Whether people know it or not, the United States Constitution is not being threatened by foreign entities (at least not directly at the present time) and not by home-grown vigilante, terrorist, or militant group.
The Constitution is being threatened by apathy.
Few people have read it. Fewer still possess a rudimentary understanding of it. This is the biggest threat to the Constitution. It is the biggest threat to the republic it established.
"OUR DEMOCRACY"
The term "Our democracy" is all everyone seems to reference and care about when it comes to the mess we are currently coping with related to the last presidential election and Russia's meddling in it. To say, "Our democracy is being threatened" is dangerously inaccurate. What is being threatened is not democracy. What is being threatened is our republic via the democratic process we in the the U.S. have been using to elect our leaders.
"AND TO THE REPUBLIC..."
"Our" democratic process is being used to destroy the Republic - to undermine the very Constitution that defines democracy's use. Like so many ideologies that have been subjected to a type of fundamentalist redefinition, democracy is being treated concretely as an entity on par with the Constitution and the Republic. Democracy is not the Constitution nor is it the Republic. It is a tool of the Constitution and the Republic - a tool that can be used to undermine both if we are not careful. As Winston Church said, ""No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise." Yet we talk about it as if it is.
The best defense against democracy becoming a tool by which to threaten our Republic is the Constitution itself. Democracy, as noted in my past posts lends itself to demolition and devolution into oligarchy and tyranny by the masses if not defined, filtered, and structured which is what the Constitution is set up to do.
THE MASH AND SLUDGE OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
As mentioned in my last post, the weakest filter of the mash and sludge of the democratic process defined in the Constitution is the election of the President and Vice President. To review what I have written about it click here.
I am under no delusion that anything I will say here will be readily accepted, much less cause people to take to the streets and demand its implementation - a thought that simply horrifies me. What I hope to do here is offer an idea or provoke other ideas as to how the Constitution, itself, can remedy the extreme polarization that infected our politics and has allowed presidential elections to run amuck in recent years.
It is time to return the Constitution and mine it for the seeds of wisdom that our forefathers planted in it. When it came to defining the process of electing the President and the Vice President, it established the role of elector, but left those roles undefined. Over the years, these electors have been identified as the Electoral College, but that is not a term found in the Constitution nor does such an entity exist. In fact, the elector's role does not involve anything coming close to collegiality and working together to select those most suitable to hold these executive offices.
Being that a state's electors match the number of the senators and representative sent to Washington D.C., and given that most states have taken a mandatory winner-takes-all approach to awarding electoral votes being cast advantage or disadvantage certain segments of each state's voting population. The result is that a 51% to 49% popular vote in a state will award all the electoral votes to the nominee with 51%. In such a scenario, nearly half the voters' vote in that state are discounted.
Was their choice wrong? Was the majority's vote right?
This is why electoral votes mindlessly ends up electing a president that has in fact lost the overall nation's popular vote which grates against the "common sense" of most voters. Is that what the framers of the Constitution had in mind?
Perhaps, but I'm not an originalist when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. What interests me is the structure it presents in shaping government. I don't believe the framers had all the answers and I don't believe they could foresee the outcomes of what they started to construct and I don't think they were naive to believe that democracy by itself would lead to perfect and all-wise decisions.
What they possessed was a faith in Providence; that acting with integrity gave good reason to hope that the foundations they laid would take shape through trial and error to form a perfect union. They knew that what they conceived was not perfect, but rather a process aimed at perfecting what they started.
As such, it seems that the possibility of electing a rogue president; a president who answers to no one, says what he wants and does what he wants with impunity has been waiting to happen for a long time and now the time has come when it is happening as I write. The last election ended with such results and has left many asking, "How did we elect such a president? Who do we blame?" I have asked the same questions over and over again which prompted me to take a closer look at the Constitution and there I found an answer. By no means is this a clear and obvious answer, but it makes sense to me, at least.
First, I would like to suggest that blaming someone is a waste of time. Blaming people, engaging in conspiracy theories, and demonizing ideologies one doesn't agree with only serves to keep us in the "swamp" of misinformation, falsehoods, sleight of hand, and the political drama that the current administration has enlarged and likes wallowing in. Addressing the problems that the current administration poses to our republic lies squarely within the realm of Congress' constitutional duties. The question is whether there is a enough collective will by its members to address the issues that are arising with integrity.
PART OF THE PROBLEM
The problem is that the constitutional system has been weakened and democracy is part of the reason why. The system has become too unbalanced, the legislative pendulum has been swinging too far left and too far right for too long. Congressional leaders appear stuck in preserving their seats in congress and have succumbed to obstructionism, listening to the money interests (needed for reelection) instead of defining and refining the ideas that come to them through the constitutional pipeline and being vigilant in the defense of the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Congress as a whole has resorted to playing partisan parlor games; threatening to shut down the government, and threatening to fight everything they don't like to enhance their image and manipulate the political power grid, the will of the people.
How is this done?
