Thinking Differently About Checks and Balances
A month or so ago, when I wrote that I was back on the fence, I was met with quite a range of reaction. For most folks, it seems, these choices are just obvious — but the more I’ve cogitated on this, the more complex the decision has become.
One of the most difficult internal hurdles I’ve encountered is my very strong belief in checks and balances… and my worries about one-party government have been magnified by the ongoing party purges of their moderates. I sent a WaPo story about this phenomenon in the Republican Party to TMV co-blogger Pete Abel yesterday, but it’s happening to the Democrats from the left, too.
Extreme polarization in the two parties is marginalizing — even silencing — more moderately-inclined American citizens, including those who have, in the past, affiliated with political parties.
This is a very ugly cycle in American politics, and it’s doubly problematic in the face of the many critical issues facing the nation.
Some of these problems are so very serious, in fact, that we cannot afford the gridlock that would result from the normal approaches to divided government. On the other hand, we cannot give free reign to any party platform — even if it had unanimous national support — because we cannot afford it.
So I’ve come off the fence, and in the process I’ve concluded that while we do, in fact, need checks and balances desperately, we need a non-partisan approach… because just now, the biggest deficit our country has is fiscal leadership.
26 Responses to “Thinking Differently About Checks and Balances”
I agree with you that it's healthier to have a broad range of viewpoints represented in the various branches of our government. Unfortunately, the current Republican party has abdicated any responsible, rational conservative position on the issues. They cannot be trusted with any authority whatsoever. I hope, after this election, they go into a long political exile (as the Democrats have since Johnson stepped down) and purge the Karl Rove-style slash-and-burn policies of the last 8 years.
davigoli — Pretty much every Republican I know agrees with you about the current GOP. But voting for a “D”, just cuz it's not an “R” — and vice versa — won't solve the larger economic problems I believe we're facing. If the “D” person has been merrily spending our country into the fiscal toilet, then how are they any better?
Well the greater issue is the immense expansion of power in the Executive branch, which I believe is also a function of growing partisanship in the country.
Since the President now has enormous power in all affairs and Congress is unable to effectively check him because every vote is now just “political” then really the individual that is President is more important than ever.
I mean a lot of arguments against impeaching Bush was that it's start a cycle of “political retribution” even though he is an admitted war criminal. (As an aside it was interesting when McCain said he disagreed with Bush about “torture” during the debate. By using the word “torture” it implies that he thinks what Bush ordered was a war crime. The statutes are written so if a person in power doesn't attempt to bring war criminals to justice then they too are war criminals. There could be an argument made that anyone in Congress that has said Bush has committed torture is a war criminal for not bringing him up for impeachment).
I'd be very happy if both Obama and McCain agreed to voluntarily abdicate a lot of their power that has only existed for the last 40 years, but fat chance on that.
In short I don't see how a divided government helps until Congress starts being smarter and has at least a 50% approval rating so they have public backing. The entire idea of divided government was that the branches would compete, so by political parties supporting “their” president and the President supporting his/her party it's gotten rid of a basic ideal.
I'd love it even more if both McCain and Obama repudiated their party affiliation once in power.
Polymom,
thanks for your post. Glen Greenwald, who blogs at Salon.com, and Andrew Sullivan, who blogs at The Atlantic, both consider themselves “conservative.” I expect many will think of them as “leftists” but having read them for awhile I can't agree with that argument. I think both of them would agree with you on the “needing moderates” call, but I think they both have pointed out fairly well that “non-partisan” or “cooperation,” as called forth by the last 8 year administration, has been more about coming rank and file to the conclusion of the Republican leadership. “Bi-partisanship” seems to have been all about agreeing with the Republicans, on their terms.
I agree with davigoli that there should be some interests that more clearly reflect the preservation of our constitutional authority and rights–that's what I feel is most important, and the damage that will need to be undone for the next administration and the next generation of politicians.
I don't see the Republicans going into political exile in any future, but do hope that the good parts of that party platform can be reformulated, and that they can divest themselves of the radicalism of the hatred and certainties of the zealous religious right, and learn not to “rule” on the basis of fear, enemy demonization, and victimhood.
What can be more important than checks and balances? Where have we seen those in the last 8 years?
Back in the 1980s, when we no longer had a President willing to endorse what came from the Democratic Congress, we heard all kinds of “concerns” about “divided government” and were told repeatedly that the solution would be “fusion of powers.”
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The way to get more views is to develop a multi-party system with proportional representation in the House of Representatives (and approval voting for the Senate seats and the Presidency and Vice Presidency) iinsofar as Washington is concerned (though state legislatures could be improved as well in this regard). While such a change is normally sought only by the far left (because they stand little to no chance of getting their views enacted by legislatures given how fringist they are), there are some of us who aren't radical fringists who would support this (along with the related “multipolarity” of coalition politics involved) as well as other reforms normally only sought by activists.
As it stands now, the fact is, “bi-partisanship” means do everything the Democrats demand, or else (echoed and amplified by the media). That's despite any attempt to demonize the truly dysfunctional GOP for whatever reasons (attempted concealment of the truth that fails, et cetera). The hype about the GOP “far right” [sic] and the demonization of it carries no weight among the learned and intelligent.
And is Congress any good? Congress, which has been passing a bailout bill for Wall Street overloaded with pork to bring the bill total above 800 billion dollars? (Why not one trillion dollars or more?)
“I don't see how a divided government helps until Congress starts being smarter and has at least a 50% approval rating so they have public backing.”
Public approval of Congress has to be _earned_.
Too bad the President couldn't dissolve Congress and require snap elections, while Congress had the power to hold binding no-confidence votes that if passed removed the President and Vice President for office. (Or make the Vice Presidency independent once more so if we have a GOP President we get a Dem VP or vice versa — they'll watch each other warily.)
As it stands now, the fact is, “bi-partisanship” means do everything the Democrats demand, or else
How funny — that's the exact inverse of how the Dems see it. It's Red vs Blue to the bitter end, I guess.
How about Term Limits, instead, DLS?
Given the changing demographics of the U.S., the political exile of the Republicans will be permanents. The real question is will the coming one party state function more like a parliment where you have various factions (CBC, blue dog, jews, etc) functioning as different groups. When the Democratic party no longer has a relevant Republican party to organize itself against, then many factions will emerge inside the Democratic party.
However, seniority will limit the ablity of congress to make changes. Elections for any particular office will become a once in a generation thing where an old, senior politican dies in office (think Kennedy) and is replace by the next generation. Then the only way for a state or Congressional district to benefit will be to keep electing the same person for decade until they gain seniority.
I think a big problem is the number of safe seats in the House. Politicians get to decide the shapes of their own districts. Naturally, they do so in a way that most benefits their own electoral prospects. Also naturally, incumbents are willing to scratch each others' backs.
Open safe seats are even worse. The winner of a safe seat gets determined when that party has its primary. Members of the other party don't even have a chance to cast a viable vote. And more extreme members of the safe party have a great chance to win, since primaries tend to attract only the true believers of that party.
Calling or writing the Representatives of another district–one you don't live in–is mostly useless. Why should they care what you think if you can't vote for them–or against them!!
This is a structural problem. It's built in.
I think we should stop gerrymandering. Some states have already done so. I favor the Iowa model of non-partisan re-districting.
One-party rule is undemocratic, even at the Congressional level.
mikkel, your argument strikes me as odd, and scary. Sounds to me an awful lot like: “well, the respective branches have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities, so to hell with it, I'll vote for the guy that I would rather see as king.”
You're right that Congress hasn't been willing to limit the Exec branch, but as I see it that's because we didn't have divided govt for six years, we had corrupt and hyperpartisan Congressional leaders, and even though the Dems have now regained control of Congress they've also got corrupt leaders but they're weak to boot (the GOP generally plays a better chess game anyway.)
I guess I can see why some people would have more concerns about McCain in terms of the weak Dem Congress keeping him in check, but two factors would seem to blunt that concern; one, the Dems are likely to increase their majority and two, they're likely to be able to pull in some GOP who don't like McCain very much. I don't think they'll be nearly as impotent in limiting McCain's Exec power as they have been with Bush.
When you think about how those factors are likely to play out with Obama in the WH though it's a huge concern as far as I'm concerned. Of course I'll admit that my perspective as a conservative adds to that concern, but what could possibly be more important right now than fiscal sanity?
If there's anything good to come out of all of the current messes, it's that people are paying more attention and eventually I think more people will see the folly of having vested so much power in Washington. Having turned over so many problems to federal control and federal budgeting, we're reaping the results as we've made accountability nearly nil (I can help vote out my own Congresscritters but I can't hope to fumigate the Capitol and clear out the whole lot of them.)
I agree with GeorgeSorwell about gerrymandering as well; all advantages of incumbents are problematic, and that's one of the worst.
Cstanely,
The Obama Administration plans to nationalize more problems. Is there any question that the government will consume a higher percentage of the GDP is eight years than it does now? As the U.S. becomes a one party state, more power will be given to Washington and state politics will become less relevant.
Polimom,
Checks and balances are essential to good governance. When we lose them, we usually lose good governance along with it.
Term limits (as promised by the Gingrich Republicans, but never delivered) would be a good start. Limiting the degree of gerrymandering that was considered allowable (enforced by the courts) would help reduce the safe seat problem. Both changes would require constitutional amendments, and as such would likely require an outright crisis to mobilize enough support. They would also require a leader willing and able to pin the tail (of blame) on the correct donkey (i.e. seniority, safe seats, the corruption of power, and how they all reinforce in a vicious cycle) and to explain why such boring political process changes will solve the problem over the long run.
In the short term, there may simply be no winning solution. If we believe that the Dems are going to increase their share of seats in Congress, then given the institutional corruption and incompetence of the Dems leaders, the only short term palliative is to put McCain in the Presidency and hope they check each other.
If McCain as President is unacceptable, for whatever reason, then we need to resign ourselves to one party rule/dominance of both elected branches of government, and hope that Obama grows a spine (that he has not yet shown) and is willing to stand up to the worst excesses of his party leadership, perhaps working with the Blue Dogs and the shattered remnants of the Repubs.
If Obama is unwilling or unable to do that, then we are likely to be looking at trillion dollar+ budget deficits, and a doubling of the national debt in less than four years. No doubt we would then see divided government return. But the country would be a financial basket case.
We as voters have allowed matters to come to this. And even if we reformed Congress as outlined above, as long as so much power over so many things, great and small, is arrogated to the Federal government, then any lapse of good governance at the Federal level will impact every aspect of our daily lives.
To be honest, I kind of got lost in your post here and in the linked one as to what exact conclusion you have drawn now that you are off the fence. I get that fiscal responsibility is key and that you want non-partisan action. But I could make an argument from those two conclusions both that you are now off the fence and voting Republican and that you are off the fence and voting Democrat or that you've given up on the two parties all together. Can you clarify what you meant?
I did want to add more substantively that the recent trends in the Democratic party are more complicated than simply getting rid of moderates. People argue that has happened with Lieberman and it's certainly true on liberal blogs, but, at the same time, one of the reasons that the Dems did so well in 2006 was that they were able to find moderate Democratic candidates in several states where they typically do poorly, such as Kansas, Montana, and Virginia. Many of the new 2006 members of Congress from the Dem side are comparatively moderate. After all, the article you sent to Pete has the moderate Republicans endorsing the Democratic candidate.
I wish we could, however, fire Reid and Pelosi and put some of those more moderate Dems in the leadership roles.
On the subject of accountability and working to unseat the irresponsible, I wish that someone would begin making lists of the worst culprits in both parties.
The few places that I see some responsible governance are in the conservative House caucus and the Blue Dog Democrats. I'd love to see someone study the records of each of those members to see if they're all worth supporting, and perhaps some bipartisan grass roots effort to do so, along with actively working to unseat those who are thwarting their efforts.
Hi Paca — yes, pushing out incumbents of either party who have driven us off the rails, is absolutely part of the current thinking. The reason you don't have the full view of where I landed in my leap (fall?) from the fence is that I haven't totally rolled it out yet. I've really had a hard time with this, but I ran this perspective first because otherwise, I can't justify my decision well — even to myself.
Re: the moderate Dems. Yes, you're talking about the Blue Dogs (for the most part). And in my post above, I linked to Glenn Greenwald at Salon from late July, advocating that they be tossed for ideology. Progressive or bust, evidently… So while the Dems did pick up a number of seats by running moderates, the left wing of the party isn't showing much satisfaction with a paper majority.
