March 24 - Politics and History Chat

Federal election date is specified by law
QUOTE: On January 23, 1845, the 28th US Congress passed "An act to establish a uniform time for holding elections for electors of President and Vice President in all the States of the Union. The act selected "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November" as the day on which all states must appoint electors. This standardization greatly increased the speed of Presidential elections; the previous election of 1844 lasted from November 1-December 4. From 1848 onward, every Presidential election has been held on this date. 

20th amendment specifies very specific dates when President and Vice-President terms end
Quote: 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. 

How the Union Pulled Off a Presidential Election During the Civil War
QUOTE: The United States has never delayed a presidential election. But there was one instance in which some wondered if the country should: when the nation was embroiled in the Civil War. 

Re-electing Lincoln: The Election of 1864
Another account of the election of 1864, which mentions Hannibal Hamlin.  

Absentee Soldier Voting In Civil War Law And Politics
QUOTE: During the Civil War, twenty northern states changed their laws to permit absent soldiers to vote. Before enactment of these statutes, state laws had tethered balloting to the voter's community and required in-person participation by voters. Under the new laws, eligible voters - as long as they were soldiers - could cast ballots in distant military encampments, far from their neighbors and community leaders. 

Election Administration at State and Local Levels
Quote: The U.S. is characterized by a highly decentralized election administration system. The entities that do the rubber-meets-the-road functions of running an election are typically on the county or city/town level. The state is responsible for certain aspects of elections as well, and the federal government has a role, too. The result is that no state administers elections in exactly the same way as another state, and there is quite a bit of variation in election administration even within states. Each state’s election administration structure and procedures grew organically, as times changed and administering an election became an increasingly complex task. 

The New Voter Suppression
Quote: The connection between race and voter suppression did not end in the 1960s. While the overtly racist voter suppression tactics of the Jim Crow past are no longer with us, voter suppression remains a mainstay of electoral politics in the United States today. 

Electoral College History
Quote: The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.” Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system. The ratification of the 12th Amendment, the expansion of voting rights, and the States’ use of the popular vote to determine who will be appointed as electors have each substantially changed the process. 

Whose votes count the least in the Electoral College? 
  Quote:Most people believe the Electoral College weighs ballots in states with large populations much less than those in small states. For example, as the Washington Post noted shortly after the election, Wyoming has three electoral votes and a population of 586,107, while California has 55 electoral votes and 39,144,818 residents. Distributing the electoral vote evenly among each state’s residents suggests that individual votes from Wyoming carry 3.6 times more influence, or weight, than those from California. 

Colorado files brief in 'faithless elector' case
QUOTE: The case stemmed from the 2016 presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton won the highest percentage of votes in Colorado. Micheal Baca, one of the Democratic electors, attempted to cast his ballot in the Electoral College for a different candidate, in violation of state law. Then-Secretary of State Wayne Williams replaced him with another elector, who voted for Clinton. Two other electors, Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich, had previously sought to prevent the state from enforcing its law. Ultimately, there were 10 such “faithless electors” nationwide in the 2016 election. 

How the Electoral College Became Winner-Take-All
QUOTE:  The election of 1824 is most famous for the "corrupt bargain," a deal in the House of Representatives that gave John Quincy Adams the presidency despite his winning fewer popular and electoral votes than Andrew Jackson. But 1824 was also significant for another reason: it was the first election in which the majority of states used a statewide winner-take-all voting method for choosing their presidential electors. 

Why James Madison Wanted to Change the Way We Vote For President
QUOTE: One of the most common criticisms of plans to modify or eliminate the Electoral College is that to do so would be to deviate from the wisdom of the Founders of the American political system. But the "Father of the Constitution" himself, James Madison, was never in favor of our current system for electing the president, one in which nearly all states award their electoral votes to the statewide popular vote winner. He ultimately backed a constitutional amendment to prohibit this practice. 

