Obviously nothing do with recent political events here In most democracies, there is a means to force an early election, if the ruling party has screwed up so badly it has “lost the confidence” of the electorate (as represented by parliament, etc.). Typically this is in the form of a Vote of No Confidence, which (if the ruling party loses) will usually result in a general election.
Does the US have anything similar? As I understand it impeachment of the president simply results in the vice president taking over (this is what happened when Nixon resigned). Is there absolutely no constitutional way the next general election will happen before November 2020?
No. Historical experience tells us that even civil war in which roughly half the states try to leave the union will not lead to an early election. We will have congressional elections in 2018 and a presidential election in 2020.
No confidence votes only works in parliamentary democracies, where elections are random anyway. The theory is the prime minister rules at the invitation of the King/Queen (president in Italy or Israel, etc.) If the house no longer has confidence in the PM, then either the next largest party gets a shot, or (usually once it’s been a while since the last election) the head of state will, on advice of the PM, call an election. Theoretically the Queen could ask anyone to be Prime Minister - but the odds nobody other than the head of the biggest party would get the confidence of the house except under very unusual circumstances.
basically, this happens because the prime minister and members of parliament are under the authority of the head of state. In a setup like the US, nobody else controls the office of president, it answers to nobody except under impeachment. So without an explicit recall mechanism, the only choice is to follow the order of succession. Prez is out? VP takes over. And so on… Considering (IIRC) it’s never gotten beyond the VP except in fiction, it’s pretty safe.
The US doesn’t have a parliamentary system, there is simply no such thing as a general election in the US, the president isn’t picked from the party with a majority in congress the way a prime minister is. Since there’s no mechanism to even have a general election in the US, there’s no mechanism to have one early. And since there is no ‘ruling party’ in the US, there’s no equivalent of a vote of no confidence. Representatives serve 2-year terms and face reelection every 2 years, senators serve six year terms and have staggered reelections so only 1/3 come up for reelection at a time, and presidents serve a 4 year term and are what people usually think of as a ‘general election’ since the 2-year elections don’t get as much press. But all of those are for fixed terms, other than incapacity or impeachment there’s no getting rid of someone before their term is up.
While the Constitution says 4 year term for PotUS, it doesn’t specify an actual election date.
The current election date was set by law in 1845 and can be changed.
In theory, Congress+President could pass a law setting the election for the term beginning 2020 as, for example, May 1st 2019. Or May 1st 2017! (Although I suspect the Supremes would nix anything this extreme. But with suitable court appointees, this can be gotten around.)
So the election could be held quite early, but the term starts at the usual point.
I don’t know what you’re getting at here, if you’re talking about assassination that’s covered by incapacity as a dead person isn’t capable of holding office any more.
Not at the national level, as previously explained.
A number of the states under their respective consitututions have what is called a* recall*, by which upon enough petitions being filed a specific official whose post is created under the state constitution or law is put before the voters to judge if s/he will be allowed to complete the term, or be replaced. This applies only to the specific office affected and does not have the effect of triggering a general election. Most notable in recent time were the failed recall of Scott Walker as governor of Wisconsin, and the succesful recall of California governor Gray Davis leading to his replacement by Arnold Scharzenegger. In both cases the law in the respective state required that alternate candidates to finish the outgoing governor’s term be nominated simultaneously to the recall.
The 25th amendment does no such thing, it doesn’t even use the word ‘incapacity’ or any variation of it. It also doesn’t touch on any of the other elected federal positions that would be included in something like a general election. I’m not sure why people are deciding to argue weird ,incredibly nitpicky bits of English usage especially when they’re wrong about it, but that’s the internet for you.
??? It certainly does allow the congress to deal with incapacity of the president.
It allows for congress to decide, requiring 2/3rd majority, to invoke permanent succession after 4 days notice to the current president. That is, the president has 4 days to to prepare to convince at least a third of congress he should still be president, or that he can recover . The mention of 21 days in the amendment does suggest that his recovery should occur within 21 days, but nothing would prevent invocations of the sections of the 25th Amendment back to back, there’s no prohibition of section 4 being invoked immediately at the expiry of 21 the days period section 4 allows section 4 to sit with congress…
This lack of protection from repeat use of section 4 … means that the vice president and cabinet could have the President effectively sidelined for 21-25 day periods back to back, effectively permanently. A supreme court could decide that its wrong to use section 4 if the President isn’t actually incapacitated …
Because " their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President." does kind of imply that the president must actually be unable to discharge the powers and duties… right ?
Early presidential elections have been floated as a solution for a vacancy in the presidency, but vacancies are much less likely now that the 25th Amendment allows the vice president to be replaced. Although the idea last went around in 1974, after the 25th Amendment was ratified, when it was beginning to look like Nixon might not last long enough to replace Spiro Agnew.
It does not, however, make it clear that incapacity is ‘different than death’, or otherwise make it incorrect to use ‘incapacity’ to cover all of the cases of the president losing the capacity to hold office.
There is the possibility of an early specialelection to seat a member of Congress to fill a vacancy. Usually that is due to a death or resignation of the member of Congress but could occur if someone is expelled from Congress upon a two thirds vote of the appropriate chamber.
Some states allow for the governor to appoint someone to a vacant Senate seat but others call an early special election.
And sometimes the vacancy occurs with such timing that the next general election is the most suitable means of filling the vacancy. Such was the case when representative Michael Myers (D-PA) was expelled on October 2, 1980 from the House of Representatives on a vote fo 376 to 30 due to accepting a bribe in the ABSCAM scandal. He was defeated in the ensuing general election that occurred about a month later.
So, in theory, a misbehaving member of Congress could be expelled by his/her colleagues resulting in an early election. However a president who is impeached and convicted would be removed from office and the vacancy filled without a special election.
In most democracies, there is a means to force an early election, if the ruling party has screwed up so badly it has “lost the confidence” of the electorate (as represented by parliament, etc.). Typically this is in the form of a Vote of No Confidence, which (if the ruling party loses) will usually result in a general election.