The Long Presidential Transition Time is Dangerous
It is time to end the lame-duck presidency. Trump should be President sooner.
A campaign is a disagreement, and disagreements divide. But an election is a decision, and decisions clear the way for harmony and peace. - George H. W. Bush
A campaign is a disagreement, and an election is a decision. That’s the truth, but in America, we wait too long to live with the decision. This is dangerous when the country is supporting wars on several fronts, and the lame-duck president is in obvious mental decline. Joe Biden is leaving Trump bigger problems than there were on November 5th. Biden is the sole and lawful president, but he lacks a popular mandate for his choices; the voters decided against his hand-picked successor, and he is kidding himself if he thinks he would have performed better than Vice President Kamala Harris in the polls. In all likelihood, if Joe Biden had been on the ballot himself, Trump would have won close to 400 Electoral votes.
Donald Trump is president-elect, but he will not take office for two more months. In the meantime, President Joe Biden is escalating the Russian-Ukraine war, and the invader, Russia, has responded by lowering the threshold, that is, the degree of provocation required before it will consider using nukes. That is right; Biden's decision has made Russia change policy on how fast to use nukes, something that did not happen during the Cold War. China is worried that Biden is provoking Russia. Biden has also vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East that passed the Security Council 14-1. American allies Great Britain, France, Japan, and South Korea all voted for the resolution. Biden’s foreign policies have left the United States isolated from friends and enraged human rights groups. And Biden has two more months to make mischief before Trump takes office. This has to stop; there is no reason any president, in this case one whose party the voters just rejected, should have two-and-half months to make trouble for the next president. The next Congress needs to cut the transition time. Now is the time for reform.
Transition History
When General George Washington of Virginia was president, the country had few roads, communication was slow, and the fastest way to travel was by galloping a post-chaise horse-drawn carriage or similar hoof-powered vehicles. Do I even need to say times have changed?
The first presidential election lasted from 1788-89 because the states met to choose their electors at different times. Then, you had to get the electors together in the state capitals, and then after they voted, the results had to be sent to Congress. All of this took a lot of time in the late 18th century, and you had to allow time for weather. The election itself took a whole month, from mid-December to mid-January. And then it got crazier. The State of New York did not pick electors on schedule even though Congress and the national capital were in New York City at the time! And North Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify the Constitution on time, so they could not vote for president! The electors voted in February, and Congress counted the votes in March, so technically, as president of the Senate, Vice President John Adams' term should have begun on March 4, but he did not reach New York from Boston until April 21. (Congress didn’t have a full quorum to certify the election until April anyway, which they finally did on April 6.) General George Washington also should have become president on March 4, but he did not arrive from Virginia until even later and took the presidential oath on April 30. He needed that time to travel and send messages back and forth to finish organizing the government. It took 110 days from when the states finished selecting Electors to Washington taking the oath of office. There is no need for that much time now.
The long transition was a disaster during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln won the election in November, but again, he had to wait until March 4 to become president. The lame-duck Democrat, James Buchanan, rated the worst president in history, did nothing from November to March to stop the South from seceding. Even when the South fired on the United States War Department’s ship Star of the West in January 1861 - which is well before Fort Sumpter in April and an incident unknown to many today - Buchanan did nothing. So, by the time Lincoln was inaugurated, the rebels had put together an army and a government and were shooting at U.S. assets. Historians still blame Buchanan for letting the Southern Democrat slaveholder rebels get strong enough to drag the Civil War out for four years of American carnage.
Then, during the Great Depression, even after the American people had overwhelmingly rejected Herbert Hoover's handling of the economic crisis, FDR had to wait until March to start the New Deal, and he sat on the sidelines rather impatiently as the economy got worse in the meantime.
Until 1845, states could have different days for choosing electors, but then Congress decided enough was enough and picked the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But that did not help Lincoln, for instance, because, on average, Election Day and March 4 are 116 days apart. Almost a century later, Congress passed, and the states ratified the 20th Amendment, which set Presidential Inauguration Day on January 20th, where it remains to this day. FDR was the first president sworn in on the new date in 1937, but he was already president, so there was no transition. Yet, there are, on average, 75 days between when the people vote and when the president is sworn in. In Trump's case, it is 76 days and he has been waiting 15 days so far with 61 more days of Joe Biden's Presidency.
