A U.S. District Court will hear Rhodes v Snyder, e.d., 2:17cv-14186, on March 29 at 1:30 pm in Detroit. This is the case over whether the U.S. Constitution requires Michigan to hold a special U.S. House election earlier than November 2018. The 13th district seat formerly occupied by John Conyers has been vacant since last year.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
I-2-4
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
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NO dates / deadlines visable — including remaining time in term — to Jan 3, 2019 in this case.
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One more Amdt –
Candidates/incumbents have rank order lists of replacements —
NO more high cost / low turnout special elections.
Each legislative body MUST BE 24/7 NOW — due to insane/felon regimes in many times and places.
See that ABC TV show – Designated Survivor.
The schedule Snyder ordered isn’t illegal under the Michigan Constitution. But are you, DemoRep, telling us you think that makes it right? (Or legal under the Federal Constitution?)
I-2-$ is one more fatal stupid defect (of about 10) in the nearly dead USA Const – and all the State/Local rotted stuff connected with it.
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One more Amdt Sec. –
Candidates/incumbents have rank order lists of replacements
— as I have mentioned in multiple postings about Fed./ State/ Local legislator vacancies
– esp the recent zoo circus in the AL USA senator vacancy.
I-2-4 – stupid typo
http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/vacancies_pr.aspx?pr=house&vid=114
USA H Rep Clerk takes over offices during vacancies.
http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/vacancies.aspx
so far –
6 Rep vacancies filled
4 Rep vacancies not yet filled – incl Conyers
NO mention of cost of special elections.
Any attempt to fill the many vacancies in 1860-1865 during the Civil War ???
— Other than with rifles and bayonets ???
See the list of the 1859-1861 Congress compared with the 1865-1867 Congress.
1860 – many Donkeys resigned
1862 – many Elephants lost
1864 – many Donkeys lost
Some of the gerrymander hacks resigned and then joined the Union or Confed Army.
How many of the changes were due to Civil War deaths/injuries ???
@Demo Rep, There were 19 special elections in the 37th Congress, which was exceptional. 2 in Virginia and 2 in Missouri were under martial law conditions. As you may recall (having read), the first absentee voting was for Michigan soldiers during the Civil War. Clement Vallandigham had already been defeated in 1862 before he was banished. He did contest the 1864 Ohio governorship from exile in Canada.
Elections in Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia were after the initiation of hostilities. No elections were held in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas, which had historically held elections in the odd year, sometimes after the start of the term.
JR – How many seconds/hours of research in the JR super-database to get the above info ???
The odd year election stuff a factor in getting the USA 1872 uniform election day law ???
Was the Union Army/Navy absentee vote for Lincoln in 1864 the margin of victory in any State ???
How many northern/western Donkeys absolutely loved having slavery in the USA in 1860-1865 — with or without any vacancy special elections ???
I live in that district. I would rather have no rep than another far left hack.
@DR, You should get a copy of Dubin (“United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997”).
You probably know about how March 4 was established as the beginning of congressional and presidential terms. The fact that the Congress has to count the electoral votes and potentially choose the president created a dilemma. If Congress did not meet until March 4, then there would be no president elect until later (George Washington was not inaugurated until June 1789, 3 months into his term.
So they decided that the outgoing Congress would count the electoral votes and if necessary choose the president. Working backwards from allowing time to choose a president, count the electoral votes, transmit the electoral votes to New York or Philadelphia, produced an elector meeting date in December. The electors would have to be appointed in November.
By the time the uniform presidential elector election/appointment date was set in the 1840s, all but South Carolina appointed electors based on popular elections. As a practical matter, the election had to be held in early November, in order to permit the votes to be counted locally, transmitted to the state capital, totaled, have the electors notified and travel to the meeting place. The uniform date was set to curb the alleged practice of pipelining where voters would cross over the state line to vote in multiple states. The odd construction – First Tuesday after the First Monday, was to ensure a uniform period between the election and the meeting date in December (a fixed number of weeks and days).
Tuesday was chosen because that was when New York held their election, and would maximize the time before the meeting of electors.
The uniform presidential election date had little effect on other elections. They were already having a presidential election that date. The state election was more important than some distraction such as the presidential election or even congressional elections. The US Constitution required Congress to meet once per year, with a default of December (presumably chosen since if they had not met by then, they would have to meet then).
A calendar developed where the first session would meet in December of the odd year, continuing through the spring of the even year. The second session would meet in December of the even year and continue up to the end of the term in March of the odd year. After a new president was elected and took office, the senate would hold over a few days to confirm any cabinet appointees. That would only happen every four years (or eight years if the president were re-elected).
If that calendar were still in effect it would be:
December 2018-March 2019 Second Session
December 2019-June 2020 First Session
December 2020-March 2021 Second Session
After an election in November 2018, all the representatives who were defeated or had not run for re-election would travel to D(evil) C(ity) and pass laws the next three months before leaving office. All the newly elected representatives would have nothing to do for the next 13 months.
Most people would conclude that November elections for Congress was dumb. They might hold them earlier in the year, when they held their state elections (and they probably had short legislative sessions in the winter when all the farmer-legislators could attend, and the mud roads had frozen). An August or September election before a January or December legislative session makes sense.
Or a state might hold off until the spring, and still meet the March opening term. Or they might wait until the fall of the odd year since Congress likely would not meet until August. In 1858-9 4 states held elections in August-September of 1858, 6 in October, 7 in November, 5 in March-June 1859, 11 in August-November of 1859.
Before the Civil War, Congress would be loathe to tell a state how to run its elections. Senators were chosen by the legislature. And representatives actually lived in their state and spent most of their time there. Who would want to spend time in a disease-infected tropical swamp in summer?
During the Civil War and during Andrew Johnson’s presidency the Congress had become increasingly assertive.
The uniform congressional election date was included in the bill setting apportionment following the 1870 Census. This was the first apportionment after the Civil War and the 14th Amendment, including the 3/5 clause. To prevent Northern States losing representation, the House was expanded (and a 2nd apportionment was later added on to make sure no state lost population). They tried to apply the 14th Amendment to the apportionment, but they had no reliable information. Only states like Massachusetts had careful records of how many illiterates, imbeciles, and idiots were barred from voting. They ended up putting the second clause of the 14th Amendment into statute (see 2 USC 6). They also added a requirement that congressional districts have populations as equal as practicable, and added a requirement that a state had to have enough population for a representative before being admitted to the Union (which they could always ignore, and did). Later in the session, they passed a bill requiring paper ballots be used for congressional elections.
Most of the States that had been permitted to have representation did use the November election date, most likely because the carpetbaggers in control had set it. In 1872, 11 States ignored the law, and there were three holdouts into the 20th Century (Maine did not start holding elections on the “uniform” election day until 1960).
It was soon clear that the uniform election date was a stupid time to hold an election. In 1874, the Democrats picked up 93 seats, and dozens of losers returned to D.C. for the lame duck session, while the newly elected would not serving until a year later. It was these representatives elected in 1874 who would be deciding the presidential election in 1876/7.
This doctoral dissertation begins with its introduction on page 1, that says absentee voters flipped the result in one Ohio county in 1863. I don’t know the answer about 1864. Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania were within 5%. If Gettysburg had gone better for the Confederates, Lincoln might have been voted out in 1864.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2042&context=oa_dissertations