Talk:Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 27, 2004.

[edit] text of portrait

there are clear errors in the text put today under the portrait: Thomas Jefferson's name is replaced by John adams. Factually correct text would be:

Thomas Jefferson was Vice President under his political adversary, and later the House took 36 votes to determine the positions of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, third President and Vice President. The mayhem inspired the 12th Amendment.

213.243.157.114 15:47, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In any event, it is much, much too long. -- Emsworth 15:53, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We're tring to make captions complete sentences and explain the relevance of the image to the article. This style of caption does end up longer than captions that are not complete sentences. This one doesn't seem particularly excessive. I've corrected the factual errors. 81.168.80.170 16:56, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think anything longer than a couple of lines is excessive and inelegant. I disagree with the changing of captions to make them explain their relevance. This is an encyclopedia, not a picture book; anyone who wishes to understand the captions must merely read the adjacent text. Lengthy captions are only appropriate when the adjacent text is not necessarily relevant to the picture. -- Emsworth 17:19, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Can you shorten those captions (or craft new ones) to an apporpriate length to help the readers survey the article and understand the relationships of Jefferson and Clay to the article? -- ke4roh 18:59, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

I strongly feel that the adjacent text would suffice here. -- Emsworth 19:54, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've made a new attempt, with captions that explain the relevance of the figure but in a much briefer way. Emsworth, please see Wikipedia:Captions and raise any issues about the principle of explaining relevance there. 81.168.80.170 21:10, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

While 81.168.80.170 was taking another attempt at captions, I was writing here: I strongly feel that the captions should provide some context (see Wikipedia:Captions). What would you think of a compromise involving some especially short captions like "Mayhem surrounding Jackson's elections spurred the amendment?" I'm not sure I understand well enough why Clay's picture was inlcuded (as opposed to any others), so I'm not sure I can write the best caption, but I might try something like "The amendment precluded Clay's presidency." -- ke4roh 21:18, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

The captions I have just added both (a) indicate the relevance of the image and (b) are not too long. Just noting that I absolutely oppose the reinsertion of the previous seven-line captions. -- Emsworth 00:06, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "portrait" as verb

I have seen English texts where there is written "portraited". Actually, it is very practical. Only with 10 signs, you have a reference in, for example, a caption of picture. It makes the reference unambiguous, in cases where several names are mentioned in the text.

I admit that probably the texts I have read were American-English. However, there is no need to enforce those strict British grammar regulations here in Wikipedia. 213.243.157.114 00:12, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster, WordNet from Princeton University and the American Heritage Dictionary all give portrait as a noun only (except the last, which notes the adjectival usage in relation to paper orientation). In any event, I hope you agree that the current captions meet the standards of demonstrating the image's relevance to the article and of clarity. -- Emsworth 00:25, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would understand portraited, though I'd think it odd, and few modern dictionaries (American or British) mention that usage. I would favor "portrayed." -- ke4roh 01:16, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the current captions do those things well. (And I wouldn't lengthen them for the world!) The only thing I'd do is shorten them further by making them full sentences, obviating the need for "whose" and "who". Cost: the caption doesn't explicitly state what's in the picture, but that's not a problem for human (as distinguished from computer) readers of the article. Just opening my June 2004 National Geographic Magazine to page 21, I see this caption, "A tea vendor in Najaf stops to refresh merchants who — for the first time in years — can taste prosperity. The end of trade sanctions and the return of religious tourists and students have packed hotels and filled market stalls as Najaf regains its role as a center of Shiite learning." I note that the caption leaves the reader to discern that the tea vendor is the man holding the teapot in the picture (and not any of the three customers). -- ke4roh 01:16, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Electoral College under Amendment XII

Furthemore, the Twelfth Amendment explictly precluded from being Vice President those ineligible to be President: people under thirty-five years of age, those who have not inhabited the United States for at least fourteen years, and those who are not natural-born citizens.

