An indictment of presidentialism, and a rationale for a congressional system

[Damocles]

The contemporary United States stands in a dangerous crossroads from a constitutional standpoint. The ballooning of the power of the executive branch, devised as a means of overcoming legislative gridlock in the mid-twentieth century, saw the rise of the Imperial Presidency as a mainstay of the political structure. Far from ostensibly being an equalized system of checks and balances based on principles of the collectivity of leadership and the prevention of a monarchy, our presidential system has created and established a norm where autocracy may grow totally unchecked.

Both Democratic and Republican governments have come and gone, and yet the trend of the growth of autocracy and undermining of legislative authority in favor of raw executive power remained. In this post, I will attack the presidential system not on a partisan basis, but on the perspective of game theory and logic, on the basis of the fundamental democratic legitimacy of the state and acceptance of the outcome of elections, as well as the implications that the function of such a political system carries. I will then present an alternative in the form of a congressional system, as a means of correcting these very real flaws.

By “presidential system”, I take the basic format of such a constitution to mean separate elections for the heads of the executive and legislative branches. The president, in most constitutions, is elected by a nationwide popular vote, while the legislature is elected through single-member district pluralities, or by proportional representation. Most presidential systems also feature a pair of candidates elected on the same ballot, one for president and one for vice president, and many also feature a defined order of succession for the office of the president.

Presidential systems also feature a cabinet, typically appointed by the president himself, though some cabinet secretaries - such as the secretary of state, the attorney-general, the comptroller, or the censor - may be independently elected. Some may also be legislatively appointed. Whatever the distribution of powers may be for appointing the cabinet secretaries, many presidential systems typically do not feature what I will term for the purposes of this post as “accountable government.”

By “accountable government”, I mean accountability to the legislature. Under most presidential systems, following a brief nomination hearing, the cabinet secretaries serve explicitly at the pleasure of the president, and only may be checked by a vague impeachment process that may take years to fulfill, by which point considerable damage may have been done. You could probably think of many examples of this exact thing happening with numerous cabinet secretaries, but this vulnerability has existed for decades.

Exacerbating the problem in societies that feature bicameral legislatures, it may well be the case that the body which confirms the cabinet secretaries, and the body which has the power to try the impeachments, may have a conflicting popular mandate compared to the house which does have a popular mandate. If this is the case, it is well possible that any attempted impeachment will be stonewalled by a complicit upper house, which has no interest in checking the power belonging to the president of its own party.

This essentially is the crux of the problem with the presidential system, and the configurations of most presidential systems: it creates a situation in which there may well be competing mandates for the executive and legislative branches, controlled by diametrically opposed political forces, each of whom can credibly claim to have popular legitimacy. The fact is, a house divided cannot stand, and this political turmoil is a recipe for strife at home, and even civil war. I need only point to numerous failures of presidential systems in Latin America and in Africa as a result of this matter.

So, what’s to be done about it?

I would recommend the replacement of the presidential system, and the establishment of a congressional system. In general, except for those auditory offices specified in the constitution as being explicitly reserved for some sort of election or appointment system with retention, a congressional system would see the cabinet secretaries commissioned by the president, but accountable to the legislature, and serving at the legislature’s pleasure. The role of the president would be to, well, preside over the functioning of the executive branch, rather than functioning as a de facto monarchy.

Furthermore, I would recommend that the legislature itself be constituted by a method which either incentivizes or explicitly creates a situation of proportional representation, and which allows for multi-member districts. This may well be something like the single transferable vote in societies which prefer candidates, or it may well be a system of party list representation in societies which prefer parties. Accommodation of diverse political interests in the district defuses many of the internal drama and conflict regarding majoritarianism and power distribution, and makes the system less vulnerable to partisan gerrymandering.

It may also be desirable for a congressional system to feature stability in the president’s fixed term, but flexibility regarding the election of the legislature. If the legislature is not confident in the cabinet secretaries, or if it cannot do something as simple as passing a budget, funding levels should be placed on a proverbial autopilot, and a fresh election should be held. This provides a release valve for built up political tensions, allows the public to pick which political interests should prevail, and always produces a winner.

In conclusion, presidential systems are frequently too inflexible and too prone to producing conflicts of legitimacy of the state in many instances. A congressional system might well be worth investigating for state constitutions, and might well be worth examining as a reform option for the United States.

[StateBoiler]

Write the text of a constitutional amendment and start submitting it to legislators in Congress or submit it to legislators in the states for an Article V Convention.

I disagree with your tack a bit regards to undermining of legislative authority because in most cases it's been the legislators themselves that have agreed with the lessening of their authority/increase in executive power because they don't have to make unpopular decisions and can instead "blame Washington". "Accountability to the legislature" for example. They agree to budgets. In theory, they could zero out any expense to a Cabinet department where they have no confidence in the Secretary. In Westminster systems, they consider this "withholding supply" and normally results in the fall of the government.

My problem with the Westminster system because it's kind of what you're asking for is let's take the UK and Ireland for my examples. The UK is bicameral, but not really, because the House of Lords are not supposed to exercise real power, so it's a pointless body. It's not in the interest of the House of Commons to ever have the House of Lords elected by the people and have democratic legitimacy, because that would then be a competing body against them for power. So for their own goals of power, they either want a feckless House of Lords, or it disappears. It's not in their interest for the body to be "democratic".

The monarch has all the executive power, but is not really supposed to use it. The Speaker is even considered "apolitical" which I roll my eyes at a bit considering he or she was once a partisan and is still elected. So the Prime Minister of the UK is what in the U.S. would be the House Majority Leader (but really the Speaker because we acknowledge the elephant in the room it's a political position). People that are republicans and think the monarchy should be abolished. Okay. You still need to have an executive. So now the people are going to select that popularly a la Ireland. That person would instantaneously have more democratic legitimacy to run the country than the Prime Minister and in my eyes would create a constitutional crisis of sorts. I know if I was an Irish citizen, I would treat the President as the leader of the country, not the Taoiseach. Unless I lived in the Taoiseach's district, I would've never elected him. Throw in this year the Taoiseach lost an election and continued in office for 4 months because they couldn't form a government, how is Higgins not more legitimate at that point?

The UK I don't think is getting rid of the monarchy anytime soon, but for other Commonwealth realms like Australia for example, it's more plausible after Elizabeth II dies. A much stronger Governor General or whatever the replacement position is called with the power to act independently of the Australian legislature should result.

The people that want legislative control and less executive control don't understand in my opinion that just because you were elected in your district does not mean you were elected for the country (which in parts explains the problems encountered by most recent Speakers Boehner, Ryan, and Pelosi and how they could not keep their caucuses together that well compared to other recent Speakers).

I also will never agree with the criticism of the Senate because it's either complete ignorance on the part of the person talking/writing or outright rejection of the governing concept of federalism. If you want to have only a House and consider the Senate "undemocratic", you've also undermined the structure of every multinational union in existence, including the European Union (the European Commission is Senate-like in one country, one vote. Also the European Parliament is proportioned to "rob" seats from the larger countries at the expense of the smaller ones - Germany has 99 seats I think and Malta has 6) and the United Nations (one country, one vote - if we did it based on size of population the world would be ran by south and east Asia, and classical liberalism would be a minority philosophy.