I’m concerned that Bush will suspend the Presidental Election in november. Can he do this?If he can, what can be done to prevent it from happening?
Right. Ya know, there was a whole bunch of stupid Republicans saying in 2000 that Clinton was gonna do the same thing. And when that didn’t happen, they said he’d simply refuse to vacate the office. Do ya remember what actually happened, tho’? Despite the hotly contested election results, despite the emotionally charged subsequent court rulings, despite even the wild and outrageous fear-mongering of the most fervent idiot ideologues, there was a rather peaceful (and I’d even add amicable, except for the bullshit accusations of wholesale destruction of government office equipment made by the incoming administration members) transition.
A stable democracy is a pretty nice thing, eh? I suggest you get on board.
Oh yeah, your post is in the wrong forum. I’ve asked the staff to move it the forum the consider most appropriate. It’s a toss-up what they’ll decide.
First off, Jack, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board.
Secondly, please go back to our front page and read the forum categories over again; you put your query in the wrong place.
Lastly, while the President can do a lot of things, we are not (yet, even) at a place or a time where a President can suspend the rule of law. This ain’t some tinhorn republic, you know, and some common sense thought about this should make that clear.
I am moving this thread to General Question, the more appropriate place for it.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
We had normal election cycles throughout WWII, do you really think we’d have call to suspend election now?
Haj
Hell, we even had elections in the middle of the Civil War, with armies marching up and down the continent.
McClellen lost, by the way.
You might also want to read THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. It’s admirably short, mostly clear, and a useful source of answers to questions about the government.
Note that there is no mechanism to cancel elections in it, and that the President swears or affirms that he “will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
And Congress can vote to impeach and convict the President if he does try to do something massively illegal. This is called “checks and balances,” which you probably missed in social studies.
Sorry if we’re all coming down very hard on you, but this isn’t a question to be taken lightly.
<hijack>
Unfortunately, that isn’t correct. Meet, for example, Jose Padilla:
A US citizen detained 20 months ago on the US mainland and without access to lawyers and/or the constitution for that entire period at the whim of the president.
Yep, that detention is now being challenged in the Supreme Court (and the Adminstration is resisting), but the case is not decided.
*"Mr Padilla has been held in a naval facility in Charleston, South Carolina, since June 2002, a month after his arrest.
He has been unable to meet defence lawyers or challenge his detention because he is regarded as a threat to national security.
He is thought to be the only US citizen since World War II to be detained on a presidential order. "*
<end hijack>
Elections are held by the states, not the federal government. And the electoral votes are tabulated and certified by Congress, not the Executive Branch. The president plays no official part in the process, and could not suspend elections even if he wanted to. This is one of the benefits of having a federal system of government.
“Lastly, while the President can do a lot of things, we are not (yet, even) at a place or a time where a President can suspend the rule of law.”
Uhm, there’s this thing called Martial Law that can be invoked. Plus, a lot of Presidents have suspended a lot of laws. Consider what happened to the Air Traffic Controllers. While not an election, there was certainly a violation of law. And our current so-called owes a lot of his heritage to that one.
“We had normal election cycles throughout WWII, do you really think we’d have call to suspend election now?”
Well a statesman named FDR was President back then. Now there’s a schrub in the White House.
Actually, in the event that a national emergency resulted in the declaration of a state of affairs where an election could not be held (and, as noted, situations much worse than anything impending didn’t stop them in the past), the Constitution and statute law provide very clearly what happens:
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney serve up until noon, January 20, 2005, when their terms expire. Since no President or Vice President has qualified, succession to the Presidency passes to the next in order under the Presidential Succession Act, which is either the President Pro Tempore of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives – I forget which is first in line under the current statute – and he holds office until a successor shall have qualified, i.e., until an election can be held and electors selected.
It would be quite reasonable for state legislatures to supersede the popular vote process for choosing electors if a national emergency made holding an election impossible, and themselves choose the electors – which might even result in a choice for President following the original intent of the Founding Fathers!
If a president attempted to impose martial law and suspend elections in the United States, the country’s standing in the world community would sink to less than zero. This would put the U.S. in a position of having less democracy than Russia which would be delightfully ironic considering the way 20th Century played out.
The best precedent for why there will be an election this November is the 1864 Presidential election. Hundreds of thousands of Americans had been killed and hundreds of thousands were still fighting when the election went on.
Unless the U.S. has a “Red Dawn” scenario, I fully plan on heading to the polls this November.
