Elective office

“ The councilors appointed by the Crown shall be appointed by special decrees, stating the qualification entitling the appointee to serve as councilor. Councilors thus appointed shall hold office for life. One-half the number of elective councilors shall be elected every five years, and the whole number shall be elected whenever the council of administration shall be dissolved by the Governor-General. ”

“ The corporation is established upon the presentation of the petition, and the organization is completed by the election of officers.
The usual elective officers of a city are a mayor, a treasurer, a recorder, one justice of the peace for each ward, styled "city justice," all of whom shall be qualified voters of the city, and one or more aldermen for each ward, who shall be "qualified voters therein." All other city officers are appointed. ”

“ A further innovation, rapidly growing, is the expression of a wish or preference by the electorate where such vote is merely advisory and not binding. Office after office, once appointive, is made elective, and when so gained by the people is never surrendered again. ”

“ I use the word "elect" advisedly, for though the manner of electing the officers of the church is by indirect means—by popular acceptance—the elective principle is nevertheless operative, since men proposed for office cannot act unless the people vote to sustain them. ”

“ So, in the case of appointing officers, if it can be truly said that these heads of departments are the servants of the President alone, we shall make the executive department a dangerous one.
I do not admit that any man has an estate in his office. I conceive all officers to be appointed during pleasure, except where the Constitution stipulates for a different tenure—unless, indeed, the law should create the office, or officer, for a term of years. After observing this, I must contend that the power of removal is incidental to the power of appointment. ”

“ That in case of the vacancy of the office of major by death or otherwise, it shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to appoint another whose duty it shall be to serve in the place of such removed officer, until the annual election. ”

“ It tends to make every elective officer independent of every other officer in the discharge of his statutory duties. By subjecting to an election at a given time a part only of the total number of officers elected, a further check upon the concentration of power is secured. The officers who do not come up for election at a particular time may be of a different political faith from those who are elected. In the same administration, therefore, some officeholders may stand as a check upon the actions of the others. ”

“ The offices to be filled are purely temporary, and as soon as the election is held and the reports made the supervisors are functi officio. The office of the applications is even more temporary than that of the supervisors, since as soon as the appointments are made the applications have served the purpose for which they were intended. To speak of them as the official records of the chief supervisor is to dignify them with a title and importance entirely foreign to their real functions. ”

“ Any one under certain conditions can enter Parliament, but the Civil Service Commissioners bar the entrance to the Government offices with equally certain regulations. For the sake of argument let me assume that you are in the House. You have stood for Slocum-on-the-Marsh, and have persuaded the Slocum-on-the-Marshers to elect you. As an M.P. you are duly qualified to accept any appointment under the Crown when the Government ask you. The best plan is to think of an office and then add one to it—yourself.
"Why not the Public Squander Department?" you ask yourself. ”

“ GOUVERNEUR MORRIS contended that the eligibility of members to office would lessen the influence of the executive. If they cannot be appointed themselves, the executive will appoint their relations and friends, retaining the service and votes of the members for his purpose, in the legislature ”

“ Secondly, the Executive Department, which is responsible for the administration of public business, must, in making appointments or nominations to the Senate, remain independent of the dictation of Congressmen, many if not most of whom want to use the offices for the promotion of their own political ends. Thirdly, the qualifications of candidates for office must, whenever possible, be ascertained according to well regulated public methods, either by officers of the Departments themselves, or through competent men appointed for that purpose. ”

“ A parsing of that definition reveals that it excludes from the definition of "employee" (and thus the coverage of the ADEA) four types of (non-civil service) state and local employees: (1) persons elected to public office; (2) the personal staff of elected officials; (3) persons appointed by elected officials to be on the policymaking level; and (4) the immediate advisers of elected officials with respect to the constitutional or legal powers of the officials' offices.
The question before us is whether petitioners fall within the third exception. ”

“ He visits the Departments, one after another, and humbly seeks in each the favor of that awful potentate, the appointment clerk, who can keep him informed of existing vacancies and who also may see to it that his papers are opportunely brought to the attention of the Secretary whenever a good chance for catching an office occurs. ”

“ Superior appointments given to strangers.The result naturally is, that when the chief of the office has to make an appointment of visible and immediate importance to the efficiency of his department, he sometimes has difficulty in finding a clerk capable of filling it, and he is not unfrequently obliged to go out of the office, and to appoint some one of high standing in an open profession, or some one distinguished in other walks of life, over the heads of men who have been for many years in the public service. ”

“ The Chamber shall have power to create departments for the transaction of all business connected with the affairs over which it has jurisdiction, and to appoint and dismiss chief and subordinate officials for such departments, to fix the term of their office, and to fix and pay their salaries ”

“ A single State, with the least number of offices, that in the course of duty he will be required to assort, is selected at the first; it is not expected that it will be memorized understandingly, or the location of each office fully known at once, but it forms the basis of inquiry, and develops either future excellence or mediocrity, or total incapacity. ”