Conservatives like to pay lip service to small government, but the fact is — history has shown unequivocally — government spending and debt grew the most under Reagan and Bush, while the Democratic administrations have proven to be much more fiscally responsible, balancing the budget and shrinking the debt while not raising taxes all that much after all.
So while Republicans like to scare with boogie-man tactics about Democrats ushering in greater debt and higher taxes, history has shown this threat simply never materializes.
Now we happen to find ourselves in a precarious economic situation, the consequence of systemic laissez-faire economic policies, the end-result of government “getting out of the way”. While more government may sound scary, less government (= more lawlessness) has proven much scarier.
davigoli, the problem as I see it is that you've bought the narrative that the current situation is the result of private sector recklessness instead of a private sector/govt payola scheme, which I think is much more accurate. That's why what some of us are saying is that we ought to seek a rollback of the behemoth of federal government, because it's grown to such a size that it's impossible for oversight to occur.
And yes, it's unfortunate that many, even most, in the GOP have decided to feed at the trough too, but that doesn't mean that conservativism is incorrect (quite the opposite, we need to hold them responsible for their variance from the positive parts of that ideology.)
I mentioned the house conservative caucus and the Blue Dogs because I think both of those groups really do adhere to small govt principles, at least as much as their limited amount of power currently allows them to do. Both groups though come under fire from the leadership of their parties far too often, or at best they're given a pass from supporting the legislation that the leadership wants to push through whenever it would endanger their seat, but their actual agenda of fiscal constraint is never really allowed to prevail.
Paca, your frustration with the Dem leadership is the mirror image of what many conservative voters have felt for a long time on our side. I hope that your party's voters will wake up to it sooner and attempt to change it, although I'm not sure how that's even possible since the voters have no direct way of influencing who gets the reins.
Stanley asked about lists of the worst culprits. I thought I'd be able to find something, but it's devilishly hard. I found some items that had ratings, but those were obviously partisan where every single member of one party had a rating better than every single person in the other party. Then I spent about half an hour on the Concord Coalition's site. While it was non-partisan-esque, I never found any ratings. Anyone else know of anything moderately objective?
“Anyone else know of anything moderately objective? “
I don't — though I think it would be a powerful tool. The problem is finding the necessary data, imo. One can't simply point to earmarks, for instance, or even pork, and say that's the Root of All Evil — because the real question (for me) is whether the spending (or tax cut, or whatever) was offset / paid for.
CStanley also said, “I mentioned the house conservative caucus and the Blue Dogs because I think both of those groups really do adhere to small govt principles, at least as much as their limited amount of power currently allows them to do.”
I wonder if the influence of these voices would be stronger with a clearer vision. If fiscally conservative voices are relegated to just yelling from the back of the room all the time, “don't vote for this because we need to decrease the deficit,” that's fairly easy to disregard. So we don't fund S-CHIP and then give away more money to something else so that now we've got a larger deficit and less child health insurance. In such an environment partisans will just always vote to increase spending on their stuff before the money goes away. In short, this process is a voting against. What the fiscally conservative members need is something to vote for. A comprehensive plan that prevents a viable route to reducing debt levels to some stated objective (percentage of GDP, percentage of national budget, etc). I would personally voluntarily send in a check that I knew went directly towards such a thing. Even if this plan is not an entire budget, which typically comes from the executive, it could at least be a justified target with a timeline.
Let us vote for decreased debt, not against some pleasant sounding program.
The result of GOP policies has been the nationalization of debt. SD decries Democrats wanting (he says) to nationalize “more of the GDP.” What nonsense. The situation in Iraq clearly shows the fallacy of thinking that privatizing functions of government saves us money.
When we started our pitiful effort at reconstruction, we had three choices: let the armed forces do it, pay Iraqis to do it, or contract it to a private company. Because of the GOP zeal for privatizing, we chose the third option. As Don Rumsfeld said “everything that can be done by private companies should be.”
