With respect, the UK head of state is the Queen.

The UK model does not require the incoming party to nominate a bunch of political appointees. The members of parliment for that party are usually already covering most of the slots they are going to fill, and have their own (very limited) political staff in place. The rest is all done by the civil service, who do not change from election to election. So you see some shuffling by the Prime Minister, but there isn't any confirmation of appointees. There isn't a need for a long transition period.

Nah. It's fine the way it is. It's only an issue for a couple of months every four or eight years, then nobody cares anymore.

The difference between our system and the parliamentary systems is we have no shadow government as they do in the UK and the other democracies with immediate transitions.

In the UK, as we speak, the opposition parties have shadow leaders, shadow foreign ministers, shadow chancellors, etc. These folks are kept up to speed on all issues and can step in the instant the government changes. And, of course, they have their famous civil service, the folk who are always there, no matter which party is on board.

So, as it is right now, the constitutional amendment would need to take all this into account and leave the new president plenty of time to form a cabinet and get them up to speed to lead. Remember, the transition is more than choosing the new secretaries and agency heads; those folks need time to get up to speed on the bureaucracies they are about to lead.

The argument against shortening the time before Inauguration Day is that it is already difficult to find cabinet nominees and set up a transition. But shortening the transition would expose the current ridiculous notion that it is 'presumptuous' for the candidates to prepare to govern before the election. A short time between election day and inauguration would force candidates to prepare for their term before the election giving voters a better view of the governments they are choosing between.

I actually think this is quite a big deal and should be addressed. Unfortunately, there really are more important matters of business that should be dealt with first. But this should be a bipartisan concern.

Realistically, the longer the lame-duck period is, the more room there is for shenanigans by the outgoing president. 11th hour pardons, last-minute regulatory changes, a disastrous power vacuum (think Somalia 1992, the lack of response to the USS Cole in 2000, Gaza War in 2008-9)...

6 weeks is enough time in this day and age to turn over power. Inauguration should be the week before Christmas.

What royalblue_tom said. Essentially, we'd need a very different party system, with annual conferences choosing the leadership rather than throwing it open to popular choice every four years. As it stands now, we have to have a nominee first, and if he puts a team together and then loses, it's back to Square One. Under our system the loser of an election is still the nominal head of the party until a new leader is chosen four years out, so most of the time if we had a "shadow government" it would be a lame duck one. But going to something more like a parliamentary system would spark enormous opposition, since it would be handing control of parties over to the dread Party Bosses, the guys our current system was meant to cut out.

Ordinarily, I would agree that its good the way it is. As others have noted, it lets the incoming administration set up potential leaders of a vast government (which is much bigger than in Hoover's or Washington's time), and that realistically, not much happens between Thanksgiving and the New Year anyway.

In theory, politicians will be adults, and brief each other on waht's going on and avoid idiotic last minute policy changes out of spite for the new guy. But I think the last 8 years have showed us that you can't trust these guys at all, and I would love to have some sort of formailized power sharing agreement to prevent nonsense at the 11th hour.

Also, I would note the period has allowed Obama to take a nice long vacation in Hawaii. That's good; he'll need to be well-rested.

But don't we have to wait until Obama gets his birth certificate back from Kenya?

Ironically what the long transition makes clear is just how bad things have gotten under George Bush. Just since November we have learned about the $50 billion Madoff scandal, we've watched the automakers beg for federal assistance, we've seen the TVA's infrastructure collapse, we've seen housing prices drop 18 percent in a month, consumer confidence is the lowest on record and the states, led by Governor Schwarzeneggar, are about to make a mass pilgrammage to DC to beg the Treasury for assistance so they don't have to shut down in February.

Oh, and our strongest Middle East ally has launched an all-out war against one of the world's poorest countries after failing to contain encroaching border settlements and effectively laying seige to the Palestinian economy.

And amid all this, where's Waldo bin Laden???

The long transition period brings into focus the extent of the Bush Administration's failures, Condaleeza Rice's defense of Bush notwithstanding. It also helps to clarify for Obama what his priorities need to be.

Condaleeze Rice's defense of her boss notwithstanding, when Obama's people finally come in and look under the hood President Bush's legacy will only worsen.

You don't need a constitutional amendment to shorten the transition period: we can do it by statute. It's true that Inauguration Day is determined by the Constitution, but Election Day isn't. I propose we move Election Day to the second Saturday in December.

Personally I think the following amendments to the Constitution should be made:

1) A President cannot pardon himself, members of his family, or anyone employed by the Executive Branch during his term. This would apply to Vice-Presidents who take over as President. Congress can appeal the pardon with majority votes in both the house and senate. If that occurs, the Supreme Court will be the final decider on whether the pardon is warranted in a particular situation.