How many times was a president elected who did not win the popular vote?
 QUOTE: In 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president despite not winning either the popular vote or the electoral vote. Andrew Jackson was the winner in both categories. Jackson received 38,000 more popular votes than Adams, and beat him in the electoral vote 99 to 84. Despite his victories, Jackson didn’t reach the majority 131 votes needed in the Electoral College to be declared president. In fact, neither candidate did. The decision went to the House of Representatives, which voted Adams into the White House.  In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes won the election (by a margin of one electoral vote), but he lost the popular vote by more than 250,000 ballots to Samuel J. Tilden. In 1888, Benjamin Harrison received 233 electoral votes to Grover Cleveland’s 168, winning the presidency. But Harrison lost the popular vote by more than 90,000 votes. In 2000, George W. Bush was declared the winner of the general election and became the 43rd president, but he didn’t win the popular vote either. Al Gore holds that distinction, garnering about 540,000 more votes than Bush. However, Bush won the electoral vote, 271 to 266. In 2016, Donald Trump won the electoral vote by 304 to 227 over Hillary Clinton, but Trump lost the popular vote. Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, according to an analysis by the Associated Press of the certified results in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. 

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929
QUOTE: On this date, the House passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixing the number of Representatives at 435. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. 

How the 4 biggest outbreaks since the start of this century shattered some long-standing myths 
  This brief article mentions SARS, MERS, EBOLA, and H1N1.  Heather noted that since the 1980's, according to Dr. Fauci, every president had to manage at least one epidemic

These are the three reasons fascism spread in 1930s America — and might spread again today
  QUOTE: In the 1930s, fascist ideas were increasingly accepted. This was reflected in the energetic growth of Nazi organizations. Ku Klux Klan rallies were common and numerous; Trump’s own father was arrested at one such rally, reportedly while wearing a Klan outfit. A 1941 book found that more than 100 such organizations had formed since 1933. The appeal of fascist ideas extended far beyond the fringe, reaching prominent citizens such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh went so far as to praise Adolf Hitler as “undoubtedly a great man.” In 1940, Lindbergh’s wife published a bestseller that called totalitarianism “The Wave of the Future” and an “ultimately good conception of humanity.” 

The Russian Flu of 1889: The Deadly Pandemic Few Americans Took Seriously
QUOTE: From America’s vantage in 1889, the Russian influenza posed little cause for concern. So what if it had struck with a vengeance in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg that fall, infecting as much as half the population? Or that it had raged swiftly westward across Europe, into the British Isles? Or that some of the continent’s most prominent leaders—the czar of Russia, the king of Belgium, the emperor of Germany—had fallen ill with the virus? To Americans, it was safely over there, a vast ocean away.  But within a few months, the pandemic spread to virtually every part of the earth. Tracing its path, scientists would observe that it tended to follow the major roads, rivers and, most notably, railway lines—many of which hadn’t existed during last major pandemic in the 1840s. 

6 facts about economic inequality in the U.S. 
QUOTE: Rising economic inequality in the United States has become a central issue in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and discussions about policy interventions that might help address it are likely to remain at the forefront in the 2020 general election.  As these debates continue, here are some basic facts about how economic inequality has changed over time and how the U.S. compares globally. 

Warren G. Harding Biography
QUOTE: Most historians consider Harding to be one of America's worst presidents. He is believed to have seen the role of president as mainly ceremonial, leaving government work to subordinates. Revisionists have re-examined his role as an important transition between the Progressive Era and the years of prosperity in the 1920s. Harding is also credited for his broad-minded views on race and civil rights. Historians agree that his negative legacy is not so much attributed to his corrupt friends, but his own lack of vision and poor sense of where he wanted to take the country. 

The First 100 Days
QUOTE: During the Hundred Days, F.D.R. took the country in a whole new direction. The 1932 election had been, in the words of President Herbert Hoover, not a "contest between two men" but one between "two philosophies of government." Hoover believed in small government and letting the free market operate. The Federal Government that Hoover presided over was stunningly limited in scope. Its entire budget was — fiscal conservatives, read it and weep — under $4 billion. Even as the U.S. endured the worst depression in its history, Hoover argued that the answers lay in unfettered capitalism and private charity.