Through information. Democracy runs on information. This is why the Bill of Rights, protects freedom of thought (religion) and a free press. If the will of the people is to be filtered through a constitutional distillery, the people must do their own distillation of the information they receive. The press must do it's job, report with integrity so that people can distill and process accurate information. It's not perfect. The press and news media are themselves awash in a sea information and misinformation. True democracy is always a case of distillation and discernment.
ELECTING ROGUES
Dealing with an administration gone rogue makes it clear that how we choose our President and Vice President must change.
Why? One only has to backtrack to see how the current administration came into power to understand the need to do so. Russian meddling exposed a weakness in the Constitution's process of electing the President and Vice President. It was able to manipulate the information targeting key populations whose state's were pivotal in garnering enough electoral votes to put the current administration in office. They did this by spreading misinformation to a vast number of voters via the internet creating enough bad mash to distill a misinformed result.
Many are probably tempted to say that if we went to a strictly popular vote the likelihood of a foreign or domestic entity to do the same would be lessened. The fact is, if it can be done on the scale it was done theoretically proves it could be done on a national scale, just as easily. What is even more at risk is the computerized voting system that can be hacked into. The popular vote is at even greater risk of being hacked and manipulated by a hostile entity.
There are some simple solutions that will seem antiquated to most. The saying, "Haste makes waste," has proven never truer than in a presidential election. While we in the U.S. have the longest election season in the world, we hurry up to tally all the votes making the election results among the speediest in the world. Major televised news networks are prone to give their predictions as to the outcome before the full count is tallied. It's as if we can't wait to move the news cycle post election. We can do this because everything is computerized - voting and counting ballots in most states. This computerized approach is vulnerable to being hacked, which could throw an election into chaos.
WHAT IF?
What if we, in the U.S. resorted to going off the internet grid and slow things up when it comes to elections; retreating to the paper ballot that is hand counted?
That still leaves the misinformation problem, which could result in trying to filter what is said on the internet, which raises First Amendment concerns. Part of the misinformation problem being linked to the internet is in part a result of having such a long election season.
What if we would reverse the democratic process by constitutionally shortening the election season to three months, for example?
In this scenario the popular vote would occur in all the state's on the same date, the second Tuesday in June; meaning no political ads, no candidate debates, no door to door campaigning before March 1st. The political parties would then have to hold their conventions before June 30th and submit their nominees to a constitutionally defined and real entity which we call the Electoral College.
Such an approach would require clarifying the role of electors as vetting agents to determine which political nominees are best qualified to take these positions. This would be a Herculean effort involving constitutional rewrites for all fifty states and amending the U.S.Constitution - no small task. The impetus for such an undertaking would require a collective congressional sense of urgency and a groundswell of voter approval to push such a move. It would define and refine the presidency and would result in immediate campaign reform.
Would it result in less partisanship, misinformation, and meddling?
Yes, but it would not eliminate it.
It would narrow the process, distill it towards the essential message each party wanted to give. Most essential is that after the people chose their candidates there would be the gruelling confirmation process and the actual choice of who would be the best persons to serve the nation. Would the electors be immune from partisanship and meddling?
No, but they would be less likely to fall for meddling and certainly open to liability if caught being unethical, and if they could not agree or come to a split decision, the Constitution actually has a process in place addressing such a scenario.
Popularity and populism would be curtailed.
Electors would and should be keen observers of how potential candidates run their campaigns. Are they truthful? Did they conduct themselves honorably? How did they respond to the people? Were their party's platform realistic with regard to what their nominee could actually accomplish under the Constitution if chosen? Most important, would the nominee be the President of all the people, not just the party that nominated her or him.
If the President demonstrated extreme partisanship during the first term, the President would not likely see the next; in that they would not only face a troubled public, but would face an Electoral College that could remove a current President from consideration of another term.
It would also temper how Congress would interact with the executive branch. Obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism would likely have less political appeal on a president who, after being selected President by the College is more likely to be seen as above the fray of ordinary congressional politics.
Of course, a President could be removed as a party's nominee during the next election cycle,which would almost make a President a one term president unless the President was popular enough to win a second term as an independent which would serve as a check on party politics
The tone of presidential elections would undoubtedly change dramatically and so would much about being a President change. Obviously, in this short post one cannot think, much less address all the possibilities and contingencies such a change in the distillation process would bring about. It may seem impossible that such changes could happen, but if not mentioned it would be impossible. My purpose in writing a post is not to say what is popular, but to say what is on my mind. Otherwise, there would be no reason for me to take the time to write.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Thursday, July 12, 2018
DEMOCRACY: THREATENED OR THREATENING? - Part II - Presidential Electors
These posts are not concerned with the U.S. Constitution in its entirety but rather with the distillation effect it has on its democratic process. In this post, I will consider the inherent vulnerabilities in the democratic process found in U.S. Constitution as they relate to presidential elections.
In my last post, the U.S. Constitution was likened to a distillery in which the voice or will of the people is refined as it moves through the various levels of government. I also noted that while the Constitution acts as a refinery that defines the democratic process, democracy has a way of shaping the Constitution itself. This is both necessary and problematic.
