Congressional Power
Congressional complicity with Bush policies seemed to barely skip a beat when power changed party control in 2006.
It is pretty clear to everyone that the Congress can't seem to act in an economic freefall without being led by the nose by a currently severely lame-ducked White House.
Issues of Congressional leadership seem to rely on Obama's mandate.
In short, the legislative branch has been consigned, in large part with it's full consent, to near powerlessness. Why is this?
Some is party politics. When legislative and executive power is controlled by the same party, the Congress tends to go along with the president. There's some coattails effects -- often a large segment of the House was swept in along with the president, and political favors are owed.
But this doesn't account for the toothlessness of the "opposition" Congress over the last couple of years. There seems to be a consensus politically that the president should be left to make decisions, even if they are illegal!, and Congress' job is to consent, and clean up any unfortunate legal loose ends afterwards. Now if the decisions are ones that are unpopular, the president will be unpopular. But even after the electoral losses in 2006, the Republican congress couldn't distance themselves from Bush. I think in this context, it is just part of the general inability of Congress to be independent. We seem to be at a pretty extreme point with that. What else is contributing?
Congressional power was at a historical high after Watergate and the impeachment of Nixon, and has gradually waned since then. But even as recently as Clinton, Congress was quite independent, and refused to authorize fast-track trade deals, which would be unheard of under Bush. I think the current situation owes a lot to the explicit plans of the Bush administration officials to greatly enlarge executive power. Many of them are Nixon-era veterans, and it seems often that some of their lawless acts are intended to go over the line not because they necessarily want to cross it for policy reasons, but because it fits in with an ideological insistence that the executive is not under any sort of congressional legal jurisdiction.
Thus torture, surveillance, suspension of habeas corpus, signing statements, disdain of oversight, refusal to comply with congressional summons, and on and on. A lapdog press, utterly unprepared for (and by and large disinterested in) actual political reality has made it seem like these moves have been the boy howdy! of normal give and take, rather than a serious realignment of power in the government, with serious implications for the balance of power envisioned by the constitution.
The constitution does envision a vigorous and powerful executive, but it explicitly places that executive power wholly within the oversight and legal jurisdiction of Congressional power. How can this situation be restored? One important thing is to elect the kind of vigorous leadership Congress needs to have. Pliable leadership is unable to maintain independence. This step is up to voters, who too often are content to regard the president as sort of an elected king, who must be suffered under or followed unconditionally, depending on their political leanings.
Second, we need to revise the Senate's filibuster rules. Filibusters on appointees are a limit to presidential power, but filibusters on bills make it impossible for congress to act expeditiously. Get rid of them.
Third, congressional oversight, summons, and subpoenas need to be backed by a bigger, more self-interested bureacracy. Perhaps something like a prime minister's office, which would have an attendant bureacracy and police arm with a jurisdiction over all federal executive-branch employees. This office would consist of a political leader chosen from the House, and that person's appointees, but staffed by a career bureaucracy including police and legal arms with authority to arrest, charge, and prosecute administration officials who are in contempt of Congress. A self-interested bureaucracy's motivations are to maintain the source of its power: the independence of congress and executive compliance with its rights and privileges. This office would essentially be the source for special investigators of government actions, which apparently the Justice department has become unable to perform on its own, given its misunderstanding of its own responsibilities.
Is this an overreaction to the incredible complicity of the Justice department under Bush? Would a Congress who confirmed Gonzales and Mukasey really be able to politically stomach sending their own legal and police troops after executive offenders? Unclear. Would a Congress which let its power wane so substantially do what it took to maintain such an institution? The hope would be that such an institution would try to maintain itself. The career bureaucrats whose everyday jobs were to come to work and investigate the administration, demand documents, break down doors and haul people away in handcuffs if they didn't produce them, and so on, would develop the influence with congresspeople to maintain themselves.
It might be worth a try. ¶ 9:58 PM
Friday, November 21, 2008
I was listening to Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton talk about war crimes prosecutions.
