Who's the President?

[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