I am not a fan of constitutional originalism. Treating the Constitution as if it is the inerrant Word of God is constitutional blasphemy. Trying to concretize every word and punctuation mark in the articles and in the amendments of the Constitution as the infallible and unquestionable meaning of the text neuters the Constitution's fecundity.
The intent of the Constitution is clearly stated in the Preamble. It is the Preamble that serves as the touchstone by which anything in the Constitution and any issue related to the Constitution must be tested.
Having said that does not dismiss the value of considering what the framers intended by the democratic process they defined by creating the Constitution. The value of such consideration is whether within the original ratified format there is something pragmatic to be garnered from what appears ambiguous in its historical context that has more application today then it did when conceived.
It is obvious the framers did not have all the answers nor could they foresee all the pitfalls that would arise over time. Their brilliance is that they didn't try to do the impossible but rather intended to give shape to something that would take shape, and therein lies the Constitution's strength and durability.
THE INADVERTANT WEAKNESS OF THE "ELECTORAL COLLEGE"
This brings one back to the topic at hand, the democratic process. What has proven to be the greatest vulnerability within the Constitution is in the democratic process, as it relates to electing the U.S. President.
I believe the framers of the Constitution were on to something that could have spared us the presidential dilemma we, in the United States, find ourselves in from time to time had they better defined electoral process for choosing a president. I am not finding fault with them. They were writing in an age when the nation was hardly a nation; when the various states had more loyalty from their citizens than the United States did as a whole.
It made sense, at the time, to allow each state to determine who their presidential electors would be. The framers were on a tight-rope trying to hold a tenuous union together. It proved to be a balancing act; hoping that wise minds in the various states would prevail in choosing able executive leaders.
Early presidential elections were messy affairs with the President and Vice President frequently representing opposing political and ideological views. Presidential campaigns became partisan from the beginning and the choice of electors unfortunately fell in line with this partisan trend.
The issue of the President/Vice President divide was resolved by the creation of the party ticket in which each presidential candidate chose a running mate for Vice President. The practice of electors electing the nominated ticket winning their state's presidential election was to certify their votes by separately electing each person on the ticket as a formal nod to the Constitution's requirement.
The number of electors each state has is based on the number of representatives and senators each state sends to Washington D.C.. Currently there are 538 electors with three representing the District of Columbia. Unfortunately,electors are wedded to presidential nominees. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, who assign electors based on which nominees win a congressional district of their state, all other states use a winner-takes-all approach to choosing who their electors are.
As a result, presidential campaigns are huge affairs because the popular vote in each state determines its electors. Technically, the voters are voting for electors, but most average voters don't have that in mind when they go to the ballot box. In fact, some states no longer require that the electors names are printed next to party's nominated ticket. As such, the role of the elector is more a matter of form than function.
This has led many voters in the United States to advocate for the abolition of what is known as the Electoral College in favor of a strict popular vote for president. Democracy trends towards favoring the popular or majority position regardless if that position is the result of well-informed voters or not. This is what concerned the framers of the Constitution. A strict popular vote for a singular executive position like a president lends itself to populism and populism tends towards sensationalism, popularity, and the selection of a savior figure or demagogue to rule the moment.
VOICES FROM THE PAST
It's worth listening to the voices of some of our founding fathers with regard to the problems they saw with selecting a president by strict popular vote. In the The Federalists Papers No. 68 , Alexander Hamilton expressed concern about electing someone to such a high office who possessed the qualities of being drawn to "low intrigue" and prone to exercising, "the little arts of popularity." No wonder that the current administration has little appreciation for the musical, "Hamilton."
James Madison in Federalist Paper No. 10 was concerned with an " interested and overbearing majority" and "the mischiefs of faction ...who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interest of the community."
Unfortunately, the Electoral College has long ceased to have a meaningful function apart from ratifying a state's popular vote. It does not prevent populism from dominating an election season by rising above the influence of faction in order to discern who best would serve this nation's needs and who best would protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
THE WEDDED BLISS OF DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM
The election of a president also provides "key" states - states with more electors to shape the executive branch of the federal government; thus some smaller states jockey for influential primacy by holding their primaries early to set the nominee stage and give emphasis to that state's importance. This not only makes political sense, but offers a boost to that state's economy via campaign spending.
The idea of campaign reform; particularly, with regard to presidential campaigns has been a can kicked around for at least two decades. Yet, there appears to be no incentive to do so. In fact corporate money, via Supreme Court decision, is given its own voice in fostering campaigns. No where else is capitalism and democracy so wedded as in a United States presidential campaign.
The reason this marriage between money and presidential campaigns is so prominent is the need to prompt the popular vote in a given state to secure its electoral votes. This results in a media blitz of information and misinformation. Without trying to be cynical, most presidential elections are not determined by who has the best credentials to be president, but who has the best charisma, who makes the people feel most hopeful, who has the least political baggage, and most importantly (in recent elections) who is the least scary.
CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS IN THE MAKING
It would appear that the vast majority of voters have very little interest in whether a nominee is devoted to the Constitution he or she is sworn to defend. This is not say that those who have taken that Oath of Office were not serious about defending the Constitution. We have been fortunate, for the most part, that most presidents throughout U.S. history were.
