Amending the Constitution

It's kind of interesting, actually, to get into the details of the 20th Amendment. I'd mistakenly thought that the March 4th date was in the Constitution. It's not. What happened was, once the first Congress set the date of March 4th from then on Senate, House, and presidential terms were pegged to it, making any movement back from March 4th necessarily a shortening of their six year, two year, and four year terms, and because the duration of those terms of office is set by the Constitution, changing them in effect required in turn a constitutional amendment. Complicated, huh?

Due to the same logic any further change to the date would also require a constitutional amendment. And there are two ways to do that, the second (states calling a constitutional convention) never having been used. In the first way both houses of Congress approve an amendment by a two thirds vote and then three fourths of the state legislatures ratify it. No presidential signature required.

When FDR was elected in the realigning election of 1932 there couldn't have been a greater difference between his understanding of the crisis and Hoover's. Essentially, Hoover treated workers as commodities and expected the market would sort itself out. In every decision, and non-decision, he allied himself with business interests. Though Hoover's attitudes were somewhat unvarnished there's an eerie, almost exact parallel between them and Bush's "compassionate conservatism," with both rationalizing the government's refusal to help ordinary people in need. FDR, of course, wanted to provide for massive help but couldn't begin to act for four months, during which time things got a whole lot worse. Adding insult to injury, literally right up to the day he left office Hoover was trying to tell FDR what to do...

Congress, having finally recognized the problem in 1932-33, failed to solve it over the longer term. I guess that in the early 1930s the date of January 20th may have seemed practical, just as March 4th seemed practical to the first Congress, but I wonder whether even then it might have been possible to have a speedier transition? In any case, what was — or appeared to be — practical in the early 1930s is no longer practical now and, in fact, is downright dangerous. There is no rationale that I can think of or that I've read as to why it should take eleven weeks for a transition. Or of any advantages that offset the hazards of such an extended delay.

Things might be different if Bush were not so much like Hoover, but by this time we should expect elections to produce occasional, profound changes in the direction of American politics. Why not make allowances for that in advance?

It wouldn't do to turn over the keys to the White House the day after the election. On the other hand, what does anybody need a lot of time for and how long should things take? Transition planning already is to a certain extent part of the campaign process. Candidates easily might accelerate their preparations. Regardless, what's the problem with having place-holders for major cabinet positions, if necessary? The actual physical transition of key campaign staff to the machinery of government could happen pretty fast, probably within days. Allowing for slippage maybe a week or two of transition would be practical but I have a hard time thinking why, in today's environment, it should take longer.

I suspect that historians will have a field day looking at the Bush-Obama transition. Even before they publish their work, however, it behooves the new Congress to consider a constitutional amendment that once again changes the inauguration date to shorten the transition, and I call upon sensible members to begin its drafting forthwith.