President Trump was out

It is another day and the various talk show hosts are once again spending our time on the investigations into the insurrection of January 6^th.  As their words spew forth, we often hear how the goal of the insurrection was for President Trump to remain in power, but we are not being told how that was going to happen.  Let’s consider some facts.

The first Constitutional Congress was called to order on March 4^th, 1789.  They counted the electoral ballots on April 6^th and President George Washington was inaugurated on April 30^th, 1789.  Going forward from that time our future presidents were inaugurated on March 4^th of the year their terms were to begin.  Over time the length of the lame duck period became a concern and just before the seventy-second congress ended in 1932 the 20^th Amendment of our Constitution was passed.

The 20th Amendment was ratified on January 23^rd, 1933, and the opening date of our new congress was changed from March 4^th to January 3^rd of the year the new congress was to begin.  The inauguration of the new President and Vice President was also changed from March 4^th to January 20^th.  Let’s read the text of Amendment XX, Section 1 for ourselves.

“The terms of the President and the 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.”

Read it again and take notice that “The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January.”  Notice that there are no words about whether the successor has been properly identified at that time.  So, if the certified counting of electoral ballots was not completed before noon on the 20^th day of January who would be sworn in as the next President?

We must keep in mind that without the final counting of the electoral ballots we do not know who our new President will be and in the same way, we would not know who our next Vice President will be.

In such a case the third official in the order of succession would be sworn into office as the Acting President of the United States.  The current order of succession has the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the third position so Rep. Nancy Pelosi would have become our Acting President until the electoral vote count procedures were completed.

The Sausage Grinder is Broken, will you help to fix it?  If you haven’t read A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?, you’re not prepared for the job.

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