TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – As the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee hears testimony Wednesday night on election irregularities, some GOP leaders are pressing for Legislatures to order their electors to vote for President Donald Trump, regardless of how the votes fell in their state.
The same thing nearly happened in Florida during the 2000 recount.
A resolution was proposed to appoint electors for president and vice president who would be ordered to vote for a specific candidate.
Rep. Dudley Goodlet, R-Ft. Myers, was the rules chair and led the charge, telling his colleagues on the House floor:
“This power is conferred upon the legislatures of the states by the Constitution of the United States.”
At the time, Democrats, including newly elected Dan Gelber of Miami, argued the effort was an attempt to steal the election.
“We will be disenfranchising every single voter,” Gelber said at the time.
The House approved the resolution along party lines: 79 to 41.
But the Senate took a much more cautious approach, delaying a vote until it was absolutely necessary to preserve the state’s electoral vote. That moment never came.
John McKay was the Senate president at the time.
“I was very concerned Florida’s actions might be used in the future as justification to certify votes for one presidential candidate or another,” McKay said in a phone interview with News4Jax.
What nearly happened in Florida 20 years ago likely would have set a precedent for today’s legislatures in contested states.
“Had the Senate acted, I think it would be something that would not be just bad precedent, but there would always be an urge, from one side or the other, to impose its will over the will of the voters,” said Gelber, who is now mayor of Miami Beach.
And the window for any state legislatures to vote is narrowing. Electors meet Dec. 14 in every capitol across the country.