Facts TD Anglais for Exam Week 9 PDF

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ExhilaratingSerpentine9604

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Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II)

TD Anglais

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US Constitution American history colonialism government

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This document is a past paper for a TD Anglais class, focusing on the US Constitution and its historical context. The document includes details of early English colonies, the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, and the Philadelphia Convention.

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Facts TD Anglais for exam week 9 1^st^ lesson: The Constitution of the USA is the oldest written constitution still in use. It originally comprised seven articles but has since been augmented by 27 amendments. The first seven articles of the US Constitution establish the federal government, the ju...

Facts TD Anglais for exam week 9 1^st^ lesson: The Constitution of the USA is the oldest written constitution still in use. It originally comprised seven articles but has since been augmented by 27 amendments. The first seven articles of the US Constitution establish the federal government, the judiciary, interstate and federal-state relations. The first ten amendments, called the Bill of Rights, set out the individual rights of citizens. The US Constitution provides the legal framework and a set of rules by which the federal republic of the United States of America is governed. A. Historical background: England's first colony in North America was Virginia. It was originally granted a charter in 1606 as a private company but was made a royal colony by 1624. Virginia was a commercial venture which achieved success through the farming of tobacco. From the onset of the 17th century, African slaves were brought in to cultivate these lucrative crops throughout the South until the transatlantic trade was---officially---abolished in 1808. The colonies that emerged in North America from this process were diverse not only in their geography but also in terms of religion and economy. From 1620, the concept of a New England was key to the settlement and creation of several Protestant colonies such as Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. These colonies were established by Puritan dissenters who had broken with the Anglican Church and were seeking to build what Puritan leader John Winthrop called "a City upon a Hill", or a New Jerusalem in the "New World." On the other hand, Maryland was conceived by a convert to Catholicism, Lord Baltimore, as a refuge for English Catholics who were subject to persecution at home. Maryland's charter allowed freemen (property holders) to make their own laws. By the time of the American War of Independence (1775-83), there were 13 English colonies. One of the keys to the success of England's colonies in North America was that they were not under the rigid control of the Crown or Parliament. However, following the Seven Year War (1754-63), the Parliament of Great Britain imposed heavy taxes on its North American colonies to help defray war debts. Many colonists resented such taxes as they were imposed by a parliament thousands of miles away and where they had no representation. An early slogan of the American Revolution was thus "No Taxation without Representation." Following the 1773 imposition of a tax on imported tea, colonists boarded three ships in the port of Boston and threw the boxes of tea into the harbour in what is known as the Boston Tea Party. By 1775, fighting had broken out near Boston and the colonists formed a Continental Army under George Washington. Several leaders of the colonial revolt were inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment such as republicanism, democracy and individual liberty. Historians have recently unearthed another factor that may have contributed to the colonists' rebellion against the British Crown: the latter forbade the settlers to take Native lands in order to expand their colonies. According to some experts, the American Revolution 18 also finds its roots, therefore, in the desire to seize the Natives' lands against the will of the Crown. A. The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation: On 4 July 1776, delegates from the 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. Inspired by Thomas Paine's attack on monarchy (Common Sense, 1776) and John Locke's theory of natural rights (Two Treatises of Government, 1689), the document stated that King and Parliament had violated the colonists\' constitutional rights, which the signatories believed justified the violent overthrow of what they saw as a tyrannical government. By 1781, the colonies had ratified the Articles of Confederation which implemented a confederation of 13 sovereign states. The Confederation established a weak central government under the authority of the state legislatures. A state of war with Britain continued until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. The Confederation proved to be an inadequate form of government as trade disputes arose between bordering states, and the Articles provided no means of settling them. Furthermore, the Confederation government could not levy taxes as only state legislatures, elected by the people, had the power of taxation. In order to establish a more workable form of central governance, Federalists including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams and George Washington, called for a convention to discuss giving more powers to the national government by revising the Articles of Confederation. A. The Philadelphia Convention: The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 brought together fifty-five delegates from every state except Rhode Island, which was extremely mistrustful of a powerful central government and had a big sense of independence. At the Convention, James Madison presented the Virginia Plan which proposed a new and much stronger national government under a constitution, with a bicameral legislature, a strong executive and an unelected judiciary. This plan set the tone of the debate but was opposed by the Anti-Federalists, who disapproved of such changes, wanting to keep the general framework of the Articles of Confederation. Madison, Hamilton and Jay wrote a series of eighty-five articles promoting their project for a federal republic (The Federalist Papers, 1788). Many issues were hotly debated, and although the Federalists succeeded in getting approval for a U.S. Constitution, certain clauses in the final document were the result of compromises. Larger states sought greater representation in the proposed new government, while smaller states feared that they would lose a say in their governance. In order to appease both camps a compromise known as The Great Compromise was reached. Article 1 of the US Constitution set up a bicameral legislature composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The representation of each state in the House of Representatives is based on population, while each state is given equal representation with two senators sitting in the Senate. Moreover, the populous slave states sought to have slaves counted in the census calculations for representation in the House of Representatives. The Three-fifths Compromise therefore established that three-fifth of the slaves would be included in population totals for the purposes of calculating the number of representatives. As a further condition for ratification, Anti-Federalists demanded that a bill of rights, meant to protect the states and their citizens from federal interference, be added once the Constitution came into force. A. Federalism, separation of powers and checks and balances: The core principles of the US Constitution are federalism, separation of powers and checks and balances. The latter two principles were designed to ensure that power would never rest wholly in one part of government and that each of the three branches could have oversight and influence on the other two. This was to ensure that tyranny and despotism, which 19 the Founding Fathers reviled, would not be possible under their new system of government. The Constitution created a federal republic and separated the power of the legislative branch or Congress, the executive headed by the President and the judiciary. Séance 2 : A. Historical background Unlike France, the United States has a **federal**, rather than a **unitary**, system. This means that political power is distributed between a central authority (the "federal government") and constituent units called states. Understanding the U.S. federal system is essential to understanding its past and present political debates. The first thing to consider in this context is the name of the country, the *United States* of America, something which is often overlooked. The individual states, that later decided to unite, existed before the country itself: while the country was formally founded in 1789, the first colony, Virginia, was established in 1624, and enacted its Constitution in 1776. The colonies had revolted because they no longer wanted to be ruled by the authoritarian, centralized British government, so when they gained independence, calls to replace the Crown with another authoritarian, centralized government were -- understandably - rejected. Consequently, perhaps the most important and difficult question the newly independent states had to answer was that of the distribution of powers. Which powers would the states keep for themselves, and which ones would they give to the federal government? After the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation, which focused heavily on the state governments, the constitutional system of 1789 was introduced, with more balance between the federal and state governments. This system has remained in place until the present day, albeit with some important revisions. A. **The importance of federalism** What should children learn in school? Can a criminal be executed as a punishment for the most horrific crimes? Should a woman have the right to choose to have an abortion? These questions do not exist in the same way in France because they are answered by a national government that makes these decisions for every single French "*région"* or "*département".* The same cannot be said about the United States. States and school districts are somewhat free to create their own curriculum, each state can decide for itself if it wants to use the death penalty, and each state may also choose whether to allow access to abortions. Throughout American history, various issues have arisen linked to one central question: how much power should the federal government have? For instance, federalism was at the heart of the Civil War (1861-1865). Could the federal government decide the future of slavery for the entire country, or should every state be able to make that decision for itself? As such, the question of "**states' rights**" underlay the fundamental conflict of the war: whether slavery could continue in the United States. Ultimately, the North's victory in 1865 resulted in the abolition of slavery in the entire United States. Even after this, Southern states continued to disenfranchise and persecute former slaves and their descendants with state laws. It was only in 1964 that the federal government prohibited disenfranchisement and racial segregation by southern states. In more recent years, there was a debate about same-sex marriage. Some states authorized it while others did not. The federal government refused to recognize those marriages until it was compelled to do so following the Supreme Court decision *U.S. v. Windsor* decision in 2013. Subsequently, in the 2015 case *Obergefell v. Hodges*, the Supreme Court agreed with plaintiffs who challenged those states whose laws still prohibited same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court's decision in *Obergefell* legalized same-sex marriage throughout the country, requiring all levels of government in all states to recognize homosexual marriages. A similar question arises today about marijuana, which is legal in some states, but still illegal in others and at the federal level. These tensions between different states, and between the states and the federal government, are at the heart of the US political and legal systems. New tensions will continue to emerge as liberal and conservative states chart different courses for the limits of rights and the criminalization of behavior. A. Articles IV and VI The main characteristics of American federalism can be found in Articles IV (interstate relations) and VI (the Supremacy Clause). Article IV's Section 1 is known as the **Full Faith and Credit Clause**, and it says that "Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state." The main objective of this clause was to make sure that all the laws, policies and court judgements of one state would be respected by all other states. For instance, citizens cannot escape justice by moving from one state to another. Article IV also made sure that fugitives would be sent back to the state they fled from. Section 2 is known as the **Privileges and Immunities Clause**. It was intended to prohibit interstate discrimination. Thus, when a citizen of one state visits another state, they will have the same rights (privileges) and the same legal protections (immunities) as any citizen of that state. Section 3 says that only Congress can decide the addition of new states to the Union, and Section 4 makes it an obligation for the federal government to guarantee to the states the existence of a republican form of government. The most well-known section of Article VI is its second section, known as the **Supremacy Clause**. It establishes a hierarchy of norms: the Constitution is the "supreme law of the land" and is superior to all other laws. No federal or state law can contradict the Constitution. Moreover, federal law is superior to state law. A. Evolution of American federalism The general principle upon which American federalism was built is contained in the **Tenth Amendment** to the Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights and was adopted in 1791: *"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."* In other words, the powers of the federal government are the exception, and the Constitution explicitly defines them. Everything else belongs to the states or to the people. So even though the American Constitution gave more power to the federal government than the Articles of Confederation had originally done, the balance of powers still tilted in favor of the states, which retained a great deal of autonomy. The federal government was given prerogatives that can only be dealt with by a country and not by a constituent unit: war, the army, foreign policy, printing money, adopting federal laws, and dealing with interstate commerce. Unlike the Articles of Confederation system, which had given the national government too little power to function, the Constitution, was built on the understanding that these domains *required* strong central power, but everything else (education, police, criminal law, etc.) was to be decided by each state for itself. However, while this is what the Constitution says, American federalism has evolved since then, and one thing is quite clear: from 1787 to today, the federal government has grown increasingly powerful, to the detriment of the states. As early as 1819, the Supreme Court showed that it would not hesitate to favor the federal government over the states. In ***McCulloch v. Maryland***, the country's highest court asserted the government's right to create a national bank despite the opposition of the state of Maryland. The Supreme Court based its decision on two clauses of the Constitution that would often be used throughout American history to expand the powers of the federal government: the Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Section 8), which gives Congress the "power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" to accomplish its constitutional duties and the Supremacy Clause of Article VI, which the Court used to confirm that federal law was inherently superior to state law. Throughout the 20th century, the federal government's role played a bigger role in governance. First during the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal gave birth to huge federal programs like Social Security (1935), and then during the 1960s with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and programs like Medicare and Medicaid (1965). More recently, the Affordable Care Act (2010), commonly known as Obamacare, gave birth to a new and intense debate over federalism: should the federal government be responsible for providing every American citizen affordable health coverage, expanding the role played by the federal government or should it remain a prerogative of the states or even the people themselves through private insurance? Conversely, it should also be noted that there have been efforts by some, such as Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, to follow a philosophy that is often referred to as "**New Federalism**", whereby the federal government transfers responsibility for certain domestic policies e.g. education back to the states in order to reduce the influence of central government. In the American federal system, the states remain powerful entities. Their political structure is roughly the same as that of the federal government. Each state has an executive power (the governor), a legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), and a court system, including a supreme court for every state. Two states, Texas and Oklahoma, actually have two supreme courts (one for criminal law and one for all other cases). As they have their own legislatures, states can levy their own taxes, adopt their own budget, build their own education system, and create their own criminal laws. They even have their own constitutions with their own protections of rights and liberties, of which the state court systems -- not the federal court system and the U.S. Supreme Court -- are generally the final arbiters. Importantly, the two dominant national parties -- Republicans and Democrats -- are also the two key parties in each state, though in many states one or the other dominates. A. States: Laboratories of Democracy and Markets of Laws Each state is largely free to shape its state law as it wishes -- so long as it respects a "republican form" of government and does not interfere with Congress's enumerated powers. As one might imagine, individual states behave differently from each other. They may pass different laws at the state legislative level, or rule differently at the state supreme court level. It is out of these very differences, however, that many advantages of the federal system emerge. Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis described states as "**laboratories of democracy**," which can attempt "novel social or economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." As one state may pass laws that seem to frustrate or undermine those of another state, the Union often becomes a marketplace in which states "compete" by offering laws and policies that may be a better or cheaper alternative to those in another state. Delaware, a small state in the Northeast, is an apt example of a "market of laws." With no sales tax, Delaware attracts many retail shoppers from neighboring states where the sales tax ranges from 5.62% to 8.48%. Other states, such as Texas, impose no state income tax on residents, as a way of making it a more appealing destination. This creates a sort of competition between the different states. Delaware's policy towards corporations is another case in point. The pro-business approach taken by the Delaware legislature in passing corporate laws, and by Delaware courts in ruling on corporate matters, has attracted corporations from all over the country. They have flocked there for years seeking not just to minimize their taxes but also to avoid regulations that would make business more costly and transparent elsewhere. The state is the legal home to corporate giants such as Apple, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Google, and JP Morgan-Chase. In fact, they all share the same address, along with 285,000 other businesses: 1209 North Orange Street. Most do not even have a true connection to the state but simply maintain a mailbox there as their legal address. Delaware's status as a corporate haven has allowed it to collect close to a billion dollars a year in taxes and fees from its corporate residents as well as to become the "home" to more corporate entities than actual people. Massachusetts, on the other hand, has been a leader in the arena of social reforms. It was the first state to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, with many other states following suit not long after. Massachusetts was also the first state to pass legislation providing affordable health insurance coverage to all its residents in 2006, under Republican Governor Mitt Romney. Parts of this reform later served as a model for the U.S. Affordable Care Act, which extended affordable health coverage to most Americans. Though a monumental reform, the national law was not received with open arms by all the states, many of whom claimed that it was an egregious example of **federal overreach**, an intrusion on state sovereignty, and a violation of states' rights. The Supreme Court agreed, giving states more discretion in how they participated in the law than was originally envisioned when it was passed. Abortion is another issue on which the states have disagreed and pursued competing policies. For almost half a century, a Supreme Court ruling (*Roe v. Wade*, from 1973) had guaranteed a right to an abortion in all states, but left room for certain regulations. Conservative states took these regulations as far as courts would allow, while blue states allowed for broad access to abortion, generally to a greater extent than is found in much of continental Europe. But in the summer of 2022, in *Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization*, the Supreme Court overturned *Roe* and returned the decision fully to the states. In several states, this led to immediate bans on almost all abortions. At the same time, some liberal states maintained their permissive abortion policies. This means that abortion has become an issue with wide divergence between the states, with some allowing almost no abortions and others allowing them for many months of pregnancy. In the *Dobbs* opinion, the Supreme Court made a specific note of the value of letting the people decide for themselves, in their own localities, whether they wanted to allow abortions. In short, the decision was, at least in theory, one of expansive federalism. For some, the abortion decision highlights one of the downsides of the "laboratories of democracy" theory: federalism allows for differences, which also allows for inequality. People have different rights within the United States based on where they live. Some policies pursued by states are more successful than others. Some states gain more revenue or take on greater expenses. Some states criminalize conduct that is legal elsewhere. While this does reveal useful, practical information about how different policies work, it also expands on the inequality between citizens in the United States. Uniform systems may lack innovation, but federal systems with differentiation can become unequal, overly divided and competitive. The United States illustrates in sharp relief these strengths and weaknesses of the federal design. Séance 3 : Article One is the longest in the US Constitution. It creates, delineates and empowers the Federal Legislative Branch. Being the first article in the Constitution, it reflects how important this branch was in the eyes of the Framers, who had previously not even wanted a national executive branch when they had drafted the Articles of Confederation. In the Constitution, they made it clear that the legislative branch was the most important one. 1. A. Section one -- the legislature The power to legislate is "vested in a Congress of the United States". Section One clearly states that following the theory of the **separation of powers**, the legislative power belongs to Congress and cannot be delegated to the two other branches of power, i.e. the Executive and the Judiciary. The U.S. Congress is organized as a **bicameral** body made up of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. After a great deal of discussion, and at times disagreements about how the states should be represented in Congress, the Framers of the US Constitution, often referred to as 'the Framers' finally collaborated for what is now historically referred to as the **Great Compromise**. Through the Great Compromise, the states, as political entities, would enjoy **equal representation** in the Senate (each state would elect two senators) and **proportional representation** in the House of Representatives (each state would have their number of representatives based on that state's population). Two examples of proportional representation through current research statistics are: California has a population of 39 million and as a result, it sends 52 House representatives. Wyoming has 584,000 inhabitants and sends one House representative. Both houses of Congress are located in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill and as a result, Capitol Hill is often used as a metonym for the US Congress. 1. A. Section two - the House of Representatives Applying proportional representation, House members are elected every two years by the residents of the 50 U.S. States without discrimination based on race, religion or gender. There are conditions to fulfill for a candidate to be allowed to run for the House: candidates must be at least 25 years old, have been US citizens for at least seven years and live in the state where they are seeking election. As representation in what may also be referred to as 'the House' is based on state population, the Constitution establishes a census or count of the people, which takes place every ten years, as in the UK. The first census took place in 1790, when they counted four million Americans. States are divided into **congressional districts** (each made up of approximately 711,000 US citizens) which elect one representative each. The number of representatives was frozen to 435 in 1929. It is relevant to be noted that all states must have at least one representative. As examples of this, at the beginning of 2020, the census this booklet is working from, Wyoming (563,000 residents) and Montana (990,000 residents) had one representative each. The state of New York (19 million residents) had 27, but lost one in 2023, following the 2020 census. The state of California has 52 representatives, still remaining the best represented state in the House of Representatives. Montana however gained a second representative and Texas gained two seats (so 38 seats in 2023). The House of Representatives elects a leader, the **Speaker of the House**, who belongs to the majority political party that is elected into the House, which have historically been Democrats or Republicans. This Speaker takes part in debates and votes on legislation like all other representatives. S/he sets the legislative agenda for the House and is second to the Vice President in the line of presidential succession. The House of Representatives has the "sole power of **impeachment**". Impeachment is a procedure to remove high officials from executive and judicial functions. If the **charges** are established by a formal hearing followed by a majority vote of over 50%, the House impeaches that person**.** The next step is that the House files a formal accusation where proceedings go to the Senate, explained below, which in this circumstance acts as a court under **oath** and decides if the accused is guilty or not. The only available punishment is removal from office and this is only if 2/3 of the Senate decides **to convict**. The procedure of impeachment is dealt with in Art I, Sections 2 and 3 as well as in Art II, Sections 2 and 4 in which the charges are defined ("treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors"). Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding and is not a substitute for a court of justice. It is to be noted that the President of the United States enjoys no immunity vis-à-vis impeachment. So far, 20 federal officials have been impeached and eight (all federal judges) were convicted and removed. Three US Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019 and again in 2020/21. None were removed from office. An impeachment process was started against Richard Nixon, but the latter resigned before proceedings could be completed, allowing his former Vice President, Gerald Ford to pardon him once Gerald Ford himself had been sworn in as the next President of the United States. 1. A. Section three -- the Senate The second of the two houses of the legislative branch again is the Senate, which enforces the theme of equal representation. As a result of **equal representation**, each of the fifty US states is represented by two senators regardless of their population, size or economic importance. Senators are elected for six-year **terms**. There is a rotation of election schedule for the senators' terms of office so that the entire Senate is never up for re-election at the same time: on this schedule, every two years 1/3 of the Senate chamber seeks election. To be allowed to run for election, candidates must be thirty years old, have been US citizens for nine years and be residents of the state they will represent. The Senate elects its own officers. It is presided over by the Vice-President (VP) of the United States who does not vote except in case of a **tie** relating to votes around proposed legislation or procedures, including impeachment (except if the US President's impeachment is being dealt with.) The VP is replaced by the **president** ***pro tempore*** when absent. These offices are often ceremonial. For practical purposes, the real leader of the Senate is the **Majority Leader**, whose party holds the majority of Senate seats. It is to be noted that the Vice-President is the only US official to be a member of two branches of government, namely the Executive and Legislative. Whereas the House of Representatives has the power to impeach, the Senate has the "sole power to try all impeachments" and make the final decision as to whether a House impeachment ruling should be implemented or rejected. When the President of the United States (POTUS) is accused of something that leads to an impeachment process, it is relevant to again mention that the Vice President does not officiate and is replaced by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. 