Elections, Delays, Executive Privilege, and Inaugurations
I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day and we talked about a lot of stuff; business, life, politics, the coming elections, and other weighty matters. During our chat, my friend brought up an issue that has just been nagging the snot out of me ever since.
I would guess that most people understand that we have a substantial delay between the time a president is elected and the day he or one day she takes the oath of office.
Putting aside the 20th Amendment, which calls for the delay, for a minute; I suppose it was needed due to how slow communication and travel issues were back then when we went from a full six months delay to the current two and a half months.
Here is what I’m wondering about; we live in an age where information from around the globe is transmitted in less than Nano Seconds, when the news from a remote island in the Fijis or the Aleutians can be rendered as fast as something that happens in Times Square, when massive fortunes on Wall Street are made and lost between morning coffee and lunch, and when photographs from the Martian Plains are transmitted in minutes. So why is it that with all the people a presidential candidate has working around the clock and all the information at his/her disposal, the major decisions such as cabinet positions and other transition issues aren’t decided upon prior to and implemented almost immediately upon certification of the vote? And why can’t he/she be sworn in just as immediately?
As I said, it just keeps nagging at me; why does the transition take so long? Except for the First Family’s clothing and a few personal items, We the People own the White House and everything in it. Why doesn’t the departing president simply exit the morning that the election is certified while the new president is being sworn in, and then the new president can simply move in with his/her family and cabinet in place, (at least the most important posts) ready to get rolling? Before anyone scoffs at this, think about something.
The reason I pose this question is simple enough. Every president, without exception, has pardoned and commuted the sentences of some very questionable individuals during their time in office. When they are departing the office, they use the ‘lame duck’ period from Election Day to Inauguration Day, especially those final several days, to do some pretty interesting stuff via ‘executive privilege;’ some good, most very bad.
Some presidents have been worse than others, but all have used ‘executive privilege’ and such to create and leave behind their own legacy of havoc or heroism. For example, Richard Nixon pardoned 204 people on one day in December of 1972, shortly before his term ended. Bill Clinton issued 140 pardons and several commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001; those pardons included members of the ‘Weather Underground,’ (which was co-founded by Bill Ayers, a well-known associate of the current president), Marc Rich who had skipped out on a $48M tax bill and 51 counts of tax fraud, and Melvin Reynolds who as a Congressman from IL had been convicted of bank fraud, 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography. The list of Clinton excesses goes on and on, and you can read more at the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy
Additionally, while I'm certain that ‘wikipedia’ is subject to making mistakes, the following link will provide a good starting point for some of the pardons and commutations of all our presidents throughout our history:
What worries me now more than ever, is what the current president might do in his final days in office given the full range of several months. The US is holding a lot of his ‘friends’ for various things in places such as Gitmo. A big fear of mine is that he might use a stroke of his executive pen to release a lot of them, and certainly the leaders amongst them. One such vile cretin we are holding is Omar Abdel-Rahman, (aka ‘the blind sheik,’ look him up) comes to mind. Already President Obama has made the following direct pardons, (again from Wikipedia):
Democratic President Barack Obama has pardoned 16 people up to this point in his term of office. Among them are:
James Bernard Banks, of Liberty, Utah, sentenced to two years of probation in 1972 for illegal possession of government property.
Russell James Dixon, of Clayton, Ga., sentenced to two years of probation in 1960 for a liquor law violation.
Laurens Dorsey, of Syracuse, N.Y., sentenced in 1998 to five years of probation and $71,000 in restitution for conspiracy to defraud by making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration.
Ronald Lee Foster, of Beaver Falls, Pa., sentenced in 1963 to a year of probation and a $20 fine for mutilating coins.
Timothy James Gallagher, of Navasota, Texas, sentenced in 1982 to three years of probation for cocaine possession and conspiracy to distribute.
Roxane Kay Hettinger, Powder Springs, Ga., sentenced in 1986 to 30 days in jail and three years of probation for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Edgar Leopold Kranz Jr., of Minot, N.D., who received 24 months of confinement and a pay reduction for cocaine use, adultery and bouncing checks.
Floretta Leavy, of Rockford, Ill., sentenced in 1984 to 366 days in prison and three years of parole for drug offenses.
Scoey Lathaniel Morris, of Crosby, Texas, sentenced in 1991 to three years of probation and $1,200 restitution for counterfeiting offenses.
I find it interesting that most of these are for ‘petty’ offenses and cocaine related issues, and I wonder if maybe they were people he knew back in the day when he was filling his own nose.
No doubt some of the past parting executive orders have been good. Innocent men and women have been pardoned, bad people have been gathered up, and good policy has been set in place. Sadly, on the reverse of that, some horrible things have taken place; some real bad people have been pardoned, and some really bad decisions have been implemented by outgoing presidents in the eleventh hour of their terms.
Anyway, the gist of this is as follows. During the campaign, each candidate should tell us up front who his/her cabinet and advisor choices are and have them ‘at the ready.’ Then, after an HONEST election on 11/6/12 the vote could and should be certified within 72 hours and then it’s out with the old and in with the new allowing zero time for the outgoing administration to give last minute clemency to any of his/her friends.
There will be a celebration with some fireworks, a little ‘Dom’ and ‘Cristal’ served with the hors d'oeuvres, and we can start re-building the nation on the very next day. And while I am directing this at the current very bad situation, it very much makes sense to do so from now on. Why give anyone that kind of unbridled power and time when they have nothing to lose? It’s not real complicated if you ask me.