Following this philosophy, we contracted work at $175 per hour to companies that subcontracted the work to companies that subcontracted to work to companies who hired non-Iraqis to do the work, at two dollars per hour. The unbelievable level of waste amounts to $173 per hour for job that could've been done by Iraqis for about two dollars a day. There are dozens of examples of the same thing right here at home in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. We contracted to private companies tasks that were once done by FEMA and also like the situation in Iraq, they did not hire locals to do the work, further exacerbating the unemployment problem by bringing in workers from elsewhere.
There's no magic to private enterprise in terms of lowering cost. Clearly in the last eight years, privatizing former government functions cost us dearly.
polimom, I'm sorry if you actually addressed this and it's simply too late (midnight, where I'm at) for me to have read it correctly, but I was wondering if you'd like to share where you landed once you came off the fence?
You strike me as a moderate conservative (libertarian leaning) that is one of the legion of Republicans that feel that the GOP needs a good spanking to get it's act together again and become what it pretends to be (sort of like how liberal voters wonder what the hell it will take for Dems to grow a spine).
Still, I don't see you divulging which candidate, if any, has gotten you off the fence. Would you mind saying, or is your fence hopping not referred to this campaign specifically?
PS: I'm guessing that if you're a big fan of checks and balances, you couldn't have liked Palin's explanation that Cheney's only mistake was to shoot his friend in the face and (what's much less funny) that expanding the VP powers MORE would be a good idea.
I'm far less concerned, frankly, about policy or ideology here. We're in a very serious problem, economically, and the Senate's response was a bill that contained un-funded provisions that would take nearly a year to pay for if we stopped the Iraq War and brought everybody home. The scale is enormous, and the hole is getting deeper, exponentially faster. I'm looking for the brakes.
For purposes of this discussion, how about this: Ask the candidates (at whatever level) if they'll commit to Pay-Go. They say yes, then blow it, then they're out when they come up again.
Hi Lynx — I haven't said yet where I landed in terms of the presidential election. This post was actually a kind of table-setting effort for what I decided — part of which is that the focus on the presidential election is too narrow for our current circumstances. I'll probably post again on Monday about the top-level decision.
And as a complete, OT aside — I really do appreciate the thoughtful responses here. Having an over-arching strategy has been MUCH enhanced by the tactical input.
To be perfectly honest, if the candidates were different I would seriously consider voting for divided government this time around. Unfortunately, in order to do so, it would require voting for the McCain/Palin ticket. And I cannot in good conscience do that. I have lost all the faith I once had in McCain and I never had any in Palin. I'd rather wait until 2010 for the next congressional elections rather than 2012 for the next presidential one.
We've had two years of divided government.
I don't see those two years as being significantly better than the preceding years of Republican domination of our government. I'm open to an argument for why that is the case, if someone is willing to make it. But I bet nobody will do it. There is no actual data to support this very clever argument. Please, please, please–I ain't too proud to beg!!–make that case if you can.
If the question for the Presidential election is accountability, the answer is obvious. The current party's rule has been a disaster. They should not be rewarded.
It seems to me that this is the major question–any other question is an attempt to change the subject. Compelling changes of subject, perhaps. Supported by actual data? I don't think so.
But that is only the case because Mr Bush's rule has been so disastrous.
I agree with Polimom that Congress is also a disgrace. Congress is spineless. Congress is irresponsible. But there are a hundred Senators and I only get to vote for two of them. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives and I only get to vote for one of them.
And my Congressman knew he was going to lose, so he isn't even running for re-election.
That means the people in my district have already done their part in throwing the bum out.
But we can only do that because our district is reasonably competitive in a year where many people are demanding change. Under normal circumstances, he'd be re-elected until he died. His district was drawn to keep him safe. In far too many districts, the incumbent is still safe no matter what. That's why I favor, as I said in my previous comment, and end to gerrymandering. In truth, I'm not sure non-partisan re-districting will help my party. But I think it will lead to more competitive election districts. And I think fewer safe seats will lead to a more moderate government.
We have structural problems that impede (I'm not necessarily saying prevent) change. A very large signal to our elected officials can make the desire for change known even to them.
But elections are blunt implements. Change is a very imprecise concept. The concept of divided government is more precise, but will it really help clean up the current disaster?
So in 2008, I'm not voting for change.
In 2008, I'm voting for accountability.
In 2010, I'll be voting for accountability.
In 2012, I'll be voting for accountability.
Because all I've got are those blunt implements.