Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the expanding number of Democratic presidential candidates pledging to choose a woman as a running mate. What is striking is how these pledges have not even warranted a question in coverage over the propriety of such pledges since they would bar any males regardless of their qualifications to lead the nation. It raises an interesting conflict between the political and legal realms in stating such threshold conditions. What would be strictly forbidden for any business or agency or school is permissible in politics.
Here is the column:
The pool of Democratic presidential candidates for 2020 is not just the largest in political history but also the most diverse. The impressive array of women and minorities follows the first female Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. That followed two successful nominations and election of an African American as president. That is something in which every citizen can take pride, and it should inspire even greater efforts to draw more women and minorities into politics. However, this campaign season has seen how calls for diversity can easily become calls for discrimination.
Four presidential candidates have indicated they will only consider women for vice president, while other leaders have proclaimed that women govern differently than men. What is most striking about such pledges is that they would result in a federal prosecution if the candidates were running even a small business or agency. Instead, they seek to run the country based on a pledge not to consider men regardless of their qualifications. It presents an interesting conflict between our legal and political values in the use of race and gender as a criteria for selection.
Representative Eric Swalwell of California recently made his pledge after declaring, “Spoiler alert: I’m a white man.” He asked voters to look beyond his race and gender but assured them that he would only consider a woman as his running mate. It was a curious pitch in which he insisted he does not think the identity of a person should “hold them back” yet he also pledged to deny other men the chance to be his vice president.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey also promised not to consider any man to be his running mate. To rapturous applause, Booker declared, “I will have a woman running mate. To me it is really clear that we do that.” Such clarity has come from a variety of liberal figures now emboldened by rising rhetoric that dismisses white male candidates.
On daytime talk show “The View,” host Joy Reid confronted Swalwell with a question that, if reversed, would be denounced as blatant racism and sexism. She asked, “Why does the field need yet another, to be blunt, another white guy?” The premise of her question is that candidates are defined to a major degree by their gender. The “white guys” are portrayed as largely redundant or possessing the same defining element for Reid. That view is being repeated like a mantra during this campaign season.
Hillary Clinton told a thrilled audience that women govern differently due to their gender and pointed to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who, after a mass shooting, “showed the heart not only of a leader but of a mother.” Others have made the same statements that they would not only refuse to vote for a man but that women are better leaders. One activist claimed that women are superior to men as leaders for such reasons as they “know how to spend and save money even when money is scarce.”
It seems the reference to gender is only worthy of condemnation when made by or about men, unless it is a negative statement about the flaws of male leaders. Consider a hypothetical situation in which a male politician is asked whether he thinks men govern differently and he said, “Of course. Men are fathers and look at problems differently. They must be strong and leaders.” He would be torn apart and accused of “dog whistling” other sexists in suggesting that women do not have those significant attributes. Women struggled for decades with men who claimed that gender was a determinative criteria and that women did not have the natural talents for leadership. It was a scurrilous lie perpetuated by deep seated prejudice.
Now, some are bringing this criteria back into our politics in reverse. The pledge to not consider any man, regardless of his qualification, shows how disconnected our politics have become from our principles. If Booker or Swalwell were heading a school or business, they would be defendants in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission action based on such a discriminatory pledge. In Baltimore, a school was sued and a settlement reached after school officials told the head softball coach that they would not renew his contract because of a “preference for female leadership.” The school officials had apparently believed women coached differently.
In California, a restaurant was sued and a settlement reached over its alleged preference for female servers. Stuart Ishimaru, who at the time was acting chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, declared, “This case should remind corporate America that employment decisions must be based on merit and ability to do the job, not on gender stereotypes.” The fact is pledges to not consider men are perfectly legal in choosing who will serve as your president or vice president, but such pledges are illegal in choosing who will coach a team or serve a table.
Some will argue that presidents have picked running mates based on their geographical or political appeal for generations. But race and gender are immutable characteristics, and for that reason, they are given the highest level of scrutiny in constitutional law. We have spent decades prosecuting and suing those who applied the same bias in sports, business, education, and indeed government. In other words, these candidates would head a government that would prosecute and sue those who expressed such a preference, let alone an exclusionary policy, based on race or gender.
Many in the media have praised Representative Al Green of Texas for a question he asked seven chief executives testifying before his committee. He asked, “If you believe that your likely successor will be a woman or a person of color, would you kindly extend a hand into the air?” Not one raised his hand and the media erupted with condemnation, despite the fact that federal law bars executives from seeking replacements from a particular race or gender. If a company is following federal law, it is not supposed to have a predetermined expectation on such hiring issues. Its leaders are supposed to give the job to the most qualified candidate.
