Opinion: What American Government Should Look Like
We may never get to this point, but if we could…
I am currently a high schooler interested in politics. I am not a politics expert, so interpret what I say how you will. Also, if you have no interest in the context or background behind my ideas, you can skip to the “Executive Council” section at the bottom of this article for a summary of my proposal.
Since the inception of the American Constitution in 1789, the US Government has consisted of three branches—the executive branch (president and the cabinet), the legislative branch (the House of Representatives and the Senate), and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court). Each branch is meant to provide checks and balances on the others and the Union should remain stable as a result. Spring forward to 2020, and many will pick up that these systems of Government are not only failing to create checks and balances, but each branch individually is corrupt and dysfunctional. In this article specifically, I will be going over the issues with the legislative branch and offering what I believe to be an effective, and to some, a radical solution to create a better and more representational legislative branch.
Context
The legislative branch is a very interesting case of two different forms of representation with rules vastly different across the chambers. The US legislature is bicameral, meaning that there are two chambers of Government that have to pass the same, or similar policy for the bill to become a law. In the US, the two chambers consist of the 435-seat House of Representatives and the 100-seat US Senate. The Senate has certain tasks that the House doesn’t and vice versa, for example the Senate confirms judicial nominees and the House is responsible for impeachments.
The Senate is deeply rooted in the concept of federalism, the notion that the 50 states should have just as much power as the federal Government; the Senate gives each state equal representation in the chamber, which, given that some states have significantly more people than others, might immediately be seen as a red flag to some.
On the other hand, the House of Representatives is the more standard form of Government—each congressional district, determined by population, gets a member of congress to represent it. It has no connection to federalism and the intention is to create equal representation. Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t.
Of course, each chamber of congress has its own issues, and I will cover both in this article.
The Senate
The United States Senate is probably the most noteworthy for having the most issues within the legislative branch. There has been constant gridlock, meaning that very few policies of substance have actually been passed in recent years. Supreme Court nominations have became hyper-partisan and ideologies have shifted further towards the extremes with little bipartisanship (sorry Susan Collins). This gridlock can be attributed to a variety of factors, but the most notable of them would be the filibuster.
The filibuster (extended debate by a senator or senators) has allowed the minority to have significant power in obstructing the majority, and as stated earlier, it has prevented any major policy from getting passed; in order for Democrats to get 60 filibuster-proof votes to pass the Affordable Care Act, significant concessions had to be made and these ultimately ended weakening the effect of the bill.
In addition to the filibuster, another major problem with the Senate is how easy it is for Republicans to maintain power even if they hold the minority opinion. As pointed out in FiveThirtyEight, the Senate is quite skewed towards rural areas by giving the smaller rural states an equal amount of senators as the more populous states. Given the sheer amount of conservative rural states, Republicans often have more favorable maps in senate elections and Democrats often require wave years or major public opinion advantages in order to claim the majority. Simply put, the idea that all states should have equal power is destructive in actually representing the popular view, given that the amount of registered democrats country is 6% higher than the amount of Republicans yet the Republicans hold a three seat majority in the senate as of October 26, 2020. To me, Federalism is becoming more and more outdated, especially as the country is in a much different situation than in 1789, when each of the states were already independent before the union was created.
Senate Solutions
I believe fundamentally that the best solution to the Senate’s problems would be to simply abolish it. I know this may sound radical, but hear me out. The point of the Senate as written in the constitution is to give states equal power over policies, which seems like a good idea in practice, but now in 2020 politicians care very little about their own states as much as their own ideology and corporate money (see Mitch McConnell). Furthermore, representatives in the House can do just as much for their district, and in some cases, their state (Wyoming, Montana, and some others have 1 at-large representative). I just don’t see a reason to keep the senate if the House of Representatives, which I will talk about immediately following this, can take the exact same actions. Federalism is fundamentally outdated as states have powers in so many others ways and the senate doesn’t give them any more power. If we can transform the House to a productive form of government, there is simply no need to keep the Senate if the only difference is that the Senate supposedly increases state powers.
House of Representatives
When it comes to the House, there isn’t as much gridlock as in the Senate, but there are certainly still issues. The House was smart to get rid of the filibuster decades ago, but without the filibuster, many bills these days can be passed by a simple majority, which means that on nearly every policy, usually only one party supports it. This may not seem like a big issue, which it isn’t, but it could be an issue if the majority is hypocritical like what we saw with Senate Republicans and the Amy Coney Barrett nomination.
The other, more pressing, issue with the House concerns representation. The House does a good job at having 1 member for around 750,000 people, but there are still cases where the majority party doesn’t reflect the majority opinion. I believe that the majority opinion would be better reflected with coalitions that split up the Democrats and Republicans into factions and added in some other parties. There are many interesting solutions to the representation problem, and I will get into those in the next paragraph.
Solutions for the House
I believe, in general, that the House should become the only chamber of the legislative branch in our Government. Along with this change, voting reform is necessary to ensure a successful Government. America currently uses a First-Past-the-Post system (FPTP), which means that in all elections, the candidate who gets the most votes wins (in the case of the Electoral College, a candidate wins the state). For the most accurate representation, I think we should move to the system that countries like New Zealand use—a Mixed-Member Proportional system (MMP). This system forces voters to cast two votes: 1 vote for a candidate in their congressional/parliamentary district and 1 vote for a political party. The candidate who wins the most votes in a district is elected to parliament/congress, and the remaining seats are filled by selecting candidates off of a party list depending on how much of the popular vote each party gets. This system ensures representation in two ways: each district is represented by a candidate who reflects the majority view of that district, and the makeup of parliament/congress would be about equal to the vote share that each party received in the party vote. This system would likely open the floor for more parties to run, as voting against a major party doesn’t split the vote in this scenario. If more parties are able to form and be successful, coalitions will have to form in order to govern which increases the chance that policies get passed.
Implications for the Executive Branch
Creating a parliamentary system will have significant implications on the Executive Branch. If the House of Representatives were to adopt a parliamentary system, I see three possibilities for what the Executive Branch could look like. The first would be a near extension of the status quo, where the President would be separate from the House and nominations/impeachments would proceed through the unicameral House. This is obviously an improvement than what we have now given that the senate will be abolished, but having a separate executive branch still leaves gaping holes, especially as it allows for candidates like Donald Trump to run.
The second and third possibilities both involve creating an executive branch through the now-parliamentary style House. The first option here would be to simply have a Prime Minister chosen from the governing coalition, a model replicated in nearly, if not all other parliamentary systems. The prime minister would choose the cabinet as well. This would fully transform our Government into a parliamentary system, which I believe would be a game-changer for our Government. That being said, I think for the sake of bipartisanship and effective negotiating, there is an even better option:
The Executive Council
In my opinion, the best form of Government that America could have, would be a unicameral, parliamentary system where an executive council elected through the party popular vote would serve as the Head of Government and the Head of State. The council would have anywhere between 7 and 15 members depending on the size of parliament, and 1 member is elected head of the council each year, likely from a governing party. Each member will serve a cabinet role, and the leader of the council can choose to fill other roles with the consent of the entire council. Each member of the council will have to be elected by the people and they would serve on the council for as long as they are in parliament.
To some of you, this concept may seem familiar. After all, a very similar concept is used in Switzerland where a council of 7 National Assembly members serve as the Head of Government/State. The electoral process for that is a bit different, but the concept is the same.
I believe an executive council will better reflect the views of the people than a single president, and this electoral process will require the candidates to have political experience or parliamentary ambitions. The council also will have members from minority parties which gives the minority access to power and the ability to compromise and be bipartisan. This new system will ease congressional gridlock, create more equal and fair representation, and hopefully create an opening for more parties to rise in the United States.
Obviously this idea is very different from what the US currently uses for the legislative branch, and many readers may find this idea crazy radical. I would love to hear your thoughts and whether you think it would work, so use the response section if you feel like it.
