I’m researching for my mother who is having a debate with her colleagues at work on whether a state can recall one of their U.S. senators. Of course, this was brought up by the news that Sen. Jeffords of Vermont is abandoning the Republican party to become an independent. Can the voters of Vermont, if unhappy by such a move, issue a ballot recall to try and remove him as their representative (lower-case ‘r’)?
From my searches around the internet, the best I could find was someone’s post on some random message board about the possibilities of New York recalling Hillary. The poster stated that the U.S. Constitution states that only the Senate can cast out one of their own and that there are no recall provisions. I checked out the 17th Amendment, which provides for the popular election of Senators, but can’t find any clause that this person is writing about. Can anyone find (or be) a more definitive source?
I was posting about this earlier on another board. I love it when candidates switch parties. Let this be a lesson to all of you who vote along party lines rather than the issues or the candidate. You reap what you sow.
What does that mean, exactly? Was there a candidate in that race who was more conservative than Jeffords? I don’t know much about Vermont politics, but I have a feeling that those who might have voted for Jeffords along Republican party lines wouldn’t have wanted the Democratic candidate.
There are no provisions for the citizens of a state to recall their senator.
A senator can leave office in any of these ways:
[ul]
[li]End of Term[/li][li]Death[/li][li]Resignation[/li][li]Expulsion by a vote of 2/3 of the Senate[/li][/ul]
I’m not aware of any other Constitutionally kosher method of removing a senator from office. A senator could, theoretically, be sitting in jail convicted of bribery, murder, etc., and as long as the rest of the Senate hasn’t gotten around to his official expulsion, then s/he’s still a U.S. Senator.
What I mean is, if everyone voted on the issues, or on the character and views of the candidate, instead of voting for the republican or the democrat, then it wouldn’t matter if anyone switched sides. One would of course hope that the elected representative is voting his character and honest view on the issues.
I checked California’s Constitution and it states that the recall is only for state and local officials. However, the voters can recall an elected official for any reason. And out here in California, people have tried to recall people for the flimsiest of reasons.
The Constitution sets out certain qualifications (age, residency, and citizenship). The question is whether these are the only qualifications there can be.
Each house has historically disqualified members for other reasons (Brigham Roberts of Utah was disqualified for being a polygamist, for example). But in 1969, the Supreme Court held this practice to be unconstitutional, in the case of Powell v. McCormack 395 U.S. 486 (1969). So Congress can not add further qualifications than those in the Constitution.
Later, the Supreme Court decided in the case of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton 115 S. Ct. 1842 (1995), that states cannot add further qualifications.
Rather than try to recall Jeffords, I think it’d be fun to try suing the man and destroying him financially. It wouldn’t be the best satisfaction, but it’d be some. Let’s see, I guess “false pretenses” could be considered “fraud.” I guess switching parties could be interpreted as some type of “breech of contract” for which damages could be awarded. Maybe there’s no way to recall the son-of-a-b, but we could try destroying him, his family, and everybody who loves him. After all, that’s fair.
I think Balthisar is turning this into a GD, but I would believe that Jeffords has committed no fraud or breach of contract. You couldn’t make such a charge hold up in court. Elected officials don’t sign contracts. They take oaths. Jeffords’ oath was to uphold the Constitution, not to remain in one particular party.
There didn’t seem to be as much complaining when Sens. Shelby and Campbell switched from Democrat to Republican, although neither of them changed the balance of power.
I think Balthisar is also grossly underestimating the respect that Vermonters have for Jeffords and the extremely strong streak of independence in the Vermont body politic. Remember, this is a state that sends a socialist to Congress as it’s sole member of the House of Representatives. In short, Vermonters seem quite happy http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editorial.dll?eetype=Article&eeid=4615745&render=y&Table=&ck=&ver=2.8 with Jeffords, however much that discomfits GOP activists in the rest of the country.