Most of us celebrate the diversity this campaign season and support the efforts to encourage more women and minorities to seek positions of leadership. But identity politics can easily turn into identity prejudice when gender is being cited as an innate qualification or a threshold exclusion. If we truly want a president and vice president to reflect our nation, let us start with our shared values. The litmus test is leadership.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Remembering a cover photo on Time magazine 40+ years ago showing a gaggle of old white men on the Capitol steps….I also can’t remember anyone raising the fairness issue. Systemic discrimination requires a remedy. This may be a poor one, but it got your attention didn’t it?
If Booker and Swalwell truly believed the primary qualification for a VP candidate is that they are a woman, then they would certainly demonstrate that conviction by immediately stepping out of the race and endorsing one of the female candidates. Of course they won’t. This isn’t about what qualifications the VP should have; this about identity politics and the stupidity of the Democrat constituency that will buy this garbage.
“The pool of Democratic presidential candidates for 2020 is not just the largest in political history but also the most diverse. The impressive array of women and minorities follows the first female Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. That followed two successful nominations and election of an African American as president. That is something in which every citizen can take pride, and it should inspire even greater efforts to draw more women and minorities into politics. However, this campaign season has seen how calls for diversity can easily become calls for discrimination.”
– Professor Turley
______________
Apparently Professor Turley is not familiar with the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance, believing his sympathies, weaknesses and naivete should prevail over vigorous and unfettered free market competition. Wait. That was Karl Marx’s thesis, wasn’t it? People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom. Freedom does not adapt to people, dictatorship does. If every person is a winner, who’s going to wash the dishes, pick up the trash and operate the sewer systems?
Diworseity is artificial and irrefutably unconstitutional.
Diworseity is reverse discrimination and racism and dictatorship – liberals claim discrimination and racism are “bad,” right?
Diworseity is not a virtue, freedom is.
Affirmative action is not a virtue, merit is.
Central planning is not a virtue, competition in free markets is.
If women and hyphenates are so superior, why hasn’t Berkshire Hathaway replaced Warren Buffett?
It’s money that matters.
Not diworseity.
It’s a wonder that, through affirmative action, the Right Reverend Al Sharpton did not replace Werner Von Braun and get America to the moon. I mean, he’s “sharp,” right?
JT, another white man bemoaning the strength of women to demand equity in spite of the white male privilege that allows them to think that they, the men, are entitled to all positions of power. But don’t worry your little brain, if a man is selected, he will still consider another man for VP, regardless of any campaign promise.
If you actually were ‘strong’, you’d succeed by competing, not by ‘demanding equity’.
bethkath:
The only privilege around now is the “privilege” of competency. Otherwise known as merit. There hasn’t been any systematic discrimination since the 70s and all this whining about unfair outcomes centers more on the unwillingness to accept the fact that some people are better at things than others. When people don’t succeed they like to blame outside factors. It’s human nature. It’s also untrue for the most part and is damn ungrateful given our society is the most fluid in terms of upward mobility for everyone. The numbers don’t support this notion of gender or race based privilege. Only resentment and hurt feelings do.
Mespo – I used to work in the sciences. It was considered a male dominated field. This was not a problem. Proving yourself competent should not wilt anyone. You work hard. Speak up. It’s science, so if you produce good data and good research, no one really cares whether you are XX or XY.
I also saw female supervisors who had absolutely no business running a lab. One of them didn’t even understand the molecule we were studying at the time. The questions she would ask made me cringe. After a few years, I became convinced that they had lowered the bar in order to get women into upper management. That realization was bad for morale.
You saw what we all know is true. In the law it was so. And yet there are so many very competent and superior women lawyers, the issue seems moot to me these days. I would not for one second favor a lawyer because she is a woman. I could probably even discriminate just a wee bit. And I will laugh about that. And not apologize and beg for forgiveness.
But I have hired women lawyers for various things and I will do so again if it suits me. In a heartbeat. The issue is always success and if woman is at hand to do the job then have at it. Most male lawyers will do exactly the same. This is a very competitive field and if you can do the job you will get the opportunities to rise up.
“that they had lowered the bar in order to get women into upper management”; yet they never found a spot for you. You were dumb as a rock back then too.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/first-time-moms-see-30-percent-drop-pay-new-dads-n1000111
The way you put it, it sounds like women must think they are entitled to all positions of power. They are not. Merit matters.
I would be insulted to be picked just because I am female. May the best (hu)man win.
PR:
More of the bigotry of low expectations. Women do many things better than men; many things worse than men; and lots of things equally well as men. The problem is that information helps you not at all when judging individuals. It’s like crime statistics — you can identify group proclivities and trends but they are rarely predictive of individualized behaviors. Like I always say, you judge people like you do diamonds — one at a time.
I’m ok at looking at groups and projecting stereotypes as a baseline.
IT’s what most people do and for good evolutionary reasons. Certainly this can be unfair to individuals.
Individuals are always free to exceed expectations. That’s where the American in me comes to fore. But, I don’t worry too much about being unfair. People are generally unfair all over the place. But it’s good to have ideals nonetheless
“White male privilege” doesn’t exist.
There is no system, institutionalized privilege in which a white male gets special privileges. In fact, minorities get special benefits based on race, and women get benefits based on gender.
There are industries in which they are so eager to get more women that one could show the barest of interest and get hired over and above a more qualified white male. For instance, the bar was lowered for minorities to become police or firemen. If a white male gets a perfect score on his test, he can still be overlooked in favor of a black male or female.
There are no more redlining. College admissions prefer minorities, except Asians, whom apparently the Dems believe it is perfectly fine to discriminate against based on race.
There is no institutionalized white male privilege. There are blessings, however. The blessing of being raised in a two parent household in a middle class life or above. The blessing of having parents that teach you good character, and demand you do well in school. The blessing of good health or good looks. The blessing of a roof over your head and food on the table. The blessing of not being handicapped or ill. The blessing of living in America, where our poor (aside from the drugged out homeless) live by standards considered middle class in most of the rest of the world. Thomas Sowell spoke of the blessing that he was adopted as an only child, into a family who valued education very much. They even found a mentor for him. He said his life would have turned out very differently otherwise.
Disparate racial outcomes does not indicate institutionalized racism. Skyrocketing single motherhood, due to misguided Democrat policies, are behind the crime, gun violence, incarceration, and generational poverty in the black community.
The one argument I typically hear attempting to support white male privilege is the high incarceration rate of blacks. Blacks commit disproportionately more crime, by orders of magnitude. This is not for any genetic reason, but rather cultural, due to the risk factors of the culturally approved high rates of single motherhood. That has nothing to do with white men. No white men are framing them for their crimes. If single motherhood went down to pre-1964 levels, and there was intense cultural pressure upon black kids to do well in school, then black incarceration rates would plummet within a decade.
Disparate racial outcomes does not indicate institutionalized racism. Skyrocketing single motherhood, due to misguided Democrat policies, are behind the crime, gun violence, incarceration, and generational poverty in the black community. If they emulated Asian culture, with their intense pressure to get a good education and succeed, as well as their respect for elders and teachers, then their problems would be solved in a single generation.
Whites have no formal white privilege but we have the deep blessings as you say, of being the beneficiaries of millenia of cultural development, and our own special genetic attributes, such as they are. Like our fair skin, an attribute favored among other racial groups as well, for whatever aesthetic reasons. I do not revile my own inheritances.
Unfortunately, a lot of the cultural things have eroded and our people are often not much today compared to our ancestors. at least on a social and cultural level. White folks are degraded now just like everybody else, in so many ways. Material abundance, and moral decline.
I accept that racism exists because I believe that it is a political name for a very real and normal thing, which is ethnocentrism, which does work its way into social groups even if people blab a lot about equal opportunity and all that jive. But I don’t deny whites have a sense of cohesion even if they habitually deny it. I don’t deny it!
It works for us but it also works against us. Once we are outnumbered, it will be working against us. As that day approaches, white people will rediscover more and more, explicit ethnocentrism, and the white American population will find a way to express its legitimate social interests without apologizing all the time.
That will be called racism to silence us. We should not be cowed into submission. And against the “white nationalists” I would say there are wrong about one thing, and that is, we can coexist peacefully with other races in American society. But we have to have the right and ability to speak up for ourselves and not be silenced due to centuries of colonialism and oppression and whatever all that stuff they whine about ceaselessly.
There is a white vote and we all know it. Pollsters know it. We have a lot of subgroups like urban versus other, but, we have a certain very real demographic existence. Just as the leftists claim, even if they say it is “socially constructed,” and to whatever extent it is, we are a people no matter what they say of us.
Gender and racial discrimination has always been typical of the Democratic Party, sadly.
Yeah Karen, that’s why the GOP convention looks like The MIssissippi White Citizens Council State Convention of 1962 and the Democratic convention and Congressional delegation looks like Norman Rockwell’s Golden Rule magazine cover.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/498603932/norman-rockwell-golden-rule-original
I can never tell if you’re a poseur or a shallow tool.
