Tuesday was election day, and as I compose this post we still don’t know which party is going to control each house of Congress. The winners will not take office for a couple of months. The present office holders, some of whom did not run for, and others who failed, re-reelection will remain in office until then, with no limitation on their power and without even the potential of having to face the voters to rein them in. This is called the “lame duck” period, which I believe should be shortened if not eliminated.
When the Constitution was adopted, it was even worse. The election was still held in November, but the winners (President and Congress) did not take office until the following March 4, a period of four months. Worse, the required annual session of Congress (imagine, Congress was not a full-time occupation) started in December (shortly after the election), meaning that a one-term representative could spend half his actual legislative time after he had already been defeated for re-election. The situation was somewhat improved by the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1933 which directed that congressional terms would end on January 3rd and Presidential terms on January 20th, reducing the lame duck period to some two to two and one-half months.
I believe that is still too long. New Jersey has about the same lame duck period but look at how many laws are sped through in the last days of each legislative term. In the United Kingdom, except for the potential of an emergent situation, once the Parliament is dissolved in preparation for an election, that Parliament never meets again. In the last general election, in 2019, the election took place on December 12, results were announced on December 13 and the new Parliament met on December 17.
Of course, the U.S. would have to run its elections a lot more efficiently to get results so quickly. We should figure out how to do that.
Jay Bohn
November 10, 2022