Who's the President?

[Mike B.]

Biden would be sworn in as President & serve to the end of Obama's term in January but that would have no effect on what happens at the end of that term. That is solely in the hands of the electors at the present time. They can not vote a dead man into office (although in Chicago the opposite is true). Being alive and over 35 is one of the qualifications for the job.

The electors can't vote Biden for president because they are pledged to vote for him to be vice-president.

Since the country would probably think it unfair to vote another Democrat to be president whom the country didn't vote for they would also think it unfair to vote Romney the office since he lost.

Therefore, my best guess would be that the electoral college would not meet and decide, thus throwing the election to the House.

You have to remember the EC hasn't worked the way the Founding Fathers intended since 1796 with the creation of the two party system. The EC was originally designed to function the way you are saying, with meeting and discussing but it never has. So what you are saying is legally true, though in today's world highly unlikely.

The electors from both parties are essentially party state commitee people. There is no way the 332 Democratic electors would allow the election to be thrown to the Republican House. I really think they would vote for Biden as he would be the incumbent legally until Jan. 20 and at least he was on the winning ticket. He would also quickly appoint a VP for the last few months of the term. I am pretty sure the 332 electors would simply ratfiy his choice even if Congress didn't get around to confirming his VP choice in time before the EC votes.

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Trivia question time here:

In the past 40 years, two electors in the EC have voted differently than they way they were pledged (of course in both cases it had no effect as the elections were landslides.)

One was a Republican and one was a Democrat.

Which elections and who did they vote for?

[Thomas Thorne]

My understanding is that we would be in a a politically clear but legally obscure situation if a president elect were to die between election day and the day the electoral college. met-this year it would be Dec 17.

It is clear that the 332 Democratic electors would desire to coalesce around one figure who would need 270 electoral votes to become president. I think a sufficient number of Democratic electors would rally around Joe Biden because he is already the Vice President, would be filling out Pres. Obama's unexpired term and might not run for re-election in 2016 at age 74 which might reconcile other presidential wannabes to his election. The major parties have provisions to fill vacancies to their presidential and vice presidential tickets if there is a vacancy before election day. In 1972 the Democratic national committee selected Sargent Shriver on the recommendation of presidential candidate George McGovern who had to replace his original VP pick Thomas Eagleton who resigned because of a history of mental illness.

Constitutionally, presidential electors can vote for anyone they please. In 9 of the 16 most recent elections a single solitary elector voted for a candidate other than the person the elector was pledged to per Dave Leip's presidential election website. Political scientists call these creatures "faithless electors." Several states have prohibited the practice but nobody knows whether they can do so. This year I was disabused of the notion that political parties tightly control the selection of presidential electors when I saw an article which revealed selection of Republican electors in Nevada and New Mexico had been delegated to state political conventions not controlled by Mitt Romney. 2 Republican electors in Nevada and 1 in New Mexico were Ron Paul supporters who threatened not to cast their electoral votes for Romney if elected.

This year the 332 Democratic electors will be mindful that failure to give a Democrat 270 electoral votes might result in Mitt Romney becoming president. The House of Representatives selects presidents voting not as individuals but by states. It requires a majority of state delegations for the House to select a president. I do not know if the Republicans will have a majority of state delegations in the new congress. If the House has not selected a president by Jan 20, someone will become acting president if he has obtained either a majority of electoral votes for vice president or failing that,is selected for vice president by senators voting as individuals.

The House would keep on voting after Jan 20 until the deadlock is somehow resolved by agreement,death or absence of key members. I believe it took the House something like 35 ballots to break the Jefferson-Burr tie in 1801. This required the intervention of Alexander Hamilton who persuaded his fellow Federalists to abstain from voting for Burr, who Hamilton rightly believed to be nothing more than an adventurer . We all knowtwhat this eventually resulted in.

Once the electoral college actually elects Pres Obama on 12/17,and if he were to die before Jan 20 Vice President elect Joe Biden would constitutionally become president on 1/20 for the second Obama term and would of course complete the first Obama term.

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The 25th Amendment provides for filling a vice presidential vacancy by the president nominating a person who must be approved by both houses of congress.

