Chapter 22

Kathleen Lehrer then walked out of the Cabinet Room and headed toward the Oval Office. There she saw Anna Escrito talking on the phone. She stood there for a moment, waiting for her to finish, and then asked her, "Any messages?"

The President groaned when she was handed a thick stack. "I shouldn't have asked."

She quickly glanced through them and then said, "Anna, please call Fred Valentine and Sherman Watson and have them come over, please. I'd like to quickly go over a few things before the governor's luncheon."

"Yes, Madame President."

"Thanks."

President Lehrer went into the bathroom, reading the messages and was just emerging when Fred Valentine arrived.

Fred handed her a three page briefing paper as she motioned him to a chair.

"How many governors are coming?" asked the President.

"Thirty seven. The rest will be in town by tomorrow morning."

"Okay. We'll set up another meeting for tomorrow afternoon. What have you been hearing regarding elections to elect a new Congress?"

"I've been hearing anywhere from four to six weeks, with several governors, especially Gov. Bertram of California, calling for a Constitutional Convention before elections are held."

"How much sentiment is there for a Constitutional Convention?"

"So far, thirty two state legislatures have called for a Constitutional Convention in order to pass a balanced budget amendment. I'm sure that there will be repeated efforts to get two other states to join the bandwagon in light of what has happened over the past few days."

"Do you think they'll be successful?"

"I think that it's quite possible."

"If they do pull it off, they might end up postponing the elections for the new Congress, don't you think?"

"That's possible." Valentine looked at his watch. "We better go over some of the issues that will probably come up with the governors."

They then reviewed the briefing papers containing various federal-state issues, such as rebuilding the infrastructure, education, the environment and pollution control projects, housing, crime, farm policies, among others that the governors were sure to be concerned about.

As they finished the briefing, President Lehrer looked at her watch. "We had better get going. It's 12:34. Are you hungry?"

"I sure am."

"Let's eat."

They then proceeded to the State Dining Room where the thirty seven governors awaited them. Before taking her seat, President Lehrer went around the two tables and introduced herself to each governor. About ten minutes after her arrival, the President reached her seat.

"Please be seated. I would like to thank each of you for coming on such short notice. I've been told that the rest of the governors will be in town by tomorrow morning. Therefore, I would like to have a meeting with all of you tomorrow afternoon. I would like this to be more of a get acquainted session than a regular meeting, although I would like to briefly discuss some of the concerns that you might have and begin getting together so that we can begin addressing those problems."

"First, I would like to introduce Sherman Watson, who will be my liaison with state and local governments. He will be in charge of coordinating federal and state programs and he will ensure that your voices are heard. He will report directly to Fred Valentine, my new chief of staff, and through him to me."

"Before we begin discussing your concerns," continued the President, "I would like to hear your ideas about the timing for congressional elections. If it's all right with everyone here, we can discuss this over lunch, and then we can get into the other issues after we have finished eating. Okay?"

Everyone nodded in assent, so the President called for lunch. After everyone in the room had been served their meal, President Lehrer looked around at the governors, surprised at their apparent reluctance to break the ice. A grin broke out on her face.

"All right. How much longer do I get to be dictator with virtually unlimited power to rule by decree?"

She looked around the room and focused on the man who, only two months before, had been her boss, Gov. Bruce Billingham of Pennsylvania.

"Governor?"

"Well, Kathy, I mean Madame President, I figure that it will probably take about four weeks to select the candidates in primary elections and about four more weeks to hold special elections."

"I think," interjected Gov. James Bertram of California, "that we should wait a little bit to see if we are going to have a Constitutional Convention before we decide on a date for the new elections. We only need two more states to call a Convention, and in light of the events of the past two days, I think that a Constitutional Convention is a distinct possibility."

"Gov. Bertram has a point," said the governor of New Jersey. Our legislature has voted against a Constitutional Convention in the past, but many of the legislative leaders in my state are beginning to reconsider their positions in the wake of the Capitol bombing. They see this as an opportunity to start over again and correct some of the institutional deficiencies of our current system. As a matter of fact, they have tentatively scheduled a vote on that for the end of the week and I think that it just might pass."

"I'm not too sure about that, especially now," replied the governor of Ohio, whose state had also not called for a Constitutional Convention. "The last time a Constitutional Convention was called, the Articles of Confederation were ripped up and an entirely new Constitution was written. That could happen again! The instability that would arise from that, especially now when we are at war and politically unstable from the Capitol bombing, would be disastrous and would send the wrong signal to both our allies and our enemies. If we are going to have a Constitutional Convention, let's wait until after the war is over and after we have elected a new Congress. Then we can reestablish a legal line of succession to President Lehrer, in case something should happen to her. If something were to happen to the President right now, without a clearly designated successor, we would have chaos. Let's get a new Congress, confirm her Cabinet, get a new Vice President appointed and confirmed, get the war over with, then we can worry about rewriting the Constitution!"

"Besides which," continued the man from the Buckeye State, "a balanced budget amendment would be a disaster, and I cannot see taking a chance on rewriting the entire Constitution just to have a balanced budget amendment. My God, do you realize that if we had a balanced budget amendment in effect at the time of the Great Depression, the government would have been forbidden from the deficit spending which is what eventually brought us out of the Depression! This would have brought on a Revolution!"

"I also don't want to take a chance on eliminating the Bill of Rights or removing the flexibility that is needed in times of recession to prevent a depression," added Dorothy Todd, the Governor of Kansas. "Although my state is one of those that has called for a Constitutional Convention, I personally oppose it, especially now, when we are in a time of grave crisis. I don't want us to be institutionalizing an all powerful government in which the rights of the citizens are sharply curtailed, and I am deathly afraid that that is what will happen. This could lead us to dictatorship and abuse of power. Then the United States as the home of the free and the land of liberty will be down the drain."

"I hate to tell you this, Governor," inserted the President, "but the United States is no longer the land of liberty or the home of the free, and it hasn't been for years."

"What?! What are you talking about?" demanded Virginia's Theodore Woodward.

"The United States," answered the President, "has the highest percentages of its population imprisoned of all of the countries in the world. One of the things that I intend to do as President is change the hypocrisy that allows our leaders to claim that we are so free when we have so many people in jail."