The 2016 Presidential election, however, has exposed the vulnerabilities the Constitution has with regard to distilling the democratic process in electing the President. The 2016 election is likely to go down in history as the election that exposed a constitutional crisis that has been brewing for some time.
If the Constitution was designed to be a distillery of the democratic process, as I proposed in my previous post, it's weakest filter was in its lack of definition regarding the role of electors in choosing the President and the Vice President. If the intent of designating electors from each state was to reduce the influence of populist passions on the holder of this high office, it failed at the state level.
Since lacking specific constitutional duties, the role of the elector has been to act as a rubber stamp in validating the selection of the ticket that won their state's presidential election. Being tied to a political party's nominee, they really serve no other personal function than their position being tallied in determining who has won the requisite number of electoral votes to be the next president.
Yes, electors can dissent or refuse to cast their vote, but there is no true collegiality amongst them as a "college" of electors; no coming together as a group to debate or discern whether the person who won their state's popular or indeed won the nation's popular vote merits their personal vote and most importantly no duty to ensure the most qualified nominee is selected as the President. It is no wonder that many Americans are in favor of eliminating electors altogether and simply choosing a president by popular vote alone. As it stands , the electoral vote is seen as a manipulative device used by political parties to get around the popular vote.
What seems to have been the original intent in identifying electors is based, in my opinion, upon the democratic process that was shaped by the Constitution. What is derived from that view would indicate that the selection of a president and vice president by electors was originally intended to be a relatively non-partisan decision.
This lack of constitutional definition regarding the responsibilities of the electors has rendered the Constitution vulnerable and has led to increasingly unscrupulous campaign behavior by both major parties that has reached a pinnacle beginning in the 2000 presidential election where paper chads on the Florida presidential ballots resulted the election being decided by the Supreme Court. In 2016, we have seen how vulnerable an election of the President is to foreign influence, especially when the election takes a populist turn.
It seems reasonable then that most Americans are increasingly in favor of the Electoral College's elimination and would prefer to choose presidents by strict popular vote. The problem with the "Electoral College" is that few, if any, care whether the electors have a direct, constitutional function in choosing a president.
WHAT IF?
I, for one (and maybe I'm the only one), believe that President should be elected by independent electors whose sole job is to ensure that the persons elected as President and Vice President possess the qualities necessary to fulfill the executive needs of the nation. I am not advocating that the voting public should have no say in who is elected. They must have a say to the extent that nominees are chosen, but once chosen, the public campaign should end and the Electoral College's serious work begins. Being that such work was left largely undefined now would be a good time to define the job of an elector as vetting and selecting the persons best suited for these high offices.
In my next post, I will ponder some views as to how this might work.
Until next time, stay faithful.
In my last post, the U.S. Constitution was likened to a distillery in which the voice or will of the people is refined as it moves through the various levels of government. I also noted that while the Constitution acts as a refinery that defines the democratic process, democracy has a way of shaping the Constitution itself. This is both necessary and problematic.
I am not a fan of constitutional originalism. Treating the Constitution as if it is the inerrant Word of God is constitutional blasphemy. Trying to concretize every word and punctuation mark in the articles and in the amendments of the Constitution as the infallible and unquestionable meaning of the text neuters the Constitution's fecundity.
The intent of the Constitution is clearly stated in the Preamble. It is the Preamble that serves as the touchstone by which anything in the Constitution and any issue related to the Constitution must be tested.
Having said that does not dismiss the value of considering what the framers intended by the democratic process they defined by creating the Constitution. The value of such consideration is whether within the original ratified format there is something pragmatic to be garnered from what appears ambiguous in its historical context that has more application today then it did when conceived.
It is obvious the framers did not have all the answers nor could they foresee all the pitfalls that would arise over time. Their brilliance is that they didn't try to do the impossible but rather intended to give shape to something that would take shape, and therein lies the Constitution's strength and durability.
THE INADVERTANT WEAKNESS OF THE "ELECTORAL COLLEGE"
This brings one back to the topic at hand, the democratic process. What has proven to be the greatest vulnerability within the Constitution is in the democratic process, as it relates to electing the U.S. President.
I believe the framers of the Constitution were on to something that could have spared us the presidential dilemma we, in the United States, find ourselves in from time to time had they better defined electoral process for choosing a president. I am not finding fault with them. They were writing in an age when the nation was hardly a nation; when the various states had more loyalty from their citizens than the United States did as a whole.
It made sense, at the time, to allow each state to determine who their presidential electors would be. The framers were on a tight-rope trying to hold a tenuous union together. It proved to be a balancing act; hoping that wise minds in the various states would prevail in choosing able executive leaders.
Early presidential elections were messy affairs with the President and Vice President frequently representing opposing political and ideological views. Presidential campaigns became partisan from the beginning and the choice of electors unfortunately fell in line with this partisan trend.
The issue of the President/Vice President divide was resolved by the creation of the party ticket in which each presidential candidate chose a running mate for Vice President. The practice of electors electing the nominated ticket winning their state's presidential election was to certify their votes by separately electing each person on the ticket as a formal nod to the Constitution's requirement.
