Congressional design flaws

In the American system of government, the Congress and Judiciary are meant to act as a check and balance to presidential authority. The primary notion is that given powers of all three branches are meant to prevent or stop abuse by any one of the two other branches. However, as in any control environment, the exercise of controls is paramount to the effectiveness of the control. In other words, if the control is there but not exercised properly or willfully refused or loathes exercising it, it is useless. In this essay, the American citizen should pay close attention to the various reasons why the control cannot be exercised or unable to be exercised. Many examples exist over the last one hundred years for Americans to review and contemplate the effectiveness of Congress as a control or check against either of the other two branches of our government. In the last forty years, there are two comparative examples of how congress in the same realm of circumstances exercised their control yet in another example chose not to exercise their control.

In the first scenario, controls sometimes do not work because those responsible for exercising them do not wish to exercise the control, thus rendering it useless. Causes of this scenario are when the president and the congress are of the same political party. During the forty third president’s second term, the president and his office communicated to members of congress a wiretapping program designed to listen into conversations of American citizens. News articles were widely published, and members of congress publicly objected while others capitulated. Statements were made by members of congress that laws on the books allowed the president to engage in programs of this nature but it was clear that this was not being done. Congress did nothing. At this time, the president’s party was a majority in congress, which gives rise to the first concern. Why are matters of law not a concern when the president is of the same party as those in charge of congress? This is an inherent conflict of interest. Thus, those members of congress who are of the same political party place in higher esteem, the affairs and well-being of the party over the well-fair and matters of law of the American citizen.

This situation gives rise to two problems. One is that matters of law are put to second class status when the president is of the same party as the congress. Thus, the effectiveness at safe-guarding the affairs and civil liberties of Americans becomes diminished and ripe for abuse. It creates an atmosphere of false superiority where the president and the controlling party, whether democrat or republican, feel they can cannot be stopped. And this is in fact the case unless the American citizen redesigns the government with the proper checks and balances through a constitutional convention. When the president and congress are of the same party, members of the minority party have no recourse to stop a president unless his offenses are so unjust that members of his own party must object out of good conscious.

The second problem is that there is no other mechanism or check when political decisions are made and used to break US law or international laws. The Judiciary is powerless in these matters to enforce laws upon the president. In fact, the office of the executive is the office meant to execute the laws. This alone is a conflict of interest. However, there are several mechanisms that could be used or created or devised to help alleviate the false sense of superiority that embodies politicians who believe they are not subject to the law. One such mechanism would be to give the minority party in congress the power to call for a vote of no confidence and demand immediate elections upon either the congress or president. There are several pros and cons to this solution which will not be examined here but rather examined in the next essay. Another possible solution would be to have a variation of the no confidence vote by giving the minority party direct access to the Judiciary and giving the Judiciary power to make a direct ruling. Rather than waiting for legal cases to work their way through the courts in the normal sense, the minority party could call upon the Supreme Court to rule on questionable matters. The exact circumstances of this power will also not be examined here but rather in the next essay.

The second scenario is when the congress can act as it did in the case of Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh president. In this case, the opposing party was in charge of congress. A key element in congress acting was the fact that the media had uncovered and made public the crimes of the president and other members of his staff. The president and his staff alone were responsible for their crimes and actions. Thus, congress had no objection and no reason not to exercise their constitutional authority. There was also wide spread media coverage about the crimes and media frenzy and focus on the story.

The second scenario is called to your attention for the following reason. In the case of the forty third president, and the illegal wiretappings of Americans, the opposing party of the president was in charge of the House of representatives and had close to a majority in the senate. While it is true that the Democratic party did not have a majority in the senate, why in fact was there so little media outrage and coverage and no congressional action taken? Congress did not act because Congress was also responsible for knowing of the violations and doing nothing. Congress also decided to allow the president to break US and international laws.

Failures of our government of this magnitude are extremely dangerous. When the opposition party refuses to exercise its constitutional power to protect the American citizen from both presidential or judicial authoritarianism and crimes, then the mainstay of our government is broken. The first and foremost role of government is to protect the citizens of the country, their property, and civil liberties. Without these protections, we are living under an authoritarian government who merely allows us liberties at their behest. If the federal government in its design and construction believes it has the all power it needs and needs not obey laws placed upon it, then it is truly a tyranny that all Americans are living under. The only difference from the American tyranny as opposed to any other tyranny is the government is taking its time at exercising it and being selective at exercising it.

Vox Vocis res Publica