Can Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans refuse to seat validly elected Democrats to the House in 2025?

Since the Republicans control the House of Representatives,
could Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans object to the
seating of some, or maybe all, of the duly elected
Representatives belonging to the Democratic Party?
This has happened in the past, immediately after the end of the
Civil War Congress refused to seat the congressmen elected from
the former states of the Confederacy. We ask this important
question: Is this valid legal precedent today?

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
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First, some historical background.
In early 1864, Abraham Lincoln was worried that he would lose the election that
November: Civil War casualties were atrocious, and although General Grant was
winning solid victories in the Western theater, capturing Vicksburg in the summer
of 1863, Robert E Lee was winning Southern victories in the more visible Eastern
theater of war around Virginia and surrounding states. But in early 1864, Lincoln
appointed Grant to lead all federal forces, and although the Union Army still
suffered atrocious casualties, Grant relentlessly attacked and flanked Lee’s
Confederate armies, wearing down the Confederacy. Northern morale and
Lincoln’s support surged when General Sherman’s Army burned Atlanta,
commencing their March to the Sea, destroying Confederate resources, and
ensuring that Lincoln would be handily reelected.

To ensure his reelection, Abraham Lincoln and the
Republicans selected Andrew Johnson from
Tennessee, a War Democrat, to be Vice-President.
They expected that if Lincoln won, it would be by
narrow margins, so they were more concerned
about Lincoln’s reelection than Johnson’s
qualifications.

Johnson being sworn in by Chief Justice Chase as Cabinet
members look on, April 15, 1865

Unfortunately, after Lincoln was assassinated
shortly after his Inauguration, President Johnson
revealed himself to be a Southern sympathizer
hostile to the civil rights of the newly freed slaves.

The Last Hours of Abraham Lincoln, by Alonzo Chappel, 1868

In the last year of the Civil War, Lincoln had
adopted a lenient plan of Presidential
Reconstruction. Under President Johnson’s plan of
Reconstruction, elections had been held in several
Confederate states. The historian Eric Foner notes
that “many of these senators and representatives-
elect were former Confederate political and military
leaders. Their election, together with the
unwillingness of the Johnson government to
acknowledge the basic rights of the former slaves,
Republicans took as evidence that the white South
did not fully accept the results of Union victory.”
Johnson disposing of Freedmen's
Bureau as African Americans go
flying, by Thomas Nast

Even after their defeat in the Civil War, those running for
office in the former Confederate South insisted on the
right to govern their former slaves in their own way
however they wished, enacting harsh black codes that
effectively re-enslaved blacks freed in the South, denying
their right to vote. Although Mississippi amended its
prewar constitution to abolish slavery, she initially rejected
the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. This hubris
greatly affected Northern votes and politicians.

Political cartoon
"Of Course He
Wants To Vote The
Democratic Ticket"
(October 1876),
from Harper's
Weekly, showing
Democrats in
Tennessee
intimidating a
voter into voting
for the Democrats
under duress at
gunpoint.

The Deep South, the former Confederate states, was
a brutal place for the freed blacks. Lynching was a
crime that was rarely prosecuted during the
Reconstruction, Redemption, and Jim Crow eras, and
indeed often members of law enforcement wore the
hoods of the KKK. Even when these cases were
prosecuted, rarely would a Southern jury convict a
white person of murder for lynching blacks.

The history of the Senate recalls that “when the
39th Congress convened on December 4, 1865,
some of the newly elected legislators from
former Confederate states presented credentials,
expecting to be seated in the Senate. Questions
about the validity of the credentials prompted
the House and Senate to establish a Joint
Committee on Reconstruction. This fifteen-
member committee, composed of nine
representatives and six senators, investigated
‘the conditions of the States which formed the
so-called Confederate States of America’ to
determine whether they ‘are entitled to be
represented in either House of Congress.’
Following its investigation, the committee
refused to admit the Southern members.”
Worse than Slavery, by Thomas Nast, 1874

Congress assumed control of Radical Reconstruction. Federal
troops occupied the Southern states, protecting the civil rights of
blacks from the Ku Klux Klan and other white-supremacist
terrorists, and also protecting black suffrage. The Southern states
would not be represented in Congress until they were readmitted
into the Union, a process that took several years. With the
support of federal troops, Lincoln’s Republican Party won election
to state and federal offices in the South, until federal troops were
withdrawn after the disputed federal election of 1876.

Supreme Court Ruling: Seating Congressmen
Adam Clayton Powell with President John F Kennedy, Joseph S Clark, and Elmer J Holland in 1962

Had the law surrounding this issue had not continued to evolve, this
indeed would be a troubling precedent. But the law did evolve, and in
their 1969 Powell v McCormack decision, the Supreme Court under Chief
Justice Earl Warren decided that Congress could deny any duly elected
Representative their seat in Congress only if they did not meet the
narrow list of qualifications for members of the House of Representatives
listed in the Constitution. These qualifications are that the member must
be at least twenty-five-years-old, have been a citizen for seven years, and
live in the district they represent. The House of Representatives had
attempted to refuse to seat Adam Clayton Powell, a controversial black
congressman who was embroiled in credible financial scandals. There
was only one dissent on technical grounds.

Justices of the Supreme Court for 1969 Powell v McCormack decision, Warren Court

Thurgood Marshall was an associate justice for this
1969 decision.

If the Republicans try to contest the seating of newly
elected Democratic members of the House of
Representatives, they will be challenged in court
immediately. It is doubtful that the courts will refuse to
seat Democratic Congressmen. But those in Congress and
the media need to prepare for this possible battle, and
research the court cases and judicial precedent, and the
recent Supreme Court rulings. This is not wrongly decided
precedent, this precedent must not be overturned.

Current Justices of the Supreme Court, Roberts Court, 2024

How Was Santos Expelled from Congress?

George Santos was expelled under a different provision of
the Constitution, which enables the House of
Representatives to expel any member by a two-thirds
vote. Only six members of the House have been expelled,
including three members who were expelled for
supporting the Confederacy in 1861, the beginning of the
Civil War. Another two were convicted in court, and
Santos’ conviction is assured with the number of
indictments filed against him.

Fake Electors and 1876 Presidential Election

This question came to my mind after several Trump lawyers were
indicted and disbarred from participating in the fake electors scheme in
2020, and several have pleaded guilty in the Georgia RICO case. What is
overlooked is that there was precedent for their efforts to contest the
counting of the Electoral votes on January 6, 2020. The precedent was
when Segregationist Southern Democrats submitted alternate slates of
electors in the contested Election of 1876.
Likely those who forwarded the fake slates of Segregationist Democratic
Party electors to Congress in 1876 were breaking the law, although none
were prosecuted, as many in the South were threatening to restart the
Civil War.

A point that confuses many is that under Lincoln, the
Republican Party championed civil rights for the
freed slaves, while the Democratic Party in the Deep
South enacted state Jim Crow segregationist laws.
After Nixon, LBJ, Reagan, and the passage of the Civil
Rights Acts in the 1960’s, most white voters in the
Deep South switched their allegiance from the
Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

Eric Foner’s Second Founding and WEB Du Bois’ Black
Reconstruction provide a window into the Civil War and
Reconstruction Eras, and both challenge the Lost Cause
myth of the noble Confederate Cause and happy black
slaves, instead arguing that the Reconstruction Era sought
to reestablish democracy in both the Deep South and in
America. However, much of the detailed history is from
both the Senate’s website and Dr Wikipedia. These books
have inspired several reflections.

https://youtu.be/CK4V3e-TPFU
https://youtu.be/UciDV5laOLg
https://youtu.be/JeRCM4PAqPk
https://youtu.be/Ny0iyVYatB4

https://www.meetup.com/Reflections/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/

Can Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans refuse to seat validly elected Democrats to the House in 2025?

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Can Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans refuse to seat validly elected Democrats to the House in 2025?