Not quite sure how I feel about this (via Sullivan.)
Yet while Americans complain about Hosni Mubarak’s plan to replace himself as president of Egypt with Mubarak Junior, roll their eyes at Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, the son of the late President Hafez al-Assad, and giggle at North Korea’s Kim to Kim dynastic communism, we are about to hold a presidential election that may extend a sequence that gives the land of the free four years of George H.W. Bush, eight years of William Clinton, eight years of George W. Bush, son of, and the start of eight years of Hillary Clinton, wife of.
So, how about a constitutional amendment?
Section 1. No spouse, sibling or child of an elected or appointed federal, state or local official outside the civil service may immediately succeed that official in the same elected or appointed office.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation, including exempting certain elected or appointed offices from its general proscription and defining the term “immediately succeed” to prevent circumventions.
I would be in favor of a law, not an amendment, to limit who can be appointed to certain positions. But that’s it. I’m certainly tired of hearing the names Bush and Clinton. I bet many of you, whether you’re Hillary supporters or Bush supporters, are tired of hearing those names in American politics too. But the fact is, America elects its leaders, and the people should get to decide. If America elects Hillary Clinton in 2008, it will be a choice they made – not an imposition. To compare Hillary’s potential election to succession of Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Assad, etc, is nuts. The people in those countries don’t get to decide. My guess is anyone in North Korea, Egypt, or Syria who heard us complaining about “dynasty” would just roll their eyes and wish they had it so good.
cleek
given the way the primary process works, and the amount of big money from big donors that’s required, it’s clearly debatable whether the people really have any say at all in it.
cleek
(ok,ok, “…at all..” is too strong. we do get to choose from the machine appointed options)
Wilfred
Cleek is right. It’s naive to think that real choices still exist in American politics.
Nancy Irving
Our problem is not with dynasties, but with brand-names.
It’s the difference between feudalism and decadent late capitalism.
dslak
Would you agree that your arguments against banning dynasticism would also apply to term limits? I know I would, and I’m opposed to those, too.
Xenos
What a lousy amendment. “Immediately Succeed”? Like that is the problem here? Clinton will not immediately succeed Clinton, nor did 43 immediately succeed 41. What is Fein opposed to here, Peronism? That hardly seems to be a realistic risk.
And while there is a serious problem with nepotism and favoritism in appointed positions, is anyone aware of such a case where a spouse or child was place in a position immediately like this?
Mucking around with the constitution on behalf of such speculation is absurd.
Incertus (Brian)
So let’s say that Laura was running and this amendment was in force–if she divorced King George the Lesser before the election, she’d be cool to run?
I expect this sort of idiocy from Grover Norquist, but I’m really disappointed in Bruce Fein.
jake
Not meant as snark: If Hilary started using Rodham again would you have less of a problem? You wouldn’t be hearing the name Clinton any more. (Of course she can’t do this because the Speculation-o-tronic would go into over drive discussing the Clenis and the Clagina’s sex life, possibility of divorce, her cleavage…)
Egggsactleeee! Anyway, we know that elections are determined by Diebold these days.
4tehlulz
If the Clintons weren’t involved, I doubt that many people would even care about this.
Andrew
I don’t want Clinton to win because I don’t like her policies. On the other hand, I want Clinton to win because she’ll make the right go even more bat shit insane simply because she is a Clinton. So, pencil me into the camp of people who are diametrically opposed to this amendment.
Plus, it’s supported by Grover Freaking Norquist, so sensible people should oppose this idea without even hearing the details.
The Other Steve
All right fine. If that’s true, let’s go back to the pre-72 model.
We got much better Presidential candidates back when they were selected in a smoke filled room, then when we let the people select them.
God, I so hate ignorant whiners.
The Other Steve
Trent Lott is resigning to spend more time with his front porch.
ATS
I’d hate to have been deprived of the Roosevelts. But then, as I recall, it was Eleanor who was TR’s niece. Franklin was only a 5th cousin.
Then too, TR was GOP (of a more appealing vintage) and FDR was the Dem of Dems.