Norman Rockwell, oh boy, hilarious
At times Democrats had such diversity one could see pictures of people dressed in white hoods and robes.
The problem isn’t the legal issue. The problem is the Dems hypocrisy, inability to think for themselves, obeisance to the mob/press rule. and general lack of moral integrity. These candidates have become a sad group of automatons, intimidated by those who have the lowliest of moral character – but each of the Dems will raise their hand to the immoral PC culture so that they can have power and control. They are a very scary bunch.
No, the problem is that the Parties have absolutely no role to play 8n the Selection Process for our President or Vice President, or any Government Officer, Representative, and appointee!
That’s the responsibility of the People Themselves, in their Collective Capacity!
Perhaps but they overestimate the power of “political correctness” and they over value their meek obedience to it.
Trump showed that flaunting PC can actually produce tangible strategic gains in a big big way.
Booker declared, “I will have a woman running mate. To me it is really clear that we do that.”
.
So I guess that means Michelle Obama is out as Cory’s VP choice.
Booger is already a failed candidate. he has nothing.
“We have a dream that our little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character, but the function of their genitals and while we’re at it, the color of their skin.” -Democrats
😀
There might be an argument for favoring a woman as a running mate if in fact women did govern differently from men. And they do. According to Dube and Harris (https://www.nber.org/papers/w23337#fromrss), over the 15th to 20th centuries, “polities led by queens were more likely to engage in war than polities led by kings.”
Oooops!
Queens Isabella and Elizabeth were very bellicose. As anybody with a sufficient 8th grade education should know.
Bellicose is often a good strategy, however, for those who win.
Oh Joe…..cant win if he wanted
#
Joe Biden On Anita Hill In 1998: ‘She Was Lying’
It’s true that Joe Biden did his best to help Anita Hill, including concealing witnesses who would have been a disaster under examination. But even he admitted to his colleague that Hill was lying.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/28/joe-biden-on-anita-hill-in-1998-she-was-lying/
Turley displays his own form of discrimination when he says that the election of a African American president is, “something in which every citizen can take pride.”
I would say that the election of a great person who did great things for the nation, say Franklin D. Rooseveldt, is “something in which every citizen can take pride,” not because he was an old white guy, but because he was the right person for the job and he saved the nation in time of peril. Turley says we can be proud of electing Obama, not because he was the right person for the job, or because he did great things, but because he was black.
He then goes on to say it would be a disservice to the nation if we elected a woman because she was a woman. There may be logic in this argument, but it did not originate on planet Earth.
Bill,
I agree.
FDR was one of the worst Presidents. How come he did not desegregate the military? He let the Japs bomb Pearl Harbour. He smoked on film and in public and millions of kids followed his suicide addiction. He talked New Yorkie. He did nothing to stop the holocaust.
He turned America into an Empire as surely as Caesar did Rome.
I used to deplore him for his aggressive expansion of federal government. But it is understandable in light of the times.
I see him as a warlord of supreme historical significance.
Kurtz, when you say Empire what do you mean by Empire? Land or in another way? FDR helped dismantle the British Empire and didn’t incorporate land under American jurisdiction like other more classical Empires did.
Empire, a large geographic area of sovereign control, comprised of various different national-ethnic components, with an interlocking economic system supporting them. Empire. We were set on becoming an Empire as of the Spanish American war, before WW I even. The victory in WW I allowed for a global empire which came into our hands after WW II.
The EU nations are occupied by American forces. They are under our nuclear umbrella. They are essentially part of an American Empire.
Empires are not necessarily bad or oppressive. It was better for Gaul to be part of the Roman Empire than beset by interminable centuries of Celtic tribes squabbling and murdering each other into infinity. It’s probably better for Western Europeans to be neutralized from becoming subjects of Germany, by becoming subjects of America. The point is arguable, but I don’t see the minor European states as sovereign in the same sense that they were after Westphalia. They’re obviously not.
Here again I would recommend the work of Carl Schmitt, “Nomos of the Earth” specfically
There is no empire, and there never was.
Thanks for the unsupported negation. Because you are so wise, I will just reverse my opinion now. Or not.
No loss, you have no opinions of your own!
We are not an empire in the classical sense. I believe the word “empire” is misused so much that its meaning is deteriorating. You referred to FDR. What lands did he occupy that were ruled by our Congress?
