Why is there no process in the United States to remove and re-elect the President?

Question

When a European head of government has too many enemies/doubts about their history, then he or she is usually deposed by the parliament and a new head of government is elected (either by the parliament or through a new general election).

However, in the United States, the only way for Congress to remove the president from office is an impeachment based around "illegal" or "medical" grounds. And such an impeachment does not lead to the election of a new president but only to the replacement of the president by the vice-president.

What are the reasons why the Constitution of the United States does not have a process to replace the president with a newly elected president before their term is over? Are there any contemporary sources which indicate why the founding fathers made the decision to not have such a process?

Answer 1

1. One of the main reasons was that the President - even now, never mind in Founding Fathers' time - is not the "head of government", the way Prime Ministers are in Parliamentary systems.

   The President is the head of Executive Branch of government, and in Founders' time that branch had fairly little power, therefore there was far less possible impact and importance to having a re-election.

   200+ years ago, most of the domestic power was in the hands of legislative branch (Congress). There's too many references to pick just one, just go with whichever level of scholarniness you prefer out of a Google search for "us growth of presidential power".

2. Also important is the fact that - again, as of Founder's time, the removal process outcome would NOT be the same as today.

   Today, the Vice President is a member of President's party (after 12th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified), so removing him without a subsequent election would (theoretically) have relatively little effect in terms of politics/policy.

   Back then, the Vice President would be the second placed person in Presidential election, and the Founders very strongly frowned on the whole idea of "factions" (as they called what we know as parties).

   As such, removing a President - via impeachment, or health reasons - would likely result in the same net effect as a re-election, as last election's runner-up would probably win, and that person is ALREADY a Vice President who would succeed the president.

Answer 2

@User4012 makes some good arguments, I'll add a few.

The Founders greatly underestimated the relative power of the Congress and the President and expected that the Congress would turn out to be the dominant branch, making removal of the President less important. There is a reason that Article I (Congress) comes before Article II (the Executive Branch) and is much more detailed. They thought the action would be in Congress not the executive branch.

Also, the Founders had a paradigm of George Washington, the revered leader of the Republic since 1775 (14 years before he took office under the current constitution) as their almost certain first President, and didn't have very long time horizons. No modern Republic on the scale of the U.S. had lasted very long and the Founders would have been proud but shocked that their 1789 constitution was still being used with only minor modifications in 2018.

Thirdly, the early federal government was relatively unimportant (probably less so than the modern EU is in Europe today) at the time.

Fourth, politics moved a lot slower when horses and sailing ships were the fastest means of transportation and telecommunications had not yet been invented. A lot less happened in four year then than does now.

So, the need to focus on a means to remove President's midterm did not seem so urgent at the time.

Answer 3

A relevant quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin:

Dr. Franklin was for retaining the clause [on impeachment], as favorable to the executive. History furnishes one example only of a first magistrate being formally brought to public justice. Every body cried out against this as unconstitutional. What was the practice before this, in cases where the chief magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why, recourse was had to assassination, in which he was not only deprived of his life, but of the opportunity of vindicating his character. It would be the best way, therefore, to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the executive, where his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal, where he should be unjustly accused.

Benjamin Franklin, debates in the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 20, 1787); reported in James Madison, Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot (1845), vol. 5, p. 340–41.

So the choice they considered was not whether to hold a new election, but whether to provide a way other than assassination to remove a sitting President.

Answer 4

It is true that an impeachment does not result in a reelection, however you appear to assume that the requirements for impeaching a president are stricter than they actually are. Although the constitution does specifically list a few crimes that are considered sufficient (treason and bribery), it also mentions "high crimes and misdemeanors", which are not defined anywhere.

The exact meaning of the phrase is left open to the interpretation of those applying it. Gerald Ford, then a member of the House of Representatives, claimed that:

The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.

And surprisingly enough, he may not have been far off from the actual intent of the founders. During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin argued that the impeachment clause should be included specifically because if it wasn't, then the only recourse for dealing with an "obnoxious" leader would be assassination.

Docr. FRANKLIN was for retaining the clause as favorable to the Executive. History furnishes one example only of a first Magistrate being formally brought to public Justice. Every body cried out agst. this as unconstitutional. What was the practice before this in cases where the chief Magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why recourse was had to assassination in wch. he was not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character. It wd.. be the best way therefore to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the Executive where his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal [when] he should be unjustly accused.

So it would appear that the conditions necessary for impeachment are deliberately open-ended, so as to allow Congress to remove a president if the large majority of them agree that he is entirely unacceptable (and have some specific reason for it). As for why a reelection isn't called for...user4012's idea that the vice president would be a suitable replacement, having been previously received the second-most votes, is plausible, and following the line of succession is a slightly more stable approach than calling for a reelection in the middle of a term. I couldn't find any sources to confirm or deny either idea, though.

Answer 5

The answer is simply, "this is how it was designed over 200 years ago, and it's (deliberately) very hard to change it":

1. The US Constitution describes (in a fair amount of detail) the process by which the President is elected, and does provide a method for removal: Impeachment.
2. Because presidential election and removal is detailed in the US Constitution, Congress can't simply pass laws to change how it works, we would have to change the constitution itself. This is a (deliberately) difficult process requiring super-majority approval of both Congress and US state legislatures: Procedures for Amending the US Constitution.
3. Since then, only one proposed amendment dealing with presidential succession has garnered enough support to pass: the 25th Amendment, which was passed in 1967 in the wake of JFK's assassination. This amendment deals mainly with what happens when the president is incapacitated.

As other answers have noted, "high crimes and misdemeanors" as a reason for impeachment is a phrase with broader meaning than just literal crimes:

The convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used “high crimes and misdemeanors” as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.

In my opinion, this means that the current Congress, if it so desired, has the full ability to remove a sitting president under the current rules. Why they have not done so yet is political speculation outside the bounds of your original question.

Other follow-up questions come to mind, as well, some of which are dealt with in other answers. (Questions like "why did the founders choose impeachment vs other methods?" or "how difficult would it be to hold a national presidential election in an off year?") In my opinion, the founders thought it was more important for the office of the president to be filled immediately upon vacancy than to wait for a new election.

It is possible that at some time in the future, as we look back upon the legacy of Trump's election and presidency, that there will be sufficient support to propose and pass other Amendments regarding presidential elections or removal or succession. But right now, especially in the midst of this chaos, it is impossible to speculate what those might be.

Answer 6

One reason is that the Parliamentary system (which the Founders were familiar with) doesn't always produce a strong leader, because you're voting for MPs (and by proxy their party), and any Prime Minister is subject to recall and new elections at any time, simply by the whims of the parties in power (i.e. you don't always have an outright majority of the PM's party).

Calling for repeated elections can also fatigue the populace. In the United Kingdom, some Prime Ministers have served for less than a year. While this system can produce stability in the long run, it's not hard to see why the US opted for a chain of designated successors instead. If something happens, you move on to the next person in line and they serve the remainder of the term.

A great example (and an awful one) would be the various assassinations of US Presidents. The chain of successors prevents any kind of panic in the government to function.

Answer 7

What are the reasons why the Constitution of the United States does not have a process to replace the president with a newly elected president before their term is over?

1. We have enough checks and balances that a given president, although unpopular, can be essentially marginalized by Congress. For instance, if a president is pushing an unpopular use of military force, Congress can shut off funding for it through the budget process, and in extreme cases invoke the War Powers Act. The easy presidential route to action, Executive Orders, can be overruled by Congress (although it's been a while since Congress was strongly-enough polarized against a president to do that.)

2. We don't require that a president be effectively powerful in the short term. Enough federal government functions run more-or-less autonomously (again, in the short term) that the country is perfectly willing to let things bumble along until the next election. Having a powerful president is necessary when Something Must Be Done. In the current political climate, for instance, Trump can be seen as a reaction to the (apparently inexorable) slide towards greater power on the part of the federal government.

3. We've seen the other extreme. Americans are (more or less, on the whole, of course) satisfied with how the government works and the prospects of improving it. Most folk understand that government will never be perfect. The idea of constantly electing a new government is distasteful, and there's always another election coming up to make a change.

4. America (like many democracies) walks a balancing act between wanting a popular (in the sense of responding to the people) government and the psychological security of having a king, a single individual who embodies the spirit of the country. In times of external threat especially, the tendency to close ranks behind the leader is strong, and since 9/11 (for better or worse) Americans have felt to some degree threatened. A marker of this sense of threat is popular perception of the military. Contrasting public treatment of soldiers with the conditions of, for instance, post-Vietnam is instructive. I would argue that the polarization around Trump suggests that we are recovering from the trauma of 9/11, and internal issues are becoming more important than dealing with external threats.

Answer 8

The other answers answer your question directly and provide historical reasons for why the US constitution is as it is today.

Your question indirectly provokes a different thought, which can't be definitely answered:

Whether it is good to not be able to remove the president with a simple vote. Or, more generally: Whether the US constitution is good the way it is.

The Economist answers that thought as follows:

There is a reason why, when choosing their own constitutions, no other country has for long survived with a replica of the American model—and why when guiding the design of constitutions for others, as they did in post-war Germany and Japan, Americans have always suggested solutions quite unlike the one under which they live.

Answer 9

There is an impeachment process for Congress to remove a president if they find him guilty of a crime. It's not supposed to be a political weapon, but it has been used that way.

We also have a vice-president who will run the government if a president dies or is removed. And there is an order of succession after the VP as well so there is no reason to hold elections out of cycle.