COVID is the perfect excuse to finally axe the State of the Union

President Biden.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

They're doing it again. According to news reports, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives plans to sharply cap attendance at the State of Union address. The speech has already been postponed to March 1, its latest date in history. Now President Biden will appear before an underpopulated, socially distanced chamber for the second year in a row.

Continuing health restrictions and delays raise the question of whether the ritual should continue at all. Although it's become a fixture of the political calendar, giving a major public address is not among the president's formal responsibilities. Instead, the Constitution requires only that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." From Thomas Jefferson's administration until 1913, presidents discharged this duty in the form of a written annual message.

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.