One of the craziest people in the House has come up with a plan to deny a seat to a possible new Congresswoman:

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) plans to try to block Democratic nominee and New York socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier from taking her seat in Congress if she wins the Nov. 3 election — over her saying she used the American flag as a napkin.

Burchett told The Post he intends to make the unusual parliamentary move when the new Congress convenes in January — using a simple majority to prevent newly elected lawmakers from being seated before they take the oath of office.

Here’s the reality:  the person in charge of the House on the first day of the next session is the Clerk of the House. The members will be checked in, and then the election of the new Speaker of the House begins. If the Democrats win the majority next month, then they will be in charge of the House and what Burchett plans to do is irrelevant, even if he manages to get the issue to a vote.

And even if it gets to a vote, as long as there are no issues with her qualifications to hold office or with the election itself, all it takes to defeat it is a simple majority. And Chevalier may not win, which would make all of this moot.

And even if it did pass, it might not have any effect on the hypothetical majority unless the Dems hold a 1 seat advantage, and in that case, the other candidate would not be automatically seated and a special election would be held to fill the open seat.

There are all kinds of variations on this theme out there in social media. None of them are going to happen because they are not permitted under the Constitution and because there are no magic workarounds.

Here’s one example:  Mike Johnson will refuse to seat the new Democrats to give them their anticipated majority. Nope. Lil’ Mikey won’t have any power after 12 noon on January 3, 2027, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t extend the previous Congress, absent legislation or a constitutional amendment (neither of which is going to happen), and he loses his power the second this Congressional session ends.

Or there is a fear that Johnson will fire the current Clerk of the House and put in someone who will be loyal to him and President Grievance. Even if he did, all of the same limitations as to what the Clerk can do will remain.

The main thing about these scenarios is that they are meant as voter suppression. They are meant to make you worry about things that won’t happen but if they did, it would make voting feel pointless since the Republicans would just magically ignore the procedures and keep power in the House. And it’s worse in some ways because some of the people positing these scenarios are themselves attorneys and/or judges who should have a better grasp of how the Constitution works.

Now, are there other things we need to worry about between now and January 3, 2027? Absolutely. But none of them involve Republicans being able to deny duly-elected Democrats their seats.

I’ll leave you with this: