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Monday, August 15, 2016

Argentina and the "Disappeared"


In connection with the Fifth Amendment, I mentioned the period when Argentina was ruled by a military junta.

The singer Mercedes Sosa came to my attention since she just passed away.

Her favorite idea was:

Dictators come, dictators go. We in the United States pray that the Fifth Amendment not go away.

Mercedes Sosa, known as La Negra, (July 9, 1935 — October 4, 2009) was an Argentine singer who was and remains immensely popular throughout Latin America and internationally. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She gave voice to songs written by both Brazilians and Cubans. She was best known as the "voice of the voiceless ones."

After the military junta of Jorge Videla came to power in 1976, the atmosphere in Argentina grew increasingly oppressive. At a concert in La Plata, Argentina, in 1979, the late Mercedes Sosa was searched and arrested on stage, along with the attending crowd. Their release came about through international intervention. Banned in her own country, she moved to Paris and then to Madrid.

From Wikipedia, "Mercedes Sosa", accessed October 7, 2009.

"The climate changes over the years. The pastor changes his flock. And just as everything, everything changes, it's not strange that I have changed."
Cambia el clima con los años. Cambia el pastor su rebaño. Y así como todo cambia. Que yo cambié no es extraño.


Cambia, todo cambia.
Change, everything changes.


Sunday, December 13, 2009

Amendment XXI

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The Twenty-First Amendment was ratified December 5, 1933.

From Nate:

With this amendment, prohibition became a state or local issue.


Thursday, December 10, 2009

Amendment XXVI

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment was ratified July 1, 1971.

From Nate:

"If you can die for your country in the military, you should be able to vote" – for the politicians who send young Americans into harms way.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation ...

One thing that Congress does not do is set standards for voter registration or for voting machines. And, Congress does not fund these enterprises. Currently, each state and local jurisdictions perform these functions.

A disaster arose in Florida in the presidential election of 2000. The election was so close, and punch card ballots were not counted if the counting machines could not determine whether a voter selected a candidate. If the punch wasn't completely empty, the counting machine did not recognize the vote. This came to be called "hanging chads " by the industry which manufactured these machines.

Congress had no say in the matter. Voting has been under the supervision of the state legislature and had enacted a rule for an automatic recount. However, the recount had a deadline if Florida was going to be able submit its votes for the Electoral Collage without negative consequences.

The Florida Supreme Court weighed in – with dubious state constitutional authority.

Two cases were submitted to the Unites States Supreme Court addressing different issues.

Finally, two hours before the Electoral College deadline, the Supreme Court ruled that the original ruling by Florida's Secretary of State that George W. Bush had won the popular vote. Candidate Al (Albert) Gore, Jr., conceded the next day.

The Supreme Court majority (5 to 4) ruled based on the spirit of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; ... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Some constitutional scholars believe that the federal Supreme Court made the right decision but based on the wrong grounds. A lot has been written about the subject, but something similar could happen again (see ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT, Bush v. Gore, Case (00-949), [December 12, 2000], Cornell University Law School Supreme Court Collection, February 1, 2006, accessed December 7, 2009).


Monday, December 7, 2009

Dear Reviewer . . .


Dear Reviewer,

Please use the menu list on the left to see everything that I posted about each amendment.

Some postings for amendments have additional labels such as "That's Outrageous."

Thanks and enjoy.

Nate Segal


Amendment XXV

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session.

If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment was ratified February 10, 1967.

From Nate Segal:

This amendment introduces the term 'Acting President.' Amendment XXII speaks of man "acting as president." I believe that these ideas are not quite the same.

The United States was without a vice president on several occasions. This amendment addresses this issue: the president appoints a vice president, and this vice president is in line to become president like any other vice president.

This Amendment is long – 393 words.
However, Amendment XIV is the longest amendment, containing 430 words.
The third longest amendment, Amendment XII, has 237 words.


Amendment XX

Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January,
and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January,
of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified;
and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President.
If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified;
and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

The Twentieth Amendment was ratified January 23, 1933.

From Nate:

Among other things, this amendment closes the gap between the time of the presidential election and the inauguration. Previously, the inauguration had been in the spring, on March 4th.

It seems to me that this is a case of the Constitution catching up to the way Americans were living. With railroads spanning the continent, the time gap of a "lame duck" president could have been closed fifty years earlier.

So why in 1933?

The unpopular President Herbert Hoover was the lame duck. The stock market had crashed in October 1929. By the time Americans had voted for president in 1932, many were not only jobless but homeless. Entire families lived outdoors in makeshift accommodations. They called these camps "Hoovervilles" – President Hoover was keeping his hands off the economy although it wasn't improving.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was president-elect. Everyone knew his platform and ideas for rescuing America from its greatest depression. And yet the clock ticked away.

In truth, this amendment was proposed by Congress in March 1932, well before the election. This point is consistent with the feeling of removing President Hoover as early as possible. On the other hand, it was declared ratified in February 1933 after the new presidency would have begin. Perhaps this was a way of showing deference to a sitting president by not changing the rules especially to his detriment.

· · ·

Some history:

Concerning the Electoral College's choosing a president and vice president, we find in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution:

"The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes."

Ordinarily, Congress was in session on the first Monday of December (see Article I, Section 4). They wanted to go home before winter set in and only return when roads were passable in the spring.

In the years of presidential elections, the quorum of a new Congress could have already assembled in December waiting for the arrival of the electors from all the states.

The Appalachian Mountains were a barrier between the original states and "western" territories. However, electors from Kentucky and Tennessee, riding through the Cumberland Gap over the Wilderness Road *, were hardly farther time-wise from the nation's capital than inland Vermont (1791) – maybe even closer. These two states had entered the Union in 1792 and 1796.

As new states entered the Union, they lay along the large interior rivers: the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers. Before Michigan entered the Union in 1837, only three states from the Northwest Territory had entered the Union – Ohio in 1803, Indiana in 1816, and Illinois in 1818.

According to Jack Beatty (Age of Betrayal: the Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, page 16) people going from Illinois to New York in 1830 might be traveling up to three weeks. No other state capital was farther from New York. Of course, the capital of the United States was in Washington, D.C., not New York. But this figure gives a feel for the season of presidential elections.

1825 was the year of the "Great Betrayal." The candidates had been Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford (a Southern cotton planter), John Quincy Adams, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun – and none had secured a simple majority in the Electoral College. The House would decide among the three top finishers, each state receiving one vote. Clay had finished fourth and Crawford had suffered a massive, disabling stroke. However, on the evening of January 9, Clay and Adams met in Washington "at Clay's invitation, mainly, it seems, to smooth over their personal differences."

The subseqent allegations that Adams and Clay struck a "Corrupt Bargain" in which Adams promised Clay the office of secretary of state in exchange for his support for the presidency, were highly dubious – and also devastating (Sean Wilentz, Andrew Jackson, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, pages 47-8).

The long winter until spring was a time of political mischief in 1825. I don't know how long Congress was away for the holidays. I don't know where the presidential electors were, although they were probably enjoying themselves in Washington. November - election. December - travel to Washington and cast preliminary votes. January - wait for revised voting instructions. Congress returns to elect the president, one vote for each of the 24 states. March 4th - inaugurate the new president. Life was slower than we can probably imagine. And plenty of time for mischief.

* From Wikipedia:

The Wilderness Road was the principal route used by settlers to reach Kentucky for more than fifty years. In 1775, Daniel Boone blazed a trail for the Transylvania Company from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky. It was later lengthened, following Native American trails, to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. The Wilderness Road was steep and rough, and could only be traversed on foot or horseback. Despite the adverse conditions, thousands of people used it. In 1792, the new Kentucky legislature provided money to upgrade the road. In 1796, an improved all-weather road was opened for wagon and carriage travel. The road was abandoned around 1840, although modern highways follow much of its route.

(Wikipedia, "Wilderness Road," Accessed December 13, 2009)


Amendment XIX

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified August 18, 1920.