The number of electors each state has is based on the number of representatives and senators each state sends to Washington D.C.. Currently there are 538 electors with three representing the District of Columbia. Unfortunately,electors are wedded to presidential nominees. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, who assign electors based on which nominees win a congressional district of their state, all other states use a winner-takes-all approach to choosing who their electors are.
As a result, presidential campaigns are huge affairs because the popular vote in each state determines its electors. Technically, the voters are voting for electors, but most average voters don't have that in mind when they go to the ballot box. In fact, some states no longer require that the electors names are printed next to party's nominated ticket. As such, the role of the elector is more a matter of form than function.
This has led many voters in the United States to advocate for the abolition of what is known as the Electoral College in favor of a strict popular vote for president. Democracy trends towards favoring the popular or majority position regardless if that position is the result of well-informed voters or not. This is what concerned the framers of the Constitution. A strict popular vote for a singular executive position like a president lends itself to populism and populism tends towards sensationalism, popularity, and the selection of a savior figure or demagogue to rule the moment.
VOICES FROM THE PAST
It's worth listening to the voices of some of our founding fathers with regard to the problems they saw with selecting a president by strict popular vote. In the The Federalists Papers No. 68 , Alexander Hamilton expressed concern about electing someone to such a high office who possessed the qualities of being drawn to "low intrigue" and prone to exercising, "the little arts of popularity." No wonder that the current administration has little appreciation for the musical, "Hamilton."
James Madison in Federalist Paper No. 10 was concerned with an " interested and overbearing majority" and "the mischiefs of faction ...who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interest of the community."
Unfortunately, the Electoral College has long ceased to have a meaningful function apart from ratifying a state's popular vote. It does not prevent populism from dominating an election season by rising above the influence of faction in order to discern who best would serve this nation's needs and who best would protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
THE WEDDED BLISS OF DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM
The election of a president also provides "key" states - states with more electors to shape the executive branch of the federal government; thus some smaller states jockey for influential primacy by holding their primaries early to set the nominee stage and give emphasis to that state's importance. This not only makes political sense, but offers a boost to that state's economy via campaign spending.
The idea of campaign reform; particularly, with regard to presidential campaigns has been a can kicked around for at least two decades. Yet, there appears to be no incentive to do so. In fact corporate money, via Supreme Court decision, is given its own voice in fostering campaigns. No where else is capitalism and democracy so wedded as in a United States presidential campaign.
The reason this marriage between money and presidential campaigns is so prominent is the need to prompt the popular vote in a given state to secure its electoral votes. This results in a media blitz of information and misinformation. Without trying to be cynical, most presidential elections are not determined by who has the best credentials to be president, but who has the best charisma, who makes the people feel most hopeful, who has the least political baggage, and most importantly (in recent elections) who is the least scary.
CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS IN THE MAKING
It would appear that the vast majority of voters have very little interest in whether a nominee is devoted to the Constitution he or she is sworn to defend. This is not say that those who have taken that Oath of Office were not serious about defending the Constitution. We have been fortunate, for the most part, that most presidents throughout U.S. history were.
The 2016 Presidential election, however, has exposed the vulnerabilities the Constitution has with regard to distilling the democratic process in electing the President. The 2016 election is likely to go down in history as the election that exposed a constitutional crisis that has been brewing for some time.
If the Constitution was designed to be a distillery of the democratic process, as I proposed in my previous post, it's weakest filter was in its lack of definition regarding the role of electors in choosing the President and the Vice President. If the intent of designating electors from each state was to reduce the influence of populist passions on the holder of this high office, it failed at the state level.
Since lacking specific constitutional duties, the role of the elector has been to act as a rubber stamp in validating the selection of the ticket that won their state's presidential election. Being tied to a political party's nominee, they really serve no other personal function than their position being tallied in determining who has won the requisite number of electoral votes to be the next president.
Yes, electors can dissent or refuse to cast their vote, but there is no true collegiality amongst them as a "college" of electors; no coming together as a group to debate or discern whether the person who won their state's popular or indeed won the nation's popular vote merits their personal vote and most importantly no duty to ensure the most qualified nominee is selected as the President. It is no wonder that many Americans are in favor of eliminating electors altogether and simply choosing a president by popular vote alone. As it stands , the electoral vote is seen as a manipulative device used by political parties to get around the popular vote.
What seems to have been the original intent in identifying electors is based, in my opinion, upon the democratic process that was shaped by the Constitution. What is derived from that view would indicate that the selection of a president and vice president by electors was originally intended to be a relatively non-partisan decision.
This lack of constitutional definition regarding the responsibilities of the electors has rendered the Constitution vulnerable and has led to increasingly unscrupulous campaign behavior by both major parties that has reached a pinnacle beginning in the 2000 presidential election where paper chads on the Florida presidential ballots resulted the election being decided by the Supreme Court. In 2016, we have seen how vulnerable an election of the President is to foreign influence, especially when the election takes a populist turn.
It seems reasonable then that most Americans are increasingly in favor of the Electoral College's elimination and would prefer to choose presidents by strict popular vote. The problem with the "Electoral College" is that few, if any, care whether the electors have a direct, constitutional function in choosing a president.
