Posted on 07/16/2008 3:38:42 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
(Fourth in a series of ten)
Most Americans don’t know there was another U.S. government before the Constitution was drafted. Simplified books and courses leave out the Articles of Confederation, the government of the United States for its first eleven years. There were several fatal defects in the Articles of Confederation, and one was its presidency.
Concerned with the dangerous powers of the king of England and monarchies generally, the first dramers created a presidency which was too weak. The "President of the United States in Congress Assembled" was elected for a one-year term by Congress itself. That "President" had almost no powers.
When John Hancock was elected to that post, he was too ill to travel from Boston to the capitol in New York during his entire year. The government functioned as well, or as poorly if you prefer, without him. One of the major defects the framers sought to solve in writing the Constitution was creation of a "vigorous executive."
They made the president the commander in chief of the military. They gave him the power to appoint all judges and major officials of the new government, subject to the Senate power to "advise and consent." Most important, they gave him power to veto legislation. It was not the absolute veto possessed by the royal governors of the American colonies (and by the governor of one subsequent state). Instead, Congress retained the right to override the veto by a vote of two-thirds of each House.
The task that most bedeviled the framers was the term and manner of election of the chief executive. Proposals varied from a single term of seven years, to a limit of two, four-year terms. Because George Washington, the well-respected president of the Constitutional Convention, opposed that limitation, the framers settled on no term limitation. Then, George Washington as the first president set an example of retiring after two terms. Respect alone held that practice in place until the 20th century. Once President Franklin D. Roosevelt violated that tradition, it was written into the Constitution as an amendment.
The manner of electing the president was an even greater problem. The framers had serious doubts about direct democracy, and rejected it in all three branches of government. For the president, they settled on the indirect process that people in each state would elect respected figures as presidential electors. They, in turn, would exercise their personal judgments in voting for presidents.
This process began to fall apart in the third election, when John Adams became president. By then, political parties had developed, despite the warnings against them both in Washington’s Farewell Address to the American People, and in James Madison’s Federalist paper, No. 10. Electors were then simply pledged to specific candidates. Today, most electors are required to vote as pledged when elected, and it is a felony for them to exercise any discretion.
The Electoral College contains one continuing value . Because electors for president are elected state by state, candidates must to some extent focus on states, rather than merely on the largest cities, ignoring most of the nation. The framers did this deliberately. They made the electors equal the states' senators plus representatives to maintain the states' political importance.
Alexander Hamilton argued in the ''Federalist, No. 78,'' that the institution of the electoral college would prevent men who offered only "talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity" from becoming president of the United States. I leave it to the readers to decide how many times the electoral college has allowed people with "talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity" to become president.
We have never been quite satisfied with the electoral college. More than 10,000 potential amendments to the Constitution have been introduced in Congress over the centuries. More than 1,000 of those were addressed to the terms and methods of election of presidents. None has ever come close to passage.
Two of the proposals were to choose the president by lot either from among the sitting senators, or sitting governors. Combine both of those and most presidential elections and a great deal of bad television ads, would have been eliminated, including the remaining parts of the 2008 election with three senators still in the running.
Various attempts have been mounted lately to get around the electoral college with legislation. All such are unconstitutional because the Constitution trumps mere law. The only remotely possible reform is election of electors in each congressional district, rather than winner-take-all, statewide. States can do this by simple legislation, as Maine and Nebraska already have.
[Next week: Article II, the Presidency in Practice.]
John / Billybob
Could you post links to the first 3 chapters?
Has any faithless elector ever been charged with a crime?
The most recent one was in 2000.
I realize that delegates to national conventions are legally bound to vote for the candidates to whom they are committed, but I was unaware about electors.
John do ya happen too have PDF versions of the entire works !
Great teaching tool !!
Special thanks for all you do for us, I learned a lot reading your thought provoking works !
Stay safe !
You can print the series out by following the link to ChronWatch. At the rate they are printing them, the final six will be published in 14 weeks, maximum. (They are all finished by me.)
John / Billybob
The Constitution guarantees a “Republican Form of Government,” which means the people must elect their own representatives. It could not be a clearer violation of this clause to have any public officials in any state elected by voters outside that state, regardless of the votes of the home state residents.
John / Billybob
But the other provision provides that the very attempt to vote contrary to the Elector's pledge constitutes an automatic resignation. The remaining Electors then are empowered to replace that Elector with anyone they choose, including the (Carol Burnett?) scrub woman in the hall.
John / Billybob
BUMP!
For these reasons, respectfully, I don't think your argument passes Constitutional muster.
If you think any state legislature in this era would vote to eliminate voting for Electors, you are living in fantasy land. I agree it is within the power of the legislature to have unelected Electors. But until that political impossibility occurs, my analysis is correct.
John / Billybob
If you think any state legislature in this era would vote to eliminate voting for Electors, you are living in fantasy land. I agree it is within the power of the legislature to have unelected Electors. But until that political impossibility occurs, my analysis is correct.
Currently, you are correct that the electors are elected by popular vote in a given state - the Candidate name is merely an umbrella for the group of electors. However, many state legislatures HAVE already voted to eliminate voting for the Electors, in a sense. That is exactly what the NPV bill is doing - the "elections" merely take a sense of the disposition of the public, and then the election official SHALL certify the slate of electors in his own state corresponding to the winner of the national vote. The relevant text from Illinois' bill:
The presidential elector certifying official of each member state shall certify the appointment in that official's own state of the elector slate nominated in that state in association with the national popular vote winner.
This is the method of appointment, and, if the bill is enacted and signed, meets the Constitutional requirement of the Legislature directing the manner of appointment, IMHO.
Aren’t the votes secret though, opened by the President of Senate, in the presence of the Congress?
Or have the electors simply tolerated the faithless among them, and not exercised their right to replace?
Hmm...back in 2000 there was some talk about the Gore forces luring away a GOP elector...I suppose it was idle chatter, but if it had happened I suspect those provisions would have come into play....
I’m RTFM. Thank you.
I’m RTFM. Thank you.
John / Billybob
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.