It appears that the usual suspects here do not get it, as usual. Whatever happened to the principle of the best person for the job? And if the best person for the job happens to be a white, older male, then it just means that women and other categories of candidates did not put forward the best they had. Perhaps what is needed is for these so-called marginalized groups to take a good hard look at themselves and see if they’re putting their best foot forward… Can I say that without being discriminatory towards other body parts?
In my arena you most certainly can. In Turley’s, apparently you can if you’re talking about race, but not if you’re talking about gender. Or vice versa. He’s not real clear.
The one thing I miss about bird hunting is when we would flush a pheasant out of the bush. Such a thrill of being right about the thing and having the smarts to know exactly its nature. Sort of like politics.
Your only remedy awaits you at your polling place on election day–provided you leave the shotgun in the rack in the pick up.
There will be lots of pickups with gun racks when I go vote I suspect.
handguns hidden in suvs where I vote. and then the open carry guys come in strapped, occasionally, but everybody just ignores them. i find that a bizarre practice for my own part.
the little buggers are quiet until they fly and they they make quite a racket
#Metoo
unless if it undermines #Dems_Hypocrites
__
https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/former-policy-director-for-justin-fairfax-says-he-has-lost/article_68e70061-c5e9-570d-a62f-4201580843ea.html
Former policy director for Justin Fairfax says he has ‘lost the moral legitimacy to hold public office’
In a solemn and compelling speech at a Take Back The Night rally this week, the former policy director for Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax described being sexually assaulted 14 years ago. She said that due process is not a standard created to allow someone to remain in political power and that Fairfax has “lost the moral legitimacy to hold public office.”
Adele McClure was among a majority of Fairfax staffers and aides who resigned in February after a second allegation of sexual assault against him was made public.
Fairfax has insisted the sexual contact with his two accusers was consensual, gave a speech from the Senate dais decrying “political lynchings without any due process” and has said he is the victim of a “vicious and coordinated smear campaign.”
Vanessa Tyson, a college professor, has accused Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex in a Boston hotel room in 2004. Meredith Watson has accused Fairfax of raping her while the two were students at Duke University in 2000.
In response to a question about McClure’s speech, Fairfax spokeswoman Lauren Burke on Friday released a statement repeating Fairfax’s claims of innocence. It also repeated his call for a law enforcement investigation that he believes would exonerate him.
McClure spoke at the seventh annual Take Back The Night NoVa+DC at Gateway Park in Arlington County on Thursday. The blog Blue Virginia posted a video and transcript with her permission.
She described being sexually assaulted 14 years ago, saying she did not report it to police or tell anyone.
“Many people we know around us are also suffering in silence,” McClure said.
She said she stood by Fairfax after the first allegation was made, by Tyson.
“I first began to have my doubts about the side I was standing on when I first heard from Dr. Vanessa Tyson. Her story began to sound too familiar to me and I became ill at the attempts to discredit her, to attack her, to threaten her with defamation suits and criminal prosecution.”
After Watson made her allegations public, McClure said, she knew the allegations could not be written off.
“I wondered if my abuser were ever elected to public office … and I decided to speak out, how would I be treated? Would people attempt to label me as crazy, as a partisan pawn? Perhaps as an opportunist? Would I be threatened with lawsuits and legal action and would my abuser use the power of their office sitting on top of the dais to condemn me as a modern-day lynch mob that’s tantamount to those who murdered Emmett Till?”
She said she wondered if her colleagues would say “believe women,” except “not when it’s politically inconvenient and not when it’s challenging power of someone we like.”
McClure is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where she was student government president for the 2010-11 academic year. Last year, she earned a spot on Forbes magazine’s eighth annual “30 Under 30” list.
Through their lawyers, Tyson and Watson asked for a bipartisan hearing in the Virginia General Assembly. House Republicans proposed a process for holding such a hearing, but House Democrats have remained staunchly opposed. Fairfax, his supporters and some Democrats in the legislature have expressed concern for his constitutional right of due process.
McClure addressed that in her speech, saying black women have historically been subject to rape and violence and were marginalized and silenced without any due process.
“Holding public office is not a fundamental right,” she said.
“Demanding someone step down from public office for serious accusations of high crimes is not a violation of their due process rights. It is a rational, just operation of our democratic society. Due process is a standard set to protect citizens from the loss of their life, their liberty and their property.
“It is not a standard set to protect someone’s wish to remain in a position of political power. It is not a standard set to ensure that someone can purchase a table at a political gala. And it is not a standard set to shield a public figure accused of heinous crimes from all forms of criticism and discomfort.”
