Lawyers and Presidential Tickets

 Bruce Mehlman:

Every Democrat nominated for President or Vice President for the past 40 years was a lawyer until Tim Walz. (21/22 D’s & 7/21 R’s)

Veeps Running for President

The current situation is unusual.  Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson all stepped down after one elected term -- but all four had been vice presidents who assumed the presidency after their predecessors died.  (TR would run again in 1912.)  One has to go back to Rutherford B. Hayes to find a president who voluntarily retired after four years.  His vice president, William Wheeler, also declined to run in the election of 1880

Counting Electoral Votes

Joseph M. Bessette and Gary J. Schmitt have a report at AEI titled Counting Electoral Votes: How the Constitution Empowers Congress—and Not the Vice President—to Resolve Electoral Disputes

Key Points

• The vice president does not have “plenary” authority under the Constitution to settle disputes over Electoral College votes.
• Analysis of the Constitution’s history, text, and underlying principles, along with early practices, legislation, and debates, affirms that Congress possesses that authority.
• Accordingly, the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, which recognizes congressional authority to resolve electoral disputes and denies the vice president any substantive power in these matters, is fully consonant with constitutional theory and practice.

The  concluding paragraphs:

Key principles of the American constitutionalorder strongly contradict the notion that the framers vested in the vice president the unilateral authority to resolve Electoral College disputes: (1) the framers’ understanding of responsible, or accountable, republican government; (2) checks and balances in the constitutional structure; (3) Madison’s principle that “no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity” and (4) the rule of law. 

The framers may rightly be criticized for, apparently, not having considered the problem of contested electoral votes when they designed their fairly intricate system of presidential elections. Fortunately, the document they crafted fully empowers Congress to devise procedures for resolving such controversies.

51-49

The victory of Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) gives Democrats a 51-49 majority in the Senate.  

Louis Jacobson and Yacob Reyes at PolitiFact:

During the last Congress, when the Senate had a 50-50 tie broken by Harris, the chamber's committees were evenly split, sometimes forcing Democrats to use special maneuvers to bring nominations to the floor when such actions stalled in committee.

Now, Democrats can assume greater control of Senate committees, allowing them a freer hand in advancing Biden's picks, avoiding impasses on legislation and issuing subpoenas.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told NBC in November that a larger majority would allow the Biden administration to build on its "historic pace of judicial confirmations and ensure the federal bench better reflects the diversity of America."

The ratio on committees is not fixed under Senate rules. Rather, it results from negotiations between the majority and minority leaders. However, in recent 51-49 chambers, such as those from 2003 to 2005 and 2007 to 2009, the majority party typically held a one-seat advantage on committees, according to the Congressional Research Service, a public policy institute.

Democrats could use their majority on committees to continue the current House investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol or launch new ones, Axios reported. The House’s Jan. 6 committee is scheduled to end in January after releasing its final report.

Continuity of Government and Presidential Succession

 John C. Fortier and Norman Ornstein at AEI:

• The Continuity of Government Commission makes recommendations to ensure the continuity of the presidency after a catastrophic event.
• The core recommendation is that Congress amend the Presidential Succession Act to remove congressional leaders from the presidential line of succession, providing instead for succession solely by members of the president’s cabinet.
• This change would address constitutional problems inherent in the current framework and provide clarity and stability amid a crisis.
• Other recommendations deal with presidential incapacity and continuity issues arising during the period between a presidential election and Inauguration Day.

...

There are serious policy and constitutional objections to having congressional leaders in the line of succession. The Constitution allows Congress to specify which “Officer” shall be in the line of succession, a term that many commentators believe refers to executive and judicial officers, not congressional ones. More broadly, structural considerations make it difficult for legislative leaders to assume a position in the executive branch. 

Congressional leaders cannot easily step in for an incapacitated president, and they may have conflicts of interest in an impeachment and removal scenario. Congressional leaders may be members of a different political party than the president. A political zealot might seek to change the party in the executive branch with a single attack. A freak accident might lead to a sudden change in party; the death of President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush could have led to President Thomas “Tip” O’Neill. The death of President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore might have led to President Newt Gingrich. The situation becomes more tenuous if the vice presidency has been vacant for a time

The VP and the Counting of Electoral Votes

At AEI, Joseph Bessette and Gary Schmitt find no support for the view that the Vice President has unilateral constitutional authority to resolve electoral vote disputes.

Our analysis proceeds in four stages. First, we show that the framers viewed the Vice Presidency as a rather insignificant office and, thus, one unlikely to be given the constitutional power to decide presidential elections. Second, we show that the relevant constitutional language strongly suggests that Congress possesses the authority to legislate procedures to resolve electoral disputes. Third, we show that in the congressional debates of 1789 to 1805, every major alternative for locating the power to resolve electoral disputes – that it resides in Congress, in the state legislatures, or among the electors themselves when they meet in their states – was advanced except for one: that it resides in the office of the Vice Presidency. This silence, in our view, speaks volumes. Finally, we maintain that the principles and structure of the American constitutional order are inimical to allowing the discretion and will of a single individual (especially one who often has a personal stake in the outcome) to decide presidential elections. In brief, the history of the office, the text of the Constitution, founding-era debates, and the underlying logic of the Constitution do not support the view that the Vice President possesses unilateral constitutional authority to resolve electoral vote disputes.

Vice President Harris and Demographic Trends

 Kim Parker and Amanda Barroso at Pew note that Vice President Kamala Harris embodies several demographic trends:

Harris has a multiracial background. Her mother was South Asian and her father is Black. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans who identify as two or more races are one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic groups in the country, along with Asians. Roughly 6.3 million American adults – 2.5% of the adult population – identified as being more than one race in 2019. The number has grown significantly since the census first allowed people to choose more than one racial category to describe themselves in 2000. Among adults who identify as more than one race, relatively few (2.1%) are Black and Asian.
...

Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, one from India and one from Jamaica. The share of immigrants from Asia living in the U.S. has been on the rise in recent decades, following the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. In 2018, Asians made up 28% of the U.S. foreign-born population, up from 4% in 1960. And starting as early as 2010, Asian immigrants outnumbered Hispanic immigrants among new arrivals.

...

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is White, which makes them – as a couple – part of a growing group of intermarried couples. In 2019, 11% of all married U.S. adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3% in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19%) were intermarried.
...

When she married Emhoff – who is divorced and has two children from his previous marriage – Harris became part of a blended family. The American family has evolved considerably in recent decades, and today there is no typical “family.” In 1980, most children younger than 18 lived in a household with two married parents who were in their first marriage. By 2014, fewer than half of U.S. children lived in that type of household. Some 15% lived with parents in a remarriage, 7% lived with cohabiting parents and 26% lived with an unpartnered parent.
...

Harris does not have any biological children of her own. A look at U.S. women at the end of their childbearing years reveals that 15% were childless in 2014, while the majority (85%) had given birth to at least one child. The childlessness rate was down from 20% in 2005 but still higher than the rate prior to the 1990s.
...

Harris married when she was 49 years old, and while this is older than the median age at first marriage, it reflects a trend toward women and men waiting longer to get married. In 2020, the U.S. had its highest median age at first marriage on record – 28.1 for women and 30.5 for men. These numbers have crept up steadily over time. In 2000, the median age at first marriage was 25.1 for women and 26.8 for men. In 1980, the median ages were 22.0 for women and 24.7 for men.
...

Harris and Emhoff are among a growing share of married adults whose spouse does not share their religion. Harris is Christian and attends a Baptist church, and Emhoff is Jewish. While most married adults in the U.S. have a spouse who is the same religion as them, that has become less common in recent decades. Among adults who were married before 1960 (and are still married), only 19% have a spouse who does not share their religion. For those married in the 1980s and ’90s, 30% are in an interfaith marriage. The share has continued to rise: 39% of adults who were married between 2010 and 2014 have a spouse who identifies with a different religious group than their own.

...

Before becoming the first female vice president, Harris served as a U.S. senator. Elected in 2016, Harris joined 20 other women in the U.S. Senate in 2017. This marked a historic high for women; the number rose to 25 in 2019. Now, the Senate has 24 female members, including one Latina woman and two who are Asian-Pacific Islander. There are no Black women currently serving in the Senate. In the House of Representatives, women make up 27.3% of current members. This represents a historic high for that chamber.

Nixon Announces that JFK Has Won

On January 6, 1961, after the official counting of the electoral votes in a joint session of Congress, Vice President Richard Nixon announced the election of his 1960 opponent, John F. Kennedy.

Mr. Speaker,  since this is an unprecedented situation,  I would like to ask permission to impose upon the time of the Members of this Congress to make a statement which in itself is somewhat unprecedented.

I promise to be brief. I shall be guided by the 1-minute rule of the House rather than the unlimited time rule that prevails in the Senate.

This is the first time in 100 years that a candidate for the Presidency announced the result of an election in which he was defeated and announced the victory of his opponent. I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system and of the proud tradition. of the American people of developing, respecting, and honoring institutions of self-government. 

In our campaigns, no matter how hard fought they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict, and support those who win. And I would like to add that, having served now in Government for 14 years, a period which began in the House just 14 years ago, almost to the day, which continued with 2 years in the Senate and 8 years as Vice President, as I complete that 14-year period it is indeed a very great honor to me to extend to my colleagues in the House and Senate on both sides of the aisle who have been elected; to extend to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who have been elected President and Vice President of the United States, my heartfelt best wishes, as all of you work in a cause that is bigger than any man's ambition, greater than any party. It is the cause of freedom, of justice, and peace for all mankind.

It is in that spirit that I now declare that John F. Kennedy has been elected President of the United States, and Lyndon B. Johnson Vice President of the United States.

Members of the Congress, the purpose for which the joint session of the two Houses of Congress has been called pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 1, having been accomplished, the Chair declares the joint session dissolved.

Wikipedia and the Vice Presidency

Micah Sifry writes at TechPresident:

The act of observing something can sometimes change the thing being observed. Case in point: myobservation on Monday that we might be able to get useful clues as to the identity of Mitt Romney's vice president pick by watching for a surge of edits on their Wikipedia page.

Not any more.

Last night, Stephen Colbert played a snippet of a Fox News report noting the jump in last-minute edits to Sarah Palin's page four years ago, and then he went to town. Assuming that Wikipedia edits were the tip-off, he declared, "We could be looking at Vice President Season Six of Buffy-the-Vampire Slayer. So, Nation, let your voice be heard in this history decision. Go on Wikipedia, and make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender." He then proceeded to mime editing Tim Pawlenty's page. (You can find the segment at about 8:40 minutes in, here.)

Well, Rob Portman's page has had 112 edits since Sunday, against 52 for Marco Rubio and just 18 for Pawlenty. But as of last night, the Pawlenty page was locked to protect it from vandalism. In addition, the Portman and Rubio pages have been "semi-protected" by site administrators, which means they can only be edited by registered users. The same thing has been done to the pages for Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and David Petraeus (who got a burst of attention yesterday because of an item on the Drudge Report). That means that only people who have already been on Wikipedia for at least four days and previously made ten edits to other unprotected pages can edit these pages.