And why should POTUS have the authority to grant pardons after the presidential election is over?? Should’t that authority be limited to campaign time, when the voters can meaningfully respond to such action?
Lame Duck Reform
[We think alike!]
I actually recommended lame duck reform on Super Tuesday:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3222955/posts
One week for the lame ducks, and during that week, only a 3/4 vote in both Senate and House would pass any emergency bills. So emergency legislation is still possible for the lame duck, but only with wild support. After all, it’s just one week.
And BTW, that ties nicely with congressional modernization:
GOP lawmaker seeks ‘virtual Congress’ with telecommuting plan [STOP WITH BUSINESS AS USUAL!]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3222118/posts
[That would make a rapid lame duck transition ten times more smooth.]
More about ‘lame ducks’, I posted earlier that John Adams was appointed during the Federalist Party’s lame duck session.
[Yeah, right after the Sedition Acts.]
He wrote the opinion, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” And that went a long way to opening Commerce Clause interpretation. Since taxing is destruction, then theoretically, why not simply destroy? And with the threat of destruction, you hold ALL the power.
But Mark Levin’s ‘Men in Black’ described John Marshall’s opinion as judicious. Marshall did admit that they were walking a tightrope of interpretation that could unravel. And that occurred after FDR threatened to pack the supreme Court.
‘The senator is still elected, but the governor is also responsible for the senator - so if the governor has a problem with unfunded mandates blowing up his budget and/or “forcing” him to raise taxes, the people’s response would be, “your guy in the senate voted for that mandate, you are the cause of this mess.”’
There's a lot of truth in the idea of accountability. And maybe governors are more visible than state legislators. It would be worth considering that governors rather than legislators vote for the ‘Chief State Executive’.
[And I'm not really thrilled with ‘Chief state executive’ as a name, BTW. Chief Executive sounds tyrannical.]
Because whoever votes for the Chief is now doing something about federal problems, including the courts. And then to argue that the Chief should be replaced — same thing.
No where for the state politician to hide on ANY issue or even any bad court ruling.