Originally senators were chosen by state legislatures and the states are given great latitude over how to elect their senators. The US Constitution does not have a recall provision but various states might.
If anything I’ll bet that Jeffords will be more popular with his consituents after the switch than before. Vermont is probably the most liberal state in the country and most of the voters there have no use for the GOP (certainly not the right leaning national GOP).
What I find interesting is that party-switching is hardly a unprecedented event - legislators have switched parties many times before, and it usually passes through the news as only a minor ripple. It’s getting a lot of play in this instance because it changed the balance, but that doesn’t mean it’s any more unethical for Jeffords to switch parties than for Ben “Nighthorse” Campbell, whom BobT mentioned, or Rep Michael Forbes who jumped ship from Republican to Democrat back in 1999. It DOES mean that there were tactical issues for Jeffords to consider that didn’t apply in these other cases, but you can hardly call him dishonest when you consider the precedent.
Strom Thurmond was big news when he switched from a “Dixiecrat” to Republican back in the 60’s, but it didn’t stop him from getting reelected.
With the Senate divided as evenly as it was, it was not unlikely that a death or resignation would tip the balance before 2002. The balance being tipped by a party defection is interesting, but the end result is probably even less important since it doesn’t introduce a new member with a different voting record.
If the standard patterns of American politics hold, there should be a Democratic gain in the 2002 elections anyway, particularly in the House. I don’t remember the current makeup off the top of my head, but I think there’s a narrow enough margin that the Republicans are likely to lose the House majority in 2002.
I should not have quoted Nighthorse, of course. It’s part of his proper name, not a nickname.
And liberal Vermont probably elected him because they liked him better than his opponent, whatever his label. He was a moderate anyway, it’s not like they were electing an arch-conservative.
Many years ago, Republican / Democrat and Liberal / Conservative used to be separate axes. There were such things as “Liberal Republicans” (Nelson Rockefeller, Everett Dirksen).
He hasn’t changed his actual social views in the slightest, sir. His feeling is that the republican party has shifted away from him.
I’m with Muppet on this one. His views haven’t changed, people should vote for their representatives according to their positions on issues, not simply according to what party they’re with. The only real promise that comes with saying you’re a republican or a democrat is who you’ll take money from.
Me too, given the structure of American elections, where we vote primarily for the candidate, not their party affiliation. For better or worse, elections in the US run along the lines of “Vote for Joe Blow”, not “Vote Righteous Lunacy Party”. Unless he makes a big issue of how much he believes the party platform, and continually spouts the party gospel, Joe Blow is not betraying that much trust if he switches parties, or becomes an independent, as Jeffords has.
Jeffords is a centrist who is going to be a moderate in whichever party he’s in. Moderates in the Republican party have cause to be unhappy right now, as the Republican leadership isn’t bending much to accomodate them. You could have said the same thing about the Democrats a decade ago - the Democratic leadership at that time was not accomodating THEIR moderates very well. They realized they had to rectify that, and a “New Democrat” took the White House.
If our structure was Parlimentarian you might have a point. The message in elections in the UK or Canada IS more “Vote Hidebound Orthodoxy” or whatever.
This concerns Vermont, and has nothing to do with Senators, but some of you seem well informed, so…
Vermont is known as one of the best places for gun owners to live because of the fact that concealed carry (even for out of staters) is totally legal, with very few restrictions. The crime rate is LOW, one of the lowest in the nation from the stats I read.
How do these gun laws square with LouisXIV’s opinion that “it may be the most liberal state in the nation?” The two don’t normally mix well. I’m not trying to rile up a debate, I’m just genuinely curious as to the situation in Vermont.
Prez What you do is open a separate thread concerning your question. That way you don’t hijack this one. Your question seems sincere, so go for it.
If you are trying to equate Vermont’s gun laws with a lack of crime, then I might suggest you open this in another forumn. Unless, that is, you can offer statistics and be dispassionate about your conclusions.