The function of choosing officeholders is analytically distinct from judging, legislating, and executing

Evidence

The function of determining who should hold judicial, legislative, and executive office is analytically just as distinct and just as indispensable as the others. The question of determining by whom, and how, the function should be discharged is also a question of prudence. It is perhaps the most important of all the prudential questions of government. … History offers the possible solution of a constitutional rule of inheritance to determine the chief of state, with power in him to designate other officials. It offers also, among others, the solution-by-default of providing no institutional procedure for determining succession, with reliance instead on periodic coups d’etat. The American solution to the problem, which has found favor in many other parts of the world, is the institution of a popular election. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3584

Categorization

• XREF: Continues the institutional-architecture frame from chs. 33-37 separating functions from the agencies that discharge them.