2) All official communications of those employed by the Executive Branch, including the President & Vice-President, must be recorded and archived immediately by the National Archives. Such communications must take place over official systems (ie: U.S. Government issued e-mail accounts, phones, etc.) and not any personal devices or accounts.

3) The Vice-President is considered a member of the Executive Branch at all times, even when performing his limited duties as President of the Senate.

#1 of course would prevent Scooter Libby and Richard Nixon type pardons, as well as pardons of any family members. It would also allow for pardons to be appealed if a majority of Congress votes to do so, then the Supreme Court can make the final decision.

#2 would prevent fiascos like Executive Branch employees using campaign and personal e-mail accounts for communications as well as the whole missing e-mail archives controversy.

#3 No more Cheney like claims that the VP is not part of the Executive Branch. Make it clear and simple...all rules/regulations that cover the Executive Branch apply to the VP as well.

All the above-keep what we have. The best thing to happen while the incoming team sets up camp would be to PREVENT all the shenanigans and poison pills when the elect team takes office. This current lame duck session extends back quite a few years, Bushie would like us to believe till Katrina. Ha! Try 2000.

And all the bailouts are aimed to accomplish is those that were on top remain on top when the dust settles. The top tier has FAILed in unspeakable ways.

Yes, the moving from March to Jan 20 seemed reasonable in '33. However, how were they to know Percy Mayfield was going to write "Hit the road, Jack" in '61 and U-Hauls were going to be available? Love to have heard Ray Charles belting out "Hit the road, Jack" on November 6th; of course, the whirring of all the shredders might have dampened the tune.

It's tempting now, not so much so in Dec 2000.

Ironically, Bush is doing more to smooth the transition to Obama than Clinton did for Bush, but it did take longer in 2000 to learn who would replace Bush.

Meanwhile, here is another commentary on Obama's silence regarding the Israeli attacks on Hamas.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE4BT36G20081230

In short: "Silence gives consent."

The lag between election and inauguration isn't that big a problem. What can we do to get the campaign down to a reasonable length of time? We had televised debated in the spring of *2007*, fer cryin' out loud!

Yeah, I believed that BS too, until the Canadian PM sent everyone home for seven months. I seem to remember that the problem in 2000 was the need to certify the election before a proper recount could be achieved. Does anyone remember that?

There is a benefit to this time gap. Everyone knows that the Republicans lost, and why they lost. Everyone knows that the Republican policies have failed the economy and the Republic, yet the Republicans are still pushing these policies.

At the same time we see Obama and his team sounding reasonable. The side-by-side comparison is helping set in stone the reason why the Republicans are on the way out. They really do just want to help the rich and screw the middle class. (Oops, I mean they want to help the "taxpayers", where "taxpayers" means large corporations, and rich dudes, and "non-taxpayer" means kids, the poor, the unemployed, the retired, students, etc.)

We are looking at massive policy shifts from ideology to pragmatism. The ideologues are not going to bend to the pragmatists until forced to do so. This is what makes this particular transition so hard. It was less hard to transition from Bush to Clinton or Clinton to Bush because those administrations were less ideological.

The delay until March made sense when, originally, the presidential election was more like a national nominating convention; the Electoral College was a semifinal; and the tie-breaking choice was to be made by Congress (or so the Framers assumed). Since we've moved up the nominating conventions and the primaries to before election day, we might as well move up the inauguration day, too.

While we're talking about Constitutional Amendments, I've always supported, in light of dramatically increased life expectancy, an alteration of the 22nd Amendment to only rule out 2 CONSECUTIVE terms in office.

Maybe I was just dreaming of a Bush v. Clinton (Bill) contest in 2004.

If Obama is too much like the regular political set (not enough progressivism, too soft on Israel, etc.) having the bike wouldn't be wonderful enough to hate waiting for...

I think we can and should make changes. I'd suggest the following:
Keep the Electoral College, but make it 'automatic' and by District, the winner of a district gets one EV, the winner of a state gets two. (I know the complaints against it, but the advantage of forcing candidates to practice 'retail politics' outweighs the disadvantages. But making it automatic eliminates the time for the EC to 'gather' and cast votes that are usually 'pre-ordained.'

Have the new Congress take office on December 1st.

Have the President take office Jan 1st -- or a week or so either way to keep the national Inauguration from 'overshadowing' state ones -- gotta keep the governors 'sweet'

Permit an incoming President to make Cabinet and equivalent nominations, and the Congress to hold hearings, before he takes office, with a new appointee taking office as soon as confirmed, even if the old President is still in office.

