This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, June 6, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

This election more than most in recent memory is born witness to various attempts

to keep either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump from seizing the White House,

and even many establishment Republicans seem unwilling to commit to a Trump candidacy.

And if November's election fails to garner an electoral majority for any candidate,

the 12th Amendment to the Constitution will be invoked.

I'llia Shapiro explains how that might play out.

Never have both major party candidates been so unpopular.

Within their own parties in the country, this is really a weird year that we're living. so there are all of these hopes can there be a

white night that rides in and stops both of them from becoming president.

Well, whether you're looking at Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party,

or Ben Sass or Mitt Romney or Whomever Bill Crystal finally gets to run in his

Renegade Party, David French or otherwise, if they deprive both

major party candidates, both Hillary and the Donald, of the magical

270 Electoral College votes, well then under the 12th Amendment, the election goes to the House of Representatives.

This has only happened once in our history, the so-called corrupt bargain of 1824,

where Andrew Jackson won a plurality of both the popular and electoral college vote in a four-man race,

but then when it went to the House, John Quincy Adams ended up being elected.

The machinations of the House of Representatives haven't been tested in a long time and I love the fact that we refer to any time a close reading of the Constitution is required of members of Congress that we call

it a constitutional crisis.

But this would be, you know, it's testing some old levers some old gears so what happens when

...