A Right-Wing Think Tank Has a Plan to Prevent Democrats From Being Seated in Congress

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With polls indicating that the Democrats are poised to win big in the midterm elections, the Trump administration is already attempting to mount legal challenges in certain races and cast doubt on the results.

随着民调显示民主党有望在中期选举中大获全胜，特朗普政府已经开始试图在某些选区发起法律挑战，并对选举结果提出质疑。

A post published last month by the Center for Renewing America, an influential right-wing think tank, suggests a more radical strategy, asserting that a number of Democrats could be prevented from holding office even if they win their elections.

影响力巨大的右翼智库“美国复兴中心”（Center for Renewing America）上个月发布的一篇文章提出了一种更为激进的策略，声称即便一些民主党人赢得了选举，也可以阻止他们就职。

The post, titled “Can Congress Seat a Member-Elect Who Vows to Destroy our Constitution?” argues that even winning candidates from what it believes to be a purported “Red-Green Alliance” between “neo-Marxist progressives and anti-Western Muslims” can and should be kept from being seated in Congress. The post, in effect, claims that Muslim and progressive candidates don’t have to be legally accepted into their elected positions.

这篇文章题为《国会能让一位誓言摧毁我们宪法的当选议员就职吗？》，文中辩称，即使是来自其所谓的“新马克思主义进步派与反西方穆斯林”之间的“红绿联盟”的获胜候选人，也可以且应该被阻止进入国会。实际上，该文章声称，穆斯林和进步派候选人不必在法律上被允许担任其当选的职位。

“This is another attempt to contort and twist basic norms that have never been used this way for their own partisan purposes,” says Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law.

纽约大学法学院教授理查德·皮尔德斯（Richard Pildes）表示：“这是为了党派利益而扭曲从未被如此使用过的基本准则的又一次尝试。”

The CRA was founded by Russell Vought, one of the main architects of Project 2025 and now the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought faced criticism for his anti-Muslim comments—he once said that Muslims had a “deficient theology” and “do not know God”—when he was nominated for OMB director during the first Trump administration.

“美国复兴中心”由拉塞尔·沃特（Russell Vought）创立，他是“2025计划”（Project 2025）的主要策划者之一，目前担任行政管理和预算局局长。在特朗普第一任期内被提名为行政管理和预算局局长时，沃特曾因其反穆斯林言论——他曾称穆斯林拥有“有缺陷的神学”且“不认识上帝”——而遭到批评。

The Center for Renewing America (CRA) did not respond to a request for comment.

“美国复兴中心”未回应置评请求。

Though Vought has described himself and allies, including members of the CRA, as “radical constitutionalists,” he has taken several steps that have infringed on the powers of other branches of government to expand the power of the executive branch. Most notably, although Congress is tasked with allocating and approving funds for the operation of the federal government, Vought has impounded, refused, or delayed the disbursement of funds, including billions of dollars that Congress has approved. Last year, Vought put a freeze on $5 billion in foreign aid funding, which was followed up by clawing back more than $800 million this year, a move that may violate the Impoundment Control Act, Maine senator Susan Collins said in late September.

尽管沃特将自己及其盟友（包括“美国复兴中心”成员）描述为“激进的宪政主义者”，但他采取了多项侵犯政府其他部门权力以扩大行政部门权力的举措。最显著的是，尽管国会负责分配和批准联邦政府运作的资金，但沃特却扣留、拒绝或延迟了资金拨付，其中包括国会已批准的数十亿美元。缅因州参议员苏珊·柯林斯（Susan Collins）在9月下旬表示，去年沃特冻结了50亿美元的对外援助资金，今年又收回了超过8亿美元，此举可能违反了《扣留资金控制法》（Impoundment Control Act）。

The recent CRA piece—authored by Benjamin Osborne, a Georgetown Law School graduate who is serving as the organization’s legal fellow—argues that the beliefs the organization has imputed to so-called Red-Green politicians are against the US Constitution. Osborne writes that “when someone elected to Congress has personally embraced the destruction of the constitutional order espoused by these groups, he or she cannot truthfully swear to support that order as a condition of taking office.”

“美国复兴中心”最近发表的文章由乔治城大学法学院毕业生、该组织法律研究员本杰明·奥斯本（Benjamin Osborne）撰写。文章认为，该组织归咎于所谓“红绿联盟”政客的信仰违背了美国宪法。奥斯本写道：“当某位当选国会议员个人拥护这些团体所主张的对宪法秩序的破坏时，他或她就无法真诚地宣誓支持该秩序，而这正是就职的条件。”

According to another CRA publication from earlier this year written by the organization’s executive director, Wade Miller, the so-called Red-Green Alliance includes the “Squad,” the nickname for the group of four progressive women of color who all won seats in Congress in 2018: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar. It also includes politicians like New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. These politicians, the publication claims, are purveyors of “ideology dedicated to destroying capitalism, Christianity, and the Western political tradition.” None of the politicians named in the piece have self-identified as Marxists, though some, including Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani, are Democratic Socialists.

根据该组织执行董事韦德·米勒（Wade Miller）今年早些时候发表的另一份出版物，所谓的“红绿联盟”包括“小分队”（Squad），这是对2018年赢得国会议席的四位进步派有色人种女性的昵称：亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）、拉什达·特莱布（Rashida Tlaib）、阿亚娜·普雷斯利（Ayanna Pressley）和伊尔汗·奥马尔（Ilhan Omar）。它还包括纽约市议员佐兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）和密歇根州参议院候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德（Abdul El-Sayed）等政客。该出版物声称，这些政客是“致力于摧毁资本主义、基督教和西方政治传统的意识形态”的传播者。文中提到的政客中没有一人自称为马克思主义者，尽管包括奥卡西奥-科尔特斯和马姆达尼在内的一些人是民主社会主义者。

Corey Brettschneider, a professor of politics and constitutional law at Brown University and host of the The Oath and the Office podcast, says that both posts are “engaged in an attack on the Constitution and then trying to use the law of that as an attack on opponents,” something he believes a court would quickly be able to identify and quash.

布朗大学政治学与宪法学教授、《誓言与办公室》（The Oath and the Office）播客主持人科里·布雷特施奈德（Corey Brettschneider）表示，这两篇文章都“在攻击宪法，然后试图利用由此产生的法律来攻击对手”，他认为法院能够迅速识别并驳回这种做法。

Trying to use a Muslim politician’s religion as a reason for them to be disqualified from holding office, says Brettschneider, would likely be even more difficult than taking aim at a certain political group. “The protections I’d say are even stronger against that maneuver because the Constitution is explicit in saying you can’t have a religious test for office,” he says.

布雷特施奈德说，试图利用穆斯林政客的宗教信仰作为取消其任职资格的理由，可能比针对某个特定政治团体更困难。“我认为针对这种策略的保护措施更为有力，因为宪法明确规定，不得对公职人员进行宗教测试，”他说。

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether it was aware of the Renewing America piece or what, if any, steps it is taking to prepare for challenges to a possible win.

埃尔-赛义德的竞选团队未回应置评请求，未说明其是否知晓“美国复兴中心”的文章，或是否正在采取任何措施为可能胜选后面临的挑战做准备。

While any successful legal case based on the CRA’s logic would be unlikely to hold up in court, Brettschneider says, “clearly what they’re doing is floating it to see if it will stick.”

布雷特施奈德表示，虽然任何基于“美国复兴中心”逻辑的成功法律案件都不太可能在法庭上站得住脚，但“很明显，他们这样做是在试探，看看是否行得通。”

Christian Grose, a professor of political science at the University of Southern California, says the effectiveness of a strategy like the one outlined by the CRA would likely vary widely depending on the margins of a possible Democratic victory. If the Democrats win one or two seats in the Senate, he says, Republicans could try to dispute results in order to maintain control of the Senate. “But if Democrats win the Senate by something like four seats, I think we will be less likely to see those kinds of things,” he says. “The bigger the margin is on either side, the less likely this will be a viable strategy, and it becomes more preposterous the larger number of winning candidates that someone would try not to seat.”

南加州大学政治学教授克里斯蒂安·格罗斯（Christian Grose）表示，“美国复兴中心”所概述的策略的有效性，很可能因民主党可能获胜的幅度而有很大差异。他说，如果民主党在参议院仅赢得一两个席位，共和党可能会试图对结果提出异议，以维持对参议院的控制。“但如果民主党以大约四个席位的优势赢得参议院，我认为我们不太可能看到这种情况，”他说。“任何一方的胜选优势越大，这种策略就越不可能奏效；而试图阻止就职的获胜候选人数量越多，这种做法就越荒谬。”

For members of the House, the outcome could depend on whether Democrats can snag a majority. If Republicans maintain the majority, they could vote to refuse to seat incoming Democrats. In 1967, the House refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Democrat representative from Harlem and the first Black person from the state of New York to be elected a member of Congress, due to allegations that he was misappropriating funds.

对于众议院议员而言，结果可能取决于民主党能否获得多数席位。如果共和党保持多数席位，他们可以投票拒绝让新当选的民主党人就职。1967年，众议院因挪用公款的指控，拒绝让来自哈莱姆区的民主党众议员、纽约州首位当选国会议员的黑人亚当·克莱顿·鲍威尔（Adam Clayton Powell Jr.）就职。

Grose says that any legal case would risk going unresolved beyond the start of the new Congress in 2027, meaning that whether or not a senator whose win was challenged could be seated would likely be determ

格罗斯表示，任何法律案件都有可能在2027年新一届国会开始后仍未得到解决，这意味着胜选受到挑战的参议员能否就职很可能将取决于……