The end of democracy in the USA?

[ka9q]

I now see what you mean; there's a discussion in the section Interaction with the Twelfth Amendment in the Wikipedia article on the 22nd Amendment. It's that distinction between eligibility to serve as President vs eligibility for election to the office. Our Presidents are generally still elected (nominally including that in 2000) but we've already had one unelected President, Gerald Ford.

To be eligible to serve as President you have to be a natural-born US citizen, 35 or older, and a US resident for 14 years or more. Until the 22nd Amendment there was no special distinction between serving and being elected.

It's interesting that while Congress can and has established laws for Presidential succession should both the President and Vice President resign or die, they can't override the Constitutional requirements. For example, although the US Secretary of State is fairly high in the order of succession, right after the Speaker of the House and the President pro tem of the Senate, Henry Kissinger could not have succeeded to the Presidency despite holding that Cabinet office.

[Noldi400]

I'm always rather proud of the fact that, while our system has its problems, it generally works. As you said, Nixon was removed bloodlessly.  The Bush/Gore "hanging chad" uproar was resolved - maybe fairly, maybe not, but I've always believed that that kind of crisis could well have touched off a street war in many countries.

I also think that Americans in general feel a kinship with Aussies - both sort of social outcasts who landed in a big new country and built it into something we're proud of. (No offense intended...)

[Donnie B.]

Seems like someone could still get up to (nearly) 12 years as President, through a very unlikely scenario.

A person (let's call her H) could be elected President and serve only one term.  She could then run as the VP candidate legally.  Immediately after the subsequent inauguration, the new POTUS could resign (or die), making H President again.  At the end of that term, she could still run again, having been elected only once to the office of POTUS.

Amirite?

[Noldi400]

A person (let's call her H) could be elected President and serve only one term.  She could then run as the VP candidate legally.  Immediately after the subsequent inauguration, the new POTUS could resign (or die), making H President again.  At the end of that term, she could still run again, having been elected only once to the office of POTUS.

Amirite?

No, I don't think so...

The wording of the 22nd Amendment is: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.

So if your hypothetical person had already been elected President once, then served more than two years by succession, she would be ineligible because she had already been elected once. The Amendment doesn't specify before or after.

That's my understanding. Anyone else?

[RedneckR0nin]

There most definitely is an air of "if you're for it, then I'm against it -- no matter what it is" that's making it impossible to do even those things everyone really wants. It's very worrisome.

I wonder if it would help to increase the time between elections? It seems like US politicians are always trying to score points to help them win the next election which is always two years away. If the elections were farther apart maybe they would actually leave campaign mode long enough to get some work done.

Make campaign donations illegal...make them use free networking and a channel dedicated to such..equal opportunity.
Get more parties in the major race...the more the merrier

Then the source fund raising and lobbyist power drops to nothing.......the more parties competing the more honest it becomes.

[gillianren]

Yeah, just ask the Italians.

[ka9q]

So if your hypothetical person had already been elected President once, then served more than two years by succession, she would be ineligible because she had already been elected once. The Amendment doesn't specify before or after.

That's my understanding. Anyone else?

I think you're right. But the crucial distinction in the 22nd amendment is elected. I don't see anything to keep someone from serving indefinitely as an appointed or successive president. The problem for a would-be dictator is that elections happen every 4 years. But I can think of a rather extreme scenario where the President, Vice President and Congress could all conspire (or be coerced) to do an end-run around the Constitution; each time a new President/Vice President are elected, the latter resigns, the President appoints the person in question to replace him (who has to be confirmed by the House and Senate, as when Nixon appointed Gerald Ford to replace Agnew) and then resigns, making that person President again. The cycle could repeat every 4 years indefinitely, and nothing would disqualify this person from office because he'd never be elected to it.

An even more extreme scenario would have our dictator coerce a figurehead president into appointing him Secretary of State. Then he assassinates the President, Vice President, House speaker and Senate president pro tem (or forces them all to resign) and succeeds to the presidency, avoiding possible prosecution through executive privilege and/or sovereign immunity. After each election, he repeats the process indefinitely. He'd also have to somehow avoid impeachment and conviction by the Congress. And even if he did that, the states could bypass Congress, call a Constitutional Convention and pass an amendment to clearly state that no person can serve as an elected or unelected President for more than 10 years.

So it's actually not that easy for a dictator to become President For Life under our Constitution without first subverting an awful lot of checks and balances. Maybe the guys in powdered wigs got it right.
 

[Peter B]

...An even more extreme scenario would have our dictator coerce a figurehead president into appointing him Secretary of State. Then he assassinates the President, Vice President, House speaker and Senate president pro tem (or forces them all to resign) and succeeds to the presidency, avoiding possible prosecution through executive privilege and/or sovereign immunity. After each election, he repeats the process indefinitely. He'd also have to somehow avoid impeachment and conviction by the Congress. And even if he did that, the states could bypass Congress, call a Constitutional Convention and pass an amendment to clearly state that no person can serve as an elected or unelected President for more than 10 years.

So it's actually not that easy for a dictator to become President For Life under our Constitution without first subverting an awful lot of checks and balances. Maybe the guys in powdered wigs got it right.

While on paper it seems hard to get around the Constitution, it seems the President (and Congress?) get around it easily enough when it suits. For example, isn't Congress supposed to vote in favour of war declarations? And haven't several Presidents got around that by being voted powers by Congress (such as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)?

So, based on my reading of the article I linked in the original post, the nightmare scenario I think about involves constant cuts in taxes, education, social security and health benefits being cut and Defence taking an ever higher proportion of the budget. In 40 years time the disparity between poverty and wealth would make the USA look like Russia or Spain 100 years ago. The only difference would be that there are opportunities for people who are clever and lucky. There is a small middle class which provides the wealthy with its teachers, doctors and other services, but the position of any individual is precarious and utterly at the mercy of the whim of anyone in the elite. In theory everyone has the vote but in practical terms the wealthy choose the leaders from among themselves. Criticism of the state is stifled by liberal use of the USA PATRIOT Act. The only access people have to social services is through churches, which are themselves subject to state interference if they offer too much state criticism. It's the sort of world someone could make a good novel out of, but imagining it depresses me...

[ka9q]

I hear you. I think the structure of our government, and particular the Bill of Rights, is probably the best that's ever been designed. But it's not perfect, and even it cannot forever withstand constant, withering assaults intent on destroying it.

[gillianren]

I will say that there are a few churches which I'd love to see lose their tax-exempt status, at least one of which should lose it because of its political activities.  (The Civil Rights Movement didn't ever actually say, "Go out and vote this way."  And no one in those churches which were involved was expected by the church authorities to give up their time and money in order to earn divine favour.)  However, I have also argued with several people why expecting churches to do all the heavy lifting in caring for the poor is folly.

[Noldi400]

While on paper it seems hard to get around the Constitution, it seems the President (and Congress?) get around it easily enough when it suits. For example, isn't Congress supposed to vote in favour of war declarations? And haven't several Presidents got around that by being voted powers by Congress (such as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)?

I need to go look up the details, but I believe the distinction is that the Constitution authorizes the Congress to declare (a formal state of) war, while the President is authorized to wage war, i.e., take such military action as he deems necessary for national security. In the case of the Resolutions such as the one you mention, Presidents have almost always replied, more or less, "I appreciate your support, even though it is not legally required."

I'll check around and get back on that point.

[ka9q]

I think a lot of people would agree that by far the most serious threat to American constitutional democracy, particularly its guarantee of individual rights, is the ongoing expansion of Presidential power. Generally that position is held by most Democrats when a Republican is President and held by most Republicans when a Democrat is President, so they're probably both right.

There's no dispute that the Executive Branch has the sole authority to wage war, with the President as Commander-in-Chief. It couldn't be any other way. The big questions are over who sets policy for waging war, and where's the line between policy and execution? The Constitution clearly establishes Congress, not the President, as the policy-making branch of the US federal government. Personally, I think it's also clear that this principle doesn't go out the window in wartime. That's why Congress, not the President, has the sole authority to declare war.

Congress also has the closely related authorities to raise an army and navy, to collect taxes to pay for them, to allocate those funds, and (for the Senate) to ratify all foreign treaties.

For the most part, the US Constitution makes brilliant use of the natural human desire for power. That's the whole idea behind the carefully crafted set of "checks and balances" that every civics class talks so much about.

But it has an Achilles heel that will probably be its (and our) undoing. Presidential power always expands greatly in wartime and shrinks in peacetime. The bigger the war, the greater the expansion. World War 2 was the extreme case - so far - and it coincides with the start of an enormous expansion of Presidential authority that still continues. (The first and only President to serve more than 2 terms was in office for nearly all of WW2, leaving only when he died.) This strongly tempts every President to start or expand a war on a pretense merely to expand his own power. His ability to do this is now greatly enhanced by his extremely tight control over the gathering and dissemination of the information most relevant to the decision to go to war. Even though Congress still makes the nominal decision, it is almost preordained by the information given to them.

