THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OR CIVICS 101
Please forgive Jay H. Ell for revisiting the Founding Fathers and their seminal endeavor, the American Constitution. He really has no credentials to do so but he has the need to explain his spin. If any further apology is needed, his blog has a wide oversea readership who are just dying to know how it is all supposed to work. In returning to the historical event he is going to postulate how different things might be if the USA now goes back to the good old British Westminster Parliamentary model of governance.
The legislative branch of Government.
The exquisite constitutional arrangements chiseled out by the Founding Fathers with love, optimism and sweat, are just not working out. Their desire to create a government that would work with checks and balances, compromise and goodwill is just not cutting it.
Their quaint naive belief that members of the House of Representatives, would be ordinary folk, who would be taking off time at great sacrifice to themselves, and therefore should only serve a two year term, has resulted in the country being in permanent “status electionius”. In spite of a Republican promise in 1996, to enact “term limits” which promise resulted in scores of new Republicans being elected on the strength of that, several of those are still there nearly 2 decades later fighting reelection every two years! The dream that the Senate would be made up of “wise old men” who would place a dampener on the House’s inexperience and exuberance just hasn’t materialized. It is packed with firebrands that intend to serve one term, if that, and then run for the Presidency and diehards that stifle progress.
Now the Congress, which is made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, was to be the Legislative branch designated to make the laws that reflected the will of the people. In so doing they would also see to the day to day functions of making the country work. It would in addition make policy and obviously lean in the direction of the citizenry that elected them. Recognizing that there would be differences between how the House and the Senate enacted legislation on the same issue there would be committees that would settle these interpretations and create a compromise. The Senate too, acting in this spirit, created an internal working arrangement whereby 40 of its members could stop even debating legislation. The understanding was that this was a very serious maneuver and that it should be used judiciously.
Finally, in this rather tart summary of the all powerful legislative body, the relevant Party’s candidates for the elections would be elected in what would be termed Primaries in which anyone could vote.
The Administrative Branch of Government.
This branch would enact the laws passed by Congress. It would be spearheaded by the President who, now, for practical purposes is elected by the popular country wide vote. The President would have wide reaching authority on Foreign Affairs and Defense. Moreover, the President’s agenda on the internal direction the Country should carry great weight. At very least consultations should take place between the legislature and the President. In years gone by, to a lesser or greater extent, even when Congress was of another party, the Legislature came to some accommodation with the President. The President is also entrusted with appointing members to man the administration and therefore the day to day running of the country. His office is held in high regard and although many may disagree with the President appropriate decorum is afforded to him as a result of the dignity of his office.
The Judicial Branch of the Government.
In the likelihood of disputes between various parties including interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments the ultimate arbiter would be a nine man Supreme Court each member being appointed for life. It was assumed, and to a large extent has been followed,that the Supreme Court would rely heavily on legal precedents, legislation passed by Congress, an individual’s rights and each State’s authority.
To Sum Up Civics 101 ala Jay H. Ell.
The Founding Fathers believed they had found the right balance between State and Federal Powers. Federal office bearers would come from individual communities, (Congress Representatives), States, (Each State regardless of size would have two Senators) and the President, (representing the whole country). Any meaningful dispute would ultimately be adjudicated by the Supreme Court whose members, the wisest jurists in the country, were appointed for life. With these provisions and the separation of powers, there was no reason that America should not live happily ever after. And it has, more or less, for centuries.
So what has gone wrong?
LEGISLATION SINCE 2010 - ZILCH
The House of Representatives since 2010 has passed the least legislation in history. Everything, but everything, is an issue including the day to day running of the country thus resulting in a legislative hiatus. Their top priority for 4 years has been to revoke Obamacare - legislation that the Republicans have introduced 51 times. Even more destructive has been that everyday mundane issues have become major controversies thereby forcing the daily functioning of Obama’s whole administration just to hobble along. Currently, for example, Obama needs $4 billion to meet the border crisis where nearly 50,000 children from Central South America have pitched up. The Republican House Majority claim, they don’t know how it is going to be spent, they don’t trust Obama, the border situation is a result of Obama’s policies and so on. The country’s infrastructure is in a shambles. Besides ignoring Obama’s attempts to expand it and create jobs they are creating a hullabaloo about passing the basic funds needed for repairs to roads, bridges and the like.