It does not have to be this way. Look at Canada, for example. Justin Trudeau won his first election to become Prime Minister of Canada on October 19, 2015, when his Liberal Party secured a majority government. He was sworn in as Prime Minister on November 4, 2015. Three weeks later, that's it, and it went from a Conservative Party government to a Liberal Party government. But wait, maybe that's just Canada? No, Australia, too.
Anthony Albanese succeeded Scott Morrison as Prime Minister of Australia. Morrison, leader of the Liberal Party (the conservative party in Australia), served as Prime Minister from August 2018 until May 2022. Albanese is a member of the Australian Labour Party, the lefties. The election was on May 21, 2022, and Albanese took over as the new PM on May 23; they did it in two days: old party out, new party in, 48 hours.
And now the mother country. The UK is the winner: one day. The UK election was this year on July 4 - a bad luck day for British Tories, I would think, but go ahead, pick the day America told you to get lost - the Conservatives lost the election, and the Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer took office on July 5, the next day. Credit where it is due; hats off to the British.
But I can hear them now, "But America is a presidential system, and it’s a big country..." So is France; it’s the size of Texas, and by French law, the investiture of the new president is within 10 days after the election. Emmanuel Macron, the current president, created a brand new political party, won the election on May 7, 2017, and then became the new president on May 14. One week later.
America, we can do better. Here is what I propose:
Thompson's Suggested Rule for Presidential Elections
Election Day:
The presidential election shall be held on the third Friday in December. (We all get the weekend to recover from staying up late on election night. (Average of 32 days from January 20.
State Certification Deadline:
Each state must certify its election results within 72 hours of Election Day. (It is the computer age; there are no excuses for it taking longer. Having 50 states doesn't make it magically harder to count, enter numbers in a computer, or make phone calls and give the tally.)
Absentee Ballots:
All absentee ballots must arrive by Election Day, with no exceptions. (Again, if you care, take care of it early; if you are late, that is on you.)
Electoral College Meeting:
The Electoral College shall convene to cast votes on December 30 or December 31 if December 30 falls on a Sunday. (If you want to be an Elector so bad you can give up a few minutes on New Year's Eve for your country).
Congressional Certification:
Congress shall convene on January 3 to certify the Electoral College results and then Jan 20 is Inauguration time.
And there, we have the transition down to a month. Let's do this.
Ok so, the 20th Amendment hard codes inauguration in January, so we declare the first Friday in January after the 1st (so it can be as late as 7th) to be a National Holiday with no businesses allowed to be open (zero, zilch, nada) only homebound and militarily deployed personnel are allowed to use any form of absentee ballot, zero mail-ins, no early voting, no drop boxes, no ballot harvesting, no same day registration, no electronic voting, all paper ballots with mandatory voter ID proving citizenship -- states have 24 hours to report their final vote totals -- the electoral college meets on the following Friday, Congress certifies on the following Monday and the new Administration takes office on the 20th -- only cabinet secretaries, their immediate deputies, ambassadors, and consul-generals should undergo the advice and consent of the senate, thus cutting down on the long backlog of advice and consent. Additionally, all federal employees above the GS-13 level should serve at the pleasure of the President, meaning draining the swamp becomes much easier. The entire "administrative law apparatus" ought to be eliminated -- the administrative "branch" of government does not make law, nor does it adjudicate the law. Those two functions are reserved by the constitution to the legislative and judicial branches of government. The executive branch and its subordinate administrative agencies are supposed to enforce the law. A radical solution obviously, one might even say an extremist position, but extremism in the pursuit of freedom for the American people is not a vice -- it ought to be a virtue of the highest order.
PS any recommendations for wildlife specialists for White Tail Deer, Wild Turkey and I've decided to add Elk and Pronghorn antelope to that list to work on the Tahiti project would be welcomed ;-)
You sold me on it all except your proposed month. Let’s keep it in November and have the swearing in on Thanksgiving. We can learn to be grateful when we get our way AND when don’t :)