Better Constitution Needed

"President Bush isn’t on the ballot tomorrow," oberserves the ever-shrill Paul Krugman, "But this election is, nonetheless, all about him. The question is whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office."

One is hardly allowed to speak of such things in the United States, but the dynamic of this election is a reminder that it would really be better to have a parliamentary system. A head of government who's both a huge objective failure and has become wildly unpopular ought to be removed from office and replaced by someone else. In a proper democratic system Bush either would be on the ballot tomorrow or else the GOP would have dumped Bush as leader and ran under the banner of a different standard-bearer. As things stand, though, the best you can do is try to put into place a Democratic congress that'll do hearings and oversight and subpoenas and so forth. Even if the Democrats succeed, however, it's not as if we're going to simply get oversight. Instead, there'll be "a cataclysmic fight to the death" as the White House seeks to evade congressional oversight.

Then'll come to Broderish fainting spells about "partisan wrangling" and "ugly tone" and so forth. And it'll be true, the tone really will be ugly and people really will be spending time on wrangling rather than coping with the issues. But Democrats will have no choice -- this is a White House out of control and it needs to be restrained. Better institutions of government, however, would let us avoid the whole dynamic.

Comments

Henry Hazlitt wrote a book on that subject, many years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Constitution-Now-Henry-Hazlitt/dp/0870002775

It activates my Burkean conservative streak.

'Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.'

Our present form of government developed in stages, correcting errors along the way. To rip up the whole fabric and begin anew, absence compelling necessity, strikes me as imprudent indeed.

Posted by David Tomlin | November 6, 2006 9:25 AM

Our present form of government developed in stages, correcting errors along the way.

i think you misspelled "collecting"

Posted by cleek | November 6, 2006 9:30 AM

Oh really? You mean, like the British system, which has totally failed to bring Blair to account?

Look not to the stars, Horatio- the trouble is within us.

For 50 years Americans have hoped that "the President" would solve this or that problem. Along the way the Presidency has picked up an amazing amount of power it never should have had.

And this enabling behavior will continue. Before the day is out some of the nattering classes will drone on about "our responsibility" and "our position in the world" and "our role as world leader" and so forth, all to the point of demanding that the President do something, or, more commonly today, lamenting what the President has done or not done.

Naturally, the philosophizing classes, gifted by God or nature to propose and dispose of our systems of government, at least in their minds, will always hope that a more perfect form of government will make it possible to avoid unseemly argument. What appears more likely, however, is that when riches are to be divided, arguments will occur. In the minds of the common man The Treasure of the Sierra Madre will trump the collected works of Plato, and that, perhaps, is as it ought to be.

Posted by serial catowner | November 6, 2006 10:32 AM

"...the GOP would have dumped Bush as leader and ran under the banner of a different standard-bearer."

And DeLay, and [fill in the blanks] much earlier. It would've actually made it much easier for them to retain power and remain popular. A Republican Party in a parliamentary system led right now by, say, John McCain would not be facing losses nearly this massive.

[Understand I'm no fan of McCain, per se - I happen to think he's pretty dangerous, in fact]

Posted by jkd | November 6, 2006 11:02 AM

Look not to the stars, Horatio- the trouble is within us.

I think the quote you were going for is "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Your point is well-taken though.

Posted by right | November 6, 2006 11:21 AM

Your point ignores the fact that the US system has proved to be more stable that any other system running. Yes, that includes the UK - it's been changed (and continues to change) dramatically over the last 230 years. The monarch had real power 230 years ago, and has virtually none now. The House of Lords is not the same now as it was even a decade ago, and the people have had no voice in those changes.

The US system, on the other hand, has been fairly stable. We've managed to keep the basic system even through crises has bad as the civil war. The fact that the left believes that we have a huge problem now merely points out that the left has no real sense of history. If you think Bush is abusing power, you should brush up on Woodrow Wilson. We survived that, and we'll survive this. We'll survive a Democrat win tomorrow too, should that happen.

Posted by James Robertson | November 6, 2006 11:33 AM

One is hardly allowed to speak of such things in the United States, but the dynamic of this election is a reminder that it would really be better to have a parliamentary system. A head of government who's both a huge objective failure and has become wildly unpopular ought to be removed from office and replaced by someone else. In a proper democratic system Bush either would be on the ballot tomorrow or else the GOP would have dumped Bush as leader and ran under the banner of a different standard-bearer.

No.

In a parliamentary system, there wouldn't even be an election tomorrow. They don't have mid-term elections. You may not have noticed, but there won't be parliamentary elections in Britain until 2009 or 2010.

The good thing about our system is that we allow mid-term elections, allowing a popular president to increase his party's margin in Congress (e.g., 2002) or punishing an unpopular President by decreasing his party's margin in Congress (e.g., 2006). Parliamentary systems like Britain don't allow for that.

Posted by Al | November 6, 2006 11:49 AM

The good thing about our system is that we allow mid-term elections, allowing a popular president to increase his party's margin in Congress (e.g., 2002) or punishing an unpopular President by decreasing his party's margin in Congress (e.g., 2006). Parliamentary systems like Britain don't allow for that.

Ah, but in proper parliamentary systems, with proportional representation, minor parties (or intra-party rebels) can pull out of a government and force new elections. If Britain didn't have the same ridiculous first-past-the-post system as the US, Labor would have had to have compromised with either the Conservatives or Lib Dems to have stayed in government.

Of course, this can go too far (see, for example, Israel or Italy) but has worked well in countries like Germany.

Posted by Ben | November 6, 2006 12:05 PM

I really don't get this liberal passion with totally changing our system of government. This complaint goes hand in hand with the endless whining about less-populated states being "over-represented" in the Senate. The fact is the U.S. Constitution is the foundation for the strongest and most stable government the world has ever seen, and has led to unprecedented prosperity for untold millions the world over. There is much to be said for stability and regularity. We don't have governments collapsing at random whenever there is a scandal. Moreover, we shouldn't change the Constitution wholesale because liberals hate this particular president and have lost a couple of elections in a row. So there is a reason one is barely able to speak of changing the government to a parliamentary system in the U.S. -- because it's idiotic.

Posted by Homer | November 6, 2006 12:11 PM

The fact that the left believes that we have a huge problem now merely points out that the left has no real sense of history.

Yes, mate. And the fact that you don't shows that you have no real sense of the present.

In a parliamentary system, there wouldn't even be an election tomorrow. They don't have mid-term elections. You may not have noticed, but there won't be parliamentary elections in Britain until 2009 or 2010.

You might not have noticed, Al, but there are local elections that can, and do force revisions of policy, because they make it very clear that a governing party would lose a general election. There wasn't a general election in 1990, either, but the Tories ditched Thatcher.

Furthermore, parliamentary systems make it possible to ditch leaders and governments relatively quickly in times when even the ruling party's members realise that their careers depend upon it. Blair's attempt to time his own departure is a sad little injection of American politics into the British system. It's an anomaly. There should be no place for a lame duck in British politics, because Prime Ministers historically last for as long as they are effective, and no longer.

Yet again, Al, you're full of shit.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | November 6, 2006 12:13 PM

The point is this: the GOP treats the legislature as if it were a parliament with a permanent three-line whip. Is there any reason that, having found the trick to breaking the system, they won't keep breaking it?

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | November 6, 2006 12:15 PM

One corollorary of Matt's argument is that Clinton should have been pushed out of office in 1998 (or better yet, in 1994).

Posted by Pithlord | November 6, 2006 12:35 PM

One corollorary of Matt's argument is that Clinton should have been pushed out of office in 1998 (or better yet, in 1994).

Well, two different things here. Yes, under my preferred rules Clinton would have been booted from office in '94. I wouldn't have liked that outcome, but I do think it's a preferable system. It's harder to say what would have happened in '98 under a parliamentary system. Certainly, though, I think it would have been perfectly reasonable (even under our system, really) for Clinton to have responded to those allegations by saying "look, for the good of the party and the country I'm going to hand things over to Al Gore so the public can have a real debate over the issues."

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | November 6, 2006 1:18 PM

Uh, President Bush was on the ballot, in 2004. We can elect a new leader in 2008.

Say what you will about a system wherein you vote for a "party" who then arbitrarily chooses it's leaders over one that elects it's leaders directly. "More Democratic" it is not.

Dumb post by Matt.

Posted by DRR | November 6, 2006 1:51 PM

It's an interesting counterfactual, Matt. Still, I want to point out that in an actually existing parliamentary system (in Canada), we've witnessed the executive (Prime Minister + staff = Prime Minister's Office) accumulate a LOT of power at the expense of federal legislators. The PMO's power grab (and abuse of that power) was major theme of the Chretien-Martin era (of course it's a tradition with a 'proud' history.) It's why I've voted Conservative in the last two elections - I don't like that kind of agglomeration of influence in the executive at the expense of the other branches. It's un-Madisonian. (Before you hate on me for voting for the right-wing party, think about the relative position of that right wing transposed onto the American grid. Canadian conservatives are basically the Democratic Leadership Council with worse hair.)

Anyways, just wanted to point out the evolutionary convergence that's occurred: both parliamentary and presidential systems are prone to Unitary Executive Syndrome. Sometimes theoretical models don't always indicate the weaknesses that turn up in practice.

Posted by Alex Mackenzie | November 6, 2006 1:53 PM

One idea that I've heard a lot lately is to limit U.S. presidents to one six-year term, as they do in Mexico. That would, I think, change electoral dynamics so much that it would change the way policy is made. (Think 2002-2004)

Posted by Alex Mackenzie | November 6, 2006 1:57 PM

This became obvious to me years ago, as a teenager who happened to be traveling in Europe when Nixon resigned. The locals simply couldn't believe that it took all that time and energy to get rid of him, since they were accustomed to parlimentary systems, in which a vote of no-confidence quickly gets rid of an unpopular and/or ineffective leader. I think this is part of the explanation for why, as described on Slate several months ago, new democracies are overwhelmingly rejecting the US model in favor of parlimentary models.

Posted by Rebecca Allen, PhD, ARNP | November 6, 2006 2:16 PM

The problem with Canada is that it combines a Parliamentary system with a quasi-American method for electing party leaders. The result is that it is actually quite difficult to get rid of a leader when it is time for him or her to go. We now seem to be experimenting with fixed terms, which may make things even worse.

Posted by Pithlord | November 6, 2006 2:31 PM

"Blair's attempt to time his own departure is a sad little injection of American politics into the British system. It's an anomaly. There should be no place for a lame duck in British politics"

And as it turns out there isn't a place for lame ducks.

Currently any major policy announcements are either being made by brown or with the approval of Brown.Brown is also having a series of meetings with foreign leaders over the next few days which no chancellor should be doing but a prime minister would.

Currently blair could be replaced in No 10 with a stuffed dummy and it would make no difference at all to the government. Blair is only wheeled out when (as with ID cards today) brown wants a n unpopular policy brought up so after the takeover in may he can reject the policy as being part of "tonys blunders".

One would have thought blair would have had a little more dignity than he is showing.After all the word is that he's due to have an interview with the police on corruption charges in the next few weeks...

Posted by kenny | November 6, 2006 3:10 PM

"Oh really? You mean, like the British system, which has totally failed to bring Blair to account?"

You forget that unlike Bush, Blair's domestic agenda has been broadly popular, even if a few issues like terrorist-related detentions are objectivly bad.

"Your point ignores the fact that the US system has proved to be more stable that any other system running. Yes, that includes the UK - it's been changed (and continues to change) dramatically over the last 230 years. The monarch had real power 230 years ago, and has virtually none now. The House of Lords is not the same now as it was even a decade ago, and the people have had no voice in those changes."

This is because when adopted, our Constitution was the best thing around. Its been 'stable' since because everyone else has improved and we're stuck with the same shit instutions, which, while better than a monarchy, have significant problems.

Posted by yoyo | November 6, 2006 3:39 PM

Well the thing is our Constitution assumed individualism. The branches would be jealous of each other's power etc.

The problem became when one of the major parties (and really it's only been a purely two party system for about 100 years) decided that they were going to be run in a debased parliamentary style where the Good of the Party was all. Thus when W became president and by extension became the party, the Good of the W was all. The founders never foresaw this for I guess various reasons of which I'm still not entirely clear.

But the only way to stop it is for the other part to transform itself into a parliamentary version to rival the other so you have competing ideologies nakedly revealed.

The only difference that I've seen between actual parliamentary systems and our own are that it's easier to hide what you're doing in our system. I don't know if parliaments are better but they are more open about what actually happening giving an electorate a better chance to inform decisions. Then to, the national media in other countries doesn't usually try to adopt the veneer of "unbiased" while actually being "obedient hacks."

Posted by MNPundit | November 6, 2006 4:05 PM

Democracy requires trading off between two things that directly oppose each other: directly enacting the will of the majority, and protecting individuals from the tyranny of the majority.

Considering all the talk I hear from the Left about the "imperial Presidency," the "impending theocracy," and the "corporate oligarchy," I find it odd that they constantly want to change to a parlaimentry system of government.

Posted by Justin | November 6, 2006 4:51 PM

The President's shield from popular opinion is a point made by old Bagehot in his The English Constitution. But he misses a fundamental Madisonian design point, that proves particularly useful in a non-socially-regulated society like our own.

The fixed Presidential term should -restrain- democratic rule. It protects the system from the majoritarian passions. Cf. Justice Brandeis ("[The separation of powers] was not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers, to save the people from autocracy").

The length of the President's term, calibrated as it is between the 2 years of the House, and the 6 years of the Senate, makes him as much a guardian of stability as a proponent of federal change.

The English system works for them because they have a more-or-less homogenous and conservative political tradition, fiery speeches on the Commons floor notwithstanding. So they don't need the check.

The crappy fix we are in now is a structural failure of the Senate's lack of will to check the Prez. adequately. Chalk that up to a state of emergency.

And, if we had a middlingly competent President, might allow him to prosecute a war without too much distraction.

Posted by Nate | November 6, 2006 5:33 PM

Say what you will about a system wherein you vote for a "party" who then arbitrarily chooses it's leaders over one that elects it's leaders directly. "More Democratic" it is not.

'Say what you will', indeed? I presume you're talking about France or Mexico here, because the US certainly does not directly elect its chief executive.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | November 7, 2006 1:36 AM

Perhaps that was at crosspurposes: but even then, you're wrong. More people voted for Tony Blair to become leader of the Labour Party than will vote for the leadership positions in either house of Congress. There's no 'arbitrariness' about it.

But for president? Neither primaries nor the general election are direct.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | November 7, 2006 1:44 AM

MY, I am in such agreement with you that I'm just going to discuss minute details.

Are you referring to largely 2 party parliaments, or the more multi-party ones? One of the things that happens as you get a party for every issue-viewpoint, people's votes solidify and don't really change according to circumstance or individual merits, and becomes very unable to counteract corruption.

Elections just become a slight rejiggering of seats and the government only changes power when parties decide on new coalitions. The worst such example is Italy, which suffered under both massive instability, and the massive STABILITY of one corrupt party running the government for 40 years straight.

So if your main concern is checking correction and incompetence, at a certain degree on the spectrum towards party-minimalism, you lose that ability.

Posted by Tony v | November 7, 2006 9:39 AM