Posted on 07/30/2004 3:41:11 PM PDT by Mean Spirited Conservative
12 Amendment:
"The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.--The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
Several recent electoral projections have shown a 269-269 split. There are many combinations that are possible that would create this split. One I remember from playing with the electoral calculator is that Florida could go for Kerry but Oregon and Washington could go for Bush. All other states vote as they did in 2000. That's obviously Plausible, all three states were less than 1% in the last election I think. Obviously Florida was a lot less (600 votes out of millions!). I think the chances are low but not lottery ticket low.
The Dems would use fillibuster type dirty tricks. First they would try to break the quorum requirement by having 1/3+1 of 50 states not show up to vote. 33.3 is 2/3 of 50. Already we see grounds for Democratic legalistic arguments.
Also how does a "split state" decide to cast it's vote. Even the simple expedient of simple majority is not called. Obviously some Lani Grannier types will suggest proportional voting, or caucus based voting, or 2/3 majority of the state.
So say it is 34 to win. That means if the Dems control 17 states they can prevent the quorum and therefore the election in the house. One only has to look at their behaviour vis-a-vis the Supreme Court to KNOW they would try it.
Also, the list above is far short of the 33/34 states needed to make a quorum. THIS COULD BE MORE FUN THAN 2000 BOYS AND GIRLS. Buy lots of drinks and chips, it could be another long month in front of the TV !!!
I'm not so sure. In fact I think it would be the 108th. Yet another thing to argue about. How long do the terms run? Because there are "lame duck" sessions right? The Constitution says "immediately". Which, to me at least, implies the sitting Congress not the elected one does the job. YET ANOTHER THING TO SUE OVER !
Why the new House? See my previous post.
Because the election is not over (not tied, in your example) until the new Congress meets in joint session and counts the electoral votes.
They thought of everything.
United States Code Title 3, Section 15----Congress meets on January 6th in a joint session. This is after the new folks are sworn in.
A quorum is fairly simple to obtain. If even one member of a state delegation is present then that state is considered present--per the 12th Amendment. I'm sure there are some states without republican reps, but there can't be more than one or two---so no danger of not having a quorum.
1.) The District of Columbia gets three electoral votes via the 23rd Amendment, but does not get a second bite at the apple when any Presidential election has to go to the House for resolution, as ONLY States voting as Delegations have a say at that point.
2.) The 'Quorum' problem you mention would not be one for two reasons. The first is that it would only take ONE Republican present to vote for his State if all the Democrats sat out the special session. In the current House of the 108th Congress there are 7 States which have NO Republican Representatives and there are 8 States with NO Democrats as Representatives. To prevent a quorum in this situation for the next House in the 109th Congress, there would have to be 26 State delegations with no Republicans, and if that condition were met, then the Democrats would control enough delegations to elect their own candidate. Secondly, there is NO other business before the House but electing a President. No other business may be taken up until there is a new President. I don't think that anyone would try to out wait the American public in that case.
3.) The current House of the 108th Congress would NOT be the one to witness the count the Electoral College votes for President, and if no majority was to be had then vote on a new President by State delegation. That duty would belong only to the newly elected House of the 109th Congress which is seated in January 6th of 2005.
4.) If a State delegation is 'tied', then it just votes 'present' during any Presidential voting in the House.
Below is a data table for the current House of the 108th Congress as of the date of this post. I would expect that Texas would move from a tie to solid Republican, for 31 Republican delegations. There may be some other shifts in the composition of some other State delegations, but I do not see the House of the 109th Congress having any fewer than the necessary 26 delegations necessary to re-elect President Bush if the House would have to make the choice.
US House - 108th Congress
by State
by Delegations
Source: Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives OFFICIAL LIST OF MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES
Hope this helps...
dvwjr
Thanks to you and others for the excellent fact based answers.
Well, maybe not everything. Senate only comes into play in the highly unlikely event House ties on VP. Twelth Amendment shrinks the list from 5 to three. Twentieth Amendmedment puts a patch on it, "the Vice President-elect shall ACT as President until a President shall have qualified." Twentieth, by the way actually confuses things a bit, in that it says "and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President nor a Vice-President shall have qualified declaring who shall then ACT as President, or the manner in which one who is to ACT shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice-President shall have qualified."
Congress? Which body, House or Senate or joint session? Care to watch the bodies fly as the nine wise robes untangle that language? Whoever gets elected, pray for his health between Nov. and Christmas or the Florida debacle will seem like a tea party
The Senate Dems would probably pick John McCain to appear bi-partisan and then the Arizona gov would install a Dem replacement. They could sit back and laugh at how much trouble McCain is causing the President. That would suck.
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