It may be true that the Vice President must have those qualifications (Article II, Section 1), but I don't believe that the 12th Amendment states anything about that. The actual text of the 12th amendment is here:[1] [2]. Maybe I am missing something, for I am certainly not a Constitutional expert. But if others agree, perhaps we should reword the above paragraph. (Or we could reword the 12th Amendment, since this is, afterall, Wiki!)--Brim 05:58, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

• See the line "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." -- Emsworth 12:46, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure how I glossed over that. —Brim 08:30, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

It's possible for the pres and VP to come from different parties, correct? even without a tied EC vote? but this would very rarely happen in practice? SpookyMulder 07:33, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Theoretically it could have happened in 2000. Had the Florida dispute rumbled on to the point of no returns being made, then conceivably there would have been no electoral votes cast at all and that would have left an uncertain outcome. The Republicans controlled a sufficient majority of state delegations in the new House whilst the new Senate had a 50:50 split *and* a Democrat tie-breaker for the first seventeen days. Conceivably the Senate could have chosen Lieberman and the House Bush. Timrollpickering 19:53, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure about that? Prior to January 3, 2001, the Republicans controlled the Senate as well. If they'd held the vote prior to that point, the outgoing, Republican-majority, Senate would hold the vote, which would result in Cheney being elected VP along with Bush by the House Nik42 05:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes but I think the date for opening the electoral college votes came after this - wasn't it the 6th? Thus any resolution would have taken place with the new Senate composition. Timrollpickering 14:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why it is important

[edit] why it is important today?

[edit] Potential for constitutional crisis under the Twelfth Amendment

If the Twelfth Amendment provision for sending a Presidential Election to the House were to be invoked, there seems to be ample scope for a constitutional crisis. However the page makes no explicit mention of it.

Let me explain: If the election for President is sent to the House of Representatives, it requires a majority (with one vote per state) to choose a President. However, there is a built-in veto in the text: A quorum of two-thirds is required. Thus, dissenting states are better not voting at all than risk voting for their candidate and contributing to a quorum.

Thus if as many as 33 out of 50 states (a clear majority) choose candidate A, the remaining 17 states can veto by refusing to vote.

Likewise with the Senate choosing the Vice President.

There is a time-out on the choice of President, dated 4th March. At this point the Vice President becomes acting President. But which VP? The outgoing one, or the (possibly yet-to-be-appointed) incoming one? There is no time-out on the Senate election for VP.

Depending on the statistics, it seems that a minority in both houses could force a crisis, possibly promoting an outgoing VP from their own party to President, and possibly leaving the US without a President at all.

That was a long-winded explanation, but perhaps someone can make a concise comment on it to add to the page?

I don't know if it belongs there on the page. The March 4th date is superseded by the 20th Amendment, which moves the start of terms from March 4th to January 20th, reducing the time that this could be drawn out and presumably preventing something like is now going on in Mexico, where there is a six months' lag between the presidential election and the new term beginning, giving more time for crises to be provoked. The consensus is that the new Vice President, the one just chosen by the Senate and more likely to have been chosen since the Senators had only the top two, not the top three, to choose from, is the one meant to become Acting President, but you're right that the text does not explicitly state that; the outgoing Vice President could argue that he was the one meant by the Framers, but this seems unlikely: if someone from the old Administration were meant to be held over, then why not the outgoing President himself until things could be sorted out? The two-thirds of states being present in the House constituting a quorum was put in not to allow for further delay once Congress convened but rather in an era when travel to the national capital could involve weeks, if not months, to prevent a President from being chosen until representatives from at least most of the states could get there. I don't think that public opinion would allow them in a modern era to just sit there and boycott the proceedings; but then public opinion did nothing to force the outcome in 2000 to reflect the winner of the plurality of the popular vote from not being the actual victor, however, there were precedents for that, namely 1876 and 1888, and one could argue that the system worked as it should, emphasizing the choice of states over that of individuals. Rlquall 21:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Text

Pardon my ignorance, but why is the text of the 12th Amendment set out here different to that in XII Wikisource?

Secondly, does this article need to include the text? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The text was vandalized on 20:52, 5 March 2006 by User:128.54.44.223. I've reverted it to a previous revision which matches http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxii.html. —Ryanrs 07:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current ending

The current ending to the article is speculative, poorly written, and smacks of original opinion (don't see how much "research" went into it). I don't think that what would've happened or likely happened in a certain instance if other things were different belongs in a serious article on the 12th Amendment any more than James Thurber's "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomatox" belongs in a serious article discussing the American Civil War. Rlquall 21:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not at all speculative that, without the 12th Amendment, the VP is almost guaranteed to be of a different political party than the Pres. This has obvious implications for pardons for ex-Presidents. If there's any part of the language you don't like, tell us specifically what it is or attempt to fix it yourself. Some speculation is supported by Wikipedia, such as "what would have happened had atomic bombs not been used against Japan". And most of your edits have no edit summary, what's up with that ? StuRat 04:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)