“ Likewise, [212] an individual who holds a federal government or state government salaried office or employment or the position of court judge, Commonwealth attorney, sheriff, sergeant, treasurer, assessor of taxes, commissioner of revenue, collector of taxes, or court clerk cannot be a member of either house of the General Assembly during his continuance in office. If such an individual is elected to either house of the General Assembly, his former office must be vacated. ”

“ The responsibility of departmental chiefs and their effective authority over their subordinates necessarily imply changes in the current methods of selecting these officials. The prevailing methods are unwise and chaotic. In some cases they are appointed by the chief executive. In other cases they are elected. But whether appointed or elected, they are selected chiefly for partisan service. They hold office only for a few years. They rarely have any particular qualification for their work. ”

“ The town clerk and two members of the council whose terms of office do not expire with that year, and who shall be designated by the mayor, shall conduct such election between the hours of one and seven, post meridian, and shall make return of the same to the mayor who shall issue certificates, countersigned by the clerk, to those elected. ”

“ The governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, attorney-general, and State printer shall hold their office for two years. Their terms of office shall commence on the first Tuesday of January next after their election, and continue until their successors are elected and qualified, neither of which officers shall be eligible for reëlection more than two out of three consecutive terms; nor shall any person be eligible for the office of governor who shall not have attained the age of thirty years. ”

“ Provided, however, That whenever, by reason of the death or resignation or removal of any member, any vacancy occurs in the civil service board before the expiration of the term for which the member so vacating his office was appointed, then the person appointed to fill such vacancy shall be appointed to hold such office only during the balance of the term for which his predecessor was appointed. ”

“ Vacancies of Office In case of definite vacancies, in the office of President, Vice-President, and Secretaries, by death, resignation or other legal causes, the Assembly of Representatives shall meet for the election of others to fill the vacant offices. ”

“ No deputy shall, during the term of his office, which shall be reckoned from the time of his election being made known to the permanent committee of the Cortes, accept for himself, nor solicit for another, any office at the king's disposal, nor even promotion, unless it be in the regular course, according to the profession which he exercises. ”

“ The office, if it be properly called an office, is created by that Constitution, and by that alone. It also declares how it shall be filled, namely, by election. Its language is: 'The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.' Art. ”

“ Vacancies from any cause in the senate and house of representatives, may be filled by a new election.
Sec. 10. In all elections held by the people under this constitution, a majority of all the electors voting shall be necessary to the election of the persons voted for.
ARTICLE IX.
OF QUALIFICATIONS FOR OFFICE.
Section 1. No person shall be eligible to any civil office (except the office of school committee) , unless he be a qualified elector for such office. ”

“ After remaining for about six years in the ‘parish property’ department, where his practical knowledge of law proved of great service, he was promoted in 1853 to the post of chief clerk, an office which he retained after the reorganisation of the commission under the name of the local government board until his retirement in November 1872. ”

“ The Prefect (or person exercising the functions of that office) of each district, will designate the places for opening the polls, and give due notice of the election, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and schedule.
The people are now called upon to form a government for themselves, and to designate such officers as they desire, to make and execute the laws. ”

“ The Chief Executive may, when a public servant is on leave of absence pending relinquishment of his office, appoint substantively another person to the same office.
(2) When 2 or more persons are holding the same office by reason of an appointment made under subsection (1) the person last appointed to the office shall, for the purposes of any function conferred upon the holder of that office, be deemed to be the holder of that office. ”

“ I must be permitted, with the best lights I can obtain, and upon a general view of characters and circumstances, to nominate such persons alone to offices, as in my judgment shall be the best qualified to discharge the functions of the departments to which they shall be appointed.” [17] This absolute requirement of capacity seems to have been generally understood, and nearly every existing application for office under Washington dwells on the applicant's ability.
There is a broad difference between appointing only fit men to office, and appointing those who are most fit ”

“ The Commission shall, upon the nomination of the head of each Department, bureau, or office, designate and select a suitable number of persons, not less than three, in said Department, bureau, or office to be members of a board of promotion. In the Departments, bureaus, or offices in Washington and in all other offices the members of any board of promotion shall not all be adherents of one political party when persons of other political parties are available and competent to serve upon said board. ”

“ The government is vested in a mayor, who holds office for three years, and is ineligible for reëlection, a bicameral council, and administrative officials, who are chosen as follows: by the executive with the consent of the select council—highway commissioner, building inspector, police department, including the chief, fire department, including the chief and assistant, and sanitary officers ”

“ All officers filling any office by election or appointment shall continue to exercise the duties thereof, according to their respective commissions or appointments, until their offices shall have been abolished or their successors selected and qualified in accordance with this constitution or the laws enacted pursuant thereto. ”

“ A book should be kept in every office, in which should be entered the name and age of each Clerk or other officer, at the time of his appointment, the dates of his examination, first appointment, and subsequent promotions, together with notes of all the reports made upon him from time to time, either on the occasions afforded by the occurrence of vacancies, or at other times, in consequence of some special instance either of good or ill behaviour. ”