A former conservative federal judge has sounded the alarm on the possibility of Republicans carrying out “another Jan. 6” after the midterm elections.
Judge J. Michael Luttig, who was nominated by former President George H. W. Bush to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, tore into the GOP and President Donald Trump in a scathing op-ed for The New Republic warning of “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”
Luttig, 72, said a “catastrophic end” for American democracy could come on Jan. 3, 2027—the start of a brand new House.
“Today’s congressional Republicans took a blood oath six years ago not just to put their party before their country, but to put Donald Trump before their country,” he wrote. “And so it is that only weeks before the midterm elections, House Republicans have already sworn their allegiance to Donald Trump and doomed the U.S. to another Jan. 6 next Jan. 3.”
“So unalterably subjugated to Trump is today’s Republican House that even a decisive victory for Democrats and a resounding repudiation of Trump and the MAGA Republicans at the polls in November will not guarantee that a Democratic majority-elect will be seated in the 120th Congress on Jan. 3,” he continued.
Luttig predicted that congressional Republicans would refuse to seat Democratic members-elect, triggering a legal battle that could work its way up to the Supreme Court.
The conservative judge speculated that, just before his term expires at noon, House Speaker Mike Johnson would replace House Clerk Kevin McCumber with “a person loyal to Johnson and House Republicans.”
“The first moment of constitutional crisis will come when, sometime before the 120th Congress has been gaveled into session, the loyal temporary clerk refuses to list Democrat representatives-elect on the clerk’s roll of representatives-elect that determines who may participate in organizing the new Congress,” Luttig wrote.
“Judicial review of the House’s decision not to seat Democratic representatives-elect in the 120th Congress would take weeks, if not months, during which time the United States would be in the throes of a paralyzing constitutional crisis, helplessly vulnerable to all the world’s evil, as it would have been in January 2021 had Mike Pence not thwarted Donald Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” he added.
The White House and Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But not all experts share Luttig’s fears. Derek Muller, an election law scholar, called for sobriety on “fearmongering” surrounding Jan. 3, 2027.
Muller underscored that the House is not a continuing body, meaning that Johnson ceases to be Speaker at noon.
“Whatever the House has done or decided before that cannot bind the incoming House, including any purported findings regarding the validity of elections. It is a brand new House that will adjudicate all matters afresh,” he wrote for Election Law Blog.
