Al Gore should resign as VP.

Great Debates
1

I am not a Constitutional scholar, but assuming this election ever gets to the Electoral College, Al Gore should no longer be the Vice President–or at least recuse himself. Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily.com points out:
**
[/QUOTE]

Who is it, under the Constitution, that is specifically charged with certifying the Electoral College votes of each state? You guessed it. The president of the U.S. Senate, which also happens to be the vice president of the United States. That’s right. The day those Electoral College votes go to the Senate to be counted and certified to choose the next president of these United States, Al Gore will be holding all the cards. **
[/QUOTE]

You can read the entire article here.

2

Who is it, under the Constitution, that is specifically charged with certifying the Electoral College votes of each state? You guessed it. The president of the U.S. Senate, which also happens to be the vice president of the United States. That’s right. The day those Electoral College votes go to the Senate to be counted and certified to choose the next president of these United States, Al Gore will be holding all the cards. **
[/QUOTE]

You can read the entire article here.

Well, he doesn’t have to resign. He could, however, not vote in the interest of fairness and leave the matter a tie to be hashed out by the Senate.

Zev Steinhardt

**
[/QUOTE]

3

It would be great if Al Gore resigned, but like his
mentor, Bill Clinton, that doesn’t appear to be the
way it’s going to turn out.

In fact, there’s a vision from 1971, updated in 1992,
that shows Gore becoming president amidst great
confusion. It’s posted at:

http://kingdomgospel.com

4

He would have to be nuts to do either one. Why should he not be able to vote for himself? There is no underhanded hanky-panky going on. Everyone knows what the issues are. Any other Democrat would vote for Gore (if it comes down to that situation) so why should he be handycapped by the fact that he hapens to be the VP?

5

gore should read the results of the ecv after being “frisked” for writing instruments.

6

IzzyR–

The point, I think, is that Gore will be able to certify–or deny certification of–the EC votes. No one else has any say in the matter.

7

Does that mean that he could “decertify” with no legal grounds and that no one could stop him? Could Nixon have “decertified” Kennedy? Or, for that matter, could Quayle have “decertified” Clinton? Seems hard to believe.

8

I don’t know. Nothing is hard to believe these days! :slight_smile:

9

What?!?

You missread. Gore doesn’t vote. He doesn’t break any ties. He just stands in front of a joint meeting of Congress and counts them. Quayle counted his losing votes in '92. Carter’s VP (Mondale?) did it in '80. Gore would have done it in '96 if he and Clinton lost.

Its not a big deal. The votes arrived sealed. He opens them in front of 538 people. Relax. Everything will be fine. No one needs to resign.

10

Well the question is if two sets of votes arrive, one with the Gore Florida electors and one with the Bush ones.

11

Conner–

You’re right, Gore doesn’t vote. There is no vote. And when I look at the US Constitution I don’t see anything about the Veep “certifing” the EC vote. Maybe Mr Farah is looking too deep for demons.

12

No. While rocking chair’s humorous comment about keeping writing instruments away from Gore during the opening of the votes would “protect” the country from Gore changing a ballot, the Vice-President has no Constitutional authority to certify or de-certify those ballots.

The Constitution says only that (Amendment XII)

The VP’s only task is to open the sealed list of votes in the presence of the combined houses of Congress so that the votes may be counted. He has no further authority.
Joseph Farah appears to be a crank (and a dim one).
kingdomgospel.com, if Clinton doesn’t get run off or run over pretty soon, your “vision” that he will not serve his entire term of office is going to be in error.

You’ve only got eight weeks for this to happen (and it’s a pretty cheap prophecy that waits until he’s a lame duck with no scheduled sessions of Congress before it comes true). < eg >

13

If Gore were to, as President of the Senate, fail to give the certification in accordance with the Constitution and the relevant federal law (see Title 3 of the United States Code), he would be subject to impeachment and would probably be impeached almost instantly.

There are procedures for dealing with disputes over the authenticity of any state’s electoral votes, but Gore’s role as President of the Senate is merely administrative in those procedures, and in any case if a dispute does arise both parties and the media will be all over it. There’s no way that anyone would dream of resolving the dispute other than consistent with the law Congress has already enacted on the issue.

14

**tomndebb

**

Are you going to feel a little spooked if Clinton does not finish his 3rd term? :slight_smile:

And remember…there is a supposed Indian “curse” where every president elected in a year that is a multiple of 10 will die in office.

I have never got anyone to explain to me if Reagan broke this curse, or just survived it.

15

Freedom2, nah, I can guarantee that Clinton will not die during his third term. As to his second, anything can happen to anybody. The world is full of coincidence. (And as I noted, it doesn’t seem to be powerful juju to bring down a lame duck.)

The presidential curse was that every president elected in a year evenly divisible by 20 would die in office. Reagan clearly broke the “curse” by being elected in 1980 and surviving to the present.

The story went that Tecumseh laid it on William Henry Harrison after Harrison broke up Tecumseh’s coalition of tribes at Tippecanoe. Beginning with Harrison, the following presidents were elected in years divisible by 20 and died in office (but not always in the term for which they were elected in the “20” year):
Harrison, elected 1840, died 1841, disease
Lincoln, elected 1860 & 1864, died 1865, assassination
Garfield, elected 1880, died 1881, assassination
McKinley, elected 1900 & 1896, died 1901, assassination
Harding, elected 1920, died 1923, disease
Roosevelt, elected 1940 & 1932, 1936, 1944, died 1945, disease
Kennedy, elected 1960, died 1963, assassination
Reagan, elected 1980 & 1984, lived

(Reagan was shot in an assassination attempt, but at least four presidents have been targets of assassins without dying.)

Problems with the Tecumseh curse:
Tecumseh died in 1813, but his “curse” missed James Monroe who was elected in 1820, “waiting” for Harrison, 20 years after that.
The whole notion of the “Tecumseh curse” was first reported in the 1970’s (although the “20 year” bad luck streak had been noted earlier).

16

Reagan was arguably brain-dead by the middle of his second term, though. :slight_smile:

Also, it should be noted that Harrison died of pneumonia contracted on the day of his inauguration. He should have known better to give a long-winded speech on a cold and dreary day.

17

Just for the record- every presidential election year which is a multiple of 10 is also evenly divisible by 20.