I'd like to think that there could never be a more pure example of the US going to war solely to expand the power of the President than George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. But that would be wishful thinking. This is easily the most dangerous structural weakness in our entire government and I fully expect it will be our eventual undoing.

[Peter B]

So, based on my reading of the article I linked in the original post, the nightmare scenario I think about involves constant cuts in taxes, education, social security and health benefits being cut and Defence taking an ever higher proportion of the budget. In 40 years time the disparity between poverty and wealth would make the USA look like Russia or Spain 100 years ago. The only difference would be that there are opportunities for people who are clever and lucky. There is a small middle class which provides the wealthy with its teachers, doctors and other services, but the position of any individual is precarious and utterly at the mercy of the whim of anyone in the elite. In theory everyone has the vote but in practical terms the wealthy choose the leaders from among themselves. Criticism of the state is stifled by liberal use of the USA PATRIOT Act. The only access people have to social services is through churches, which are themselves subject to state interference if they offer too much state criticism. It's the sort of world someone could make a good novel out of, but imagining it depresses me...

I've been having a bit more of a think about this, and I'm starting to veer towards the scenario presented in the article I linked, the Weimar Germany one. How's this for a nightmare:

Obama narrowly wins the 2012 election, and faces ever larger protests from extremist Republicans who think anything he does is putting the USA on the path to socialism. After a while this becomes civil disobedience, and police in many cities are reluctant to step in.

Moderate Republican Jeb Bush and his Tea Party Vice President win in 2016 amid calls for Obama to be tried for treason. Democrat supporters start employing the same tactics against President Bush, pushing him into the arms of the Tea Party. Fighting breaks out at competing Democrat and Republican protests across the country and moderates on both sides are shouted down or ignored when they call for dialogue.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, to give the image of being a strong man, Bush agrees that Obama should be tried for treason. Obama flees the USA, confirming in the minds of many that he's guilty as charged.

An extremist Republican, convinced that Bush deliberately made his announcement so Obama had time to run, assassinates the President. The assassin successfully evades capture, convincing many Democrats that he had police assistance. Meanwhile many Republicans are convinced the assassin was part of a Democrat conspiracy.

The Vice President, newly promoted to the top job, convinces a shocked Congress to pass tough new laws to crack down on political violence. The laws make no mention of parties, but Democrat supporters seem to fall victim to them far more frequently than Republican supporters.

With the Democrats in disarray, the Republicans settle down to an extended period of time in power in both the Presidency and Congress. Voter participation drops from 50% in 2020 to 35% in 2024 and to less than 20% in 2028. Real wages fall and the economy stagnates. Congress responds by massive cuts in public services, leaving tens of millions destitute. Bank profits, however, continue to climb on the back of ever bigger financial gambles, in the expectation that the government will step in to save them in case of trouble.

Thanks to a Chinese economic stumble in 2029, a couple of banks find themselves dangerously over-committed. Their boards approach Congress for assistance. Congress says No, saying the market will decide who survives. The banks collapse, taking several others with them. The financial system teeters on the brink of collapse. Attempts to continue paying soldiers and the few remaining public servants by printing more money causes a spike in inflation.

Food riots break out in several cities and the police and state and national guards are unable or unwilling to quell the riots. The President calls for military intervention...

[Noldi400]

Just following up on my earlier post.

This is a legal opinion from the U.S.A.G.'s office given shortly after the 9/11 attacks:

http://www.justice.gov/olc/warpowers925.htm

Presidential power always expands greatly in wartime and shrinks in peacetime. The bigger the war, the greater the expansion. World War 2 was the extreme case - so far - and it coincides with the start of an enormous expansion of Presidential authority that still continues. (The first and only President to serve more than 2 terms was in office for nearly all of WW2, leaving only when he died.)

It might also be worth noting here that, even prior to WWII, Congress had handed FDR more domestic power than any President before or since. The country's economical system was literally in ruins - 25% unemployment, banks closed in 32 states - and it was a case of desperate situations requiring desperate measures. Whether or not that power was wisely used is a debate for another day, but the economic disaster disappeared into the ramp-up for WWII.

IMHO, the President has historically had relatively little direct domestic power; he appoints officials and is responsible for law enforcement. Aside from that, his strongest tool is the "bully pulpit" described by Teddy Roosevelt - setting the tone for the country and acting as a 'cheerleader. (Some resemblance to the HRM position in the UK.)

Just a few random thoughts, and my own $0.02.

[DataCable]

I will say that there are a few churches which I'd love to see lose their tax-exempt status

I don't even think religious institutions  should merit tax-exempt status based solely on that self-description.