A Six-year Presidency?
Udall, Morris K.
To isolate the President from polities' is to deprive the voters of a choice A Six-year Presidency? MORRIS K. UDALL Following the twin outrages of Vietnam and Watergate, the idea of a single...
...The opposition, equally bipartisan, arrives at two conflicting conclusions: that the single term would (a) unacceptably broaden Presidential authority or (b) destroy it...
...Traditional critics of the longer term lean heavily toward the argument cleverly expressed in Clark Clifford's oft-quoted comment: "A President who can never again be a candidate is a President whose coat-tails are permanently in mothballs...
...Nor does the history of the last two decades since the Amendment was ratified suggest anything like a repeat of the one-man dominance of the office...
...I see the potential for both, and almost none for the kind of benevolent monocracy for which so many of its advocates yearn...
...Take the example of Richard M. Nixon...
...While Americans live by the results of majority rule, it must be remembered that the chief protection we accord minorities is their ability to exert the leverage of their numbers as an important force in a plebiscite...
...Topping the list is a sound system of publicly financed campaigns and a Federally sponsored effort to get unregistered voters on the rolls...
...The principle of accountability was at work, and Nixon felt uncomfortably wed to it...
...Those who would isolate the Presidency from everyday politics might bear that in mind...
...MORRIS K. UDALL Following the twin outrages of Vietnam and Watergate, the idea of a single six-year Presidential term— once grist for undergraduate debating societies—must now be considered a serious proposal with a growing list of influential advocates...
...The difference is that promoters of the six-year term openly favor this division, while the fathers of the two-term limit produced the divorce unwittingly...
...The position taken by Clifford, Harry Truman's White House, counsel and Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defense, in my view is an effective argument not only against the single term but also against the Twenty-second Amendment, both of which imply the divorcing of the Presidency from politics...
...It is true that had he not faced a re-election campaign, the President would have had no motivation to unleash the kind of campaign which produced the Watergate scandals...
...Opponents of the six-year term have been getting the short end of the publicity lately, and thus it would be well to review their misgivings...
...Granted that something has to be done to tame this beast of Presidential power, are there not less dramatic, better-targeted reforms which would not tamper so destructively with our constitutional system...
...The President was at all times to be "accountable" to the electorate...
...However, a different perspective is offered by those who fear the opposite result from a six-year term— not emasculation but imperialization...
...The current vacuum of Presidential leadership in the midst of political and economic crisis is argument enough against further impingements on the constitutional system of accountability...
...We learned all over again that highway and poverty programs can be successfully pursued with fifty-one per cent support, but that highly controversial policies, such as fighting wars and integrating schools, take a broad two-thirds to three-fourths consensus...
...We must search out new ways for the "loyal opposition" to present its programs and criticisms of the incumbent in forums that will approximate those the President receives...
...Worse, how is he to get a handle on that immovable object, the Federal bureaucracy...
...In short, his greatest achievements grew out of the pressure of an approaching election...
...Under the cloud of Watergate, he resists the demands of the public and the pleas of Republican Party leaders to disclose relevant evidence— all in the knowledge that he faces no political future and must only avoid a criminal one...
...At the heart of their belief is the mistaken paternalistic implication: "I am the President and I know better than the people what's good for them...
...Now the psychology is reversed...
...During the traumatic outbreaks and demonstrations of the 1960s, the nation was once again reminded that minorities, believing they have little voice in governmental policies, can cause utter chaos by resisting them...
...Of immediate importance is the adoption of the Boiling Committee's jurisdictional streamlining of the archaic House Committee system...
...And it is almost axiomatic that Presidents (like Nixon and Johnson) who have faced the hostility of minorities come to favor a single, longer term, wherein their policies are not held hostage to an election...
...After prolonged debate, they decided against the Virginia delegation which proposed a lengthy single term because, in the words of William Houston of New Jersey, to remove the reward of re-election was "to destroy the great motive for good behavior...
...The reasoning runs along these lines: Had Ralph Nader attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787, we might well have ended up with a system of "accountability" rather than one of "checks and balances...
...Congress must reform and modernize itself at a faster pace if it is to turn the tide of executive dominance...
...The President should have ready access to the country, but he should not be allowed to monopolize political communication...
...Of course, no President until Franklin Roosevelt served more than two terms, a fact which might have led advocates of the Twenty-second Amendment to tread more lightly on the Constitution...
...But facing an election, Nixon did some other things...
...This is dangerous heresy in a country that depends on the consent of the governed —a heresy that would be institutionalized by adoption of the six-year term...
...But there is one other bearing on the election process itself...
...So long as he satisfied the populace, why should he not be allowed to serve three or even more terms...
...Most importantly, Congress must enact tough election reforms to begin to recapture the confidence of an angry public in its political institutions...
...I am co-sponsoring one such proposal patterned after the parliamentary "vote of no confidence," with a general election to be held when two-thirds of the Congress finds, on carefully specified grounds, that the President is not properly performing his duties...
...An alternative to impeachment should be developed—one whose implications are not so painful...
...But advocates of the Amendment cut a wide swath in the fiber of "accountability" so carefully constructed by the framers, and it is not unreasonable to argue that a six-year term might destroy it completely...
...How many of these decisions would have been made had Nixon had two more years to serve in a single term...
...A final answer is to work for change in public attitudes toward the Presidency...
...The press must insist that all future Presidential candidates pledge themselves to frequent and regularly scheduled press conferences...
...This, in my view, was a vindictive act of an earlier generation and has already proven to be a mistake...
...I believe there are such reforms: • Serious thought must be given to repeal of the Twenty-second Amendment...
...He brought American troops home from Vietnam, slapped on wage and price controls, went to China, and moved toward detente with the Russians —in each case reversing prior positions...
...The truth of this criticism is at least partially borne out by Richard Nixon's all-out invasion of the executive agencies following his re-election: a kind of domestic Cambodian policy wherein he used (sometimes illegally) brute power, in this case the fact of incumbency, to overrun and occupy bureaucratic sanctuaries Morris K. Udall, Arizona Democrat, has served in the House of Representatives since 1961...
...Many American mothers want their children to grow up to be Presidents like Jefferson and Lincoln, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process...
...Among them are Senator Mike Mansfield, the majority leader, who presumably wants to put the collar on Presidential power, and President Nixon, who would augment it...
...For the framers had one thing in mind above all others—that the Executive could not rule with impunity...
...which he sensed would grow less responsive as his retirement day approached...
...The fact is that Dwight Eisenhower, the only President to serve a full second term under the Amendment's limitation, was politically emasculated following re-election and could not control his own Cabinet, much less the Congress...
...The mythology of statesmanship is such that we forget that like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Presidents Jefferson and Lincoln were living, breathing, sweating politicians, whose success in large measure was due to their political skill...
...How is the President, such opponents ask, to deal with a recalcitrant Congress, particularly one controlled by the opposition party, if he is in effect a "lame duck" upon inauguration...
Vol. 38 • June 1974 • No. 6