She said she didn’t wish to see her abuser put in jail. “But I would never want to see him win an election or enter a position of power — power that he could wield over others.”
Burke, the Fairfax spokeswoman, said in an email Friday: “The notion that someone who is falsely accused of serious crimes should have to allow people to continue to lie about him is fundamentally unfair to that person whether or not they serve in public office.”
Some wonderfully lofty reasons given there for ignoring due process… But in this case I agree with Fairfax’s Representative… Due process is required. We’ve seen that most recently in the Kavanaugh debacle. Of course, Democrats have to find someway to weasel out of it due process so they can get what they want
Reading comprehension is low in Canuck Sailor
Holding public office is not a fundamental right,” she said.
“Demanding someone step down from public office for serious accusations of high crimes is not a violation of their due process rights. It is a rational, just operation of our democratic society. Due process is a standard set to protect citizens from the loss of their life, their liberty and their property.
Newsflash! The intramural culture of the Democratic Party is stupid.
You could unload these controversies by abolishing the quasi-elective Vice Presidency. It’s an inane 5th wheel office. Instead, you could have a statutory provision for a short-term successor to hold office for a period of between 6 and 20 months (the precise length of time depending on certain contingencies). Should the presidency be vacated by an elected occupant < 20 months before the end of his term, the successor would just finish out the term. Should the office be vacated earlier, the state legislatures would convene in six months to elect a new President who would have up to four months to assemble a new administration (but who could take office earlier given two weeks notice). You don't need a designated understudy with no other duties.
Short of that, you could amend the means of selecting the VP candidate, something Jimmy Carter suggested in 1976. You have the party conventions in July, wherein the presidential candidate is formally nominated. At the end of August, the newly constituted national committees convene in Washington and ratify the presidential candidate's preferred selection for a VP candidate or nominate its own preference.
You’re under no obligation to vote for Democrats.
If you truly believe that Democrats are violating your right to be picked as a running mate for a Democrat, then . . . well, you’ll have to figure out how to complete that sentence. I cannot.
I think it’s smart to let the POTUS candidate pick his vice. They need to own the second in command spot for many good reasons.
What good reason could you possibly formulate that the President choose the Vice President? They don’t work together, they don’t even work in the Same Branch, the Vice President is Not in the President’s administration, the Vice President is Not subservient to the President, and they have no common roles or any reason that they share a common ideology, or be from the same party.
The only connection between the President and the Vice President is the Vice President has been identified by the Constitution as the person which will assume the duties and act as the President During absences and vacancies of the President until the reason for the absence has been resolved or a new President be elected. Which means that the Vice President never becomes the President unless elected to the Presidency in a subsequent election.
The President choosing the Vice President is a conflict of interest and a clear violation of the People’s right to Choose both the President and Vice President in separate and simultaneously equal selection processes based upon the selection process as it appears in the Article 2 and the 12th Amendment of the Constitution!
my opinion is formed by long history. and that powerful executives of nations often end up dead. they need to be able to pick their successors for their own safety.
this is a joked about factor, but one that is very real
JFK tried to make a friend out of an rival. Oh, he failed badly.
First, we don’t have a powerful Executive leading our nation, in fact our President is nothing more than an interchangeable cog.
In a Confederated Republic the States have all the Power of Decision making and Governing for all Laws and Policy both Foreign and Domestic, that means the Senate, where the States are assembled as Equals, with Equal Independent Suffrage, is the predominant Governing institution and therefore the most powerful “person” in the country and by extension the world.
The House isn’t included because it is the same States that are assembled in the Senate but by proportion of the population, which is not distributed equally between the States, and the Senate’s concurrence is necessary for all laws and all Foreign Policy!
Furthermore the People are empowered to select the President and Vice President, through their Representatives, the Electors, Not The President or Vice President Themselves, or their Parties, and they work for the the United States of America, Not Themselves, or their Parties, or their perceived constituent base which voted for them improperly in a contrived General Election which circumvents the People’s right to choose and promotes the Parties choices by the exclusion of all, sometimes more qualified and well suited, alternative candidates!
JFK tried to make a friend out of an rival.
He didn’t.
Oh, he failed badly.
If you want to succeed, it’s helpful if you and your minions don’t treat an accomplished politician with contempt. It’s also helpful if your wife doesn’t do the same to his wife.
Since 1974, Presidents have generally maintained cordial relationships with the VP. That didn’t used to be the case. Over the entire period running from 1913 to 1974, Alben Barkley may have been the only VP who was actually valued by the President. At least four of the 13 men who occupied the position during those years were regarded with disdain by the man who had recruited them.