WHAT IF?
I, for one (and maybe I'm the only one), believe that President should be elected by independent electors whose sole job is to ensure that the persons elected as President and Vice President possess the qualities necessary to fulfill the executive needs of the nation. I am not advocating that the voting public should have no say in who is elected. They must have a say to the extent that nominees are chosen, but once chosen, the public campaign should end and the Electoral College's serious work begins. Being that such work was left largely undefined now would be a good time to define the job of an elector as vetting and selecting the persons best suited for these high offices.
In my next post, I will ponder some views as to how this might work.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
DEMOCRACY: THREATENED OR THREATENING? Part I - The Constitutional Distillery
Among many things, Winston Churchill is famous for having the commented in a speech to the British House of Commons on November 11, 1947, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those that have been tried." In that same speech Churchill also said, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise."
I quite agree with Sir Winston's comments. I would clarify that democracy is technically
a tool of government used by constitutional republics, commonwealths, and monarchies in determining leadership and the course of government.
Churchill is right in implying that democracy is wrought with problems of its own. It is not perfect nor is it all-wise and yet, here in the United States, one could be led think it so. We, in the United States, hear almost daily that Russia's attempt to influence the last presidential election is a threat to "our democracy" as if it is tantamount to a direct attack on United States. But is it? If it is, in what way is it a direct attack on our nation?
Or...
Could it be that democracy lends itself to manipulation and is prone to undermining the very governments that constitutionally define its use?
In order to explore these questions, it is necessary to take a quick course on the use of democracy by constitutional based governments like that of the United States of America in its earliest stages of existence. Democracy, as the primary means of governance, has a short life-span. Without definition, democracy, as rule by the people (meaning the majority), tends to become quickly unbalanced, anarchic, and devolves into handing power, the control of government over to an oligarchy or a dictator. This was evident in ancient Athens.
The founding fathers of the United States understood this very well in establishing a system of checks and balances by constitutionally creating three branches of national government. An additional balance to the government was the establishment of a federal republic in which the various states that made up the United States had the ability to choose their own leaders make their own constitution and laws, and send representatives and senators to serve in the Federal government.
The concept of the "majority rules," which some Americans naively believe leads to perfect and all-wise decision making, must have given the founding fathers some sleepless nights. They were well read and well informed. They understood that raw democracy as government would ultimately devolve into government by the few and for the few or handing the reigns of government to a tyrannical strongman.
DISTILLING DEMOCRACY
What the founding fathers believed would preserve the liberty they fought hard for was to exercise liberty by a nation whose citizens owned the decisions distilled from their collective voice and made on their behalf. Democracy became the means by which to distill the collective will expressed by the many into the will of one nation. The Constitution became the distillery through which that was accomplished.
Who should have a say in governing was also a concern for the founding fathers. Democracy works best if those who have a vote are well informed or are capable of being well informed. Initially, the United States Constitution did not mention who was eligible to vote. This was largely left up to the state's. In many of these states, however, voting was initially limited to male landowners. The obvious thought behind this decision was that people who owned their own property were likely to be educated, could read, or had enough principled sense to make an informed decision.
Originally, on the federal level of government, the citizen voter from each state could only vote for those serving in the House of Representatives. Senators were chosen by their state legislators, the President was elected by electors chosen by the states to form what is known today as the Electoral College, and justices to the Supreme Court were nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Distilling democracy was accomplished through a process of electing local and state officials who, in turn, selected and elected federal officials.
To keep democracy from devolving into tyranny, the office of the President and those of Senator and Representative were given varied term limits. The only exception was the position of a Supreme Court justice, who could serve for life, but this was balanced by having nine justices who make decisions by majority opinion. The process of government is democratic throughout, but the higher up the governing ladder one goes the more distilled it becomes. At least, that appears to have been the original intent.
The founding fathers didn't stop there. Their concern with democracy extended to their fear that to get to an end product, an elixir vitae that would energize government, keep it alive, and protect the Constitution's democratic processes, required a variety of voices fermented in the tumultuous vats of politics and then carefully distilled like a fine brandy into laws of the land that would appeal to and appease the democratic palate of the masses, while protecting the varietal minorities. This, it was hoped, would preserve the fragile unity of a newborn nation.
The value of distilling unity out of diversity is inherent in the idealism that created the United States. While, initially, not every citizen had a right to vote, every citizen had a right to address government; a right to express their own opinions, which led to the Bill of Rights. Liberty is quickly lost where voices are readily silenced and the will of one can be trampled underfoot by an unprincipled mob. These are the basic seeds upon which the republic of the United States was established.
THE TUMULTUOUS VATS OF PARTISAN POLITICS
True democratic processes require a catalyst to begin the fermentation of ideas and a delivery system to distillery of government. That catalyst is politics. Politics is often uncouth, divisive, generally ill mannered, and ill informed which led Churchill to observe, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." Nevertheless, there can be no true democratic process without the mash and sludge of politics.
Partisanship in the form of political parties is the first stage of turning crude opinion into something usable; for within the diverse opinions of the people resides a resource that can be refined to energize a cohesive nation. As government generated by democratic processes begins to grow, it generates more political fodder for the public to chew on and ferment over. As a result, a pendulum effect is created in the legislative process. Legislative actions create political reactions that create increasingly similar actions and reactions.
This left/right momentum actually results in progress if there is a sense of balance and rhythm within partisan debate. At some point, there must be a consensus or at least a temporary acquiescence to majority opinion in order to maintain civility. If not, the pendulum of discourse begins to act erratic and tends to swing more in one direction than the other or begins swinging too far left and too far right and eventually the legislative branch of government is incapable of moving anything forward and comes to a halt, leading to civil strife or increasing the role of the executive branch to govern arbitrarily to keep government moving.
This certainly was experienced in the United States during its Civil War period and is evident in today's polarized Congress. It takes extremely devoted leaders to the nation's Constitution to avoid its being destroyed democratically and to restore the balance needed to preserve the democratic system it defines.
While the Constitution serves as the distillery of its democratic processes, raw democracy remains the crude substance that generates political power and partisan politics. To garner support political parties of various stripes have attempted to manipulate the flow of this crude power source to their advantage. Who should vote and where they should vote remains to this day a constant in political maneuvering.
HIERARCHICAL DEMOCRACY
Over time, the democratic processes are likely to shape the very distillery designed to refine it. I believe the original intent of constitutional government in the United States was to curb the volatility inherent in what is known today as populism. As the distillation of raw democracy is increasingly filtered through the legislative process to becoming the law of the land, the more elite and select the filters become.
I believe the intent of the founding fathers was to limit, as much as possible, the influence of partisan politics on most offices held at federal level, like senators, Supreme Court justices, and the President. These offices we're originally intended to be positions that answered to a limited constituency. The one exception was the congressional office of representatives. Representatives answered to their local constituents, senators were answerable to their state legislatures, the President answered to Congress, and the Supreme Court justices answered to no one. Refined as it was, the democratic process was identifiable throughout the process with exception of the President who has limited arbitrary powers as Commander in Chief of the military.
This system would change over course of U.S. history. The framers of the Constitution allowed for change and restructuring through its amendment process. The framers were inventing something that would have to take on a life of its own. As brilliant as the Constitution is, it has vulnerabilities. Although the framers of the Constitution did their best to create a balanced government that provides checks on abuse and misuse, they knew of no perfection in human endeavor that guards against human weakness and its proclivity for corruption.
This awareness is most evident in the oath of office the President takes, "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." It is even more evident in the oath taken by members of both congressional houses and one of two oaths sworn by Supreme Court Justices, "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic."
Such oaths recognize that the biggest threat to the Constitution is its vulnerability to abuse and misuse by the very people sworn to uphold and defend it. It also implies that the Constitution is vulnerable to attack by the very people whose voices are protected by it.
I quite agree with Sir Winston's comments. I would clarify that democracy is technically
a tool of government used by constitutional republics, commonwealths, and monarchies in determining leadership and the course of government.
Churchill is right in implying that democracy is wrought with problems of its own. It is not perfect nor is it all-wise and yet, here in the United States, one could be led think it so. We, in the United States, hear almost daily that Russia's attempt to influence the last presidential election is a threat to "our democracy" as if it is tantamount to a direct attack on United States. But is it? If it is, in what way is it a direct attack on our nation?
Or...
Could it be that democracy lends itself to manipulation and is prone to undermining the very governments that constitutionally define its use?
In order to explore these questions, it is necessary to take a quick course on the use of democracy by constitutional based governments like that of the United States of America in its earliest stages of existence. Democracy, as the primary means of governance, has a short life-span. Without definition, democracy, as rule by the people (meaning the majority), tends to become quickly unbalanced, anarchic, and devolves into handing power, the control of government over to an oligarchy or a dictator. This was evident in ancient Athens.
The founding fathers of the United States understood this very well in establishing a system of checks and balances by constitutionally creating three branches of national government. An additional balance to the government was the establishment of a federal republic in which the various states that made up the United States had the ability to choose their own leaders make their own constitution and laws, and send representatives and senators to serve in the Federal government.
The concept of the "majority rules," which some Americans naively believe leads to perfect and all-wise decision making, must have given the founding fathers some sleepless nights. They were well read and well informed. They understood that raw democracy as government would ultimately devolve into government by the few and for the few or handing the reigns of government to a tyrannical strongman.
DISTILLING DEMOCRACY
What the founding fathers believed would preserve the liberty they fought hard for was to exercise liberty by a nation whose citizens owned the decisions distilled from their collective voice and made on their behalf. Democracy became the means by which to distill the collective will expressed by the many into the will of one nation. The Constitution became the distillery through which that was accomplished.
Who should have a say in governing was also a concern for the founding fathers. Democracy works best if those who have a vote are well informed or are capable of being well informed. Initially, the United States Constitution did not mention who was eligible to vote. This was largely left up to the state's. In many of these states, however, voting was initially limited to male landowners. The obvious thought behind this decision was that people who owned their own property were likely to be educated, could read, or had enough principled sense to make an informed decision.
Originally, on the federal level of government, the citizen voter from each state could only vote for those serving in the House of Representatives. Senators were chosen by their state legislators, the President was elected by electors chosen by the states to form what is known today as the Electoral College, and justices to the Supreme Court were nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Distilling democracy was accomplished through a process of electing local and state officials who, in turn, selected and elected federal officials.
To keep democracy from devolving into tyranny, the office of the President and those of Senator and Representative were given varied term limits. The only exception was the position of a Supreme Court justice, who could serve for life, but this was balanced by having nine justices who make decisions by majority opinion. The process of government is democratic throughout, but the higher up the governing ladder one goes the more distilled it becomes. At least, that appears to have been the original intent.
The founding fathers didn't stop there. Their concern with democracy extended to their fear that to get to an end product, an elixir vitae that would energize government, keep it alive, and protect the Constitution's democratic processes, required a variety of voices fermented in the tumultuous vats of politics and then carefully distilled like a fine brandy into laws of the land that would appeal to and appease the democratic palate of the masses, while protecting the varietal minorities. This, it was hoped, would preserve the fragile unity of a newborn nation.
The value of distilling unity out of diversity is inherent in the idealism that created the United States. While, initially, not every citizen had a right to vote, every citizen had a right to address government; a right to express their own opinions, which led to the Bill of Rights. Liberty is quickly lost where voices are readily silenced and the will of one can be trampled underfoot by an unprincipled mob. These are the basic seeds upon which the republic of the United States was established.
THE TUMULTUOUS VATS OF PARTISAN POLITICS
True democratic processes require a catalyst to begin the fermentation of ideas and a delivery system to distillery of government. That catalyst is politics. Politics is often uncouth, divisive, generally ill mannered, and ill informed which led Churchill to observe, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." Nevertheless, there can be no true democratic process without the mash and sludge of politics.
Partisanship in the form of political parties is the first stage of turning crude opinion into something usable; for within the diverse opinions of the people resides a resource that can be refined to energize a cohesive nation. As government generated by democratic processes begins to grow, it generates more political fodder for the public to chew on and ferment over. As a result, a pendulum effect is created in the legislative process. Legislative actions create political reactions that create increasingly similar actions and reactions.
This left/right momentum actually results in progress if there is a sense of balance and rhythm within partisan debate. At some point, there must be a consensus or at least a temporary acquiescence to majority opinion in order to maintain civility. If not, the pendulum of discourse begins to act erratic and tends to swing more in one direction than the other or begins swinging too far left and too far right and eventually the legislative branch of government is incapable of moving anything forward and comes to a halt, leading to civil strife or increasing the role of the executive branch to govern arbitrarily to keep government moving.
This certainly was experienced in the United States during its Civil War period and is evident in today's polarized Congress. It takes extremely devoted leaders to the nation's Constitution to avoid its being destroyed democratically and to restore the balance needed to preserve the democratic system it defines.
While the Constitution serves as the distillery of its democratic processes, raw democracy remains the crude substance that generates political power and partisan politics. To garner support political parties of various stripes have attempted to manipulate the flow of this crude power source to their advantage. Who should vote and where they should vote remains to this day a constant in political maneuvering.
HIERARCHICAL DEMOCRACY
Over time, the democratic processes are likely to shape the very distillery designed to refine it. I believe the original intent of constitutional government in the United States was to curb the volatility inherent in what is known today as populism. As the distillation of raw democracy is increasingly filtered through the legislative process to becoming the law of the land, the more elite and select the filters become.
I believe the intent of the founding fathers was to limit, as much as possible, the influence of partisan politics on most offices held at federal level, like senators, Supreme Court justices, and the President. These offices we're originally intended to be positions that answered to a limited constituency. The one exception was the congressional office of representatives. Representatives answered to their local constituents, senators were answerable to their state legislatures, the President answered to Congress, and the Supreme Court justices answered to no one. Refined as it was, the democratic process was identifiable throughout the process with exception of the President who has limited arbitrary powers as Commander in Chief of the military.
This system would change over course of U.S. history. The framers of the Constitution allowed for change and restructuring through its amendment process. The framers were inventing something that would have to take on a life of its own. As brilliant as the Constitution is, it has vulnerabilities. Although the framers of the Constitution did their best to create a balanced government that provides checks on abuse and misuse, they knew of no perfection in human endeavor that guards against human weakness and its proclivity for corruption.
This awareness is most evident in the oath of office the President takes, "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." It is even more evident in the oath taken by members of both congressional houses and one of two oaths sworn by Supreme Court Justices, "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic."
Such oaths recognize that the biggest threat to the Constitution is its vulnerability to abuse and misuse by the very people sworn to uphold and defend it. It also implies that the Constitution is vulnerable to attack by the very people whose voices are protected by it.
**********
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the purpose of this series of posts is to examine the question if democracy can be threatened or is it a case that democracy lends itself to manipulation and undermining the constitutions that guide its use. In the next post we will examine some of the vulnerabilities inherent in the United States Constitution.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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