Tag: checks and balances

Federalist No. 66

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Federalist No. 66 has me seeking opinions on a few questions. Specifically it got me asking which of the four elements of our federal government (the Executive, the Judicial, the Senate, and the House) is the most powerful? Which Should be the most powerful? The founders clearly had some idea about which they thought should be the most powerful:

that the most POPULAR branch of every government, partaking of the republican genius, by being generally the favorite of the people, will be as generally a full match, if not an overmatch, for every other member of the Government. (emphasis original)

Their expectation was for the House to exert the most influence, but to be sufficiently checked to prevent it from becoming a law unto itself.

The wording of the above quote also got me thinking about two other questions. In this day of low approval ratings (not as low now as they were six months ago), which of the four is the most popular? Is that most popular one the most powerful?

I suspect that the most popular of them is the Executive branch now – last year it might well have been the Judicial branch. I am fairly confident that one of those two branches is generally the most powerful, although I’m not sure that it is always the same one of those who that holds the upper hand.

Tags checks and balances, documents, federalist, government, history

culture National State

Federalist No. 51

Of course the importance of checks and balances in our government is a well known concept as discussed in Federalist No. 51. What I had not previously realized was that splitting the Congress into two houses was a part of the effort on checks and balances. I had always understood that choice to simply be a compromise between the power of large state and small states.

In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency (sic) is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit.

Today some may argue that the legislative authority does not predominate in our government. Closer inspection of our government shows that it does still dominate which is why the concentration of interest in the executive branch by individuals and news organizations is so effective at confusing the electorate and allowing a Congress with 10% approval rating to have a 90% success rate among incumbents. (At a state level the same results can come by focusing on the governor over the legislature.)

Those who would argue that Congress does not dominate the actions of our government can only have an argument if they claim that the parties have come to dominate the government rather than arguing that another branch of government has come to dominate.

Tags change congress, checks and balances, parties, separation of powers

National

Federalist Nos. 47 – 48

I had never really considered the interplay between the concept of separation of powers and the concept of checks and balances between branches of government. Here Madison explores the limits on the separation of powers (Federalist No. 47) and the necessity of robust checks and balances (Federalist No. 48). Having read these papers I have a greater respect for the delicate balance that the founders were attempting to strike.

Madison also provides some input into the perspective of the people of his time as he discusses their propensity to fear the power of the Executive branch over the power of the Legislative branch. He argues that the unchecked legislature was as dangerous (and more likely in the government of the United States) as an absolute monarch:

In a government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of an hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the source of danger, and watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire. In a democracy, where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited; both in the extent and the duration of its power; and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.

Given our current experience it might be very easy for us to think that he was wrong and that the people were right to have more fear of their executive branch than of their legislative branch. We would do well to remember that the recent and pervasive abuses of the executive branch, and the expansion of power within that branch were facilitated by a Congress that was complicit at worst and neglectful of their own duties at best. While it is certainly time to curtail the authority of the executive branch we should be mindful that these abuses were less a failing of the Constitution than they were a failure on the part of our other elected representatives. In fact, Madison discuses a similar situation in the government of Pennsylvania:

It appears, also, that the executive department had not been innocent of frequent breaches of the constitution. There are three observations, however, which ought to be made on this head: FIRST, a great proportion of the instances were either immediately produced by the necessities of the war, or recommended by Congress or the commander-in-chief; SECONDLY, in most of the other instances, they conformed either to the declared or the known sentiments of the legislative department; THIRDLY, the executive department of Pennsylvania is distinguished from that of the other States by the number of members composing it. In this respect, it has as much affinity to a legislative assembly as to an executive council. And being at once exempt from the restraint of an individual responsibility for the acts of the body, and deriving confidence from mutual example and joint influence, unauthorized measures would, of course, be more freely hazarded, than where the executive department is administered by a single hand

The executive branch of Pennsylvania at that time was composed of a thirteen-member Supreme Executive Council.

It’s time for our Congress to stand up and do their job of checking the executive branch. Once they do that they should follow it up by mandating that the president reduce the footprint of the federal government by shrinking or eliminating government agencies or departments that are not essential to providing the services that are appropriate to the federal government.

Tags checks and balances, documents, federalist, history, Pennsylvania, separation of powers, State Constitution

National

A Managed Economy

I try not to focus on political or economic issues on Sunday, but I had a hard time when I noticed the figure "$700 Billion" yesterday. I was particularly worried by this statement:

. . . it would allow Treasury to act unilaterally: Its decisions could not be reviewed by any court or administrative body and, once the emergency legislation was approved, the administration could raise the $700 billion through government borrowing and would not be subject to Congress’ traditional power of the purse. . .

”It essentially creates an economic czar with no administrative oversight, no legal review, no legislative review. And it gives one man $700 billion to disperse as he needs fit,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.

”He will have complete, unbridled authority subject to no law,” she said.

In an administration that is already known for stretching its authority I have long had some fear of the consequences of the War on Terror. After this I am equally worried about the consequences of the War on Economic Uncertainty if this measure passes as submitted.

Thankfully the Democratic congress is pushing back on some aspects of the plan such as the lack of oversight.

Democrats want the measure to include independent oversight, homeowner protections and limits on executive compensation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement early Sunday evening.

"We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome," she said.

While I historically agree with the Republican party more often than the Democratic party on economic issues, I very much side with the Democrats on this one (if I’m forced to choose one of those two positions). We must have a healthy system of checks and balances between branches of the government. Regardless of the checks that may be imposed by Congress, anyone who still argues that we have a free market is either lying or ignorant.

I saw much more encouraging news this morning:

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two independent investment banks on Wall Street, will transform themselves into bank holding companies subject to far greater regulation, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night.

The firms requested the change themselves . . .

(emphasis added)

This is how a free market is supposed to work. The individual companies recognize their precarious position and make changes themselves. Only the threat of failure will cause them to do this. Having the safety-net of a bailout available only encourages more risky practices. What is really interesting to me about this move is that it essentially reverses a "protective measure" that was passed in the Great Depression. Apparently that intervention in the market helped to facilitate our latest economic shock.

By the way, the plan includes a provision to raise the debt limit from $10.6 Trillion to $11.3 Trillion. What good is it to have a limit if those who are "limited" are allowed to move the goalposts at will?

Tags bailout, checks and balances, economics, fiscal restraint, government, national debt, Salt Lake Tribune