Tom's assumption that the pre-revolutionary American assemblies were dissolvable by the governors is correct. Except this dissolution power was not at all an uncontested right of the governors nor was it a power that was even exercised in many stretches of time. (If memory serves, some of this history of struggle and discontinuity is recounted in Jack Greene's The Quest for Power, maybe a bit also in Gordon Wood's Creation of the American Republic). Many colonial legislatures fought against this dissolution power as unconstitutional, trying to fix the duration and meeting times of the assembly (inspired in part by the British Triennial Act). Royal instructions began to more assertively back up the governors against the assemblies.
Of course, dissolution and related techniques for manipulating the popular branches of the assemblies (like prolonging the duration of a friendly legislature and refusing new elections, refusing to allow creation of new electoral districts for new settlements, setting an inconvenient meeting time or setting no time at all) figured high on the list of colonial complaints (even showing up in the litany against the crown in the Declaration of Independence).
My understanding is that all of the first American states then denied the executive this prerogative of dissolving the legislature--that such a power was too tarnished by its association with the colonial struggles, and that it did not fit with the increased emphasis on popular sovereignty and the role of the legislator as attorney for the people. After that? I can't say for sure that something like a dissolution power never ever resurfaced anywhere in U.S. history. But I would be surprised if it did.
One potential quibble with the framing of the question: I understand the choice to have fixed legislative terms to be a distinct issue from the choice whether to hold elections on a fixed, regular date. The fact that a colony or state has a fixed term for legislators and a fixed start date for a new assembly does not necessarily mean that it has also fixed the time period for an election by means of the constitution, legislation or custom. Sometimes it was even (controversially) within the discretion of a local sheriff to extend or contract the duration of an election (perhaps extending the election several days longer if the preferred candidate is coming up short, while halting the election quickly if the candidate is ahead).
Congress eventually set a single election day for federal elections, but perhaps we are now undermining the concept of a "fixed, regular date" through the use of early and absentee voting.
best,
Kirsten
On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:51 AM, Tom Round
<tom.round@scu.edu.au> wrote:
Hello from Australia,
A quick query crowdsourced to the wisdom of this list...
As far as I know, all US State and Federal elections have been held on
fixed, regular dates since at least the late nineteenth century.
On the other hand, I'd assume that in the pre-Revolutionary era, colonial
assemblies could be dissolved by the royal governor, as in other British
colonies.
Does anyone know if any States retained a power of dissolution for their
governors during the post-1776 republican era? Or have fixed terms been
universal throughout the US since the War of Independence?
Thanks for any guidance anyone can give.
Regards
Tom Round
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Tom Round
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Lecturer,
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Email:
tom.round@scu.edu.au
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Kirsten Nussbaumer
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