The vote count in North Carolina’s ninth congressional district resulted in the Republican candidate, Mark Harris, leading his Democratic opponent by a narrow margin (905 votes). The North Carolina election authorities, however, have declined to certify his victory as they investigate allegations that the results were tainted by fraud.
This means that the House, which is constitutionally the judge of the elections and returns of its members (Article I, section 5, clause 1), has a decision to make when it meets tomorrow on the first day of the 116th Congress. Will it seat a member to represent the ninth congressional district of North Carolina? According to the incoming House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, the answer is no. Last Friday, Hoyer told the Charlotte Observer that Harris would not be seated on January 3 because “[i]n this instance, the integrity of our democratic process outweighs concerns about the seat being vacant at the start of the new Congress.” Hoyer’s position was visually illustrated on Monday by the nameplate on the door of a congressional office at 132 Cannon (see photo below). Rather than bearing the name of the member expected to represent the district, it reads “Office of the 9th Congressional District of North Carolina,” which is how the House designates an office managed by the Clerk under House Rule II(2)(h)(i) in the event that a vacancy occurs.
There is, however, no vacancy in the North Carolina 9th district yet, and there will not be one tomorrow unless the House votes to declare one. The House certainly has the power to do so, but it seems unlikely that it will. The question of whether the seat is vacant is not a relatively straightforward factual question (like whether a member has died or is in a coma from which recovery is unlikely), but a legal judgment that can only be made after reviewing the evidence and determining that (1) fraud occurred and (2) either the candidate was complicit or that the fraud was significant enough to have affected the outcome. This is particularly so given House precedent that “[n]othing short of an impossibility of ascertaining for whom the majority of votes were given ought to vacate an election, especially if by such decision the people must . . . necessarily go unrepresented for a long period of time.” CRS Report for Congress, Procedures for Contested Election Cases in the House of Representatives 16-17 (Oct. 18, 2016) (quoting McCloskey and McIntyre, H. Rep. 99-58, at 44 (1985)).
So what then should the House do? It could choose to seat Harris without prejudice to its ultimate determination of the election outcome. Normally this is what the House does when one candidate is certified as the winner but there appears to be a serious challenge to the certified election results. Even then, the House sometimes declines to seat anyone. I am not aware of any precedent for what the House should do when the state authorities have not certified anyone as the winner, but it seems logical that no one would be seated in that situation. On the other hand, that intensifies the need for a speedy resolution of the matter.
The House could also choose to wait upon the outcome of the state election investigation. There are both pragmatic and constitutional considerations against such an approach, however. The former include the fact that it would significantly extend the period in which the people of the district would be unrepresented, particularly because the process in North Carolina appears to be bogged down with its own problems. The latter include the question whether it is proper for state election authorities or courts to make the types of difficult factual and legal decisions inherent in a fraud case (as opposed to the administrative nature of a recount). See Kristen R. Lisk, The Resolution of Contested Elections in the U.S. House of Representatives: Why State Courts Should Not Help with the House Work, 83 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1213, 1217-18 (2008) (arguing for “exclusive congressional jurisdiction over all election contests seeking more than administrative recounts, because these contests involve substantive claims that require decision makers to engage directly with election results and make difficult policy decisions.”).
There is a separate and even more serious question whether state officials have the authority to order a new election on the grounds that the original election was tainted by fraud. A new election is fundamentally different than recounts or other post-election remedies. Under federal law, North Carolina was required to conduct its congressional elections for the 116th Congress on the first Monday in November 2018. See 2 U.S.C. 7. If a vacancy then happens in North Carolina’s representation, the governor must then issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy, but I am not aware of any authority for the proposition that the governor or other state officials can declare a vacancy because they believe the initial election to be defective in some way.
The closest case I have found (in an admittedly non-exhaustive search) is an 1826 Pennsylvania congressional election which resulted in a tie vote. See I Hinds Precedents 555. In that case “[i]t appearing that the people had failed to make a choice, the executive seems to have considered the case in the light of a vacancy, but not to an extent sufficient to warrant him in directing a new election until both [candidates] informed him in writing that they relinquished all claims to the seat in virtue of the election of 1826.” In light of this waiver, the House committee accepted the results of the second election and declined to consider claims arising from the first. This precedent would therefore be of little help in establishing a governor’s authority to declare or recognize a vacancy in the circumstances presented here. There are also a couple of even earlier cases brought to my attention by Professor Derek Muller in which a second election was held to fill a House seat (Lyon v. Smith, 1796 and Turner v. Baylies, 1809), but it is not clear that these involved a purported vacancy as opposed to merely a carrying out of state election procedures for the original election. Prior to the enactment of a uniform federal date for congressional elections, states were free to hold a second election at a later time if the initial election was deemed inconclusive.
It could be argued that the North Carolina governor has the authority to call for a special election, and that this authority does not interfere with the House’s constitutional prerogatives because the House is always free to disregard the results of that special election (if it believes there was no vacancy in the first place). But this would not only be an extraordinarily inefficient way of proceeding, but it would establish a potentially dangerous precedent which would allow governors to disregard the results of any election if they believed there was some deficiency in it. As a matter of prudence, if not constitutional necessity, therefore, no special election should be called in North Carolina unless the House itself first declares a vacancy.
The House could still wait on the results of the North Carolina proceedings before making a decision as to whether a vacancy exists. This, however, is likely to take a long time. Instead, the House should immediately assert jurisdiction over the North Carolina election matter and direct the Committee on House Administration (or a task force thereof) to gather the relevant facts and determine as expeditiously as possible whether a vacancy should be declared.
Finally, there is an interesting question regarding the Clerk’s authority over the office located at 132 Cannon H.O.B. As already noted, House Rules provide that “[t]he Clerk shall supervise the staff and manage the office of a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner who has died, resigned, or been expelled until a successor is elected.” This authority, however, is inapplicable here. The same rule provides “[t]he Clerk shall perform similar duties in the event that a vacancy is declared by the House in any congressional district because of the incapacity of the person representing such district or other reason.” Until the House declares a vacancy, however, this authority also is inapplicable. Therefore, it would seem the House would be well advised to provide specific authority to the Clerk to manage this office in whatever resolution it crafts to deal with this unusual situation.
