In June, 2024, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) surveyed 3,000 college and university students to determine their knowledge of American history and politics. The resulting report, “Losing America’s Memory 2.0: A Civic Literacy Assessment of College Students” lays the groundwork for upcoming recommendations to address the identified deficiencies in civics education. As an admitted over-degreed student of political science and policy wonk, I applaud any effort to promote a better understanding of the American system of governance as messy and complicated as it so often seems.
However, a review of the survey instrument raises serious questions whether ACTA’s efforts will produce the desired outcome. I will share two of the first six questions to make my point.
Q1. Who is the current President of the Senate? Mitch McConnell? Charles Schumer? Kamala Harris? Joe Biden? Not Sure?
This does not address a matter of history nor politics. It is a current events quiz. If you want to understand this position identified in Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the options are: Leader of the Minority Party? Leader of the Majority Party? Vice President of the United States? President of the United States? Not sure?
When raised as a question about the structure of Congress, the student is forced to think about the rationale. Surely, the minority party would not pick the presiding officer. If the president was also president of the Senate, then it would be an enumerated power of the executive and should have been in Article II, Section 2: Powers. From a perspective of consistency, the logical answer is Senator Majority Leader. If the president of the senate is the presiding officer, how is that any different from the chairman of a corporation being selected by a majority of the board of directors? Furthermore, if the Speaker of the House, the presiding officer in the lower chamber, is elected by a majority of House members, why isn’t the same true in the Senate?
That the right answer is “the Vice President of the United States” is a real head scratcher for students of other systems of governance, especially parliamentary ones. It appears to violate the separation of powers giving an executive officer a role in the legislative process. There is no “president of the Supreme Court” who breaks a tie when the justices are evenly split. Why would the founding fathers make what appears to be a significant exception to the principle of majority rule? That, not the name of the current occupant of this constitutional office, is a teaching moment.
Q4. Who becomes President if both the sitting President and Vice President die, become incapacitated, resign or are removed from office by impeachment? The Speaker of the House of Representatives? U.S. Secretary of State? Runner-up from the previous election? President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate? Not Sure?
Are you kidding me? If you’re going to promote civics education, the least you could do is develop a survey that is FACTUALLY correct. What was the author’s transgression? It leaves out the essential phrase “at the same time.” The question would be valid, if and only if, it was 1964 or earlier. Following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Congress passed and the states ratified the 25th Amendment which establishes the procedure by which, in the case of a vacant presidency, the vice president becomes president and appoints a new vice president with consent of the Senate and House. Only if both die at the same time or before a vacancy in the vice presidency is filled is the Speaker of the House sworn in as president.
Talk about historical amnesia. Whoever created this question should schedule an appointment for a full neurological workup. Why? In the history of the United States, with the exception of the 14th Amendment, no newly ratified amendment became relevant faster and more visibly than the 25th. In 1973, when vice president Spiro Agnew resigned, no one was sitting around waiting to see if Richard Nixon, already being investigated for Watergate, would resign so House Speaker Carl Albert would become president. Nixon appointed Gerald Ford vice president. If that was not reminder enough how the 25th Amendment worked, when Nixon resigned in August 1974, Ford ascended to president and immediately selected Nelson Rockefeller to fill his former office. And Speaker Albert stayed exactly where the Constitution required, ready to take over if both Ford and Rockefeller exited the scene in unison.
I often refer to my late colleague at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Michie Slaughter who frequently reminded us, “That which is not important is easy to measure. That which is important is difficult to measure.” I wish more students understood the 10th Amendment which reads “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people (my emphasis).” Why? It raises the question whether an issue such as “reproductive freedom,” if returned to the states, should be decided by State Legislators or voters in the respective states. How does one measure that?
Do I care if students know exactly which amendment gives the people that right? Not at all. What I do want them to question is whether a state legislator should override the will of a majority of the people. For example, through a statewide referendum, Florida voters changed the state constitution to give felons who had completed their sentence or parole to the right to register and vote again. Immediately thereafter, the state legislature and governor revised the definition of “sentence” in the state code to nullify the will of the people. Or when it became clear a majority of Ohio voters supported a state constitutional amendment to restore a woman’s reproductive rights, the governor and state legislature supported a superseding referendum to raise the voting percentage to approve a a constitutional amendment from 50 to 60 percent.
We saw how important this differentiation in the 10th Amendment between “the state” and “the people” can be when Donald Trump and his surrogates tried to pressure governors and state legislatures to overturn the results of the 2020 election in several swing states. While the process of conducting elections has always been a state responsibility, for the first time, one candidate believed “state officials” could determine the result, not just administer the process.
In the next blog, assuming there is not an intervening issue to address, I will lay out an entrepreneurial approach to civics education. One that recognizes the need to create “market pull” not just “supplier push.”
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP