Should the Presidency be abolished?

The office of the President has become too large to be handled efficiently and way too imperious to be the centerpiece of a democratic state.

Should the office of President of the United States go the way of the Emperor of Rome?

We could replace the President with a Prime Minister, selected by the House of Representatives from its members and give committee chairmen, who are chosen by the PM, executive power.

A President would remain, but his would be a ceremonial position, occupied by a semi-retired senior statesman, whose duties are to accept the resignation of the outgoing PM after the government falls, calling elections, and telling the leader of the party holding the most seats in the House to form a new government. He could also throw out the first ball for baseball season, flip the coin at the Super Bowl, be responsible for finding lost puppies in national parks and other duties that we could trust even Ronald Reagan (but not G. W. Bush) to do well.

The Prime Minister and his government (cabinet/committee chairmen) would be responsible to the House. The government is forced to resign after failing to get a vote of confidence, which can be done just because things aren't working very well with no question of high crimes and misdemeanors or actual violations of statutory laws or other messy things.

I open the forum to the friendly members of Democratic Underground.

ON EDIT

Changed President to PM in last part of second paragraph.

of the constitution.

where would that leave the senate? the smaller states will never go for it because of their lack of representation in the house.

our government needs fixing but not a complete re-write.

It's still down in my journal somewhere. I chose not to post it this time just to see what ideas people really have than start with a detailed document and have the flows in it picked apart.

The Senate would also remain, but it would be different. It would take over some of the functions of the current President, such as the power to veto legislation. A census would be taken every 12 years; the Senate would be elected shortly thereafter and sit for twelve years. In this way, it would serve the function of the more deliberative body, as it does now, to force the House to reconsider rash pieces of legislation that are passed in the heat of popular passion.

here.

be tied to the census? also you would have to call it something else cause part of census is 10 ;)


additionally how would you over come the small states objections to the change and getting rid of the electoral college and the way we elect our government.

furthermore if you are going to scrap teh constitution, you better be ready for the right wing to want to put some things into the new constitution like no abortions, eliminating the church/state seperation, and a whole slew of other right wing cravings.

to do what you want would require a constitutional convention. once one of those are called, it can practically be a free for all on what changes, etc.

As a Californian, I think I'm the one who's giving something up by abolishing the electoral college. Presidential candidates pay a lot more attention to us and spend more money here than they do in Montana or Maine. That's because my vote contributes more to an electoral victory that somebody in Montana or Maine. It contributes to almost 20% of the total need to win. If the electoral college were abolished, my vote wouldn't contribute any more to a presidential victory than my cousin's in Oregon.

california would still have a very large popular vote total. one that can effect the national election.

Unfortunately they are not moving in the direction you suggest.
They are moving more in the direction of the Roman Emperor or worse, the Fuhrer.

But if that is so, it's only because they've shredded the rest of the Constitution any way.

A nice happy smiling benevolent King with a hot mistress and would provide the proletariat with gubbermint burgers, fries and cholesterol clogging breakfast sandwiches!

Not some fraud with his eyes on denying my right to keep and bear onion rings and tartar sauce!

Anyways...I'm better armed than most island nations and probably even a few inner-city gang-banging hooligans.

:smoke:

would have been long gone - and we would probably be out of Iraq.

However, it doesn't always work that way. Ask our British friends about it.

after this madman he has completely destroyed the perception of the presidential position.

just this one.

I'm 55 years old. I have lived through not one but two particularly abusive presidencies. Some of the others did things that seemed a little difficult to correct.

That suggests the question as to whether this is an institutional problem, not just a personal one with the current White House occupant.

tend to eliminate the "separation of powers" doctrine, one of the mainstays of our Constitutional system of governance. And a protection for our freedoms. I think it is not a good idea, at all.

. . . right now, European parliamentary democracies seem more responsive to the people and better protect civil liberties than we get from our system of separation of powers and checks and balances.

but a little complex, IMO.

I'm not fond of a minority of votes (2/5) being able to remove the President.

All in all, I prefer our present system, I think.

It amazes me, though, that all these ideas disappear from the scene when a Democrat is is office. If it's good when Rs are in, it will be good when Ds are in. And whatever the system, sometimes we are going to lose.

This being the case, it is incumbent upon us to take positions that will be supported by the electorate, to raise sufficient funds, to select candidates that can appeal to most of the voters, to get our message out. You know, do good politics.

I know precisely what you're saying. I agree, I think any support these ideas might find is probably in relation to the current predicament.

On the other hand, this is not about one President, the problems with our constitution have been multiplying over decades and most of the things we are seeing now are the natural conclusions of those trends.

