The American Constitution: still fit for purpose?

Looking across the “Pond” from the eastern side, one cannot help but be struck by the very different ways in which most European countries and the United States govern themselves. This leads me to wonder if the American Constitution is still fit for purpose.

A fundamental difference of approach

Most European democracies, of which I will take the United Kingdom to be a prime example because it is the one I know best, work on the basic principle that the power of government lies with the political grouping that can command the greatest support in its democratically-elected legislative chamber. In the British system this is the House of Commons. The leader of that political group is therefore the leader of the government.

In the British system, that person (known as the Prime Minister) is not the head of state, because that honour is held by an hereditary monarch who these days wields no political power and, by convention, remains strictly neutral in public whatever they might think in private.

The American system, however, was built with the overriding intention of not allowing the people to fall under “tyranny”, whether from outside or inside. The founding fathers were also keen to build a federal system – the states might be united but they were always going to be states as opposed to counties or districts.

A President with limited power

What this meant was that the figurehead of the United States must not be allowed to act like a monarch or to ride roughshod over the liberties of the individual states. Having freed themselves from the tyranny of a king, the ex-colonists were hardly likely to elect themselves a new tyrant.

It must also be remembered that the original United States Constitution was written at a time before political parties had been established. Every senator and representative was regarded as an independent spokesman of their state or congressional district, and they were not expected to form binding groups of like-minded people from other states who would vote together in blocs that were in general opposition to members who belonged to other blocs. The idea that the will of the President would be permanently supported or opposed, depending on the nature and size of blocs of congressmen, was not something that the founding fathers gave a moment’s thought to.

The net result was that the office of President was set about with “checks and balances” to ensure that he could not do exactly what he might want to do on every occasion. His acts had to be supported by Congress before they could become law, and he likewise had the power of veto over laws that Congress might propose but of which he did not approve.

Where it all goes wrong

The problem with the American system, as I see it, is that politics has got in the way of the Constitution.

Elections for President are predicated on the idea that the winner will be the most powerful person in the country, and that has expanded to becoming “Leader of the Free World”. However, although candidates for the Presidency will make all sorts of promises about how they will transform the country once they get elected, the political system will often make this next to impossible. If Congress is packed with the President’s political opponents – either at the time he is elected or as a result of later elections – he will find himself thwarted at almost every turn and forced to scale back drastically on his original plans which, let us not forget, were probably the reason why the people elected him to office in the first place.

The net result is that the President, who began with such high hopes and expectations, is then held up for ridicule as being weak and indecisive. Even worse, nothing that is important ever gets done because the President and Congress, in effect, do little other than block each other’s proposals.

Could this be prevented?

I think it could, but only if the United States is prepared to tear up its Constitution and start again!

One fundamental question is – do you want your Head of State to also be the most powerful person in the country? It is difficult to see how this can happen unless you have a dictatorship, but neither is it is desirable for your figurehead leader to be seen as weak and held in low regard in his own country. France has this problem (something of an exception among European countries in this aspect of its constitution) and so does the United States.

The answer is to split the role between two people. This does not mean that you have to have a monarch at the top of the tree, because you can make this an elected office albeit not fought along political lines. This person would represent the country internationally and officiate on formal occasions but have no political power. He or she would be available for consultation by the political leaders, but no more than that. It is something that has worked very well in the Irish Republic, for example.

In the British system, the government is led by the leader of the political party that commands majority support in the House of Commons. If the party has a large majority, they will be able to get virtually all their proposed laws through the system, but if the parties are more evenly matched they may have to amend their proposals so that a majority can be found to get them through.

There is no chance of the Prime Minister becoming a dictator, because there are still limits on what he or she can do. A particularly strong limitation is the attitude of members of his/her own party, who can, should they so wish, elect a new party leader or bring the government down by supporting the Opposition in a “no confidence” vote.

I am not suggesting that the United States should adopt the British system as it stands, but there are elements of it that merit closer attention.

So would America still have a President?

Yes and No. Under a system that combined the British and Irish approaches, you could still have Presidential elections but you would not be electing into office somebody who made lots of promises but would then potentially be stymied whenever they tried to put them into effect.

The elections to Congress would take over as being more important, because the leader of the winning party would then be the person who led the government and could make the decisions that mattered. The Presidential veto would go, because this is a fundamentally anti-democratic institution, to be replaced by a signature that would only be withheld on very rare occasions (the equivalent of the British Royal Assent).

Thought needs to be given to the “checks and balances” question. If they have the effect of making government impossible, have they gone too far? It is probably the case that some checks are necessary, so these might need to be incorporated in a new Constitution, but they would not operate as they do at present.

So there you have it. Would the United States be better governed if it tore up its Constitution and wrote one that was more attuned to the 21^st century than the 18^th? Maybe!

© John Welford