1. A. Section four - elections States are responsible for the organization of all elections within their jurisdictions. That being established, Congress has authority to set some standards. For example, it was decided in 1845, that the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November should be Election Day. That is the day when US citizens participate in local and national elections. 1. A. Section five -- rules A **quorum** (half the members being present) is necessary for either house (both the Senate and the House of Representatives) to conduct official business. As part of this, each house has the power to refuse elected members if it is considered, and then voted on, that the elected member in question is not worthy of sitting. Both houses set their own respective rules on proceedings, including punishment and expulsion of members for disorderly conduct. For example, the Senate allows unlimited **filibustering** (refusing to stop speaking when one has the floor in order to obstruct the passage of a **bill**, a term used for proposed legislation) whereas the House of Representatives, because it is considerably larger, has had to set time limits for such legislative debating. A senator can start a filibuster and not stop speaking as long as he or she does not sit, does not eat, does not leave the floor and as long as \"three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn\" (60 out of the 100 senators) do not invoke **cloture** under **Senate Rule XXII**. Since it may be both complicated and time consuming to end a filibuster since minority senators could filibuster one after the other, when more than 40 senators support the idea of a filibuster, no senator may really have to actually stand up and speak because the Senators are then aware that they would not be able to invoke cloture since they would not be numerous enough. Therefore, they just move on to other business and the law that would be filibustered is then put aside and not even debated. This is called a **silent filibuster**. (Filibuster has no longer been possible for the confirmations of appointments since 2013 due to the fact that Democrats were trying to stop the Republicans blocking every single presidential appointment and making federal offices unworkable.) **Committees**, which are not mentioned in the Constitution, have become vital as they scrutinize and approve proposed legislation before it is voted on by the entire legislative body. There are different types of committees: standing committees (the House of Representatives and the Senate each have their own) and joint committees (Senators and Representatives working together). These committees help to organize the main work of Congress, deciding which legislation, still in the form of bills, should move forward for consideration before any proposed legislation reaches the President's desk to be signed into law, which is explained below. 1. A. Section six -- compensation and privileges Congress members are paid by the US Treasury and not by the state they represent. They enjoy **immunity from arrest** during their session (or term). What they say when sitting cannot be held against them. Members of Congress are not allowed to hold any other government office during the same time that they are serving in their elected role. 1. A. Section seven - legislative process, veto **Bills** may start in either house, except for **revenue bills** (money bills) which must originate in the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, the Senate has the power to amend money bills and must give its approval for revenue bills to become law. Following the English tradition that money bills (or budgetary matters) must commence in the House of Commons (one of the two British Houses of Parliament, which also may be seen as similar in some ways to the House of Representatives in the US or the Assemblée Nationale in France)***,*** the Framers made sure that the "power over the purse" would be a prerogative of the legislative body closer to the people. This Constitutional clause was also part of a compromise between larger and smaller states, so as to placate the larger states\' frustration with equal representation in the Senate. To look at this from another perspective, the relevance of this clause in Section Seven grants the power to initiate revenue bills to the House of Representatives so the larger states have, as a result of their population, greater influence in terms of legislation that is proposed and potentially signed into law. The Constitution is not very precise as far as legislative procedures are concerned. What has been established is that in the absence of a specific procedure identified in the Constitution, Congress has the right to propose legislation surrounding that issue. The two houses have had to establish procedural rules on how to allow bills to go from one to the other. Generally, a bill is introduced by a member of either house and goes to the appropriate house committee where it is examined. After being debated and passed, it goes to the other chamber. Once a bill has been approved in identical form by both houses, it is sent to the Office of the President sometimes referred to as 'the desk'. There is no equivalent of the parliamentary shuttle that we have in France or in the UK. The President has ten days to act: - The first option is that if he/she approves the bill and signs it, the bill becomes law. - The second option is that if he/she vetoes it, he/she sends it back unsigned, including the reasons it is unsigned, to the house where the bill was introduced. The two houses then re- examine the bill with the presidential objections. If both houses disagree with a presidential veto, and are able to pass the bill with a two-third majority, the executive veto is **overridden** and the bill originally sent to the President becomes law. - The third option for the President is to use the **pocket veto** and do nothing during a ten-day delay. In this case, he/she does not wish to be politically responsible for a bill or/and does not have sufficient power in Congress to veto it. If the two houses are still sitting ten days after he/she was sent the bill, it becomes law without signature. If Congress adjourns before the delay is over, the bill is dead. This legislative tactic has been used in the past for political motivations since the President does not have to justify why he will not approve the bill, but the situation where this is possible is also *fairly rare*. 1. A. Section eight -- legislative powers The Legislative Branch has powers clearly delineated by the Constitution. These powers fall into two distinct categories: a) Enumerated powers (express /explicit powers) and b) Implied powers. 1. A. a. **Enumerated powers**: 1. A. a. - Power to tax. Contrary to state taxes, federal taxes are uniform throughout the country. 1. A. a. - Power to borrow money. 1. A. a. - Power to regulate the economy. Since the landmark case *Gibbons v. Ogden* (1825) the **Commerce Clause** has proved to be the most important source of federal power as it allows the control of both interstate and foreign commerce. This is what made the monitoring and regulation of a national economy possible as it helped to identify that for anything relating to trade or finance or even movement of goods or people, if it crossed a state line, federal laws could apply. Also included as enumerated powers are: - Power to enact laws governing immigration and naturalization. - Power to coin money. - Power to establish Post Offices and Post Roads. - Power to declare war, to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, etc. 1. A. a. **Implied powers**: Congress has the constitutional mandate "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper" to carry out its enumerated powers. This is called the **Necessary and Proper Clause** or "**elastic clause**" as its interpretation may stretch or reduce federal power. As examples, this allowed President Jefferson to purchase the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon I in 1803, and President Roosevelt to set up the New Deal in 1933. Powers that are not specifically granted to Congress by the Constitution are reserved to the states (see Amendment Ten). An often-referenced case relating to implied powers, also referring to Article I, Section 8, is *McCulloch v. Maryland* (1819). I. Section nine -- constitutional limits on congress Article 1, Section 9 established several limitations on the powers of Congress and Members of Congress. Examples of these limitations are shown where Congress cannot suspend the writ of **Habeas Corpus** except in times of rebellion or invasion when national security is at stake. It has been suspended twice, first by President Lincoln during the Civil War (1861-1865) and then during WWII by President Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor (1941). In 2006, the US Supreme Court declared unconstitutional restrictions to the privilege of Habeas Corpus voted during the Bush presidency. Also through Article I, Section 9, Congress cannot issue **bills of attainder** that would go against the system of separation of powers. **Ex post facto laws** are likewise