Political systems evolve, like dying suns, to keep their success burning for as long as possible. Republican Rome to Imperial Rome, and Great Britain to Imperial Britannica.
One mechanism to sustain the Republican form of governance for a period of time would be to rebalance the power of the government by moving all Federal Departments, except the Department of Defense, from under the Executive Branch to the Legislative Branch.
The Legislative Branch (Congress) has a few agencies under it already to support it. Given that a vast amount of power has been abrogated to the Federal Departments moving them back under the purview of Congress would do a couple of things:
1. Make Departments far more accountable to the will of the people. This is obvious. If a persons employment is directly dependent upon Congress then they'll be far more thoughtful and deliberate with their 'customer' (American people) than under the executive. Imagine dealing with the IRS or HHS with them knowing that a letter to a congress person in their district could upend their careers.
2. Allow for deeper and more extensive oversight and investigation into misconduct. Obtaining state department emails would be a lot easier if congress possessed the power the purse and the power to hire/fire the persons it oversees.
The best part is that it wouldn't take a constitutional convention but mere legislative enactment. Unfortunately the founders messed up when they thought the legislative branch would jealously guard its power from the executive. They didn't forsee the power in relinquishing your power to win an election. This is clearly evident from the current congress "we are only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government" or "we can't do anything because of Obama".
No comments:
Post a Comment