Dienstag, 7. Dezember 2010

20th Amendment

"Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission."
This is anotehr example how a change in times makes it necessary to also change the laws. Why should one wait until May to let the President start when there is obviously no need to anymore? To me it seems already weird to have two months between elections and the start of the term since the old president will therefore not sign any important bills in those two months if he/she knows that a political change will come.

"November 22, 2010

Lame-Ducking the 20th Amendment

Lame duck sessions sidestep the 20th Amendment....
Betsy McCaughey, heroic vanquisher of HillaryCare, informs us in a superb op-ed that lame duck sessions are at odds with the manifest intent of the drafters and ratifiers of the 20th Amendment.  She notes that the original March date for swearing in new Congresses was selected because in the 18th century it took weeks for Members to travel from home to the national capital.  Jet travel today makes the trip a matter of hours. Passed in 1932 and ratified early in 1933, the 20th Amendment rectified the situations faced by Abraham Lincoln in 1860 & FDR in 1932: elected but not to take office until March 4 the following year, they were stymied in efforts to act quickly to deal with civil war (Lincoln) and economic crisis (FDR).  The first post-20th Amendment Congress was seated January 3, 1935; the first milestone date for the President & Vice-President under the new calendar was January 20, 1937.  Congress convenes 17 days before the President & VP are inaugurated so that if an Presidential and/or Vice-President contest is not settled by the Electoral College, the new Congress meets to resolve the election.  The House chooses the President, while the Senate chooses the Vice-President.
Ironically, the new Senate is presided over by the still-sitting VP, who could be a candidate in a contested election still unresolved come January.  Thus, had the 2000 election been thrown into January, VP Al Gore would have cast a vote presiding over the new Senate, as to who his successor as VP would have been, while he himself was awaiting a House vote.   (Gore would also have presided had the Senate had to choose between competing slates of electors to be seated from Florida, as nearly happened.  Only the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore pulling in December 2000 prevented this train wreck.)
Prior to 1935, Congress had been required by Article I section 4, clause 2 of the Constitution to meet at least once a year, on the first Monday in December.  This provision created lame duck sessions, but until the past two decades they were rare; notably, Congress met post-election during the Second World War & the Korean War.
But in the past few decades lame duck sessions have become a commonplace.  Mostly it has been to pass continuing funding bills to keep the government going, because Congress, having reasserted its control over the budget process in the mid-1970s, could not complete its fundamental business.
The current lame duck session has been called for two reasons.  First because this Congress holds the dubious distinction of being the first ever to fail to pass a single one of the 13 appropriations bills provided to fund the federal budget--the despite a Congress wholly controlled by a single party (Democrats).
Second, because the Democrats, having been massively repudiated at the polls three weeks ago, wish to ram through as much of their agenda on tax & spend priorities plus a major strategic arms pact.  McCaughey proposes that the new Congress remove the lame duck sessions save for national emergencies.
Bottom Line.  It is time indeed for Congress to pass, and voters to ratify an amendment ending lame duck session, except for national emergencies.  The amendment should bar legislation from expiring before the next Congress is seated.  Emergencies should specifically be defined to exclude routine budget resolutions funding the government, which are an annual event and thus not emergencies."
 Source: http://www.letterfromthecapitol.com/letterfromthecapitol/2010/11/lame-ducking-the-20th-amendment.html

This article has my full approval. The lame duck period has to end as it does not make any sense. The situation at the moment points it out as there will be a change in the House of Representatives and therefore the Democrats would need to press on to get at least some of their legislatures through.



This flaw in the inauguration ceremony and the upheaval afterwards is really funny as the constitution states that the president starts hid term on Jan. 3rd at noon and does not speak about the oath he has to take. And Barack Obama took his oath again in the White House just to be sure, so there sould not have been any great deal about this.

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen