Lame duck (politics)

Based on Wikipedia: Lame duck (politics)

The Strange Freedom of Political Twilight

In December 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law. It was an extraordinary act—the kind of dramatic, consequences-be-damned move that only makes sense when you understand the peculiar psychology of a leader who knows their time is running out. Yoon had already been labeled a "lame duck" after his party lost control of the legislature earlier that year. With no possibility of re-election under South Korea's single-term limit, he had nothing left to lose.

He lost anyway. The martial law declaration led to his removal from office.

This is the paradox at the heart of the "lame duck" phenomenon in politics: these officials are simultaneously at their weakest and their most dangerous. Stripped of future political ambition, freed from the threat of voter retribution, they can act with a kind of reckless abandon that terrifies their opponents—and sometimes their allies.

What Exactly Is a Lame Duck?

The term describes any elected official whose replacement has already been chosen or soon will be. They're still in office. They still hold power. But everyone knows they're on their way out.

This happens for several reasons. Sometimes they lost a re-election bid. Sometimes they chose not to run again. Sometimes term limits prevent them from seeking another term. And occasionally, the office itself is being abolished, but the current holder must serve out their remaining time.

The defining characteristic isn't weakness—it's the severing of accountability. Most politicians spend their careers calculating how every decision will affect their next campaign. Remove that calculus, and something changes. Some become cautious caretakers, reluctant to rock the boat. Others become liberated.

The latter group is what keeps political observers awake at night.

A Phrase Born on the Trading Floor

Before "lame duck" meant a powerless politician, it meant a bankrupt stockbroker. The phrase originated in 18th-century London, at the Stock Exchange, referring to traders who defaulted on their debts. Picture a duck that can't keep up with the flock—wounded, hobbling, destined to be picked off.

In 1761, the English writer Horace Walpole included the term in a letter, listing it alongside "Bull" and "Bear" as Stock Exchange slang. Thirty years later, when the Duchess of Devonshire lost the equivalent of seven million pounds in modern currency through stock speculation, gossip swirled that her name would be "posted up as a lame duck."

The political meaning didn't emerge until a century later. The first documented use appears in the Congressional Globe—the official record of United States Congress proceedings—on January 14, 1863. A speaker warned against the Court of Claims becoming "a receptacle of 'lame ducks' or broken down politicians." Even then, the term carried a whiff of contempt.

America's Lame Duck Problem

The United States has an unusually long lame duck period built into its constitutional structure, and this has made it the world capital of lame duck mischief.

Consider the gap between presidential elections and inaugurations. Americans vote in early November. The new president doesn't take office until January 20. That's nearly eleven weeks—plenty of time for an outgoing administration to reshape the political landscape.

It wasn't always this compressed. Before 1933, presidents were inaugurated on March 4, meaning lame duck periods stretched for four full months. Congress, meanwhile, would hold a "lame-duck session" between December and March, packed with legislators who had already been voted out of office but retained their seats.

Critics found this absurd. Why should defeated politicians continue making laws for a country that had just rejected them? The Twentieth Amendment, ratified in 1933, shortened the timeline by moving the presidential inauguration to January 20 and the congressional transition to January 3.

But shortening the period didn't eliminate the problem. It just concentrated it.

The Midnight Appointments

The most infamous lame duck maneuver in American history occurred before the phrase even applied to politics. In 1801, President John Adams and his Federalist Party had just lost control of both the presidency and Congress to Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans. In the final weeks before the transition, Adams and the outgoing Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801.

This wasn't routine legislation. It created new federal judge positions—positions Adams could fill with loyal Federalists before Jefferson took office. The Senate confirmed these appointments, some literally at midnight on Adams's final day in power.

These "Midnight Judges" became a constitutional flashpoint. Jefferson's incoming administration refused to deliver some of the commissions, leading to the landmark Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison. That case established judicial review—the power of courts to strike down unconstitutional laws—arguably making Adams's lame duck scheming one of the most consequential acts in American legal history.

Adams set a template that successors would follow for two centuries.

