President Bush’s actions since November 4th represent a desperate attempt to defend the status quo at all costs. With voters so overwhelmingly going for change, his actions go directly against the clear will of the American people. This begs the question: “Why do we have a lame duck President?”.
Prior to 1933 we had a lame duck Presidency for an even longer period of time. The passage of the 20th ammendment shortened that period considerably to reflect the then modern changes in our electoral process. There is no reason we cannot make such a change again.
The last minute laws and appointments President Bush is making no longer have the legitimacy of the vote behind them. The simplest solution isn’t reforming the appointment process (although one would expect that contrary to Musgrave’s opinion, increasing the executive’s power to fire rather than hire would be the common sense move), it is removing or drastically reducing the period in which lame ducks have the opportunity to oppose the will of the people.
Posted under Politics
This post was written by Dan on December 10, 2008
Excellent point, Dan.
What about removing almost all presidential powers on the day of the election, possibly the week before. This could make it much more expensive for lame duck presidents to push through midnight pardons because it would make it less likely for their party’s new candidate to get elected.
Thanks Daisy!
Hey Paddy! Nice to see you here.
If we removed most Presidential powers, we’d have created a legal lame duck in addition to a political lame duck, and I think that would leave the US unable to respond to internal and external issues.
It is already costly for lame duck presidents to pardon (though it is expected), and the cost to future candidates appears to be negligible unless they pardon someone egregious.
i’d say bush has been better since the election. he’s always been making bad appointments and regulations; but he’s made at least one good decision since obama got elected, by infusing emergency cash into the auto-manufacturing industry.
also, with respect to the regulations: i’ve never studied federal administrative law (which, according to my law school colleagues, is a good thing), but it’s my understanding that it takes about three months for an announced regulation to become permanent. it’s less than three months from election to inauguration, so in a way the power of a lame duck president to change things through administrative regulations is limited.
The difference is now those appointments are clearly being done to spite the will of the people. Look at this from the perspective of two imaginary candidates. If A is from one party, and B from another, then lame duck A’s actions to appoint people who support A’s ideology run counter to what the country voted for.
So during his term, while Bush’s appointments were no more appealing, they at least reflected the will of the people as expressed in the last election. (To the extent the last election was fair, and I have some sharp doubts about 2004).