Require that all 'execeutive orders' or the like issued by a 'lame duck' to be approved by a new Congress -- and require a 'yes or no vote' on them within a week of Congess taking office, or from the date they are promulgated.

It strikes me this would not be difficult to pass, and that it would put no undue burden on an incoming President. Why shouldn't he plan his cabinet during the campaign. (Personally, I'd like to see a candidate announce much of his cabinet before the election so voters could take this into account.) And I see no reason why the states wouldn't ratify it easily.

"For that matter, the executive branch is awfully big, and transition teams tend to use every last day of the interregnum making staffing decisions. Shortening the period would be, for incoming officials, pretty inconvenient."

This seems like a non-worry. What happens now is that for 10 weeks the incoming administration hires its political appointees, while the politicals from the old administration keep doing their jobs. If inauguration happened sooner, the new administration could appoint people as it chose them. If it takes them ten weeks to fill all the positions, so be it; in the meantime... fewer politicals from the old administration would keep doing their jobs. It's all upside.

"The difference between our system and the parliamentary systems is we have no shadow government as they do in the UK and the other democracies with immediate transitions."

If we didn't have a long transition we would probably move toward a 'government in waiting' system. I see an additional benefit in this in that the candidates would basically have to announce their appointments before the election rather than after. It would be nice to know (for the most part) who they will appoint before the vote. Imagine either how embarrassing Bush's appointments would have been for him, or how much better qualified and less insane his appointees would have had to have been had they pretty much happened before the election?

"I propose we move Election Day to the second Saturday in December."

The weather makes that a very bad idea.

The constitutional amendment I would, on first thought, write would move the inauguration up to something like December 1, streamline the electoral college system (get rid of the actual elector-people to eliminate one source of lag and waste of money) and replace the pardon power of the lame duck president with a power to delay punishment by a few months (so the incoming president can pardon or whatever, if they wish).

"I propose we move Election Day to the second Saturday in December."

The weather makes that a very bad idea

------------

There is no predictable material difference in DC weather between December and January. Talk about a non-issue.

Between Jeff and I, we might come up with a workable Amendment -- and if we can draft it in Constitutional language, I see no reason why we couldn't submit it to our Representatives and see if they'd introduce it.

Here in the initial 'mark up' session, I'd suggest a compromise on the pardon power. Make any pardon issued during the 'lame duck' period require both Presidents' signatures. Many of them are non-controversial and would go through easily, but the ones that worry us would be suspended -- hmm, wonder if Bush would have approved or rejected the Rich pardon.

(For those who say "Okay, then he'd simply pardon them on Halloween" this would become part of the campaign, and could be used against the President's party.)

So, I'm serious in calling for this meeting of the Political Animal crew to work with me in actually creating such an Amendment. Any serious objections to what has been proposed? (My version has Congress starting on Dec. 1st, Jeff's has the Inauguration then, which do you prefer?)

The answer, Steve, lies in what else the UK has that we do not – parliamentary government, with a "shadow cabinet" already in place, etc., per Jim in AZ.

Also, these other countries have much larger legislative bodies, relative to population, than we do. We could, even with our more federal system, stand to have about 700 Members of Congress, not 435.

Third, lengthen the election cycle to four years. Stop the perpetual election and get at least part of the money machine out of House races.

"There is no predictable material difference in DC weather between December and January. Talk about a non-issue."

Talk about failing to read what is written.

He was talking about election day, not inauguration day.

There is quite a difference in the weather between November 4 and Dec 8-14.

Oh yea, the new congress start should be moved up as well.

I don't think there is any reason to "compromise" on the pardon power. The people who like it the way it is are surely a vanishingly small minority (probably mostly politically connected criminals hoping for pardons). I don't eliminate it entirely because it is possible a president might need to prevent some irrevocable punishment from happening during that brief window.

I think it's a good thing that a president elect can have some time off after a grueling campaign and mediate, relax, and prepare. Suppose it had been Sarah Palin elected to the presidency? Wouldn't you want her to have some time to prepare? And unlike Obama, she was an experienced executive. Think how much harder it will be for Obama.

Despite the comments saying we should maintain the status quo, no one can deny that we are indeed, in the midst of "the interregnum of despair"!

President-elect Obama is not waiting until January 20 to begin governing. His vision of governing includes soliciting input and listening to the people. Not just reading poll results, but inviting and encouraging direct input. As I type this from my workplace computer, 65 people are down the hall in a meeting room discussing health care policy. The results of the meeting will be submitted to the Obama Transition Office. When did Bush ever ask the public for input on anything? Or pay attention to it when he got it?