[Muncle]

If I were King . . . Recently I heard a story about a Congressman resigning and the debate over when to hold an election for someone to take the office for about 10 months. A friend and I discussed how expensive elections were, to the government (taxpayers), to the parties, and to society in general. And government bodies are not at all averse to holding elections at the drop of a hat. We have national and state elections. We have local and county elections. We have school board elections. We have primary and general elections. And, of course, we have the all too frequent special elections. But to the best of my recollection, none of these elections were so critical that they had to be held immediately. When I take over, there will be a general election on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in even numbered years, exactly as we do today for Congressional and other Federal seats. All general elections will be at that time, from municipal parks director to Senators and President if applicable. All city, county, and state elections will be on that ballot, including judgeships, constitutional amendments, propositions, and similar actions. All school board issues, both personnel and finances, will be decided on that day. No longer will a proposal be defeated in an election only to have its supporters reintroduce it for another election 4 months later. Your proposition loses; you wait at least two years for another try. And ALL elected offices come due in even year Novembers. There is no reason to have a governor elected to a 4 year term in an odd-numbered year or have a mayor and city council elected in April. And each state will designate a date in the election year for party primaries. All primaries for all parties will be held that day and only party primary issues will be on the ballot. No referendums. No propositions. No amendments. No taxes. Issues affecting the public as a whole should never be voted upon in an election when one party has more interest in voting, e.g., more attractive primary contests.

But I digress a bit. The initial discussion came about because a Congressman is resigning halfway through his 2 year term. Of course this is at face value a betrayal of the trust of the electorate. He was not elected for 1 year or until he lost interest. His term is for 2 years. One solution, of course, would be to make him pay for the election. Totally impractical. Two resolutions come to mind which do not involve holding a new election. The first is to simply declare the office empty. The office and staff of the Congressman would remain in place to perform normal constituent services but there would be no vote. Really, there are 435 of these people. Who’s going to miss a couple votes? Solution two would be to follow a practice similar to that for the Senate. Have the Governor appoint a temporary replacement, but from a list submitted by the state party of the incumbent. Congressman X, a Federalist, resigns “to spend more time with his family.” The State Chairman of the Federalist Party submits a list of 3 or 4 names to the Governor. He (maybe he's a Mugwump) picks one. No costly election.

And when I’m King, there are going to be several other changes that will be of general benefit:
A. Before anyone forwards the latest email diatribe on any subject, they must verify the validity of its claims. I am really sick of hearing about Congress’s free medical care and outrageous retirement benefits. Also quotes from George Carlin, Andy Rooney, Jay Leno, Bill Cosby, and any other entertainer. You have to figure that any email forwarded through more than three people just isn’t true. Check them out.

B. On the subject of email, anyone who forwards an attachement to an attachment to an attachment ad infiniitum should lose email privileges for life. No one wants to open 8 messages to find a joke that not all that funny or they’ve seen a dozen times. Learn to forward only the pertinent message or use cut and paste. Otherwise you lose your computer.

C. I'm gonna stop for now. ::

John Dean had an interesting article on the Findlaw Writ a few weeks back about the presidential elections. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20080111.html Your post reminded me of it.

One thing, if you have an all powerful king, you do not need elections. :joke: