by Dan Schultz<\/p>\n
Briefly, here is an outline of a strategy to have the Arizona Republican House and Senate members publicly reclaim their plenary power granted by the U.S. Constitution to choose Arizona\u2019s presidential electors.\u00a0 Let\u2019s assume that ALL Republicans in the AZ House and Senate do this.<\/p>\n
Article II, section 1, clause 2 gives plenary authority (that is, directly to the legislature from the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution) to the state legislatures to appoint presidential electors:<\/p>\n
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/constitution.congress.gov\/browse\/article-2\/section-1\/clause-2\/<\/a><\/p>\n Bush v. Gore<\/em>\u00a0recognized that<\/p>\n [t]he individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college.\u00a0 U. S. Const., Art. II, \u00a7 1.\u00a0 This is the source for the statement in\u00a0McPherson v. Blacker<\/em>, 146 U. S. 1, 35 (1892), that the state legislature\u2019s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by state legislatures in several States for many years after the framing of our Constitution.\u00a0\u00a0Id<\/em>., at 28-33.\u00a0 History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. . . . The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors.\u00a0 See\u00a0id<\/em>., at 35 (\u201c\u2019[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated\u2019\u201d) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st<\/sup>\u00a0Sess., 9 (1874)).<\/p>\n