Pardons, Regulations, and the Final Flurry

No lame duck power attracts more attention than the presidential pardon. The Constitution gives presidents unlimited authority to forgive federal crimes, and outgoing presidents have traditionally used their final days to grant clemency to controversial figures who would have provoked enormous backlash earlier in their terms.

Bill Clinton's final day in office—January 20, 2001—became synonymous with this practice. He issued 140 pardons and other acts of executive clemency in a single day. The recipients included his own half-brother, who had a drug conviction. They included former political allies, major donors to the Democratic Party, and various individuals whose cases had bypassed the normal Justice Department review process.

The criticism was intense and bipartisan. But that's precisely the point. Clinton would never face voters again. The political cost was abstract. The beneficiaries of his clemency, however, received very concrete relief.

Beyond pardons, outgoing administrations issue what are called "midnight regulations"—new rules from executive agencies, pushed through in the final weeks, that the incoming administration will have to either live with or spend months unwinding. These can affect environmental standards, workplace safety rules, healthcare regulations, and countless other areas of American life.

Second-Term Syndrome

An interesting variant of lame duck status afflicts two-term presidents almost from the moment they're re-elected. American presidents cannot serve more than two terms, thanks to the Twenty-Second Amendment ratified in 1951. This means a president who wins re-election immediately becomes, in a sense, a known quantity with an expiration date.

Their party starts looking toward the next presidential nomination. Congressional allies begin calculating their positions with an eye toward the next administration. Foreign leaders know they're dealing with someone who won't be around in four years.

This doesn't mean second-term presidents are powerless. They retain all their constitutional authorities. But the political dynamic shifts. Their leverage over their own party diminishes year by year as the next election approaches.

How Other Countries Handle Transitions

Not every democracy creates lengthy lame duck periods. Some have found ways to eliminate them almost entirely.

The United Kingdom offers the starkest contrast to the American system. When British voters go to the polls for a general election, the transition of power can happen overnight—literally. If one party wins a clear majority in the House of Commons, the identity of the next prime minister is immediately apparent. The outgoing prime minister typically resigns the following morning, travels to meet the monarch, and formally tenders their resignation. Minutes later, their successor arrives at the palace and is appointed.

There is no transition period. No lame duck maneuvers. The old government is out; the new government is in.

Even when elections produce unclear results—what the British call a "hung parliament," where no party holds a majority—the transition rarely takes more than a few days. After the 2010 election, Gordon Brown remained as caretaker prime minister for five days while the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties negotiated a coalition agreement. Once they reached a deal, Brown resigned and David Cameron was appointed the same day.

Canada operates similarly. There's no "lame duck session" of Parliament between elections and the swearing-in of new members. Outgoing prime ministers hand power directly to their successors, usually within weeks of a general election. Moreover, outgoing leaders serve in what's called a "caretaker" capacity—explicitly forbidden from making important appointments or major policy declarations.

This convention has teeth. When Sir Charles Tupper attempted to make appointments after losing the 1896 Canadian election, the Governor General simply refused to act on them. The constitutional system blocked his lame duck ambitions.

Australia's Senate Problem

Australia presents an unusual case that demonstrates how structural quirks can create lame duck scenarios even in parliamentary systems.

Australian senators serve fixed six-year terms beginning on July 1, regardless of when elections occur. Members of the House of Representatives, by contrast, take their seats soon after an election. This creates a gap: if an election in, say, November changes the Senate's party composition, the old Senate continues operating until the following July.

A Senate that knows it's about to lose its majority—but still holds power for months—is called a "lame-duck Senate." And these Senates can cause significant trouble.

After the 2004 election, the governing Liberal-National coalition won control of the incoming Senate. But the old Senate, still dominated by the opposition, remained in session through the following May. During this period, it blocked tax legislation that had passed the House of Representatives. The opposition knew the new Senate would pass these laws anyway—they were merely delaying the inevitable. But delay they did.

A more dramatic example occurred after the 2010 election, when Senator Steve Fielding of the small Family First party lost his seat. While serving out his remaining time, he threatened to block "supply"—the government's spending authority—if a Labor minority government took power. For a single lame duck senator to threaten the functionality of an entire government illustrated just how much mischief these transitional periods can enable.

The 2025 Australian election produced perhaps the strangest lame duck incident in the country's history. After their landslide loss, the Liberal Party held a leadership vote that included several outgoing senators who would lose their seats in July—plus, remarkably, a House candidate who everyone assumed had won her race but actually hadn't. The close vote, 29 to 25, installed Sussan Ley as leader. But after a prolonged count revealed the House candidate had in fact lost by 40 votes, and accounting for incoming right-faction senators who hadn't been allowed to vote, it became clear Ley would have lost the leadership election if held two months later. The party had chosen its leader based partly on votes from people who wouldn't be around to serve under her.

Italy's White Semester and Limping Ducks

Italy has developed its own approach to constraining lame duck power—at least for presidents. During a president's final six months in office, a period called the "semestre bianco" (literally "white semester"), the president loses the power to dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The logic is straightforward: an outgoing president shouldn't be able to reshape the political landscape on their way out the door. If the presidency is about to change hands anyway, better to let the successor decide whether the current Parliament should continue.

This constraint created a genuine crisis in 2013. Elections in late February produced a left-wing majority in the lower house but a deadlocked Senate. Forming a government required resolving this impasse, but President Giorgio Napolitano's term was expiring in May. If no government formed by then, Napolitano couldn't call a new election to break the deadlock—his "white semester" prevented it.

The situation was eventually resolved when Parliament re-elected Napolitano to an unprecedented second term, specifically so he would retain the power to call elections if necessary. An entire constitutional convention was bent to work around the lame duck restrictions.

Italy also uses a duck metaphor—"anatra zoppa," literally "limping duck"—but for a completely different situation. In Italian municipal elections, mayors and city councils are elected separately. A voter might support one candidate for mayor while also voting for council lists aligned with a different candidate. If the winning mayor ends up facing a council controlled by the opposition, that's an "anatra zoppa" situation.

These administrations tend to be unstable and short-lived. The council can make governing nearly impossible for the mayor, who often resigns after a year or two. Though exceptions exist—in the municipality of Noci, a center-left mayor governed for his full term despite a right-wing council majority, then won re-election with council support in 2018.

The Philippines and the Final Year

Under the Philippines' 1987 constitution, presidents serve a single six-year term. The final year of that term is explicitly recognized as the "lame-duck period." The president retains all formal powers, but everyone—legislators, cabinet members, foreign governments, the public—knows the countdown has begun.

This institutional acknowledgment of lame duck status is unusual. Most countries either try to eliminate lame duck periods entirely or pretend they don't affect governance. The Philippines simply names the reality.

Brazil's Turbulent Transition

Brazil's 2022 presidential election demonstrated how dangerous lame duck periods can become in polarized democracies. Left-wing candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro with roughly 51 percent of the vote.

In the months between the October election and the January inauguration, Bolsonaro was widely described as a lame duck. But he wasn't a passive one. During November and December, while Bolsonaro remained in office, a plot developed to prevent Lula from taking power. In 2025, Bolsonaro was sentenced for his role in this scheme.

The case illustrated the darkest possibility of lame duck periods: an outgoing leader using their remaining time in power not merely to issue favorable pardons or push through regulations, but to attempt to prevent the constitutional transfer of power entirely. Bolsonaro's failure doesn't diminish the warning. It just means the institutional safeguards held—that time.

The Tony Blair Exception

Lame duck periods don't always result from elections. Sometimes leaders create them by announcing their own departures.

Before the 2005 British general election, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared he would not stand for another term if Labour won. This was intended to reassure voters that change was coming and to smooth the way for his expected successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown. Labour did win, though with a reduced majority.

The result was two years of peculiar governance. Blair remained prime minister with full constitutional authority. But everyone knew Brown was waiting. Speculation about when Blair would actually leave—and whether he was truly committed to going—dominated political coverage. Cabinet members and Labour parliamentarians began positioning themselves for the post-Blair era while Blair was still in office.

This voluntary lame duck status proved awkward. Blair retained power but lost the sense of permanence that gives prime ministers their authority. Brown wielded influence beyond his cabinet role but lacked the accountability that comes with the top job. The arrangement satisfied no one and highlighted why most parliamentary systems avoid extended transitions.

Pierre Trudeau's Parting Gifts

Canada's general aversion to lame duck politics has notable exceptions. The most controversial occurred when Pierre Trudeau retired as prime minister in 1984.

Trudeau formally handed power to his successor, John Turner, after Turner won the Liberal leadership race. But before departing, Trudeau recommended that the Governor General appoint over 200 Liberal supporters to lucrative patronage positions: senators, judges, and executives on government boards and crown corporations.

Turner, as the incoming prime minister, could have recommended that these appointments be cancelled—constitutional convention required the Governor General to follow such advice. Instead, Turner let the appointments stand and added 70 more of his own.

The backlash was severe. Evidence later emerged of a secret written agreement between Trudeau and Turner, documenting a deal that saw Trudeau step down early in exchange for Turner protecting the patronage appointments. This was lame duck influence exercised by mutual agreement—the outgoing leader extracting commitments from his successor as the price of a smooth transition.

Why Lame Ducks Matter

The lame duck phenomenon reveals something fundamental about democratic accountability. Most of the time, politicians moderate their behavior because they'll face voters again. They calculate. They compromise. They avoid positions that might cost them the next election.

Remove that constraint, and different impulses emerge. Some leaders finally act on principles they'd suppressed for political convenience. Some settle old scores. Some try to lock in policies that successors might reverse. Some attempt to help friends and punish enemies.

None of this is inherently good or bad. A president might use lame duck freedom to issue overdue pardons for unjust prosecutions. Or they might pardon cronies and donors. A mayor might push through a controversial but necessary infrastructure project. Or they might award contracts to political allies.

The point is that accountability changes behavior. When political scientists study lame duck periods, they find consistent patterns: more executive orders, more controversial appointments, more "midnight regulations," more pardons—more of everything that provokes opposition. Politicians freed from electoral consequences act differently than politicians who must face voters again.

This makes the design of transition periods a genuine constitutional question. How long should the gap be between elections and the assumption of office? What powers should outgoing leaders retain? Should certain actions—appointments, pardons, major policy changes—be restricted during lame duck periods?

Different democracies have answered these questions differently. The British minimize transition periods to near-zero. The Americans have shortened theirs but still permit extensive lame duck activity. The Italians restrict specific presidential powers during the final months. The Canadians rely on constitutional conventions enforced by the Governor General.

There's no perfect answer. Immediate transitions can be chaotic. Extended transitions create opportunities for mischief. Restrictions on lame duck powers might prevent abuse but also prevent legitimate governance during necessary transition periods.

The View from the Stockbroker's Floor

The original 18th-century stockbrokers who coined "lame duck" would recognize something in modern political usage. A trader who couldn't pay his debts was marked—everyone knew his position was untenable, even if he still occupied his spot on the trading floor. He might execute a few more trades. He might even try some desperate maneuver to save himself. But sophisticated players knew not to rely on him. His word meant less. His promises carried reduced weight.

This captures the essential nature of political lame ducks. They retain formal authority but lose informal power. Their threats carry less weight because they won't be around to follow through. Their promises matter less because they won't be around to keep them. Their allies begin looking toward the successor. Their opponents can afford to wait them out.

And yet—and this is the crucial point—they remain dangerous precisely because they have nothing left to lose. A cornered politician, freed from future accountability, might do anything. Issue pardons that outrage the public. Push through regulations that reshape industries. Declare martial law.

The lame duck is wounded. The lame duck is diminished. But the lame duck still has power. And that combination—weakness and power, accountability lifted—produces some of the strangest moments in democratic governance.