The U.S Congress (Refining Democracy).

Foundation for Better Government

March 20, 2011.

The U.S. Congress (Refining Democracy).
T.S. Khanna, March 20, 2011.

Our Congress seems to be under a perpetual snow storm. It keeps spinning its wheels without moving. It is designed to be the fountainhead of the U.S. government but it is falling short.

Well intended checks and balances are turned into unintended deadlocks and gridlocks by the growing ideological polarization of the political parties. Tribal politics is splitting the nation by intense partisanship. There is no accountability for collective irresponsibility or for delivering timely and quality product.

At the inception of U.S. government, the Senate was created at the insistence of smaller states supporting slavery. They wanted equal voting power in the Congress as a safeguard against abolition of slavery. The senators were elected by the state legislatures as their reps at the federal level. This procedure was changed to election by popular vote by the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution.

After long outliving its original purpose, the Senate has been an unintended duplication of the House with a negative impact on the decision making process of the Congress.

Recommendations:
1. Abolish the Senate and establish a unicameral Congress with a 6-year term for its members. A unicameral congress delivers faster decisions, no less in quality or public satisfaction than a bicameral congress. See Israel, Finland, Greece and some other countries.
2. Establish a 15-member non-partisan Supreme Council. Non-partisan members may be elected by the House of Reps from fifteen zones created by intelligent grouping of states promoting national integration. The Supreme Council may be designed to counter the divisive effect of partisan representative democracy---an inherent problem in representative democracy.
Responsibilities of the Supreme Council may include:
(a) The current executive and judicial responsibilities of the Senate, e.g., (i) approval of the President’s nominations of federal officers, including judges, ambassadors, (ii) approval of the treaties made by the President, and, (iii) adjudication of the impeachment trials preferred by the House;
(b) Take over the President’s veto powers and signing the bills passed by the Congress;
(c) Fix time limits for the resolution of deadlocks in the Congress with powers for decisions binding on the Congress;
(d) Enforce rules and procedures in the Congressional operations in a non-partisan manner;
(e) Declaration of war, national emergencies and suspension of certain provisions of the constitution for specified periods to meet emergency challenges; and,
(f) Establish a Research and Development department that may identify and foresee national and international problems and recommend warranted changes in government structure, its operations, and changes in public policies to meet the new challenges.