Staying Calm, but Remaining Firm
Our system of government is not generally amenable to Big Ideas or to enacting the platform of a strong leader. Our founders had enough of the royal prerogative and sought to retard the ability of a single leader to impose his (or even her) will on the rest of the country. We not only do not have a royal "leader," we do not even have a Prime Minister whose government is established on the basis of control of the functionally important house of the country's legislature.
Such a system requires consensus and consensus rarely rallies around a "plan." Consensus requires that reasonable people find a common ground.
But what happens in an emergency? Generally, when the nation is attacked, the necessary consensus forms rather quickly to do something about it, but other crisis, which do not involve a loud noise or a specific event, sometimes need another approach. As he took office in 1933, President Roosevelt darkly suggested that what might be needed was beyond the constitutional structure our founders had established:
Jonathan Alter has written that President Roosevelt seriously considered some sort of suspension of the constituional basis for our government if Congress failed to respond to the emergency facing the country at the time. Fortunately, though, that became unnecessary since, notwithstanding the loud protests of the crazy people who lived and continue to live among us, the extraordinary majority his party had in the Congress elected by the frightened nation in 1932, permitted the President's New Deal to be enacted roughly as he . The Supreme Court sought to fight back, but the President threatened them to and they backed down.
But that is not the usual way things get done in our system. When Margaret Thatcher wanted Britain to adopt more conservative policies than it generally had in the postwar period, her party controlled Commons and if it did not agree with her proposals, her government would have fallen, and new elections would have to be held. We do not operate that way.
The great civil rights legislation of the 1960s were not the product of a party's control of the White House and Congress, though that existed from 1961 on. It was enacted when Congress, facing with a public mourning the death of its young president, and, perhaps, a degree of remorse for the savage attacks on him by the right wing before he was murdered, honored him by enacting his proposals.
Beyond the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts though, there was also medicaid. The other day, the great Rachel Maddow explainedthe struggle for universal heath care from the Truman years to the passage of such coverage first to the elderly and then, in quite watered down form, to the poor. Bit it wasn't President Truman who first considered this to be something the government should undertake; both President Roosevelts favored it, but FDR dropped it from key parts of the New Deal legislation in the face of strong opposition which might have derailed the rest of the critical efforts to restore the nation's economic health.
The point is, despite a news media which acted as if the prior president had the dictatorial or royal powers he believed to be within his office, the radical change in the way Americans receive health care and insurance to pay for it, is, perhaps, beyond what our political system can handle. It is a system which is hard to energize in the most important of areas, and it is horribly corrupted today by its failure to meaningfully regulate how to finance political campaigns. As a long, rambling essay in this spaceargued last week, and as Bill Moyers more succinctly explained,, a Congress which depends on big money for its members to remain in office will always try to find a way to keep happy those who have that money.
If it were up to me, or, I suspect, President Obama, the government would simply extend the care and coverage under medicaid, medicare, or that afforded to veterans or members of Congress, all federal health insurance and coverage programs, to the rest of us. That is the "single payer" system which much of the industrial world has adopted under democratic systems of government structured differently than ours.
But, alas, that is not how it works. It is not up to me, or President Obama or you, per se. We always call our system the best one there is, and there is much to say for it terms of stability and the fewer radical swings that other countries face (think of the huge number of governments in Italy in the postwar years). But our system is not necessarily the best one for what needs to be done here.
It is, however, the system we have and one unlikely to change in the near future. About fifteen months ago, I tried to explain to others who, like me, originally supported another candidate for President, over President Obama's more generous views about the varied political forces in our country, that since I do not get to pick my top choice, it was necessary to decide among those who could actually get elected.
I am glad that I did, and that others did, too. The result was, as it turns out, a better candidate than the one I first supported and his election as President.
So, we will not get the health care program I favor. Yet. Maybe ever. That is not good, and says a lot about what's wrong with our country: that thuggery and lies will trump reason and the best interests of our citizens.
But we need something. Whether it includes a "public option" or a trigger for one, both pale substitutes for the single payer system we ought to have, whether President Obama and Rahm Emanuel are not as good at the inside baseball of Washington as we had hoped, whether Max Baucus of Montana ought to be as important as he is in deciding whether my unemployed ex-wife should have health insurance or not, we need something. We may have lost the war, yet again, but let's not throw this whole effort away.
Please.
But what happens in an emergency? Generally, when the nation is attacked, the necessary consensus forms rather quickly to do something about it, but other crisis, which do not involve a loud noise or a specific event, sometimes need another approach. As he took office in 1933, President Roosevelt darkly suggested that what might be needed was beyond the constitutional structure our founders had established:
I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people, dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors.
Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form.
That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.
It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me.
I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis. . .broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
Jonathan Alter has written that President Roosevelt seriously considered some sort of suspension of the constituional basis for our government if Congress failed to respond to the emergency facing the country at the time. Fortunately, though, that became unnecessary since, notwithstanding the loud protests of the crazy people who lived and continue to live among us, the extraordinary majority his party had in the Congress elected by the frightened nation in 1932, permitted the President's New Deal to be enacted roughly as he . The Supreme Court sought to fight back, but the President threatened them to and they backed down.
But that is not the usual way things get done in our system. When Margaret Thatcher wanted Britain to adopt more conservative policies than it generally had in the postwar period, her party controlled Commons and if it did not agree with her proposals, her government would have fallen, and new elections would have to be held. We do not operate that way.
The great civil rights legislation of the 1960s were not the product of a party's control of the White House and Congress, though that existed from 1961 on. It was enacted when Congress, facing with a public mourning the death of its young president, and, perhaps, a degree of remorse for the savage attacks on him by the right wing before he was murdered, honored him by enacting his proposals.
Beyond the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts though, there was also medicaid. The other day, the great Rachel Maddow explainedthe struggle for universal heath care from the Truman years to the passage of such coverage first to the elderly and then, in quite watered down form, to the poor. Bit it wasn't President Truman who first considered this to be something the government should undertake; both President Roosevelts favored it, but FDR dropped it from key parts of the New Deal legislation in the face of strong opposition which might have derailed the rest of the critical efforts to restore the nation's economic health.
The point is, despite a news media which acted as if the prior president had the dictatorial or royal powers he believed to be within his office, the radical change in the way Americans receive health care and insurance to pay for it, is, perhaps, beyond what our political system can handle. It is a system which is hard to energize in the most important of areas, and it is horribly corrupted today by its failure to meaningfully regulate how to finance political campaigns. As a long, rambling essay in this spaceargued last week, and as Bill Moyers more succinctly explained,, a Congress which depends on big money for its members to remain in office will always try to find a way to keep happy those who have that money.
If it were up to me, or, I suspect, President Obama, the government would simply extend the care and coverage under medicaid, medicare, or that afforded to veterans or members of Congress, all federal health insurance and coverage programs, to the rest of us. That is the "single payer" system which much of the industrial world has adopted under democratic systems of government structured differently than ours.
But, alas, that is not how it works. It is not up to me, or President Obama or you, per se. We always call our system the best one there is, and there is much to say for it terms of stability and the fewer radical swings that other countries face (think of the huge number of governments in Italy in the postwar years). But our system is not necessarily the best one for what needs to be done here.
It is, however, the system we have and one unlikely to change in the near future. About fifteen months ago, I tried to explain to others who, like me, originally supported another candidate for President, over President Obama's more generous views about the varied political forces in our country, that since I do not get to pick my top choice, it was necessary to decide among those who could actually get elected.
I am glad that I did, and that others did, too. The result was, as it turns out, a better candidate than the one I first supported and his election as President.
So, we will not get the health care program I favor. Yet. Maybe ever. That is not good, and says a lot about what's wrong with our country: that thuggery and lies will trump reason and the best interests of our citizens.
But we need something. Whether it includes a "public option" or a trigger for one, both pale substitutes for the single payer system we ought to have, whether President Obama and Rahm Emanuel are not as good at the inside baseball of Washington as we had hoped, whether Max Baucus of Montana ought to be as important as he is in deciding whether my unemployed ex-wife should have health insurance or not, we need something. We may have lost the war, yet again, but let's not throw this whole effort away.
Please.
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I love a thoughtful post like this one. Thank you for it.
Two quick observations:
Questions of constitutionality in the American sense of the word are not an issue in the United Kingdom. There is no Constitution, except the whole organic body of English law. http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?vendorId=FWNE.fw..en044000.a#FWNE.fw..en044000.a
Because the English respect tradition a lot more than we do, they don't seem to need a body to compare current practice against a written document.
Second, if nothing much gets done or done quickly, we can thank James Madison who largely wrote the Constitution and Alexander Hamilton who helped him publicize it in the Federalist Papers.
