This is unique to the US. In most democracies, following an election the outgoing leader doesn’t continue to run the country as the sitting president does in the US.
More than two
months after he was elected to be the 46th president of the United States,
Joseph Biden will be officially sworn in to office on Wednesday Jan. 20, 2021.
The answer lies
in the history of the US democracy specifically, in its old age.
Back in the early
days of the country, it took a long time to travel, particularly from the West
Coast to Washington, D.C So, they needed a long period of time between the
election and swearing in of the president to get everything in order.
In fact, that
first inauguration, in 1789, did not take place until April 30. Congress
couldn't get enough of its members to show up for the inauguration of George
Washington, so the ceremony was pushed back to the end of April.
Following
Washington's inauguration, Congress decided to keep March 4 as the date for all
future ceremonies. In research for his book, he found that part of the
explanation for this choice of date (beyond the time needed for the transition
between presidencies) was that Congress' study of future calendars revealed
that this date was least likely to land on a Sunday. This was important because
the most religious of politicians wanted to avoid official business on Sundays
whenever possible.
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Today, if the inauguration date falls on a Sunday, there is a private swearing in on Sunday and a public ceremony on Monday as was the case for Barack Obama's second inauguration.
By the 20th
century, advances in technology and transportation meant people could travel
around the country more quickly, and there was no reason for the
"lame-duck" period between Election Day and the inauguration to be so
long. Also, in times of national turbulence, the lame-duck period proved to be
too long a wait.
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During President Herbert Hoover's lame-duck period in 1932, Hoover and then-President-elect Franklin Roosevelt barely communicated, leaving the country waiting on the government to take action to curb economic devastation. In response, Congress proposed the 20th Amendment.
There was a
debate on when to change it, because it was decided pretty universally that four
months was too long to wait. The Senate originally wanted to change it to Jan.
15, and the House of Representatives suggested Jan. 24, and Jan. 20 was reached
as a compromise.
Therefore, the
20th Amendment dictated that the president's term would begin at noon on Jan.
20.