The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I don't necessarily like the supermajority to vote someone out. Seems to grant a lot of power to someone who can fool 40.1% of the people on a permanent basis. That may not be very hard.

Ross Perot got about twenty percent of the vote. Everybody who voted for him was an . . . well, let's just say they're a guaranteed no vote in any retention election. So, assuming as you do a 60 percent supermajority, it comes down to obtaining a majority among the remaining 80 percent.

Whether one sees the presidency as higly important or as an office that has grown well beyond its conception in the constitution, there's a good argument to be made for requiring a supermajority to remove him and not spending so much money on elections every four years. The office becomes not quite like a federal judgeship where you serve for life. It's more like a California appellate judgeship where you infrequently stand for retention and generally nobody cares.