13.3 - Election Rules
Ratified in 1933, the Twentieth Amendment establishes the beginning and end of the terms of the elected federal offices.
The amendment moved the beginning of the Presidential, Vice Presidential and Congressional terms from March 4. Congress would convene on the third day of January, reducing the amount of time a lame duck Congress would be in session. A lame duck Congress, no longer fearful of the effect their decisions may have on re-election, may be more apt to support otherwise unpopular legislation during a lame duck session.
The Twentieth Amendment moved the terms of the President and Vice President to begin on the 20th day of January.
Also, another key point as a result of this amendment, is that if the Electoral College fails to resolve who will be the President or Vice President, the newly elected Congress, as opposed to the outgoing one, would choose who would occupy the unresolved office or offices.
13.4 - Presidential Term Limit
The Twenty-Second Amendment was passed in 1951. It was designed to ensure no president could seek a third term. Though the Constitution did not limit the number of terms a president could serve prior to this amendment, many considered the fact that George Washington chose not to seek a third term as evidence that the Founding Fathers saw two-terms as the expected standard.
George Washington’s popularity would have easily enabled him to be President for the rest of his life, and many even tried to encourage him to be king. However, Washington saw himself as no different than everyone else, and recognized the presidency as a privilege to serve. He felt that more than two terms opened the opportunity for abuse of power by an executive, which would hinge on the idea of a monarchy.
Following George Washington, James Madison and James Monroe also adhered to the two-term principle. Few Presidents sought a third term, and no President achieved it, until Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 became the only president to be elected to a third term. World War to has often been cited as the reason. In 1944, while World War II continued to rage, Roosevelt won a fourth term. He died before he could complete that term.
The Twenty-Second Amendment was passed during the Truman presidency.
Lesson 13.5 - Washington DC: Electoral Votes
The rallying cry during the American Revolution, as we have been taught, was “No taxation without representation.” Yet, despite that famous call for revolution, after the United States became a nation, there were those that were taxed without representation in the United States Government. The most famous of these cases is Washington DC.
Washington DC is a ten mile by ten mile section of land donated by Maryland and Virginia to serve as the seat of government. The land was easy for those two States to let go of because it is swampland. The location was chosen by George Washington. The location was chosen because of its central location between the northern and southern states as a compromise between Alexander Hamilton and northern states who wanted the new federal government to assume Revolutionary War debts and Thomas Jefferson and southern states who wanted the capital placed in a location friendly to slave-holding agricultural interests.
The District was not supposed to be a city in the sense that we see it today. The District of Columbia was not supposed to have a population, for the creation of the district was for the sole purpose of being the seat of the United States Government. The Congress was given full power over the functioning of the city, and the inhabitants were supposed to only be the temporary visitors of government officials, or employees. The Founding Fathers envisioned Washington DC to be the seat of the federal government, and a vibrant commercial center.
As time passed, Washington DC attracted residents, eager to partake in the opportunities offered in the way of government jobs, largely consisting of Free Blacks prior to the beginning of the American Civil War, and after the abolition of slavery in the district in 1850. After the War Between the States, the growth of Washington DC’s population exploded.
John Adams, the second President of the United States, did not like Washington DC. He viewed it as hardly being a city at all, and nothing more than a clump of dirty buildings, arranged around “unpaved, muddy cesspools of winter, waiting for summer to transform them into mosquito-infested swamps.”
As the population of Washington DC grew during the Twentieth Century, it became glaringly aware to the residents that their taxation did not accompany representation. At one point, “Taxation without representation” became such a rallying cry that Washington DC license plates even held the phrase.
After the cries for representation reached a crescendo, the Twenty-Third Amendment was proposed and ratified, allowing the citizens in Washington DC to vote for Electors for President and Vice President. The amendment was ratified in 1961.
Since Washington DC is not a State, the district is still unable to send voting Representatives or Senators to Congress. However, Washington DC does have representatives in Congress that act as observers.
The amendment restricts the district to the number of Electors of the least populous state, irrespective of its own population. That number is currently three.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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