I expect clan gatherings could get chilly, but no one called anyone a traitor. We owe that charming tendency to Newt and his porcine progeny.
Notorious P.A.T.
given the way the primary process works, and the amount of big money from big donors that’s required, it’s clearly debatable whether the people really have any say at all in it
Oh come on, Hillary Clinton gave a controversial speech at her college and was named one of the country’s 100 most influential lawyers, so naturally the American people would rise up and demand she be president even if she didn’t have a huge political machine behind her.
jake
I have a better idea:
Section 1: No one shall be appointed to a government position simply because they worked for the political party of the current president, dislike certain Supreme Court rulings and can recite sections of any given collection of religious writings.
Section 2: Anyone so appointed for the above stated reasons shall have to immediately resign and return all earnings upon being discovered. Tar and feathers shall be applied at the discretion of the general populace.
Section 3: Grover Norquist shall be forced to wear a sign stating “I am an enormous ass.” Just because.
Libby Spencer
I’m vaguely sympathetic to the reasoning behind it but I’m against amending the constitution to acheive it. I think the energy would be better spent in reforming the electoral system so we can depend on a verifed vote.
RSA
As usual, Grover Norquist sees a nail and wants to pound it in with a suitcase nuke.
What a strange solution to the problem he sees. The political game is rigged? I know, let’s take away some of the choices. Someone of a more libertarian bent might suggest that leveling the playing field for other candidates would be a better solution.
demimondian
No, Grover Norquist wants to use the fact that he and his got an incompetent nepot elected President to bar the possible ascension of another Clinton, whom he fears, because he knows she is as smart as her husband, and as competent as they come.
Of course, the question of whether she can devolve power effectively enough to make the Federal bureaucracy actually work is still open. I’m not at all convinced she can, and without significant executive experience of hers to look at, we can’t guess accurately.
jenniebee
He’s not even trying to bar her, he’s trying to get people talking about a strawman issue. It’s a very similar strategy to the one that worked against her husband: if Scaife, Norquist, and everybody they pay keep blowing smoke, they will convince some people that there must be a fire there somewhere.
Xenos
Simply letting the bureaucracies run themselves, without constant meddling by political enforcers from the White House, would be a tremendous improvement. A better long-term system of management oversight is needed, as Congress can not be relied upon to do its job.
Whatever happened with Al Gore’s ‘Reinventing Government’ program? Any conclusions as to whether it amounted to anything?
El Cid
Taking the role of money out of elections would serve much the same purpose, e.g., a federal level Clean Elections act for public financing.
Not to mention that zero suggestions by Andrew Sullivan about anything should be considered for even a moment.
Mike
Next come the amendment about people who grew up and were educated in foreign countries. Purely on neutral principles, of course.
The Other Steve
Let’s see… 100 years, 20 campaign finance reform bills later, and…
all we have are cries of “This time for sure!”
The Other Steve
People named after Grover on Sesame Street, ought not be talking politics.
John Cole
No.
No laws telling me who I can’t vote for (and yes, I am aware folks not born in the US can not run for President).
The Other Steve
It had some effect, I believe.
I worked for govt… at the state level but we got our funding from USDA.
Most of the problems have to do with oversight laws that treat employees like children. The end result is employees act like children.
I don’t have an answer to that. Obviously you don’t want fraud, but the stuff put in place to prevent fraud makes everything twice as expensive to do.
I often wonder, if maybe we just need a death penalty as a deterrant. That is, here’s the rules… step outside the rules and your career is over. I’m sure that would be hard to enforce as well.
capelza
Of course the obvious…why didn’t this “need” arise in 2000, 1999?
And as for laws like this and term limits…it’s a “Stop me from voting for who I want, I can’t help myself”.
Zifnab
I wish even that were true. But if Congress were to fast track this legislation tomorrow, it still wouldn’t be passed in time to actually stop Clinton from ascending to Presidency.
Legislation, amendment, whatever, a Democratic Congress isn’t going to cock block its own strongest candidate on the eve of a national election. Norquist is just trying to reclaim the mantle of “respectability” that Republicans have frittered away for the last twelve years. And his attempt just happens to be lamer than usual.