The House’s current top priority, swallowing up swaths of legislative time, is to sue Obama for using his executive powers on Obamacare. Realistically the action has no chance. The grounds for the suit are cynical - Obama delayed the employer mandate in order to allow the employers to get their paperwork together. By so doing Obama was allegedly not following the Constitution! Implicit in the Republican litigation is they wanted Obamacare, to be effected immediately. On its face the Supreme Court should not even hear this case as the House of Representatives, among other factors, has no standing for this legal initiative. In Bush v Gore constitutional experts maintained that the Court wouldn’t even hear the suit as it involved an issue that was fore square one of the Florida State’s concerns. But look what happened there and Scalia the foremost Constitutional Constructionist, when questioned about this bizarre anomaly, merely replied “Forget about it and move on”.
In fairness to Republican Speaker Boehner he is trying to forestall the Republicans making even bigger fools of themselves by attempting to impeach Obama. However all this fruitless activity makes running a country on a day to day basis impossible and that seems to be the objective.
The Republicans in the Senate, lead by Mitch McConnell had as their sole objective, from 2008, to deny Obama a second term. Now that he has a second term they have stepped up their anti to deny everything and anything related to Obama. The GOP is in the minority in the Senate but using the filibuster more than ever before, so that legislation requires 60 votes to be even discussed, they have successfully halted most legislation. The Democratic Senate Leader broke from tradition in that he insisted that Obama’s nominees for administrative posts did not need a 60 - 40 majority to be ratified so at least the bureaucracy can run.
The underlying theme of all of this is to cripple Obama’s administration and risk sinking the ship in order to get at the Captain. In the confusion of nothing happening Obama is the receiver of a fair amount of the blame for the impasse. Put another way they want absolutely nothing done during Obama’s administration that he could conceivably take credit for.
THE PRESIDENCY.
To quote Eric Holder, the Attorney General, never has more disrespect been shown to a sitting President. He believes, as does Jay H. Ell, that Obama’s race has more than something to do with this. The standard GOP response to non cooperation is that he is not trusted. It is argued that he has been ruling by executive fiat when he has issued less Presidential executive orders than anyone previous president. Literally, everything that Obama does is the subject of vicious criticism.The rudeness extends to a personal level where WhiteHouse invitations are ignored or rejected.
The legislature is calling a twice elected President dishonest insulting the electorate that voted for him and suing him because he is trying to run the country as they refuse to do so.
In short the usual “give and take” which the constitution took for granted would happen, hasn’t.
THE JUDICIAL ARM
As Jay H. Ell has blogged the Supreme Court have reversed precedent after precedent. They are not much interested whether it is legislation or not that they are declaring unconstitutional. They have declared corporations individuals and created a situation that America will have the best Government money can buy. The corporations with their newly found status can deprive their thousands of employees of their rights. They have retrogressively whittled away civil rights legislation including voter protection. Their decisions have had the effect of de facto instituting the Republican agenda into reality when the latter have neither the Presidency or the Senate.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Much of what is happening is to create some semblance of unity amongst the disparate groups that now make up the Republican Party. The GOP is in an utter shambles. There is naked open warfare between the Tea Party and the Establishment. The boil, that is the Republican Party, burst in Mississippi where The Tea Party Candidate, Chris McDaniel, who is right of Ghengis Khan, lost to the Establishment GOP Candidate, Thad Cochran, who is Ghengis Khan, as to who is to be the GOP Senatorial candidate in the 2014 elections. Ted Cruz, the leading Tea Party light in the Senate and one of the Republican Party front runners for the Presidential nomination, called for a probe of the run off election.
McDaniel has a two pronged attack on Cochran. The first is that a large number of Democratic African Americans voted for him in the run off thereby allowing him to overcome the defeat he had in the initial GOP Primary. (In Mississippi you can elect to vote in any Party Primary that you chose). The second was there was unspecified voter fraud.
So the GOP is directionless and have a paper thin coalition between the Tea Party and the Establishment that is only held together by their hatred of Obama and whatever they perceive he stands for.
TOTAL DYSFUNCTION
So in terms of Governance at the moment it has ground to a halt. The hope of the GOP is that they can keep going as a Party while they run against Obama and blame him for the impasse. The only reason that the GOP are still in the game is that the electorate are so disillusioned that they really don’t care. The citizens that are predominantly involved are the bases of both parties and the Republicans are hoping that their base will prove more reliable than that of the Democrats.
WHAT THE WESTMINSTER PARLIAMENTARY MODEL COULD DO FOR AMERICA.
Firstly, the party model is entirely different there so the Tea Party would not be able to take over a Party by pretending that they are Republicans. You join a Party that has your same broad principles and you stick to them or get chucked out. Also if they have a Primary, in the American sense, only card carrying members can vote. So the Tea Party, with their policies, would have to be a third Party and instead of taking over the Republican Party would be confined to the dust bin of history where they belong.
Then elections are not held on a fixed date. They are announced three months before and then only can electioneering begin. Think of how much more money the Kochs would have to give to the arts if that applied here. Money in electioneering thus plays a far lesser role. The elections take place every four years and as no-one is exactly sure when they are going to take place the public are not fed a daily diet of electioneering.
In addition there is no separate election for the Prime Minister, (President). The latter is the leader of the Party that gets the most elected representatives so his agenda is obviously that of the majority members of parliament.
There is only one legislative chamber. Long long ago the second chamber, the House of Lords, was neutered. Other democracies based on the Westminster model have largely dispensed with the power of the upper chamber i.e. the Senate.
The Judiciary has no say in running the country. The highest court deals with property rights and crime. They have no power to change legislation.
It is winner take all. The party that gets the most representatives sets the agenda. Not too much pretense at compromise. So most important, for better or for worse, the roads get funded, the country finances its debt and so on. One is not subjected to bread and circuses that are being force-fed to the USA citizenry right now.
Not so unattractive is it?
WHAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS MUST BE THINKING.
While turning in their graves at the distortions of the intent of their hard painstaking work for democracy some of them have to be rethinking whether it was such a good idea to throw all that good tea into the sea. Their heroic attempts to ensure that all men are created equal have been made a mockery of. The Supreme Court have ruled that if you own a corporation you are at least two individuals. The first one like everyone else, well almost, and the other as a shareholder of your corporation you can deprive people, less equal, of their rights. Then a corporation in its own right is an individual that again has enormous powers over less equal individuals. Freedom of speech is now equal to how much money you have and exercising the biggest equalizer of them all, voting rights, has become tougher and tougher for the less equal.
And on and on.
Most of all they have to be rethinking their provision that citizens not born in the USA cannot run for the Presidency thereby nixing the opportunity for Jay H. Ell to run against Ted Cruz, born in Canada, for whom that provision apparently does not count.
BUT ONE CAN HOPE
One can only hope that the electorate will send such a message to the Republicans that the intent of the Founding Fathers will once again reign supreme. In that happy event Jay H. Ell will gladly accept his second class citizen status thereby not allowing him to move from his log cabin in Illinois to the WhiteHouse. It is after all time that the elected representatives pulled together and collaborated so this country with its many diverse backgrounds from Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the rest can function again. In a land where Utah has less in common with California, than Spain has with Hungary, where Connecticut and Texas are literally a continent away from each other and New York is like no where else in the USA, the mechanism of compromise, wisely anticipated by the Founding Fathers, has to become a central feature of the political process again.
No comments:
Post a Comment