Two Presidents Are Better Than One: The Case for a Bipartisan Executive Branch

2 A Two-Person, Bipartisan Executive

22 2 A two-person, bipartisan executive If the United States adopted a two-person, bipartisan executive, how would the two presidents be nominated and elected, and how would they share presidential responsibilities and White House office space? Who would be in charge in the event of an emergency? This chapter answers these and other questions about the structure of a two-person presidency. Electing a two-person, bipartisan executive Under a two-person presidency, there would be a doubling in the number of presidents, but most of the current features of the presidency would be retained. Voters would elect two presidents from two different political parties every four years, and each of the presidents A two-person, bipartisan executive 23 would serve a four-year term. Thus, the two presidents would serve concurrent rather than partially overlapping terms. The two presidents could be allowed to serve only two four-year terms, as is now the case for the president. But it makes more sense to eliminate presidential term limits. Because a two-person executive responds to the problem of the imperial presidency, it diminishes the need for other safeguards against the expansion of executive power. I elaborate on this point later in the chapter. Presidential candidates would be nominated by their respective parties, through the existing primary, caucus, and national convention system.Each presidential candidate would run with a vice presidential candidate, so voters also would elect two vice presidents. This would provide for succession in the event of presidential disability, death, or impeachment. (Note an important benefit of a two-person presidency for vice presidents who take office upon a vacancy in the White House. While the new presidents still would assume their executive responsibilities without Oval Office experience, their transition would be eased by their partnership with an incumbent president.¹) Voters would cast a single ballot, and the top two vote getters would be elected to the presidency. Ordinarily, the top two vote getters would come from the Democratic and Republican Parties, but there may be occasions in which a third-party or independent candidate would run second. Indeed, as I discuss in chapter 6, a twoperson presidency would make election of a third-party candidate much more likely than under the current one-person presidency.² The Electoral College could be retained, or the two presidents could be chosen directly by popular vote. If the Electoral College were retained, it might be important for all states to follow the lead of Maine and Nebraska and allocate their votes on a more proportional basis than do the forty-eight states that employ a winner-takeall approach.³ Thus, for example, Florida’s electoral votes in a pure proportional system would have been divided evenly between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 rather than awarded in full to Bush. If the states retained their winner-take-all method of allocating electoral votes, it might be difficult to sort out the voters’ preferences between the second- and third-place candidates in the event of a strong 24 A two-person, bipartisan executive third-party candidacy. In 1860, for example, Stephen Douglas came in second in popular vote (29.5 percent) but only fourth in electoral votes (4 percent), while John Breckinridge came in second in electoral votes (24 percent) but third in popular vote (18 percent).⁴ Thirdparty candidates with strong regional strength but weak national support fare much better in the Electoral College than do third-party candidates who can appeal to voters throughout the country but not enough to win a plurality of the vote in any one state. The election of a two-person executive would represent a slight variation on the original constitutional provisions for election. Until the Twelfth Amendment was adopted in 1804, members of the Electoral College cast two ballots, with the top vote getter becoming president , and the second vote getter becoming vice president. Thus, under the original Constitution, presidents and vice presidents could come from different parties and indeed did so in 1796, when the Federalist John Adams was elected president and the Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson was elected vice president. (The Twelfth Amendment was adopted not because it allowed for presidents and vice presidents from different political parties but because of a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the 1800 electoral vote.⁵) While I have described a...