That said,
Cleek has a point. Who are we seriously kidding? You think its an accident that we’re seeing Bush – Clinton – Bush – Clinton? That this is some kind of fluk? That this has nothing to do with the nature of Party Politics?
Bush 43 rode into office on his father’s coat tails, but he would never have even received the nod if big party interests hadn’t hand-picked him. Bush 43 was the epitome of the “picked in a smoke filled room” type of candidate. The same can be said of Clinton, except she was one of the smokers.
I think a Constitutional Amendment of this nature would be nice, in the same way that the 2-term limit Amendment is nice, and I’d support it. I don’t know if its necessary and its certainly not some sort of silver bullet against nepotism and corruption, but its a step in the right direction.
This nonsense about “the people have the final say” is the height of political naivety, though.
Cinderella Ferret
I with you on this one. Here’s an idea: Educate yourself on the candidate and issues. Whoa! Now I realize that most people don’t take the time to actually educate themselves about candidates, whether it be President or dog catcher, but this amendment just seems stupid.
I don’t hate Hillary, but I won’t vote for her under any circumstances. Period. Why? Dynasticism. But that is my Choice.
We can’t legislate our way to the perfect system of electing
criminalscandidates to important government seats.I personally support public campaign financing but I doubt that it will become law in all 50 states. Besides, it will not guarantee that we won’t trade this generation of swine for another. It might just level the playing field a bit, but thats about it.
Zifnab
Harsher penalties just encourage higher-priced lawyers. You put the “death penalty” on the books, and you’ll just end up with a bunch of OJ cases and innocent people on death row.
The political system needs more transparency. That’s all you can really ask for. Let any watchdog group or private citizen sift through government documents, and give the people the power to police themselves. The Freedom of Information Act has done infinitely more for politics than McCain-Feingold.
cleek
me too. they’re almost as bad as people who think constructing a false dilemma proves their point.
say, what’s the chance a primary voter in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Vermont, Mississippi, Maine, Indiana, North Carolina, Wyoming, Nebraska, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, Washington or South Dakota has any real effect on who the nominees will be ?
Bob In Pacifica
It seems that this constitutional amendment set off all the bullshit detectors. Myself, I’d like some simple legislation to make the intelligence services obey the law.
Grumpy Code Monkey
I’ve thought about this for a while, and here’s my take: I’m willing to put up with a little graft and corruption so long as the greater good is being served. If the program is doing what it’s supposed to, and the people skimming off the top aren’t being too greedy (so much that anyone would notice), then I’m not going to worry about it too much.
The devil, of course, is in the details. How much is too much? What level of graft is acceptable?
D-Chance.
So Norquist is already ceding 2012 if Hillary wins in ’08? Is he assuming a Hillary presidency will be so successful that reelection will only be a formality? Is he assuming a total crash-and-burn of the Republicans once the books are thrown open in ’09?
Richard Bottoms
This waste of human skin Andrew Sullivan helped elect the worst president in human history, venomously attacked the patriotism of dissenters from this debacle of a war at it’s inception, and these days spends every other column going into hysterics over the thought of president Hillary. And I’m supposed to care what he thinks?
Fuck Andrew Sullivan, and his batshit insane cohort Grover Norquist. Their opinions are worth less than doo-doo.
Kynn
Sounds like this would also clobber stuff like wives succeeding husbands who die in office.
Why does the GOP hat Mary Bono (R-CA)?
DougL
I’d be happy to settle for drowning Grover Norquist in a bathtub.
Garrigus Carraig
Why are you linking to Norquist? After you read that, what did you think your readers would gain from it? That’s a serious question, because I honestly can’t imagine the answer.
MNPundit
Remember, Sully has Clinton Derangement Syndrome. He completely collapses whenever the name comes up.
Jake
He couldn’t be trying to turn the Hitlery-Hatred up to 11 could he?
Nah.
Anyway, I refuse to worry about “dynasties,” when we still have the Electoral College and now have voting machines that are a training tool for noob hackerz.
jcricket
It’s less collapsing than getting “the vapors”.
