Interesting stuff, but how do Obama's pre-election grants look in terms of historical data?
We gathered preliminary data from over 100 years of presidential elections. We find that, in the 28 terms covered by the data, presidents averaged a distance of 87 days between Election Day and their last grant(s) of clemency. When was the last time grants were made a few as 4 days before the election? 1940, Franklin Roosevelt. When was the last time someone made grants less than 4 days before the election? 1928, Calvin Coolidge. Notably, in the administrations before Eisenhower (roughly half of the chart), presidents rarely ever went a full month without granting at least one pardon or commutation of sentence.
How do President Obama's 72 commutations compare? No other president granted as many, or even granted as many as 60 or 50. Only Jimmy Carter crossed 40, and that was 138 days before an election. Consequently, on average, the previous presidents, on average, granted a mere 9 pardons or commutations of sentence before the upcoming election.
President
|
Date
of Most Proximate Clemency Grant(s)
|
Number
of Grants
|
Date
of Election
|
Distance
Between Last Grant(s) and Election
|
T. Roosevelt (1)
|
10/30/1908
|
1
|
11/3/1908
|
4
|
Taft
|
10/28/1912
|
0
|
11/5/1912
|
8
|
Wilson (1)
|
11/6/1916
|
2
|
11/7/1916
|
1
|
Wilson (2)
|
11/2/1920
|
1
|
11/2/1920
|
0
|
Coolidge (1)
|
11/3/1924
|
1
|
11/4/1924
|
1
|
Harding / Coolidge
|
11/5/1928
|
2
|
11/6/1928
|
1
|
Hoover
|
11/3/1932
|
1
|
11/8/1932
|
5
|
F. Roosevelt (1)
|
10/19/1936
|
1
|
11/3/1936
|
15
|
F. Roosevelt (2)
|
11/1/1940
|
1
|
11/5/1940
|
4
|
F. Roosevelt (3)
|
10/14/1944
|
1
|
11/7/1944
|
24
|
F. Roosevelt (4) / Truman
|
10/4/1948
|
1
|
11/2/1948
|
29
|
Truman (1)
|
10/25/1952
|
3
|
11/4/1952
|
10
|
Eisenhower (1)
|
9/28/1956
|
8
|
11/6/1956
|
39
|
Eisenhower (2)
|
10/13/1960
|
37
|
11/8/1960
|
26
|
Kennedy / LBJ
|
10/22/1964
|
1
|
11/3/1964
|
12
|
LBJ
|
6/22/1968
|
1
|
11/5/1968
|
136
|
Nixon (1)
|
8/11/1972
|
1
|
11/7/1972
|
88
|
Nixon (2) / Ford
|
9/1/1976
|
28
|
11/2/1976
|
62
|
Carter
|
6/19/1980
|
41
|
11/4/1980
|
138
|
Reagan (1)
|
7/16/1984
|
3
|
11/6/1984
|
113
|
Reagan (2)
|
9/20/1988
|
3
|
11/8/1988
|
49
|
H.W. Bush
|
7/5/1991
|
12
|
11/3/1992
|
487
|
Clinton (1)
|
8/21/1995
|
1
|
11/5/1996
|
442
|
Clinton (2)
|
10/20/2000
|
7
|
11/7/2000
|
18
|
W. Bush (1)
|
7/6/2004
|
2
|
11/2/2004
|
119
|
W. Bush (2)
|
3/24/2008
|
16
|
11/4/2008
|
225
|
Obama (1)
|
10/26/2011
|
1
|
11/6/2012
|
377
|
Obama (2)
|
11/4/2016
|
72
|
11/8/2016
|
4
|
9
|
87
|
Posts
1 comment:
My question is where are the pardons. The President said himself in a interview that he would grant as many pardons as his predecessors.
He has roughly 80-90 pardons to grant just to come close to Bush. I want to believe it I just don't see it happening. ..but who knows
Post a Comment