Objective: Discuss the evolution of government. Present a proposal for strengthening the system of checks and balances. Propose a plan for decentralizing government. Finally, mention the role of the individual in informational society. The index for this section is:
It is important to note that the growth of the federal government is a 20th century phenomenon.
a. Original design: The most important concept included in the original design was the system of checks and balances. From the perspective of the new design the most important is the concept of a judicial review, which was never explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, but was clearly discussed in the Federalist Papers. In a judicial review the courts can strike down legislative acts or executive orders which exceed the power granted in the Constitution.
In addition, the 10th Amendment stated that those powers not explicitly granted to the Federal Government were delegated to the states.
b. 1st hundred years: Growth of government occurred at the state and city level to accommodate the needs of growing commerce and manufacturing. Cities grew from less that 50,000 to over a million. They had to provide services such as clean water, sewage, roads, and other basic services. Basic features of the original design remained in place. Innovation in government during the 1st hundred years took place in an competitive environment as state and local governments competed to attract business.
c. 2nd hundred years: The federal government grew in the Progressive Period from 1895 to 1914, the Great Depression of the 30s, and after WWII to provide public goods and regulation. Public goods include military, transportation and welfare and regulation includes monetary and fiscal policy, environment and safety.
To some extent the growth of the federal government is simply a reflection of the fact that the US became a single economy by the end of the 19th century and the federal government assumed an active role in the regulation of business. The growth of the Federal government changed its role from limited government to a regulator of most aspects of the political economy. The federal government also displaced charities as the provided of welfare for the poor. In the second hundred years the government at all levels increased from about 7%of the GDP to over 30%The growth of government also fundamentally changed the structure of government. In the 19th century business was regulated by common law through court cases. Today, business is regulated by bureaucracy. With the Administrative Procedures Act and similar legislation at the state levels after WW II both the federal and state courts will not judge governmental bureaucracies on matters of fact, just law. That is the courts will only consider whether the bureaucracy followed procedures. This means that the bureaucracy is judged politically by the corresponding executives and legislatures but not professionally.
Moreover, government is now an enormous bureaucracy to provide the public goods and the mandated regulation. Consequently, government has become very complex with most aspects of government performed in specialized legislative committees and executive bureaucracies. This raises the issue of whether government through its specialization serves the common weal or just the interests of the specialized constituencies served by specialized committees. In addition as government has become more complex more and more of the details are delegated to the bureaucracy for implementation. The details decided by the bureaucracy are known as administrative law. Moreover, most legislation is so ambiguously written that the courts must take decades to clarify the ambiguities through precedent setting.
Another important feature of current government is the fact the the 10th amendment since the 1930s has been interpreted to mean that Congress will determine how government should be decentralized between the various levels of government. In my opinion this mechanism for decentralization does not lead to effective government?
There are two basic objectives in the governmental design for informational society. First, the system of checks and balances needs to be strengthened in order to obtain a better estimate of the common weal in governmental choices. Second, government needs to be decentralized in order to obtain more variation in governmental policy which will lead to a higher rate of governmental innovation.
a. Judges in Law and Judges in Fact: The former are the traditional lawyer trained judges. The latter are successful professionals from various fields such as economics, business, medicine, science, biology and so on. Having both types of judges would enable courts to make both judgments in fact and well as law.
b. Organization of the courts: To maximize the use of scarce talent, court trials would be organized as teleconferences so that the most qualified judges could judges cases across the country. If either party in a case planed to use expert witnesses, the case would be judged by a panel of judges knowledgeable about the subject in question.
c. Professional review: A judicial review is an examination of legislation or executive action to decide whether it exceeds to powers granted in the Constitution. A professional review is an extension of a judicial review to determine whether legislation or executive action has the properties of general benefits, consistency and efficiency.
To prevent an overload of frivolous cases, the court would require the act, administrative ruling or executive order to be carefully analyzed in professional journals. The case could not be brought to trial until there was general agreement that there was a defect, that is until liberal and conservative think tanks agreed. Precedent setting would determine the requirements for analysis and agreement.
The professional review would force initiators of legislative acts, administrative ruling, and executive orders to carefully analyze them prior to initiation. While the professional review would create more interested to appointing judges to the courts, the courts are harder to coopt than the specialized regulation agencies.
a. National elections for Senators: National elections of senators would ensure that powerful chairmen of committees would not introduce state concerns into national legislation. Only senators would be permitted to originate legislation which would have to be approved by both houses. Six senators would be elected each year. Senators would run for legislative districts such as defense, social security, and so on. Consequently senatorial candidates would have to campaign on their legislative program for their area. The President would have to campaign for his candidates in order to promote his legislative program. The election would be more of a campaign over policy than currently.
b. Regional elections for Congressmen The election for congressmen would remain much as it is today. Because congressmen could not initiate legislation their role would be ombudsmen for their respective districts. Since they would have to approve legislation, the Senate would have to count votes in framing legislation.
c. Public funding of elections: The challenger would have equal public funds as the incumbent and no PAC money would be allowed. Election would be much more of a contest than currently.
d. Impact of the professional review on legislative performance: Proposing legislation which subsequently failed a professional review especially one for general benefits would provide a challenger ammunition to unset the incumbent. Consequently, senators proposing legislation would take care to ensure that proposed legislation passed the requirements for general benefits, consistency and efficiency before submitting it for a vote. This is because at a national level if a Senator had too many of his bills challenged for lack of general benefits, his opponent would be able to pin on him the label of captive of special interests. To be elected, Congressmen could support the special interests of their districts.
a. Power of reorganize the bureaucracy annually: The President could reorganize the bureaucracy annually subject to a two thirds veto by Congress. This would allow the President to reorganize the bureaucracy to carry out his program.
b. Vice president: He would be the leader of President's legislative program in Congress. He would have all the powers of a Senator.
c. Impact of professional review:
Since the 1930s the President creates his legislative program and submits it to Congress, which after the reform to the Senate. In creating his program the President would have to carefully analyze the legislation for the properties of general benefits, consistency and efficiency prior to submission. Also, the President is making executive orders and the bureaucracy in making rulings would have to perform a similar analysis.
Supreme court interpretation since the thirties has virtually eliminated the concept of decentralization embodied in the original Constitution. (Remember the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.) The objective is to create a new criterion for decentralization.
The decentralization criterion would be part of the professional review. Lower levels of government could challenge higher levels of government to have governmental activities decentralized. In placing governmental activities at the proper level one should remember that a federal governmental act is an experiment with a sample size of one. Equal treatment before the law means that there can be no variation, hence nothing is learned concerning other alternatives. Governmental activities should never be placed at a higher level than the lowest level at which economies of scale can be achieved. Lower levels of government should have the right to claim an experimental variance if the policies they propose would provide society knowledge of the consequences of new alternatives.
The governmental design proposes four levels of government.
a. Federal: The role of the federal government is to promote research and development of lower levels of government.
b. States: Under the new design the states would be the operational governments for social policy and state promotion of the economy. Social programs would be decentralized from the federal government.
c. Metropolitan: This level of government would be provide metropolitan wide services such as water and sewage.
d. Town: The function of the town government is to promote the lifestyle of the community.
Under the proposed system there would be much greater variation in government policies than currently. Alternative theories would be tested much more quickly and the rate of governmental innovation would increase.
Finding materials on government related to this course is difficult. What I found are:
In this design the individual plays much the same role as the individual plays in market society. Society is much more complicated with multiple roles. The individual effort to live a full life interacts with the incentive systems to produce the various types of people to run society.