forbidden, as actions cannot be criminalized retroactively. J. Section ten -- prohibitions on states Article 1, Section 10, established that states cannot carry out foreign affairs, coin money, regulate exports and imports, nor may they declare war, including the keeping of troops or ships of war during times of peace, etc. It is reiterated that through Section Ten, powers not specifically granted to Congress by the Constitution are reserved to the states. As Article One creates, delineates and empowers the Federal Legislative Branch, it remains a foundation for the efforts to maintain a balance of powers established by the US Constitution. Séance 4 : When the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to write the Constitution of the United States, the most difficult and consequential decision they had to make was how much power they would give the executive branch of the federal government. The main reason the American War of Independence had been fought was that Americans no longer wanted to be controlled by a (British) king who could decide everything for them. That is why the first American Constitution, the Articles of Confederation of 1781, didn't even include an independent executive power (and gave Congress both legislative and executive responsibilities), as Americans thought that having a President, even one whose powers were limited by a democratic system, was already too close to having a king. But the inefficiency of that system quickly became apparent: Congress was an inherently legislative institution and was not structured in a way that would allow it to carry out purely executive functions like collecting taxes or ensuring people's safety. This situation made it obvious that as feared as it was, an independent executive power was necessary in order for the federal government to be able to do its job. The executive power had become a \"necessary evil\": Having one was a potential threat to democracy, while not having it meant the country could not be properly governed. As a consequence, the drafters of the Constitution of 1787 had to strike a delicate balance: They had to create an executive branch that would be powerful enough to allow the government to function efficiently but not so powerful as to threaten the democratic nature of the political system and allow the President to turn into a king. The result was Article II of the American Constitution, which created a presidency with limited powers that could be controlled by the other two branches (Congress and the Supreme Court). In that regard, the constitutional pecking order (Article I for Congress, Article II for the executive) is not a coincidence: Congress, not the presidency, was supposed to be the dominant institution of the American political system. But despite those precautions and the limits that were initially imposed on the executive, the American President is often described today as the leader of the free world and the most powerful person on Earth. As soon as 1973, American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., III went as far as to describe the American presidency as an \"imperial\" institution rather than a democratic one. In doing so, Schlesinger highlighted the main paradox of the American presidency: A branch of government that, when it was created, wasn't supposed to be the leading force in its own country, is now the most powerful political institution in the entire world. And yet, Article II of the Constitution hasn't changed, and officially the powers of the American President are the same today as they were when the office was created in 1787. That is the main question one has to answer when studying the powers of the American President: How has the same text (Article II of the American Constitution) been able to produce the weak presidents of the 19th century and the leaders of the free world of the 20th and 21st centuries? This progressive reinforcement of the presidential institution can largely be explained by three factors: - The emergence of the United States as the world's dominant superpower, which greatly increased the importance of the President's roles as Commander in Chief and as the representative of the country on the international stage. - The inability of the other powers (Congress and the Judiciary) to defend their constitutional prerogatives and even their willingness, sometimes, to defer to the President and help him increase his power. - The capacity of the presidency, more than any other branch of the federal government, to use some parts of the Constitution's lack of clarity and precision to its advantage. As American political scientist Richard Pious famously said, \"the President claims the silences of the Constitution\". Article II is made up of four sections. Section 1 is mainly about the way the President is elected and will be the object of a separate class. The present unit will focus on sections 2, 3 and 4 of Article II. Those three sections describe the powers and responsibilities of the Chief executive and will allow us to understand how the presidency evolved even though the Constitution (or at least the last three sections of Article II) has remained the same. 1. A. Article II, Section 2 (War powers, treaties and nominations) This section describes some of the most important powers of the American President: His war powers, his ability to sign treaties and his nomination power. *''The President shall be **commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States**, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have **power to grant reprieves and pardons** for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.* *He shall have power, **by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties**, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, **shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of** **the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States**, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.* The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.'' War Powers The President is the \"Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy of the United States\". The main reason why the Founding Fathers decided to make the President the Commander in Chief is that they wanted this role to be played by a civilian rather than a member of the military (they didn't want the country to turn into a military dictatorship). But even though the President was made Commander in Chief, the drafters of the Constitution didn't want him to be able to make the actual decision to go to war, as they knew kings and dictators often used war to increase their power and curtail civil liberties. Hence, only Congress was given the power to declare war, and the President can only decide how to conduct the war once it has been declared by the legislature. And yet, all but five of the numerous (more than two hundred) wars fought by the United States were started not by a declaration of war by Congress, but following a decision made by the President (and not a declaration, as the President cannot declare war), which seems to fly in the face of the Constitution. This counterintuitive reality was made possible by the necessity for quickness: When the Civil War started in 1861, Congress was not even in session, and Lincoln had to make the decision on his own. This presidential advantage was made even more obvious by the emergence of the atomic bomb in the 20th century: War had now become a matter of minutes, and waiting for Congress to declare it simply became impossible. As is the case with many other situations, the President is able act decisively, whereas Congress is made up of 535 people, making the decision-making process way slower and longer. Congress tried to react by passing the War Powers Act in 1973. This law made it an obligation for the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of deciding a military action, and limited any military action decided by the President to 60 or 90 days. But many specialists of the American presidency think that this law actually strengthened presidential war powers by making it official that the president could start military operations without a declaration of war by Congress. By trying to limit presidential powers, Congress had actually confessed its own weakness. Treaties Section 2 also states that the President '\"shall have power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.\" In other words, the Constitution made it clear that no treaty involving the United States could become official without the approval of a supermajority of the Senate. But the presidency created tools known as \"executive agreements\", which are basically treaties. Yet, as they are not *called* treaties, they don't need the approval of the Senate, and the President is now able to deal with other nations without the consent of the legislative power. The Supreme Court legitimized this practice as early as 1937 in the *United States v. Belmont* decision and gave executive agreements the same legal value as treaties. The result was astounding: As of 2009, 94% of international agreements signed by the United States were executive agreements rather than treaties. These two evolutions (war being decided by the President and treaties being replaced by executive agreements) help explain why the President has become so powerful: While the Constitution shared the responsibility for foreign policy decisions between the executive and the legislative, the President is now almost exclusively responsible for the foreign policy of the United States. And since the US has become, over the years, the most powerful country in the world diplomatically and militarily speaking, the President now leads the most powerful army and the most influential diplomacy in the world. The change between what the Constitution wanted (foreign policy shared between Congress and the presidency) and reality (the President is the leader of the country's foreign policy) was made official by the Supreme Court as early as 1936. In the *United States v. Curtiss-Wright* decision, the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution described the President as the \"sole organ\" of American foreign policy. More recently, in 2015, the highest court in the land reaffirmed the central role played by the President in matters of foreign policy by deciding that only he (the President) had the constitutional authority to recognize foreign states, in the *Zivotofsky v. Kerry* decision. As a result, the President is widely recognized today as the chief of American foreign policy, even though the Constitution does not make it clear that this should be the President's role role. Nominations Section 2 also says the President \"shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States\". This is one of the most important powers of the American President. All federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, are nominated by him and have to be confirmed by a simple majority of the Senate. Since federal judges are appointed for life and are in charge of interpreting the Constitution, this gives the President the opportunity to influence the fate of the United States for decades, long after he leaves the White House. Donald Trump's nominations of Neil Gorsuch (2017), Brett Kavanaugh (2018) and Amy Coney Barrett (2020) to the Supreme Court have already started having a direct influence on issues like free speech, abortion rights or religious freedom. If the nomination power itself hasn't really changed since 1787, the increasingly important role played by the federal judiciary in general and the Supreme Court in particular makes the President's right to nominate justices more important and consequential than it has ever been, which explains why recent Supreme Court nominations have been such tense and polarizing events. Finally, Section 2 gives the President the right to pardon people no matter what crime they committed (except in case of impeachment). This power is probably the strangest of them all, considering what the Founding Fathers were trying to achieve: Pardoning people was typically a royal prerogative, and giving the American President the same powers as a king was precisely what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid. However, they still gave him that power as a check on the judiciary, reminding us that if they probably feared the executive more than any other power, all three branches of the federal government had to be limited and checked. 1. A. ArticleII,Section3(TakeCareClause,StateoftheUnion, Recommendations) *''He shall from time to time give to the Congress **information of the state of the union**, and **recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient**; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he **shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers**; **he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed**, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.''* Take Care Clause Section 3 makes the fundamental role of the American President explicit: \"He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed\". This clause, known as the \"Take Care Clause\", is a useful (though obvious) reminder of the fact that the President is the leader of the *executive* power, and that the main reason why this branch of government was created was to make sure that the laws adopted by Congress would be properly executed and become a reality. State of the Union Section 3 also focuses on the role played by the President in the legislative process. Even though saying that the President has a legislative role seems counterintuitive (Congress, not the executive, is supposed to adopt laws), it makes perfect sense if one takes into account the notion of checks and balances: Each of the three branches is responsible for its own powers, but all of them have to be able to control one another. Congress adopts laws, which is what a legislature does, but the executive can (and should) check Congress's work. First, the President \"shall from time to time give to Congress Information of the State of the Union\". This passage of the Constitution gave its name to the most famous speech in American politics, the State of the Union Address, which allows the President to go to Congress (traditionally once a year) and deliver a speech about the state of the country. However, since the beginning of the 20th century, the State of the Union has become an opportunity for the President to propose his own legislative agenda to Congress and ask the legislative branch to work on it. In other words, even though Congress still adopts the laws (or fails to do so), many of them are actually proposed by the President. The change was so important that as early as the 1950s, American political scientist Clinton Rossiter described the American President as the country's \"Chief legislator\", which constitutionally speaking sounds like an oxymoron. Even the federal budget, which is probably Congress's most important prerogative (the power of the purse), has been proposed by the presidency since the beginning of the 20th century. Recommendations Clause Nevertheless, the capacity of the American President to give Congress a legislative agenda is a logical consequence of the rest of Section 3, known as the Recommendations Clause, which says that the President can \"recommend to their \[Congress's\] consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient\". The President can also influence the legislative process by using his veto (Article I, Section 7), which forces Congress to gather the support of 2/3 of its members in each House in order for a bill to become a law. If the veto given to the American President by the Constitution is not an absolute weapon (Congress can still override the veto and adopt the law), it is still a very efficient one: Throughout American history, 90% of presidential vetoes have led to the bill not being adopted. The veto is such a strong weapon that sometimes the mere threat of the president using it is enough for Congress to modify a bill or even abandon it altogether. Section 3 also gives the President the right to convene Congress in exceptional circumstances (as Lincoln did during the Civil War), and to \"receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers\", which means that only the President has the right to recognize the existence of a foreign country, as the Supreme Court made clear in 2015 in the *Zivotofsky v. Kerry* decision when it decided that only the President had the right to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. 1. A. Article II, Section 4 (Impeachment) *''The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on **impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors**.''* Impeachment was created by the Framers of the Constitution as the ultimate safeguard against the President becoming a dictator. If the President or any member of the United States Government clearly violates the law, then Congress can remove them. The impeachment procedure itself is described in Article I: First, the accused has to be impeached by a simple majority in the House of Representatives. If that happens, then the impeachment trial takes place in the Senate. The trial is presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and in order for the accused to be convicted, they have to be found guilty by 2/3 of the Senators. Since the Senate is not a tribunal, the only possible sentence is to be removed from office. But a criminal trial in a traditional court of law is possible after the person has been removed. Three presidents have been impeached by the House of Representatives: Andrew Johnson in 1867, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump, who recently became the only President in American History to be impeached twice (in 2019 and 2021). However, all of them were acquitted by the Senate, which means no American President has ever been convicted and removed from office. Richard Nixon was not impeached, as he resigned in 1974 before the House could impeach him following the Watergate scandal. 1. A. Inherent Powers The idea of inherent powers simply means that the President, just like Congress, has powers that are not explicitly written in the Constitution. These are called un-enumerated powers (or implied powers) for Congress, and inherent powers for the President. They include: - The bully pulpit, which is the idea that the President, unlike Congress or the courts, has a unique capacity to communicate directly with the American people and use the prestige of his office in order to obtain their support. - Unilateral powers, which are administrative tools created by the presidency in order to shape public policy without going through Congress. They include executive orders, executive agreements, statements of administration policy or signing statements... - Executive privilege, which is the idea that the President has the right to keep some information secret, even from Congress and the courts in order to do his job efficiently. Executive privilege was recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1974 *United States v. Nixon* decision. 1. A. Checks and balances As powerful as he has become, the American President is still constrained by the system of checks and balances. But these are a two-way street: The President can be controlled by the other two branches, but he can also control them. For instance: - The President can control Congress through his veto power that he can use to prevent a bill from becoming a law. But Congress can control the President by overriding his veto (2/3 majority in each house) or by impeaching him if necessary. - The President can control the Judiciary by nominating federal judges. But Federal courts can review the constitutionality of presidential decisions. 