There is no reason for the President to make friends with or to be rivals with the Vice President, they have separate and responsibilities, and the Vice President doesn’t have a job subservient or equal to the President, the President of the Senate has a job superior to the President, they preside over the President’s Boss, The Union of the States, in Congress assembled!
Buzz off.
I’m sorry, but I am unable to comply with your request. If you comment on a public post, expect that I will rebut all the misconceptions and misunderstandings in all of your comments! If you feel I’m in error, feel free to rebut my comments with the supporting Constitutional references.
Feel free to solicit help before you write your next totally uninformed comment!
Sure, perhaps friend is too strong. Ally perhaps. At least that’s what some biographers claim. LBJ was treated badly by the Kennedys, they seem to agree.
I never heard of Alben Barkley but i thank you for the example
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Alben_Barkley.htm
Leave the ‘second-in-command’ to military settings.
We might benefit if statutory law allowed the President to appoint a set of superintendents to supervise portfolios of departments and agencies. That way, he could cut down the number of notional direct reports. The portfolios could be assembled according to the President’s discretion and he could maintain his own selection of departments and agencies as his portfolio. The stupid 5th wheel VP could occupy one of these superintendent’s positions, just with some added ceremonial.
You don’t need a designated understudy. An statutory order-of-succession which runs through executive branch positions (with contingent resort to positions outside the executive branch) will do. Just have a successor who occupies office for a period of months. When there’s a vacancy, the state legislatures can convene to elect a successor (a task which will require some lead time, as will preparing a new administration).
it is a military setting, potentially. the military is the perpetual
foundation of the state.
Send the President of Costa Rica a letter reminding him that the Costa Rican state does not exist.
You words not mine.
I am fully aware of Costa Rica which does not have standing army since 1946. Of course you surely are aware that it’s national security is guaranteed by the United States.
Moreover, it has a well organized public force, gendarmerie, cops and rural militia, whatever. and a good legal system.
The US was smart enough to stage most of its ops against central american countries out of Panama, and leave a good thing be in Costa Rica.
https://thecostaricanews.com/united-states-will-donate-us-40-7-million-for-the-security-of-costa-rica-in-2019/
There have been no ‘ops against Central American countries’.
The below was awaiting moderation (changed a word and got ridd of $$ substitution for S. It seems the moderation program is now moderating words using substitute letters):
“expanding number of Democratic presidential candidates pledging to choose a woman as a running mate.”
Male toxicity? Intersectionality? Stupidity and lack of concern for the nation? I wonder how many men died during all the wars that kept us free and permitted these a$k ..holes to rise in prominence? Man or woman is fine but these announcements are pure idiocy.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
[edited and repeated for emphasis]
Congress shall make no law . . . [edit] . . . abridging . . . [edit] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
[end excerpt]
The First Amendment is also a guarantee for political parties in the United States. If you don’t like it, lump it.
L4D
if you dont like it…
You make a great Muslim peddling select quotes from Sharia Law
💪🏽
Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution states:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
Are you telling me that there are no political parties in the States–Obi Wan?
I hope you remember that next time left wing clowns emerge denoucing this and that and the next thing and demanding removals etc etc etc. The constant refrain of the left. I applaud you for reminding us that First amendment’s core value is POLITICAL SPEECH. From the 20th century one would think it had more to do with legalizing obscenity or banning Nativity scenes.
Today it seems you have had your coffee on time
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”
Sharia Law is both political and religious.
All law in ancient times was fundamentally religious, and the head of state was also often the chief priest, as in the Roman Pontifex Maximus, in the archetype of Melchizedek.
Our country has a first amendment. Other countries may not have anything of the sort. We should not consider that aberrant. But also understand that migrants coming from such places may not understand our system or like it very much. Hence the well placed concern over creeping Sharia, more so in Europe than here.
It is sufficient to say that Sharia Law cannot exist along side our Constitution.
along-side, not. but there are interesting situations in America where religious tribunals carry weight on certain things. Catholic annulments and rabbinnical divorces are an example. the issue of plural marriage in Islam may come to the SCOTUS as well and it could come from hundreds of different angles some of which were come along the same lines as the homosexual stuff did. I think turley has explained that here before.
when you get into “choice of laws” things sometimes laws in other outside jurisdictions carry a lot of weight with courts. age old rules, nothing new or liberal, see, “lex loci”
rabbinical divorces:
Does that void the contractural marriage agreement of the state?
There is religious marriage and civil unions. A Rabbi can get rid of the religious marriage but can one get rid of the contractural obligations that the state sets on married couples?
