America elected as president in 2016 a man widely acknowledged as unfit for the presidency and unrepresentative of the nation’s values and virtues. The Electoral College, a stopgap measure designed to prevent unfit candidates from becoming elected by a volatile public, has proved to be unworthy of preventing this deceptive and undeserving candidate, who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million, from getting elected.
It’s clear that the American public at large, or at least 63 million, is a regrettable judge of character, especially of the kind needed to be the leader of the free world. That’s the kind of populace the constitutional framers sought to distant themselves from in national elections. This is why constitutional framers delegated the selection of senators to Congress to the states, and not to the people, a condition that existed until ratification of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1913.
It is time for a constitutional amendment to further contain the displaced judgment of the people in presidential elections. The necessity of government, according to James Madison, was not to facilitate the will of the majority, but to protect individual rights. Trump’s presidency has become an example of the despoilment of individual rights. An aggrieved majority, and an intemperate demagogue who aroused their worst passions, means that the republic is in need of some constitutional repair.
Madison, Roger Sherman, Elbridge Gerry, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris and other delegates to the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 expressed doubts about the role of direct elections in anything except the House of Representatives. What a few recommended at the time was for Congress to appoint the chief executive.
I suggest we resurrect that core idea debated at the convention in 1787 and seek an amendment to the Constitution that requires that the Senate appoint one of its senior members, who has served at least one term, as president every four years, and to reappoint that person to a second term if it chooses, but for no more than for two terms. An alternative is to appoint the president for a single term of six years, just like the term of a senator.
George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, on July 26, 1787, argued for the chief executive to be elected by the national legislature for a once-only term of seven years. His motion passed a committee but was eventually not included in the Constitution.
The newly elected president would have to receive two-thirds of all Senate votes, the same ratio needed for the trial of a president impeached by the House. This would prevent the election of the unthinkable: an unsuitable, ill-equipped and ignorant person with no governance experience, and with an odious character, from becoming chief executive.
This is how popes are elected from the ranks of the College of Cardinals, and leaders of some other countries from the ranks of the public hierarchy.
The new amendment would eliminate both the Electoral College and direct vote of the president by the people. It would also eliminate the circus of presidential campaigns and campaign fund-raising, false promises from candidates, potential foreign influences and hackings and fake news from media outlets confusing the public.
Because of all these favorable results, shall we alert our Congress to let the states decide on an amendment so we can ensure some virtue, character and governance experience in our future presidents?
Don Sharpes is a professor emeritus at Arizona State University and a resident of Walnut Creek.