Combined with his breathless ongoing support for the Bell Curve hypotheses and it’s enough to basically permanently turn me off to his writing.
grumpy realist
Um….about the only thing this would do is make a lot of lawyers very, very rich.
It also wouldn’t keep Hillary out, either–because of that “immediately succeed” clause.
The cases that this Amendment would in fact impact are about 0.005% of the total–if that.
Splitting Image
As usual, it looks like they are trying to solve the wrong problem.
The issue with Hilary Clinton is that she is running on her “experience” as First Lady, which is essentially an appointment that comes automatically from your spouse being elected President. The “office” has never been properly defined, because it was only an informal title to begin with.
I’d rather define what the First Lady can and cannot do so that anyone who occupies the position cannot claim a mountain of “experience” in the next election, rather than put up a barrier that automatically blocks a First Lady from running for office on her own merits.
Having said that, I’m surprised the subject is being brought up now. I expected the Republicans to keep quiet about it until Clinton won the nomination, then start questioning whether she was eligible to serve. Someone seems to be jumping the gun.
cleek
vote Laura Bush in 2012!
srv
While we’re at it, why don’t we fix the rest of the Constitution?
1) abolish the Electoral College
2) codify gerrymandering criteria
3) single six-year term for president
4) abolish the Senate
5) switch to a Parliament
capelza
jcricket…yah, that ‘Bell Curve” thing is downright disgusting. Everytime Sullivan says something intelligent he then turns around with the “Haillary hate” and the “Bell Curve”.
What is it with the neo-phrenologists..I see the big tado over Saletan and the IQ/race thing. Over at another blog the guy who posted a topic about it at least had the decency to admit that if it were true than all the problems the blacks have had couldn’t be laid at the feet of “blameless white mischief”…you know, the little things like hundreds of years of slavery, Jim Crow laws and racism.
And of course it would then lead to the “stupidity” of any program that would try to help the poor and disadvantaged, because they are inherently dumb. I was aghast. And these people think they are just being “scientific”.
Alexandra
I don’t recall Right Wingers being so exercised about this issue when Bush was running for president.
Michael D.
Hindsight…
Michael D.
Richard Bottoms:
Yet you’re posting comments on a blog that essentially did the same thing for awhile. Hmmmm.
The Other Steve
I got the perfect solution for that!
Let’s move all the primary dates up, so the whole system is frontloaded!
Ignorant people doom themselves by not thinking. The answer to making your state relevant was not to frontload the system further, but to stretch it out longer. Design a system where the nominee wasn’t determined until the convention.
Back in the old days, before fucktards started demanding the system be changed, we did this. The conventions were meaningful, and on the 32nd ballot we finally had a nominee. Yeah, it was long an painful, but it meant every state was relevant. Today, not so much.
Now the whiners want to do away with the electoral college, because they think doing so will make their state relevant. But it won’t. It’ll have the opposite effect. Candidates won’t bother to travel at all, they’ll spend all their time on television.
Look at what we have now. The problem with Iowa and New Hampshire isn’t because they are first. The problem is because everything is so front loaded, all the campaigning has to be done at a national level on television. So the person best able to manipulate the TV wins.
Now maybe that’s just the reality of televised politics. But does it really help to make the system more that way?
Please, please, I beg of you. Stop giving advice, and certainly stop demanding change. You’re too stupid to know what you are doing.
The Other Steve
The amazing thing is, if we just went back to the way things were, where we had one representative for every 50,000 people instead of 500,000 people…
We’d solve most of these problems, without even having to change the Constitution.
The Other Steve
Only because I like to argue, and every other blog would have banned me a long time ago.
Chris Johnson
Laura Bush? Don’t you mean Jeb?
Can we just make them King, have them with purely ceremonial duties and no actual power, and start electing Prime Ministers? Oh and the Prime Minister has to be a different party from the monarch, but the monarch gets to fire the PM and replace them with another, who is still not the same part.
Or something.
I do think the issue of relation by birth is one of the least alarming things about this political system. Though I do suppose it promotes a sense of entitlement that leads to further abuses.
JGabriel
Michael D.: “My guess is anyone in North Korea, Egypt, or Syria who heard us complaining about ‘dynasty’ would just roll their eyes and wish they had it so good.”
True. But even if the Pakistani’s get rid of Musharaff, they’re most likely looking at a choice between Bhutto and Sharif.
I suspect many of them would look at the Bush/Clinton presidential swappings and say, “Yeah, I feel you pain. Literally.”
Actually, that’s not quite true. Most of them look at it and say, “See? You’re no better than us.”
cleek
take your own advice, think: this isn’t the old days.
the current system denies huge numbers of people from having any kind of say in the nominee process. in the eyes of the media, it’s all over by the first week of February, even though states will continue to have primaries for another four months. tens of millions of people never get a chance to support their chosen candidate at the time when it could matter. that there is a broken system.
we don’t drag the presidential vote itself over six months. it makes no sense to drag the vote for the last round out either.
i seem to remember a bunch of people wanting to get rid of it because it’s an anti-democratic anachronism that serves no positive purpose.
it’s already ‘that way’. the presidential race is nationwide. everything they say in NH ends up being repeated nationwide instantly. yes a single-day primary would end up being a national race instead of a handful of little races. but since the race is already two years long, i’m sure candidates would make a point of hitting all the states, instead of making a point of hitting every county in small rural states over and over.
HyperIon
Michael D: if you’ve been reading long enough, you know that RB has been castigating JC for a very long time. and i dispute your allegation that B-J
You are annoying me quite frequently.
Chuck Butcher
Per John Cole:
Nobody is following you into that booth and making you do a damned thing. Don’t like dynasties (I don’t), pull a different lever…
Besides, add up the non-Hillary poll percentages, if those people were hot for her, they’d be in her poll numbers.
Zifnab
That would make Congress rather crowded. But I’d still be ok with that.
Richard Bottoms
I basically told John to go to hell over voting for George Bush ovre and over and over again. He saw the light at long last and his regret is evident to the point that no purpose is served giving him shit over the past.
You on the other hand continue to defend the fag bashing greedy chickenhawk assholes known as the GOP who have gotten 4,000 troops killed in a stupendous display of arrogance and stupidity that will cripple us for years to come.
At least John has a.) served his country and b.) has the balls to allow comments on his site.
Fuck Andrew Sullivan.
Richard Bottoms
And to bring you further up to speed, I am an ex-soldier who tried to re-enlist in 2003, I am someone who is purple with rage over what has been done to the United States Army and the families of the troops.
I’ve told John on more than one occasion (and if it applies to you as well that’s just dandy) that I don’t have one scintilla of sympathy for him.
Not because he voted for Bush in 2000 but because he did so again in 2004.
If you people never have another good night’s sleep thinking of the thousands upon thousands of Americans and Iraqis dead because of this fool of a president it won’t bother me a bit.
The United Sates of America now routinely tortures people, an outrage that will stain the honor of every soldier who ever fell in battle to protect the liberty this country used to stand for until it is stopped.
We have shoveled billions into the furnace of Iraq all to support a bunch of squabbling assholes who would rather kill their religious rivals than make their country thrive.
Meanwhile our allies the Saudis send rape victims to prison, but only after public torture that our State Department can barely manage to protest.
The GOP is a cancer, the modern Republican party is the most terrible plague to be visited upon this country since Jim Crow. If another Republican is ever elected to any office anyplace it is a shame.
So yeah, I post here. Now you come get some.
Jess
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again and again…): HRC is only a Clinton by marriage and her political relationship to Bill is more akin to Gore’s than it is to Chelsea’s. I don’t see this as a typical example of a dynasty–that is, a continuation from one generation to the next–but rather as an atypical version of the usual political alliances that govern our parties. We’re just going to have to figure out how to assess the implications of this particular political alliance, but I think we can do it without getting our panties in a twist.
Jess
Oh, and Richard…that’s a pretty sexy post you put up there!
mclaren
Hey, buddy, you’re gonna be sorry you wrote those words when President Jenna declares you an enemy combatants and orders you strapped to the waterboard.
And just wait till President Chelsea gets elected. Then it’s the steel cage in Gitmo for you, boy.