Under its terms Gerald Ford replaced Spiro Agnew and Nelson Rockefeller replaced Ford.

Both houses were controlled by Democrats who bluntly told Pres. Nixon and subsequently Pres Ford not to bother to nominate political figures who were both formidable and were acceptable to the majority of Republicans as a putative presidential candidate.

Democrats judged Gerald Ford would be a very weak presidential candidate. Considering the economy, Watergate,the Nixon pardon and the appeal of of a Southern democrat-Jimmy Carter-Ford did very well-48%-241 electoral votes minus 1 faithless elector- and almost won. I think he probably would have beaten any other Democrat running that year. Nelson Rockefeller was so detested by the Republican base that he promised not to be Ford's VP in 1976
Tom

[Gene C]

If I recall correctly, Reagan gave Ford a difficult time for the Republican nomination in 76'.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,...17,00.html

[JMadonna]

We all know that almost 100 years ago, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand by a terrorist cell of fanatical Serbs disrupted the politics of the time so much that World War I resulted.

From a distance it seems too incredible to believe. But fast forward to our times. What would be the U.S. reaction if a president-elect were killed by an Islamist terror cell backed by the Iranian government?

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This year the 332 Democratic electors will be mindful that failure to give a Democrat 270 electoral votes might result in Mitt Romney becoming president. The House of Representatives selects presidents voting not as individuals but by states. It requires a majority of state delegations for the House to select a president. I do not know if the Republicans will have a majority of state delegations in the new congress. If the House has not selected a president by Jan 20, someone will become acting president.

There's the problem - that 'someone' would be the Speaker of the House who is next in line. However, on Jan 20 there would be no speaker since the new congress hasn't met yet and selected one.

[Thomas Thorne]

According to the 20st Amendment, the terms of the old House and 1/3 of the Senate expire on Jan 3. By law the old congress is required to set a date for its successor to convene which for some reason never seems to be precisely Jan 3 but is always within a few days afterwards. I think I read the 113th Congress will convene on Monday Jan 7. Each house will organize itself and swear in new members. The new House of Representatives can not undertake any business until it chooses a speaker. The usual practice of certifying the Electoral Vote is usually done on Jan 6 but can't be done until the new congress is organized. Any mandated voting for president or vice president would start in the almost 2 week period before Jan 20 when the presidential term expires per the 20th Amendment.

I just checked the Presidential Succession act of 1947. Besides the removal, death , and resignation of both the president and vice president there is the quaint phraseology "failure to qualify" which covers the situation in which a congressional election fails to select a president and vice president. The House Speaker would have to relinquish his speakership and resign his House seat and become president for 15 minutes or 48 months depending how prolonged the house and senate deadlock persisted. If I were Speaker, I might not appreciate the glories of being President for a day and then being unemployed.
Tom

[Thomas Thorne]

Tom Clancy' novels depicted the rise of CIA analyst,Jack Ryan to the presidency but alas it was unconstitutional. Just as the House and Senate in joint session are about to select Ryan as VP with the President in attendance, a terrorist flies an airliner into the Capitol killing everybody in the House chamber except Jack Ryan,Clancy's alter ego and Ryan becomes President.

As the book was written in 1994 we can applaud Clancy's prescience about 9/11 but deplore his ignorance of the subtleties of presidential succession. The Senate and House would not be sitting in the same room approving a VP pick but would be voting separately in their respective chambers possibly on different dates. It is very unlikely the President would be present during these events. Certainly Ryan would actually have to be actually have been elected VP before he could become President in this scenario.

This begs the issue of whether or not Ryan could not be considered VP until he took the Vice Presidential oath of office which is the same as the oath given any Federal executive or legislative official other than the President. There is an enormous jesusitical debate on the subject of whether or not a vice president becomes president upon the death of the president and his first action as president is to take the constitutionally prescribed oath or the theory that the VP can't become president until and unless he takes the oath of office. I vote for the first proposition.
Tom

[Gene C]

Interesting article - "the Forgottone Man Who Almost Became President After Lincoln"

http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/...r-lincoln/

[JMadonna]

Kind of the Al Franken of his time. But not as funny.