Not if it they are elected nationwide via popular vote and not tied to the electoral college. 
What if presidential candidates had to select and announce their cabinet picks during the election itself?
I’m not sure how that would work during the primaries because you could end up with people being selected by multiple candidates, not to mention a candidate could lose the primary but end up in a cabinet, but it would definitely work for the General Election.
I’m mostly in favor of nearly any change that tilts the balance of power toward popular votes and away from anything related to individual states in any capacity.
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Well, electing the cabinet along with the President doesn’t really address the balance of power between the popular vote and the Electoral College, but if the President did have to announce his cabinet beforehand, I’d like to ditch senate confirmation of cabinet members since the people voted on them already.
One less thing for Republicans to be dicks about.
Edited to add:
I’ve also been somewhat toying around with the idea of getting rid of the transition period. No more President-Elect. The new person becomes President the day after the election!
I know there are pros and cons to the idea, but the entire concept of a “lame duck presidency” or a “lame duck Congress” seems incredibly anti-democratic. These people who lost election still get to make policy, pass laws, and confirm judges? Screw that!
The cabinet thing is exactly the reason I’m interested in this.
Longer term, I’d like the cabinet collectively to be treated like “the president” is today, and for more powers to be formally delegated to cabinet members in statute. Even to the point of limiting the president’s control over cabinet members.
The time between election and inauguration has decreased before. It used to be longer just for communication and travel times.
Now there’s no reason it couldn’t be weeks rather than months.
I think three or four weeks would be better. If a candidate is serious, they will already have a lot of the planning worked out.
Needs amendment, will never happen:
Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia
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On the one hand, I completely agree with you. On the other hand, as I wrote earlier quoting from that article, it seems insane that we give the new president only 2 months to set up a transition for what is the most complex and largest bureaucracy in the history of the world.
I honestly don’t know what a good solution is.
Are you now meaning the transition, or the inauguration? Do you consider the transition to be complete by Inauguration Day, or is that the start of the process?
I’m not sure what you’re asking, but the “Transition” period is from after the Presidential Election to when the new President is sworn into office and is actually able to start performing the job.
While there is a continuing transition after the new President takes office, the Transition Period is specifically from election to the inauguration.
If I’m misunderstanding what you’re asking, I apologize in advance.
No, that’s what I was asking.
My point was that at the moment, “the transition” is the same thing as “the date between election and inauguration”, and if the inauguration is immediate, then there has to be another definition of when the process should begin and end.
With an immediate inauguration, so the outgoing president isn’t in charge for wars and emergencies and other things, there could still be a 100 day limit and by that point, the entire cabinet will be replaced and all the other transition type things.
I guess in my little thought experiment, the President, the cabinet, members of Congress and everyone else who won in the election would immediately assume their duties and responsibilities as soon as the election was over.
The current system and the current situation, where you have a President who was voted out of office, members of his administration, and members of Congress who lost reelection still making policy decisions, seems ludicrous to me.
Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans are still confirming Trump-appointed judicial nominees.
The Trump Administration is still trying to auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Preserve.
Trump is still in charge of negotiating any federal stimulus bill for the US economy.
Considering the election results, why should any of those things still be happening?
Yeah, I get how that feels dumb and unfair at first look.
But the reason there is a set date for the inauguration surely has to be for a cutoff of duties of one politician and the assumption of those duties by the next.
Trump was elected for four years. Not from the date of the election to the date of the election four years later, but from January 20th the following year to four years after that date.
The “unfairness” is balanced out by Biden also having the exact same four year span, no matter what the result is of the next election.
I’ve got no issues with either setup, as long as the “lame duck” period is short. At the moment it feels kinda long. Three or four weeks feels like the best balance, as that allows for election recounts and other issues that might cause uncertainty.
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There obviously needs to be time for the president elect to get their shit together before they are just handed the keys. It would be quite unstable to not have some sort of transition period. Although that period could probably be shortened quite a bit.
However, the point about the current president continuing to do things after losing, or having their term come to an end, is very valid. There should simply be a list of things that the current president can no longer do during the transition period. Basically, anything that’s not super important and can’t wait a month or two, they no longer have the power to do.
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I was just about to comment and say that there should be limitations set on what the outgoing president can and can’t do.
The outgoing president should NOT be able to appoint judicial nominees to lifetime appointments on the judicial bench, just to name one example.
Fuck it, let’s have two Presidents during the transition. Newly-elected one has veto power over the lame duck.
Entirely unreasonable but I’m here for massive shakeups.
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I’d rather have no president
You say that’s unreasonable as though there wasn’t huge amount of debate, during the writing of founding documents, about whether we should have 1, 2, or 3 presidents. The system they were basing it on had 2 consuls. There’s a pretty likely alternate history where two presidents is the norm.
In fact now that I think of it. That may be why we have a vice president to begin with they were probably intended to be more equal in role than they currently are. I’d have to go back and check my US politics textbooks.
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If we’re re-designing the US govt then lets re-design the MFn US govt. From scratch, whole cloth, and with the latest theories. It doesn’t even have to remain a state-based system (At which point the name might need to change.)
Founding fathers? Who gives a shit what they were wanting or inspired by. And who they were to some degree. They founded the collection of peoples into an entity that became the US, and in this theoretical redesign, that entity is no longer relevant but as a case study just like every other country out there.
But if the goal is to just overhaul what we have into something less broke than the Coke Machine, then there’s ways to make improvements but it’s mostly just putting off an, IMO, inevitable full-reset.
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I feel like this conversation has absolutely waded into this territory and the shortcomings and failings of our systems of government (Federal, State, and Local) are only becoming more apparent and broken. Could be an interesting exercise to split off this discussion into a new thread: “Let’s Design a System for Governing the United States of America”
I am not sanguine about the events and times leading up to the precipitation of a new Constitutional Convention IRL, but it is not at all beyond consideration at this point.
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Maybe have the cabinet work how some states handle it but having them elected only at the same time as Presidential Elections to promote better turn-out and if a seat becomes vacant in the middle either have it being appointment or by special election.