by Pa Rock
Active Learner
Many years ago I was taught an important "fact" about the contents of the US Constitution, and because I learned yesterday that "fact" was wrong, I assume that I probably picked it up in my high school Citizenship class - because surely none of my college professors would have made such an egregious error as they funneled "facts" into my hollow head.
What I absorbed that turned out to be wrong was this: U.S. presidential and vice-presidential running mates had to be from different states. I understood all along that was a muddy concept because a person could be born in one state and then spend his or her whole life in another - and then which one would that person be "from?" But I always thought they had to at least stack the deck so as it fit the appearance of being from two distinct states.
As a point of reference I recalled the Republican ticket of 2000 in which former Texas governor (and sometime resident of Austin, Dallas, and Waco) George W. Bush chose Houston businessman Dick Cheney as his running mate. Cheney, as the head of the team charged with finding Bush a suitable running mate, actually put himself forward as the best choice. At that time, in 2000, Cheney had been living in Texas, working in Texas (for the energy company, Halliburton), paying taxes there, voting there, and even had his primary residence in the Lone Star State.
But as Cheney got ready to join the Bush team, he suddenly began changing things back to fit with a vacation home that he also owned in Wyoming. (Cheney had at one time been Wyoming's only representative in Congress - just as his daughter Liz is today.). This switching of states of residence was done out in the open, and I assumed it was to make him eligible to run with Bush.
It turns out there is no prohibition in the Constitution against having running mates from the same state, but there is an archaic remnant of another intent still lodged in the Constitution which made Dick Cheney's on-paper move back to Wyoming a smart maneuver.
When the Constitution was originally drafted and signed in the late 18th century, it provided for the election of the President and Vice President by electors - as it still does today. Each state selected a number of electors equal to the number of Senators and Representatives that it had in Congress. Those electors were generally chosen by the state legislatures. When the electors met to choose the President, each elector got two votes. The candidate who received the highest number of votes was elected President, and the person receiving the second highest vote from the electors was elected Vice President.
By the time of the 1796 election political parties had begun forming. The two major groupings were the Federalists who supported a strong central government and the Democratic-Republicans who favored giving more power to the individual states. In 1796 George Washington was leaving office and two his political underlings, Vice President John Adams and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, were vying to replace him. Adams was supported by the growing Federalist Party, and Jefferson was the champion of the Democratic-Republicans. Adams won the most votes, but there was a split among Federalists on the second spot, and Jefferson wound up receiving the second most votes - setting up a situation in which the country had a Federalist President and a Democratic-Republican Vice President.
To keep that form happening again, party rules came into being which attempted to bind the electors' votes to two individuals so that one party would be assured of filling both offices. But in the next election, another glitch developed. Thomas Jefferson and the Federalists defeated John Adams for the presidency, but all of Jefferson's electors cast their votes for Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr - and both men were tied at 72 votes each. At that point Burr, who had intended only to be Vice President, decided that he might like to be President after all - and the election was thrown into the House of Representatives - as per the Constitution. Jefferson finally beat out Burr when Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who hated Burr, encouraged the Federalist legislators to vote for Jefferson.
(Burr got his revenge in 1804 when he killed Hamilton in a duel.)
A couple of years later, the 12th Amendment was added to the Constitution which dealt with the election of the President and Vice-President. It solved that problem of having two individuals on the same ticket tying by inserting a provision that electors could not cast both of their ballots for individuals from their own state. That provision survives to this day.
If a Texan won the election - as happened in 2000 - then electors from Texas would be limited to casting only one vote for a Texan, and the other vote would have to be for somebody from another state. And fortunately for George W. Bush who won that election by only one electoral vote - his running mate had the good sense to relocate - on paper, at least - to Wyoming before the election. Otherwise we would have had President Dubya and Vice-President Lieberman - or Gore!
So if a candidate plans on winning the presidency in a landslide, it really makes no difference if that person chooses a running mate from the same state or not, but if the election is going to be a cliffhanger, the best advice is to choose a running mate from another state.
Capiche?
Active Learner
Many years ago I was taught an important "fact" about the contents of the US Constitution, and because I learned yesterday that "fact" was wrong, I assume that I probably picked it up in my high school Citizenship class - because surely none of my college professors would have made such an egregious error as they funneled "facts" into my hollow head.
What I absorbed that turned out to be wrong was this: U.S. presidential and vice-presidential running mates had to be from different states. I understood all along that was a muddy concept because a person could be born in one state and then spend his or her whole life in another - and then which one would that person be "from?" But I always thought they had to at least stack the deck so as it fit the appearance of being from two distinct states.
As a point of reference I recalled the Republican ticket of 2000 in which former Texas governor (and sometime resident of Austin, Dallas, and Waco) George W. Bush chose Houston businessman Dick Cheney as his running mate. Cheney, as the head of the team charged with finding Bush a suitable running mate, actually put himself forward as the best choice. At that time, in 2000, Cheney had been living in Texas, working in Texas (for the energy company, Halliburton), paying taxes there, voting there, and even had his primary residence in the Lone Star State.
But as Cheney got ready to join the Bush team, he suddenly began changing things back to fit with a vacation home that he also owned in Wyoming. (Cheney had at one time been Wyoming's only representative in Congress - just as his daughter Liz is today.). This switching of states of residence was done out in the open, and I assumed it was to make him eligible to run with Bush.
It turns out there is no prohibition in the Constitution against having running mates from the same state, but there is an archaic remnant of another intent still lodged in the Constitution which made Dick Cheney's on-paper move back to Wyoming a smart maneuver.
When the Constitution was originally drafted and signed in the late 18th century, it provided for the election of the President and Vice President by electors - as it still does today. Each state selected a number of electors equal to the number of Senators and Representatives that it had in Congress. Those electors were generally chosen by the state legislatures. When the electors met to choose the President, each elector got two votes. The candidate who received the highest number of votes was elected President, and the person receiving the second highest vote from the electors was elected Vice President.
By the time of the 1796 election political parties had begun forming. The two major groupings were the Federalists who supported a strong central government and the Democratic-Republicans who favored giving more power to the individual states. In 1796 George Washington was leaving office and two his political underlings, Vice President John Adams and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, were vying to replace him. Adams was supported by the growing Federalist Party, and Jefferson was the champion of the Democratic-Republicans. Adams won the most votes, but there was a split among Federalists on the second spot, and Jefferson wound up receiving the second most votes - setting up a situation in which the country had a Federalist President and a Democratic-Republican Vice President.
To keep that form happening again, party rules came into being which attempted to bind the electors' votes to two individuals so that one party would be assured of filling both offices. But in the next election, another glitch developed. Thomas Jefferson and the Federalists defeated John Adams for the presidency, but all of Jefferson's electors cast their votes for Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr - and both men were tied at 72 votes each. At that point Burr, who had intended only to be Vice President, decided that he might like to be President after all - and the election was thrown into the House of Representatives - as per the Constitution. Jefferson finally beat out Burr when Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who hated Burr, encouraged the Federalist legislators to vote for Jefferson.
(Burr got his revenge in 1804 when he killed Hamilton in a duel.)
A couple of years later, the 12th Amendment was added to the Constitution which dealt with the election of the President and Vice-President. It solved that problem of having two individuals on the same ticket tying by inserting a provision that electors could not cast both of their ballots for individuals from their own state. That provision survives to this day.
If a Texan won the election - as happened in 2000 - then electors from Texas would be limited to casting only one vote for a Texan, and the other vote would have to be for somebody from another state. And fortunately for George W. Bush who won that election by only one electoral vote - his running mate had the good sense to relocate - on paper, at least - to Wyoming before the election. Otherwise we would have had President Dubya and Vice-President Lieberman - or Gore!
So if a candidate plans on winning the presidency in a landslide, it really makes no difference if that person chooses a running mate from the same state or not, but if the election is going to be a cliffhanger, the best advice is to choose a running mate from another state.
Capiche?
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