges to the validity or accuracy of that state’s election results. If the judges determine that the results are invalid, they would lay out their findings in writing and prevent the state from certifying its results.
There is plenty more to be done to protect American elections from being stolen through subversion, like mandating the use of paper ballots that can be checked against reported results. Ideally, fixes like these would be adopted promptly by bipartisan majorities in Congress, to convey to all Americans that both parties are committed to a fair, transparent and smooth vote-counting process. But for that to happen, the Republican Party would need to do an about-face. Right now, some Republican leaders in Congress and the states have shown less interest in preventing election sabotage than in protecting and, in some cases, even venerating the saboteurs.
Democrats should push through these reforms now, and eliminate the filibuster if that’s the only way to do so. If they hesitate, they should recall that a majority of the Republican caucus in the House — 139 members — along with eight senators, continued to object to the certification of electoral votes even after the mob stormed the Capitol.
Time and distance from those events could have led to reflection and contrition on the part of those involved, but that’s not so. Remember how, in the frantic days before Jan. 6, Mr. Trump insisted over and over that Georgia’s election was rife with “large-scale voter fraud”? Remember how he called on Mr. Raffensperger to “start the process of decertifying the election” and “announce the true winner”? Only those words aren’t from last year. They appear in a letter Mr. Trump sent to Mr. Raffensperger two weeks ago.
Mr. Trump may never stop trying to undermine American democracy. Those who value that democracy should never stop using every measure at their disposal to protect it."
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
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Dr. Lonnie Smith, Master Of The Hammond Organ, Dies At 79 : NPR
Dr. Lonnie Smith, Master Of The Hammond Organ, Dies At 79
Dr. Lonnie Smith.
"Dr. Lonnie Smith, an NEA Jazz Master known for his dynamism and wizardry on the Hammond B3 organ, died Tuesday. He was 79 years old.
His death was confirmed on Twitter by Blue Note Records.
Smith was one of the most unique Hammond stylists to emerge from the golden era of 1960s organ ensembles, a scene that had its roots in Black American neighborhood venues. Early in his career, he was lauded for his work in guitarist George Benson's first quartet and subsequently for his involvement with saxophonist Lou Donaldson's groups.
Musically, Smith wove an other-worldly and soulful tapestry that joined relentlessly grooving bass lines with stirring melodies and harmonies. As a band leader and performer, Smith had a spirited and visceral performance style that allowed him to garner fans around the world.
Offstage, Smith was affable and engaging with a healthy sense of humor. At concerts, the turban and tunic clad organist would unassumingly stroll onto the stage with one of his signature canes and waste no time. Almost immediately, all four of Smith's limbs would begin dancing, almost magically, at the Hammond organ's console.
Smith was born in Lackawanna, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, on July 3, 1942. His mother introduced him to gospel, blues, jazz and early rhythm and blues. As a teenager in the 1950s, Smith began learning music by ear and played trumpet and other brass instruments in school. He also began singing at local venues throughout Buffalo in a doo wop group known as The Supremes, an ensemble that predated the award-winning Motown all-female group that followed.
After a brief stint in the Air Force, Smith returned home to Buffalo in the early 1960s, at which point he began listening closely to Blue Note star organist Jimmy Smith. The pull to become a musician became stronger, but he had not decided on an instrument. Around that same time, he began frequenting a music store owned by local accordion player Art Kubera, who would have a catalyzing effect on Smith's career.
"One day the owner [Kubera] said 'Son, why do you sit here every day until closing time?'" Smith recalled in conversation with the National Endowment for The Arts. "I told him, 'Sir, if I had an instrument I could work, and if I could work, I could make a living.' One day I went there, and he closed the place. We went to his house in the back, and there was a brand-new Hammond organ. He told me, 'If you can get this out of here, then it's yours.' It was snowing in Buffalo, but I did. Art was my angel."
After a neighbor taught him how to power up the organ and navigate its stops and drawbars, Smith began playing and his growth on the instrument was uncannily rapid. Barely a year into his development, he began playing in house bands in the Midwest, New York City and in Buffalo. Many of the groups Smith performed in were backing bands for soul singers and instrumentalists on the touring circuit. In 1964, Smith broke onto the international jazz scene when organist Jack McDuff's young guitarist, George Benson, resigned his position and formed a group of his own. Benson secured Smith for the organ chair in his new quartet. After their residencies at Harlem's Palm Cafe and Minton's Playhouse that same year, both Benson and Smith were signed by Columbia Records and made albums as leaders. They established a new style that joined blistering bebop with new rhythm and blues. The music was danceable, yet it contained the language of the jazz tradition. When saxophonist Lou Donaldson hired Smith and Benson for 1967's Blue Note smash Alligator Boogaloo, the result was a surprise jukebox hit whose title track landed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
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This success set the stage for Smith to be signed by Blue Note as a band leader in 1968. Within two years, the organist cut five albums for the label. He earned honors as Downbeat's "Top Jazz Organist" and his albums Think (1968) and Drives (1970) both earned spots on Billboard's R&B albums chart.
Smith left Blue Note records in 1971 and recorded albums for producers Creed Taylor and Sonny Lester off and on during the 1970s. He began to fade from the spotlight as the sound of popular music changed and Hammond organ-based music waned in popularity. During this time, he began to don his signature turbans. Though not explicitly religious, he wore them as a symbol of universal spirituality, love and respect. Smith also adopted the moniker "Dr." not as an indication of formal training, but to highlight his ability to serve as a unique practitioner of the music. (It also helped to create a distinction between him and fellow keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.) He worked briefly with Marvin Gaye, reconnected with George Benson and, by the mid 1980s, he rekindled his unique brand of swing on the Hammond organ with guitarists Richie Hart, Jimmy Ponder and Melvin Sparks, vocalist Etta James and drummer Alvin Queen.
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By the 1990s, the groove-based acid jazz movement broke out in London, England, and in the United States, hip-hop rejuvenated the beat-driven jazz of the late 1960s and early 1970s through sampling. As a result, Smith was again in demand as a featured guest artist and as a leader. He released a string of four critically acclaimed albums for Palmetto Records in the early 2000s that paired him with guitarists Peter Bernstein and Jonathan Kriesberg and drummers Gregory Hutchinson, Allison Miller, Herlin Riley and Jamire Williams.
Smith self-released two fiery albums in 2013 and 2014 before returning to the Blue Note fold in 2016. Over the next year, Smith was named as an NEA Jazz Master and made notable, cross-genre collaborations with Norah Jones and The Roots. Smith's final albums, All In My Mind and Breathe, were released in 2018 and 2021, respectively, and featured studio collaborations with Iggy Pop, along with magical in-concert explorations with his working band of Kriesberg, drummers Johnathan Blake or Joe Dyson, and horns."