Congressional complicity with Bush policies seemed to barely skip a beat when power changed party control in 2006.
It is pretty clear to everyone that the Congress can't seem to act in an economic freefall without being led by the nose by a currently severely lame-ducked White House.
Issues of Congressional leadership seem to rely on Obama's mandate.
In short, the legislative branch has been consigned, in large part with it's full consent, to near powerlessness. Why is this?
Some is party politics. When legislative and executive power is controlled by the same party, the Congress tends to go along with the president. There's some coattails effects -- often a large segment of the House was swept in along with the president, and political favors are owed.
But this doesn't account for the toothlessness of the "opposition" Congress over the last couple of years. There seems to be a consensus politically that the president should be left to make decisions, even if they are illegal!, and Congress' job is to consent, and clean up any unfortunate legal loose ends afterwards. Now if the decisions are ones that are unpopular, the president will be unpopular. But even after the electoral losses in 2006, the Republican congress couldn't distance themselves from Bush. I think in this context, it is just part of the general inability of Congress to be independent. We seem to be at a pretty extreme point with that. What else is contributing?
Congressional power was at a historical high after Watergate and the impeachment of Nixon, and has gradually waned since then. But even as recently as Clinton, Congress was quite independent, and refused to authorize fast-track trade deals, which would be unheard of under Bush. I think the current situation owes a lot to the explicit plans of the Bush administration officials to greatly enlarge executive power. Many of them are Nixon-era veterans, and it seems often that some of their lawless acts are intended to go over the line not because they necessarily want to cross it for policy reasons, but because it fits in with an ideological insistence that the executive is not under any sort of congressional legal jurisdiction.
Thus torture, surveillance, suspension of habeas corpus, signing statements, disdain of oversight, refusal to comply with congressional summons, and on and on. A lapdog press, utterly unprepared for (and by and large disinterested in) actual political reality has made it seem like these moves have been the boy howdy! of normal give and take, rather than a serious realignment of power in the government, with serious implications for the balance of power envisioned by the constitution.
The constitution does envision a vigorous and powerful executive, but it explicitly places that executive power wholly within the oversight and legal jurisdiction of Congressional power. How can this situation be restored? One important thing is to elect the kind of vigorous leadership Congress needs to have. Pliable leadership is unable to maintain independence. This step is up to voters, who too often are content to regard the president as sort of an elected king, who must be suffered under or followed unconditionally, depending on their political leanings.
Second, we need to revise the Senate's filibuster rules. Filibusters on appointees are a limit to presidential power, but filibusters on bills make it impossible for congress to act expeditiously. Get rid of them.
Third, congressional oversight, summons, and subpoenas need to be backed by a bigger, more self-interested bureacracy. Perhaps something like a prime minister's office, which would have an attendant bureacracy and police arm with a jurisdiction over all federal executive-branch employees. This office would consist of a political leader chosen from the House, and that person's appointees, but staffed by a career bureaucracy including police and legal arms with authority to arrest, charge, and prosecute administration officials who are in contempt of Congress. A self-interested bureaucracy's motivations are to maintain the source of its power: the independence of congress and executive compliance with its rights and privileges. This office would essentially be the source for special investigators of government actions, which apparently the Justice department has become unable to perform on its own, given its misunderstanding of its own responsibilities.
Is this an overreaction to the incredible complicity of the Justice department under Bush? Would a Congress who confirmed Gonzales and Mukasey really be able to politically stomach sending their own legal and police troops after executive offenders? Unclear. Would a Congress which let its power wane so substantially do what it took to maintain such an institution? The hope would be that such an institution would try to maintain itself. The career bureaucrats whose everyday jobs were to come to work and investigate the administration, demand documents, break down doors and haul people away in handcuffs if they didn't produce them, and so on, would develop the influence with congresspeople to maintain themselves.
It might be worth a try. ¶ 9:58 PM