I'm worried about the precedents being set, the ones that later generations and their Presidents will look to, to use to explain away even more substantial abuses of power.

Where one sets a precedent, many will follow.

I don't care who sets the President, whether from our party or not, abuses of power are abuses power no matter the party involved.

was in effect when our nation declared it's independence, and the founders knew of it when they wrote the US Constitution.

The West Minister system violates the idea of separation of powers, it combines executive power and legislative power into a single governing body. The Prime Minister in the Westminster system is an MP.

That is why a duplicate of the Westminster system, an idea in fact that President Woodrow Wilson once had long ago, is not suitable.

However, that does not mean we shouldn't pursue an ever better system of government, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't experiment.

I propose something similar to the Westminster parliament, only it should be stripped of legislative powers, aside from the traditional exception to that, which acts as a check upon the legislative branch, the power of the veto.

To create a less powerful, more deliberative and less loyalty based executive branch, I propose that each state should elect a governor, not to be the chief executive of their state government, but to act as the chief executive of the federal government's institutions in their state.

They would elect a President, who would replace the current President in our system. They would be able to introduce a motion of no confidence at any time and a vote of only 2/5 of the body, which I propose should be called the House of Governors, would be able to remove the President by vote no confidence.

In addition, the House of Governors would be able to exercise the ability to veto legislation from the legislative branch by a vote of only 2/5 as well.

This might seem very odd indeed, but it will force compromise or allow the states to control that particular issue, if there is a stalemate on the national level.

No one side will be able to dictate terms to another, everyone will have power. Yes, the minority party could use the 2/5 veto or no confidence vote to be total dicks, but the majority could easily do the same.

What it does is force the two (or more I suppose) sides to compromise and to come up with a compromise satisfactory to more than 3/5 of the body.

The actions of the federal government would at least be satisfactory to most people.

To make sure that the House would not become a quasi-parliament and take on legislative powers, the House would not have the ability to officially sanction any proposed law, they would only be able to object to laws that had been formulated in the legislative branch.

This is very important, because as it stands, our government has degenerated into allowing and I dare say even expecting, the President to be chief legislator, when that role should be left to the House and the Senate or in general the legislative branch.

This clear division in powers is important, as it prevents a President or if my idea were to be adopted, the House of Governors and their body's President, from crafting laws that would enable them. This has happened a number of times in the history of democracy, think of Hitler's enabling law and/or Dick Cheney's manipulation of laws to include vague provisions intended to be stretched to give absolute power.

This is not actually included in the US Constitution, in fact it's directly contradicted by it, but as it has been profoundly abused and it is a massive loophole, we should consider the reasons I stated and my proposals.

I did not include all of the ideas I have for this body, so please feel free to ask questions and please critique it! Thanks!

I put a link up to a year-old proposal in post 3.

It's the blue "here", right?

I tried mousing over it and clicking it, and it didn't come up.

A new blue here.

to oust the president. that is giving WAY too much power to a small group.

The majority can as well.

It's not possible for the minority to use it to dictate terms, because the majority would always have the same power. They would have to work together to find a suitable choice.

The American government should be owned by all of the people, even those in the minority. The President should be the President of all of America, not just the people who elected her/him.

nt

Can't abolish something you don't have

bu$h* has made a mockery of it.

How ya gonna do that then?

-Hoot

The question behind the proposal in the root post is really: Is the modern presidency harmful to democracy?

I think it is.

Break up the seat of president into a triumvirate. Every two years one of the seats becomes open for an election. Elections are to be decided by the French-style two-round system. This ensures that the winner of a seat is the one who garners the majority of the vote. The days of third party spoilers in presidential races would be ended because the system accommodates all parties. Each seat has a six year term, so there will be elections every 2 years.

International treaties and accords cannot be signed into law unless by unanimous consent of all three sitting presidents. The use of military force by the executive branch as prescribed by the War Powers Act cannot be utilized unless, also, by unanimous consent of all three sitting presidents. Acts passed by the legislative branch of government need only the consent of the majority of sitting presidents except in cases of the passing of a constitutional amendment. There, the consent of all three sitting presidents must be given for the executive branch to affirm the constitutional amendment. The legislative branch is free to attempt to override any veto from the executive branch as prescribed by current rules.

Though it would take a lot of work.

But we need to get away from the mentality that the President's job is to "protect us" rather than just to carru out the duties described in Article II.

Getting rid of mid term losers!

Which is all of them.

Any concentration of power should be broken down where each person doesn't have a direct voice.

So why not?