Since this is my first blog, I will start by describing what I have done so far. I have been concerned for a long time about how the federal government functions and what can be done about it. About five years ago, shortly before I retired, I began to focus more on this, and began to write out my thoughts. I began with the question of why the American government is not more like the British government, considering that it was the primary model of government the colonists had.
This required a lot of reading in both British history and early American history, but eventually I arrived at enough understanding of events to give a satisfying answer to that question. My conclusion was that the US government is basically undemocratic as compared to the British government.
The next question I asked myself was how the form of our government, and the fact that it is basically undemocratic, have affected the course of our history. This involves engaging in a sort of counterfactual history, but it provides a perspective on our history that I have not seen anywhere else. It meant engaging in a great deal of further reading of American history, and then reinterpreting the standard accounts from this perspective.
The result was a review of our history organized in terms of three distinctive aspects of our political life, the dogma of the separation of powers, the establishment of judicial supremacy, and the pervasive bias against political parties in our country. These three factors, along with the undemocratic features of the system, are among the reasons for the continual recurrence of congressional gridlock, and the rise of the imperial president.
Writing about all of this resulted in a book that I have recently put on Amazon.com as an ebook entitled Congressional Gridlock and Imperial Presidents: Legacies of Demosphobia (Fear of Majority Rule). If anyone is interested in what I have to say, I urge you to read this book.
The final question, assuming that our government is not really a democratic government, and does not function very well in getting the nation's business done, is what to do to change it. My conclusion, set forth in the book, is that the power of the Senate needs to be diminished. I do not want to get rid of the Senate, as some have suggested, because that would be too difficult, and there is nothing wrong with keeping it around, just as Britain has kept its House of Lords (and its monarch). It is not enough, however, to just change the rules of the Senate and get rid of the filibuster. As it is now, the Senate can still block legislation coming from the House, as the current deadlock over the budget shows.
(Politically I am on the side of the Democrats in the Senate, but over the long term, and in the interests of the majority will, the House should be able to have its way with legislation.)
What I would suggest to implement the changes I would like to see is to have the House of Representatives change its rules of procedure in such a way that the Senate would be denied the ability to block legislation from the House. The House could say to the Senate that the House will consider only bills that originate in the House. Bills from the House will be sent to the Senate for its suggestions, and a time limit will be set within which the Senate will have to return the bill with its suggestions for change. Any suggestions received within the time limit will be considered and accepted or rejected by the House, and the final bill passed by the House will then be sent to the President.
These changes would have the effect of producing a drastic change in the relation between the House and the Senate, and would initiate a cascade of effects that would result in a more democratic government. The changes would not be easily accepted, especially by the members of the Senate. I suggest these changes, though, because they do not require constitutional amendments. Each chamber of congress is responsible for its own rules and procedures, and they can be changed by a simple vote within each chamber. Such rules are what allowed the Senate in the early 1800s to reconstitute itself and become what it is now, and the House could do the same now. The Constitution does not stand in the way: the only obstacle is 200 years of tradition. Tradition that has allowed the dominance of, first, the white South, and then of the wealthy North, and now of the wealthy in general.
All that is needed to make these changes is enough people to pressure the House to make them. I welcome your responses.