1. A. Presidential Immunity Unlike the French Constitution, the American Constitution does not say anything about presidential immunity and whether or not a serving or former president can be criminally prosecuted for actions he undertook during his time in office. As we saw, the impeachment procedure described in Article II, Section 4 does allow Congress to impeach and remove a president who commits \"treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors\", but impeachment is a political process rather than a judicial one, and if the Senate can remove the president, it cannot impose any judicial sentence on him. Following the numerous legal battles former President Donald Trump has been facing for actions he undertook while sitting in the Oval Office, particularly those regarding the events of January 6, 2021, the question of presidential immunity came to the forefront and the Supreme Court eventually intervened. In June 2024, in its *Trump v. US* decision, SCOTUS, with a 6-3 majority, decided that because of the notion of separation of powers and the central role it plays in the constitutional architecture of the United States, the President does enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for actions undertaken during his time in office. More precisely, the Supreme Court distinguished between three types of situations: - The president enjoys **absolute immunity** for actions that are within the scope of his constitutional authority. - He enjoys **presumptive immunity** for all his official acts as president. - He has **no immunity** for unofficial acts. Of course, the separation between official and unofficial acts will probably become the next important constitutional question regarding the precise width of this newly-established presidential immunity. Séance 5 : According to Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, a candidate for the Presidency must be at least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen (i.e., not naturalized), and have been a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years. The President is elected for a four-year **term**, and, following the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, cannot serve more than two terms. This Amendment was passed after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four consecutive terms from 1933-1945 (when he died in office), thereby breaking a tradition that Presidents serve only two terms established when George Washington resigned at the end of his second term in 1797. Presidential elections are held in even years (e.g., 2016, 2020, 2024) on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. The President is not elected directly by the population, but by the **Electoral College,** due to an **indirect electoral system** that reflects the federal structure of the United States. A. The Electoral College There were two competing viewpoints on how best to elect the President at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. On one side were those who wanted the President to be elected by Congress, as had previously been the case under the Articles of Confederation. To these delegates, such as Roger Sherman, the Executive was "nothing more than an Institution for carrying the will of the legislature into effect." On the other side were those who wanted the President to be directly elected by the people, arguing that this would better entrench the separation of powers. According to James Madison, "if it be a fundamental principle of free government that the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary powers should be *separately* exercised, it is equally so that they should be *independently* exercised." Nevertheless, some Founders were uncomfortable with the popular legitimacy conferred upon a leader by direct elections, and did not want the President to be able to use it to increase his powers. Moreover, information did not travel nearly as fast then as it does today, and the Founders worried that the American people would elect someone they didn't know enough about. The Electoral College was therefore proposed as a compromise to bridge these two opposing perspectives. To form the Electoral College, each state is allocated a number of **electors** equal to its number of members of Congress (senators + representatives). For example, Wyoming, which has one representative (and two senators, like all states), has three electoral votes in the Electoral College. California, which has 52 representatives in the 2024 election, will have 54 electoral votes. Washington, D.C., which has no representation in Congress, has also had three electoral votes since the 23rd Amendment was ratified in 1964. Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories, on the other hand, are not entitled to electors. There are therefore approximately four million U.S. citizens living in U.S. territories who have no representation in the Electoral College. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution specifies that state legislatures can appoint electors however they wish, with the caveat that federal office holders, such as senators or representatives, cannot be electors. Nevertheless, by 1832 most states were choosing electors through popular elections (previously, state legislatures commonly appointed electors). By the early 20th century, most states put the names of the presidential candidates on the **ballot** directly, rather than the names of the electors who would choose the President. Instead of electors running for office, parties would put forward **slates of electors**, and states would appoint the slate of the candidate who won the popular vote. This is the system that predominates today. For example, Donald Trump won the popular vote in Texas in 2020, and thus Texas sent Trump's slate of 38 electors to the Electoral College. This shift towards a more partisan system has been upheld by the Supreme Court. In ***Ray v. Blair*** (1952), the court ruled that parties could require their elector candidates to pledge to support their party nominee for President. However, this still left a problem of **faithless electors** -- electors who pledge to support their party's presidential nominee, but break their pledge and vote for another person. For example, in 2016 five electors who had pledged to support Hillary Clinton and two electors who had pledged to support Donald Trump ended up voting for other people, as electors can vote for anybody they choose -- they don't have to be an official candidate. In ***Chiafalo v. Washington*** (2020), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states can sanction and replace faithless electors. Thirty-three states and Washington, D.C. now have laws to this effect. Forty-eight states and Washington, D.C. determine their electors through **party block voting** (also known as general ticket), a **winner-take-all system** wherein the winner of the state's popular vote receives all of that state's electors. Maine and Nebraska, on the other hand, appoint individual electors to the popular vote winner in each congressional district, and two electors to the winner of the statewide popular vote. The Electoral College currently comprises 538 electors. 270 electoral votes are therefore needed to be elected President and Vice President. According to the original text of the Constitution, the winner of the Electoral College vote became the President, and the second- place candidate became the Vice President. This could result in opponents from different parties being elected President and Vice President, as when Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson was the Vice President under Federalist President John Adams from 1797-1801. As American politics became increasingly polarized in the early years of the new country, this system became unworkable. In 1804, the 12th Amendment modified the electoral procedure so that electors vote for the President and Vice President in separate votes. Presidential and Vice- Presidential candidates run together as a "**ticket**" (e.g., the Biden/Harris ticket), which means that the President and Vice President now always come from the same party. The electors meet in their respective state capitals on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December to cast their votes for President and Vice President. Once they cast their votes, their role as an elector is finished. The electoral votes are counted before a joint meeting of Congress on January 6 (this is the meeting that the mob attempted to disrupt when it stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021). If no candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College vote, a **contingent election** is held. The House of Representatives votes in a contingent election for the President, with each state delegation voting as a bloc to choose a winner from amongst the Electoral College's top three candidates. The Senate votes in a contingent election for the Vice President, with each senator voting individually. The President is inaugurated on January 20 (and thus in an odd year). Before entering office, the **President-elect** is **sworn in** by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with the following oath (usually on the Bible, though this is not a requirement): "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." During his first inauguration in 1789, George Washington added "so help me God" to the end of his oath. This has since become a tradition. Since the composition of the Electoral College is not proportional to the popular vote, presidential candidates can win an election despite losing the national popular vote. This has occurred five times in American history: in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. Presidential candidates tend to focus their campaigns in **swing states** where polls show a close race, rather than states that are safely "red" (Republican) or "blue" (Democratic). There have been several attempts to reform the electoral system, but none have received the support of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of states required to amend the Constitution. One notable current effort is the **National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)**. Launched in 2006, the NPVIC aims to consistently award the Presidency to the winner of the national popular vote. Membership in the compact is open to all states, and any state that joins agrees to give all of its electors to the winner of the national popular vote. However, the compact will only come into force once states representing 270 electoral votes have joined. To date, seventeen states and Washington, D.C., representing 209 electoral votes, have joined the agreement. A. The Primaries Before the general election, **primary elections** are held to select each party's presidential and vice-presidential nominees. Unlike the general election, the organization of primary elections is not outlined in the Constitution. Therefore, the parties have developed their own procedures, which are liable to change from election to election. Nevertheless, a general system has developed that is similar to both parties. For most of American history, the parties' presidential nominees were chosen by party congressmen and/or leaders. The modern primary system developed in the aftermath of the controversial 1968 Democratic National Convention. At this point in time, only a handful of states held primary elections, and these elections were non-binding, meaning they were mostly "beauty contests" in which voters simply indicated their preference to party elites, who chose the nominee. When pro-Vietnam War candidate Hubert Humphrey won the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination over anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy despite not having participated in a single primary, protests and riots broke out. The Democratic Party subsequently formed the **McGovern-Fraser Commission** to investigate the events. In 1971, this commission recommended that the selection of **delegates** to the **National Convention** be open to all party members, so that delegates could no longer be chosen in secret by party leaders. It also recommended that primary elections be binding, creating a direct link between the popular vote in each state and the selection of delegates. This system was soon adopted by both major parties, and is the system that has existed ever since. Like the Electoral College, the primaries are therefore an indirect electoral system. During the primaries, voters select delegates who vote for the party's presidential nominee at the National Convention. The process involves a series of staggered elections in which voters in each state vote for their preferred presidential nominee for their chosen party. The process usually starts in February and ends in June in presidential election years. Puerto Ricans and Americans in U.S. territories can vote in the primaries, unlike in **general elections**. The winning presidential candidate chooses a vice-presidential candidate as a running mate. Each state organizes and runs its own primary election, and we can distinguish between three main types. In **closed primaries**, only registered party members are allowed to vote in their party's primary. In **semi-closed primaries**, registered party members can only vote in their party's primary, but independent voters can choose to vote in whichever primary they choose. In **open primaries**, any voter can vote in any primary they choose, but they can only vote in one. Some states hold **caucuses** instead of primaries. In caucuses, voters meet to discuss the candidates before electing delegates to county conventions, who in turn elect delegates to state conventions, where the delegates for the national convention are chosen. Caucuses are often criticized for being less accessible and democratic than primaries, but defenders say they allow for a more informed decision. While the structure of Republican and Democratic primaries is similar, their allocation of delegates is different. Democrats use **proportional representation** in each state, meaning that a candidate's proportion of delegates is equal to their proportion of the vote. There is a threshold of 15 percent of the popular vote to receive delegates. Republicans, on the other hand, use a mixture of proportional representation and **winner-take-all** (in which the winner of the statewide popular vote receives all of the state's delegates). Republican primaries held before March 15 must award delegates proportionally. The final step in the process is the National Convention, where all the delegates gather and vote for their party's presidential nominee. Each party has its own convention (e.g., the DNC -- Democratic National Convention, and the RNC -- Republican National Convention). If no candidate receives a majority of delegate votes on the first ballot, a **brokered convention** occurs. In a brokered convention, all pledged delegates are released from their pledges, and can vote for any candidate of their choosing. Repeated rounds of voting occur until one candidate wins a majority of the vote. The last brokered convention was in 1952. Each party also allows some elected officials and/or important party figures to vote at the National Convention. These delegates are often referred to as **superdelegates**. Most Republican superdelegates are required to vote for the winner of their state's popular vote. Democratic superdelegates were traditionally free to support whomever they liked, but after Bernie Sanders and his supporters complained that superdelegates unfairly influenced the results of the 2016 primaries, the party changed the rules in 2018 so that superdelegates are only able to vote in the event of a brokered convention. A. Campaign Finance 5.7 billion dollars was spent on campaigning in the 2020 United States presidential election. By contrast, 74 million euros was spent during the 2017 French presidential campaigns. The remarkable amount of money spent in American elections is largely due to a series of Supreme Court decisions that have progressively struck down limits on campaign finance as contrary to the First Amendment's protection of freedom of expression. Recognizing the potential for new mass media to significantly increase the impact of money on election campaigns, Congress placed various limits on campaign donations and spending in the early 1970s. These added to earlier bans on campaign donations from corporations and labor unions enacted in 1907. However, the current unrestricted financing of election campaigns began to take form with the 1976 ***Buckley v. Valeo*** Supreme Court decision. In this judgment, the court ruled that limits on campaign expenditures are unconstitutional because they reduce free expression. Limits on campaign contributions, on the other hand, were found to be constitutional because the state has a compelling interest in "the prevention of corruption or the appearance of corruption." Because the Buckley decision ruled that only the prevention of corruption can justify limits on campaign contributions, it also allowed for unrestricted self-funding of campaigns. The justices argued that "the candidate's use of personal funds reduces the candidate's dependence on outside contributions and thereby counteracts... coercive pressures." This has subsequently allowed wealthy individuals, such as Michael Bloomberg and, to a lesser extent, Donald Trump, to run well-funded campaigns with limited public contributions. Nevertheless, the limits on campaign contributions upheld by the court in *Buckley v. Valeo* indirectly restricted campaign expenditures by most candidates. However, these limits were greatly weakened by a pair of court cases in 2010: ***Citizens United v. FEC*** in the Supreme Court, and ***Speechnow.org v. FEC*** in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In *Citizens United v. FEC*, the court found that limits on **independent expenditures** in political campaigns (expenditures by third parties unaffiliated with candidates) are an unconstitutional violation of freedom of expression. In practice, this means that corporations, labor unions, non-profits, and other organizations can now spend unlimited funds on political campaigns. Soon after, in *Speechnow.org v. FEC*, the court ruled that the government cannot limit the size of contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures. Essentially, this means that while there are limits on the size of donations to candidates, there are no limits on the size of donations to independent groups that can campaign for or against candidates. This has led to the creation of Independent Expenditure Committees, commonly known as **super PACs**, which are organizations that can raise unlimited money to campaign for or against candidates, so long as there is no official coordination with the candidates' campaigns. In practice, this means that wealthy Americans can now spend unlimited funds on political campaigns by donating to super PACs. The *Citizens United* decision has also led to the widespread use of "**dark money**" in American political campaigns. While official campaigns and super PACs are required by law to disclose their donors, this is not true of some types of nonprofit organizations. Therefore, certain nonprofits (such as the National Rifle Association, which advocates for gun rights, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which advocates for access to reproductive and sexual health services) can spend significant amounts of money on campaigns without disclosing who the money came from. In the 2020 federal election campaigns, dark money spending totaled over one billion dollars. It is important to note that public financing is available to presidential candidates in both the primary and general election stage. If candidates take public financing, they must agree to spending limits and a prohibition on use of their own personal funds on their campaign (these restrictions are constitutional because the candidate is not obliged to use public financing). However, since Barack Obama became the first candidate to decline public financing in the 2008 Democratic primaries and general election, the vast majority of serious candidates have eschewed public funding in favor of private contributions and their accompanying unlimited spending potential.

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