Where in the Constitution does it describe running mates or the Vice President being chosen by a President? At its root this is a conflict of interest which cannot be allowed to exist because the President cannot choose the person who must sit in judgment of, or who has authority over, Themselves! As President of the Senate the VP has authority over, and presides over, the Senate which must be free of conflicts of interest, or entanglements, to oversee and direct the President of the United States.
That would, and does, make a huge conflict of interest in the separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative Departments!
Party affiliation also is a source of conflicts of interest! Why can’t they impeach Trump? Because being of the same Party Affiliation, the Senate Majority, in a Equal Body by State, prevents the ability to reach Majority Consensus because of their conflicts of interest by Party affiliation, no matter the source of the conflict of interest! Because of conflicts of interest, both for and against the President, would require the recusal of all Senators, and Representatives in the House, because of their party affiliations and the biases associated with those affiliations!
This is another reason congress can only be an Assembly of the States with independent Suffrage by State, in both the House and Senate, then there would be no Conflicts of interest with the sitting President, especially Trump, which would only have 2 States with a compelling interest in his continued presidency, New York would be inclined to remove him, and Florida would be on the fence but leaning towards his removal! Trump wouldn’t stand a chance to continue as President without the conflicts of interest based upon his Party affiliation.
How can you be a Constitutional scholar if you don’t understand the principles of Representation and Suffrage in a Confederated Republic!
What’s the difference between a political campaign for an elected office versus a job application submitted to a prospective employer?
What’s the difference between a political party versus a prospective employer subject to the Equal Employment Opportunity Act?
If a federal Court or a federal Commission actually intervened in the decision making procedures of a political party respecting its candidates for elected office, then would there be no differences of the type presupposed by the first two questions posed above?
JT sure wastes a lot of time, ink, and bandwidth on BS.
Of he hadn’t noticed, the top 2 candidates in the polls at this point are white males, which means most democrats are not representec in this supposed radicalization of the party. At this point, who cares what the 12th and 19th most popular candidates say, except maybe their mothers.
Anon JT sure wastes a lot of time, ink, and bandwidth on BS.
We think the same exact thing for
every. single. one. of. your. comments.
first of all the lesser Democrat candidates Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard have excellent ideas. Tulsi is challenging needless wars. And Chairman Yang is raising the timely issues of what happens as AI wipes out more and more jobs and dislocates large numbers of workers at every level. If you don’t see that happening now, just wait a little, it will come like a tsunami.
As for Turley he writes a lot of content because that keeps his brand fresh. Good for him!
Turley, Turley, Turley . . . Turley is not saying that Democratic presidential candidates could be sued for sex discrimination. Turley is also not saying that Democratic presidential candidates should be sued for sex discrimination. Turley’s just saying . . . Well that’s it. Turley’s just saying.
I wonder who has standing on that hypothetical question anyhow? Could a male Republican sue Eric Swalwell for sex discrimination? Or would any Republican, male or female, lack standing on the issue? What would Turley say if a Black Woman Democrat sued Trump for sex discrimination in his short list for a running mate?
Now, now, now . . . There’s no indication that Trump ever “pledged” to pick a White Male Republican for Vice President. I’m just saying . . .
Come to think of it, Turley is also not saying that we need “speech codes” to prevent Democratic presidential candidates from pledging to pick a Woman as a running mate. So, once again, Turley’s just saying.
you make a good point. I think they can be free to pledge what they like. to be honest, I also think employers in general should be so free as well. I would chuck title VII in the dustbin of history. it suppresses the free speech and associational rights of employers.
I suspect you won’t, but I invite you to join me in this? let freedom flow down like a great waterfall!
Discrimination in employment is permissible only for traits that are relevant to the job the employee must perform. Discrimination based upon traits that are irrelevant to the employee’s job duties is, and ought to be, impermissible. The long-term practice of such irrelevant acts of discrimination does long-term harm to the whole of our society. Pledging to pick a woman as a running mate does no harm to the whole of society, least of all long-term harm to the whole of society.
Private property used to allow owners to pick not only their invitees but also their servants. And dismiss them “at will” but Congress stripped this associational and property right from the people in 1964. Of course you are on board with that one.
Which goes to the professor’s point.
It’s your idea of “what freedoms are in the best interests of society” that gores whatever ox you in particular like, and this is so revealed.
Complexion is irrelevant to service employment. There’s no reason a White man can’t shine a Black man’s shoes. And yet, there used to be a social order that would have lynched the both of them.
Your claim on history is forfeit.