And finally, just what would be in it for Bush to try to prevent an election? What would he gain? Either politically or personally?
It would seem to me that the more competent the person, the more likely it would be that they could pull something like this off. A lot of people think that GWB can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. That’s one thing he does have in common with FDR.
Haj
I really shouldn’t be laughing at this, but I just can’t help myself.
Yeah, that was good.
And I will bet anyone here, anything they care to, that we have elections in November.
Yes, let’s consider what happened to them. There certainly was a violation of law - by the air traffic controllers.
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Federal law says that no-one can hold a position with the Government of the United States if he/she advocates striking, or actually does strike. See: United States Code, Title 5, § 7311 (3).
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Air traffic controllers go on strike.
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Air traffic controllers are federal employees.
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President Reagan fires all striking air traffic employees, because they are in breach of federal law and it is his sworn duty to uphold the laws of the United States.
Wanna play again?
While my partisan self believes that the Bush Administration has entertained the notion, the simple truth is that any attempts by the President to suspend the elections(*) would be political suicide – everyone across the political spectrum would unite in opposing the suspension, carrying on with the election, and wondering what Bush was thinking when he pushed for such a thing.
(* = Okay, I suppose if a 9/11-style terrorist attack occurred in the United States the day before the election, he might have a chance of making the suspension stick. But that’d require a conspiracy so big that you’d need a tin-foil hat the size of Staples Center to believe it.)
Personally, I’d be more concerned about Diebold electronic voting machines…
It’s left-wing porn.
A similar rumor went around during and after Nixon’s term that he had looked into cancelling the 1972 elections. He’d even commisioned a study by the Rand Corp., so the rumor claimed.
And it’s not limited to the left: during Clinton’s term, a co-worker of mine would regularly come in to work in the morning, beaming with the ‘scoop’ straight from talk radio that, “Clinton’s declaring martial law, any day now”.
For some people, it’s a form of therapy.
First, a BIG thanks for the OP for asking this question. Next, we do need more light shed on this issue.
a) Ah! But, we had a Democrat in the White House! Do you actually trust/believe Bush? His credibility ishighly questionable! At least, instead of asking us to “read my lips” about Iraqi weapons, he had the military already in place! I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him! Who knows what he’d try to pull in an election year.
b) I don’t understand the posted reply saying Clinton didn’t stop the elections, but… we weren’t at war, either. (Isn’t this the first declared war since WWII?) I haven’t had time to dig deeper, but a friend of mine claims the President can stop an election during war times (hence the quoted remark’s ref to WWII)? Is this for real? What Amendment should I review to find this?
- Jinx, just trying to keep a job
Q: What makes a good TV News Reporter?
A: The ability to speak of “economic recovery” AND job cuts all in the same breath!
I could see Bush declaring Martial Law and indeffenetely delaying the election (assuming his #'s are still low). Wouldn’t people ignite in protest? There’s plenty of precident that they wouldn’t. After the 2000 elections, nearly any European I talked to would say ‘why aren’t people en mass taking to the streets?’. Somehow, that’s just not done here (besides those damn Hippy treehuggers, but at least they don’t amount to much). What would be needed for mass protests in the streets? Rolling back civil liberties 30 years? Holding American citizens without the safeguards of the constitution? No. I’m not sure what would be needed to make every Joe-American take notice and protest. Not that we’d have the opportunity to protest. After Martial Law is declared, the government can seize all communciations, transportation, and civil services. Get ready to report to the Post Office for ‘work detail.’
BTW - the ‘Executive Orders’ that Bush used to declare Padilla an enemy combatant are ENTIRELY EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL! An executive ‘declaring’ a law into effect! No judicial oversight or review. Not only that, but some Executive Orders are secret. Secret Laws. That’s just great.
When I was in college (late 70s) a friend of mine insisted his history professor told him that story about Nixon wanting to keep the Viet Nam War going so he could suspend the 1976 elections and stay in office. He said his prof said there was such a federal law running around. I tried pointing out such facts as the the War ending a few weeks after Nixon was reinaugurated and the Constitution and trivialities such as that, but he adamantly believed what he’d been told.
And I wouldn’t worry about Bush declaring Martial Law. He can’t do it. That power is reserved to the legislature. It’s in the constitution (look for “suspending the writ of habeaus corpus”). Yes, I know Lincoln did declare martial law, but the courts eventually ruled that he wasn’t allowed to do it.