Shaping the Presidency Part I

ArticleVBlog ^ | August 5th 2019 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

Not until the waning days of the Philadelphia Convention did our Framers complete their plan of the Electoral College. In contrast, Article I elections to Congress and Article III appointments to the Scotus were taken care of weeks before. What took so long to determine Article II electors?

The answer is that the Constitution isn’t linear. In a linear design, adding or amending one clause, one Section, one Article doesn’t affect previous clauses, Sections and Articles. In contrast, our Constitution is non-linear. It more resembles a puzzle in which the authority of one branch necessarily affects the power and reach of the other two branches. So it was in 1787 with the design of the Executive.

Delegates found enough difficulty thrashing out the particulars of a Legislature and a Judiciary, whose purposes and general structures were familiar to generations of Americans. What about a chief Executive? How many? Rome did quite well for much its history with two consuls. Annual or multi-year terms? How many terms? Maybe a life term like English monarchs? Should the Executive be subservient to the Legislature? Was he strictly an administrator, an executor of the law like most state governors? Should he lead armies? Popular election? Election by the state governors? English monarchs had Privy Councils, so why not the American CEO?

[snip]

Just as the Framers’ experience under the Articles of Confederation showed that committees weren’t suited to Executive power, and our experience since 1913 proves that popularly elected senators cannot fulfill their Constitutional duties, so too is the National Popular Vote an unwise, ill-considered and destructive proposal. If carried out, I fear it will doom the remains of our republic.