Amarica's Constitution

Bullets (Not) Dodged, Part 3: Shocked, Shocked!

The quadrennial choice Americans make was particularly fateful in 2016, and Akhil asserts that itself this was a bullet not dodged.  The unique nature of the American Presidency places enormous burdens on the office's holders, but so, too, does it ask much of the American people as they exercise the franchise.  What makes a good president?  What should Americans consider, and how can they frame the choice?  Akhil and Andy find lessons in the early republic, and the early Akhil, for that matter.  And of course, a few words about the recent occupant of the office.  Should we have known what we were in for?

Bullets Dodged, Part 2: The Faithless and the Feckless

Continuing our discussion of the various disasters that might have befallen America around the election, this time we explore the period after the election and before the Electoral College, and then as Congress prepared to meet and certify the vote. The toxic mixture of the Greeley precedent and Faithless Electors was rendered a veritable Chernobyl by a 2020 Supreme Court decision that Akhil finds, shall we say, imperfect. Life imitates art ("The West Wing," again)? Actually, it's more frightening than that.

Inauguration: Bullets Dodged

Introducing "Amarica's Constitution;" Electoral pitfalls in the Constitution and the election of 2020 - Part I.  

It didn't feel smooth, but believe it or not, many things didn't go wrong that might have in the recent election.  For example, what happens if a candidate dies on or about Election Day?  Akhil and Andy discuss how issues of election timing, the electoral college, the Greeley Precedent, presidential succession, the 12th and 25th Amendments, and partisan politics make for a witches' brew that is denying Professor Amar his beauty sleep.