Charles and Mary Beard argued that the Constitution was a reaction against the liberalism of the Declaration of Independence and its "All men are created equal". Hamilton didn't think much of us.
http://www.pinzler.com/ushistory/hamjeffpopsupp.html
September 5, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
both good points. Even the idea that the courts can strike down a law as in violation of the written constitution was innovative and not fully accepted by the founders.
But your point about the value of tradition has particular relevance in the 60 votes discussion we keep having. The "60 vote rule" is the product of our lack of respect for tradition: one which honors the right of a Senator to speak for as long as he or she sees fit, but balanced against the idea that intentionally holding the floor to kill legislation supported by a majority would rarely be undertaken.
Once it became accepted that a filibuster does not have to actually occur, but only be threatened, the traditional view that limited its application to the most important matters before the Senate, was abandoned for the concept that all legislation needs to be filibuster proof to pass.
The tampering with tradition has, therefore, wreaked havoc on the Congress, providing it with yet another reason to do nothing.
September 5, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, we can blame John Marshall for that one. We have a mixed bag there, however. Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court declares segregation constitutional, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, declares it unconstitutional for much the same reasons that Justice Harlan used in his dissent to Plessy. Of course those who loved the Court in Plessy hated the Court in Brown. Those guys are still around. Strict Construction is fine when the other guy's ox is being gored.
I remember the filibuster scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. All we would need to hold the filibuster sacrosanct is a Senate rule requiring attendance in the Chamber of all for the duration. I'm not holding my breath on that one.
September 5, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
A former law professor of mine, and later dean of the New York Law School, James Simon, wrote what I considered to be a great book about the conflict between Marshall and Jefferson and fidelity to the Constitution.
The filibuster would be in its place (and there is definitely a place for it in a country that does not accept that the majority can terrorize the minority) if at the very least, the filibusterers had to do so from the floor, and standing, with no adjournments as in the days of yore. The greatest television show in history, The West Wing, fiddled with history a few years back and reminded us of the old rules, which, frankly, would do the trick.
The comments to my post reminds me of a paragraph I meant to include with reference to the view that "Consensus requires that reasonable people find a common ground."
I dealt with what happens in an emergency, but forgot to speak about what happens when reason departs and only political considerations are brought to bear. We have seen this often in the last few years, most notably the Schiavo fiasco, an embarrassment for Congress that ought to have caused some re-thinking, but did not.
What little history that seems to have seeped into Republican thought is that the New Deal ushered in fifty years of virtually uninterrupted Democratic Party control of Congress. The part of the history lesson they missed explained that the reason Democrats were credited with saving the country and dealing with the worst effects of the Depression is that they did so with no Republican support, which caused two generations of Americans to grow up thinking of their party as beholden to Wall Street at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Passing health care reform would only replicate the Democratic Party success with, say, social security, only if, once again, the Republicans try to prevent a program Americans will be very happy to have.
September 6, 2009 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
amike, thank you for the historical connection. Your link is fascinating.
Jefferson's statement includes a critical condition: a well-informed populace. Today we apparently have a significant segment of the population that is deliberately misinformed. Things have gotten terribly wrong, but the voices seeking to set them to rights are drowned out by the din of the misinformed and the ideologues and fat cats who engendered the disinformation in the first place.
Hamilton's statement, if applied to today, could be an indictment of the methods of the republican party and its benefactors who exploit the passions of the vulnerable. To me it speaks to pernicious avarice.
These quotes and their striking relevance to today's scenario don't speak well of us. The implication is that humans as a whole continue to knowingly allow baser instincts to prevail over that which is just.
Nevertheless, Jefferson was optimistic. I wonder if that optimism isn't the very force that will ultimately propel the people of this country to do better.
September 5, 2009 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am with Amike here, but I ususaly follow the Professor's lead anyway.
Another fine blogger wrote 'Patience' the other day.
Maybe because I am approaching the end of my sixth decade, but I usually have more patience than years ago.
Thank god for people like beck and rush sometimes, breathes a fire back into my soul. I think it helps with my digestion at certain crucial times.
Barth, I think a change is commin. You know this 'trigger' mechanism could be 'adjusted' next year.
Once a series of Congressional Hearings demonstrates that the oligarchy is not complying, shove it down their throats.
Yes the dems and My President need to tell the repubs to GO FUCK THEMSELVES. hahahah
But they will continue with important chess moves on the great powerful board...
We now need A PIECE OF LEGISLATION for MSM, NOW.
Great take Barth.
September 5, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Barth. It helped put things in perspective.
September 5, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink