America’s Institutions Make Elected Officials Irresponsible

The presidential campaign timed for triumph in November, 1988, will coincide with the bicentennial celebration of the writing and ratification of the Constitution, 1787-1788. Public attention will be focused, perhaps as never before, on the institutional characteristics of government in the United States.

The presidential campaign that takes advantage of the Constitution’s bicentennial will go beyond the conventional strategies of stringing together issues and power brokers in order to build a winning coalition. It will weave its issues, proposals and secondary themes around the primary theme of the American political process itself. It will emphasize the fragmentation, the conflicts of interest and the resulting stalemate that make policy innovation difficult if not impossible and voter alienation probable if not inevitable.

Foreign and domestic crises come and go, but the institutional crisis of American government threatens to abide forever. Political stalemate and policy immobility are ever more threatening as government plays an ever larger part in citizen life. The point is that our government is made irresponsible by our institutions.

Visiting the United States last October, former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson sympathized with American Presidents, whatever their party and their purpose. Whoever he is, Wilson observed, the President must work with “an unworkable Constitution.”

Even the scheduling of federal elections reflects the Founding Fathers’ agrarian temper. Elections in early November were timed to follow harvest, without risking the communications uncertainties that came with winter’s storms. The President’s inauguration in March (before the 1933 adoption of the 20th Amendment), and the launching of a new administration, followed winter’s thaws but did not trespass on the weeks reserved for spring planting.

When the Constitution was first put into operation, each territorial square mile of the United States was populated, on the average, by fewer than five people; today each square mile is populated, on the average, by more than 60. A century ago the per capita public debt of the federal government was $325; today it exceeds $6,000.

Thus the separation of powers, which may have been appropriate to small government in an agrarian setting, becomes more vice than virtue when big government is called on to play an active role in an urban society well into the post-industrial era. Blessed with economic wealth, military power, and--for so long--geographic isolation, we have been spared the turmoil that, in other countries, made possible the rewriting of constitutions and the updating of institutions. We have become the principal victims of our own phenomenal success.

The point is underlined by the results of a mid-1970s international Gallup opinion poll. Political leaders in 40 countries were asked, “Omitting your own country, which country of the world do you think is best governed?” The rank-ordered results were, 1) Switzerland, 2) Great Britain, 3) Sweden, 4) West Germany, 5) Canada, 6) the United States, 7) Denmark, 8) Holland, 9) Australia, 10) Japan.

One of these countries has a presidential form of government: Only the United States selects its chief executive independently of the legislature. All the others choose their chief executive from a legislative majority, helping to ensure that executive leadership and legislative majorities work together instead of at cross-purposes.

Among those countries on Gallup’s list, only the United States and Switzerland have two legislative houses with equal authority--coequal bicameralism. The other eight either have only one legislative chamber or one dominant chamber that, if determined, can almost always get its way.

Nor does the majority of countries have our electoral system: only Britain and its three former colonies (Australia, Canada and the United States) elect their representatives exclusively according to the single-member district, winner-take-all system. The other countries have varying forms of multimember constituencies and proportional representation. This ensures strong and cohesive political parties, as measured by partisan voting in the national legislature.

But even in terms of the four Anglo-American countries on Gallup’s list, the United States has by far the weakest political parties. The parties’ fragmentation perfectly complements: our separation of powers; our system of federalism; the personal style of politics so strongly reinforced by television and presidential primaries, and our multiplication of legislative authority through an involved system of committees and subcommittees. It’s not that our political leaders cynically disregard their campaign commitments; it’s that our institutions render their campaign commitments more symbol than substance.

Comparisons are invidious, especially in our current context. National elections in Britain, for example, typically run three weeks, not three three years or more, as in the Unied States. And legislative elections in the United States are at least 60 times more costly than in Britain. The clearest beneficiaries of our prolonged political agony are the image merchants.

On the average, a member of Parliament in the British House of Commons votes against his or her party majority once in every 300 votes. On the average, a U.S. congressman votes against his party majority once in every four votes.

The consequences of these Anglo-American curiosities are especially significant in terms of honoring campaign commitments. Over a 10-year period, 1970-1979, a succession of British Conservative and Labor governments enacted into law almost 80% of the promises made to voters in the preceding campaign.

Over a similar span of time, between 1969 and 1984, the Nixon, Carter and Reagan Administrations were able to legislate less than 40% of their campaign promises. In general, the more significant the promise, the less likely its enactment into law. But Campaign ’88 offers the extraordinary opportunity of acquainting the many with what is familiar to only a few.

Along with the educational potential of Campaign ’88 comes the obligation of proposing remedies. No one should dream of transplanting the British parliamentary system of government to its former 13 colonies in the New World. The separation of powers was inherent in our colonial experience, with executives (colonial governors) generally loyal to their British masters while colonial legislators catered to the interests of their American constituents.

Nor should any American reformer dream of a redistribution of power among executive and legislative branches. The Founding Fathers were not particularly frightened by concentrated power--contrary to conventional wisdom. They gave sweeping grants of coercive authority to the President--to command the military, to appoint all officers and approve promotions, to federalize the state militias (today’s National Guard). With the veto they gave the President a central role in the legislative process, and one-third plus one in either house of Congress could sustain the President’s veto. (Washington and Hamilton advocated an absolute veto, one that could not be overriden). The Founding Fathers also made it possible for this one-man center of power to be elected for sequential four-year terms, indefinitely.

This concentration of power was acceptable to the Founding Fathers for two reasons. Everybody expected Washington to be the first President, perhaps President for life, and everybody had confidence, for good reason, in Washington’s integrity. And the power that was concentrated in the hands of the President was negative power, the power to enforce (with military force if necessary) and maintain the status quo.

But, like it or not, modern government plays an essential role in modern society, and the power that ensures the political responsibility of modern government is power that is concentrated. Concentrated power doesn’t ensure political responsibility (consider the concentrated power of military dictatorships and communist governments); but there is no political responsibility without concentrated power. The high regard that Gallup’s international elite has for the parliamentary form of government makes that point.

When it came to the authority to make policy, however, the Founding Fathers separated and checked power, making coordinated and balanced change difficult if not impossible. The consequence, in part, is incremental change (sometimes), an incoherent response to policy needs (usually) and redundancy and waste (always).

Who’s responsible, who’s in charge? Most of the time the answer is “nobody in particular.” One of the advantages of concentrated power is that policy-making is made more visible, with a consequent increase in political responsibility. The public can know who’s in charge, and so who’s to blame or who’s to get the credit. Voting participation increases, and the voter is better able to cast a rational vote in terms of his or her perceived self-interest. Which is what democracy is supposed to be all about.

Constitutional change to concentrate power where it is to play a positive role, however, is another impossible dream. Persisting popular majorities in support of constitutional amendments on behalf of equal rights, school prayer, the direct election of the President and a balanced budget, or on any other major policy issue, are majorities usually with more bluster than bite. Most of the constitutional amendments adopted in the last 100 years have been technical or procedural in content and essentially mute on issues of public policy. Too many majorities in too many legislatures, national and state (the total is 78 separate legislative bodies, or 77 if Nebraska is one of the ratifying states), have to be won over to the side of change before a constitutional amendment can be passed, and this makes most controversial issues vulnerable to minority veto. In many other respects, too, U.S. politics is better characterized by minority rule, not majority rule.

Campaign ‘88, then, should aim to change not the form of national government but its process. All the better if change can be brought about by legislative statute instead of by constitutional amendment.

We make the exercise of power more visible by making the flow of money more visible. And we concentrate power by concentrating money: Specifically, we centralize its distribution.

Strong popular majorities support the principle of public financing for presidential and congressional election campaigns. Whenever Gallup has polled the nation on the issue, between two-thirds and three-fourths have agreed that, “the federal government (should) provide a fixed amount of money for the election campaigns of all candidates for the Senate and the House.”

The principle of public financing of election campaigns must be tied to the greater problem of responsible government. What is at issue is more than neutralizing the special interests; we also must restructure policy-making by concentrating power. This may be done, in large part, by strengthening the parties.

This in turn may be accomplished by requiring that all public funds for national campaigns be allocated, not to individual candidates and their organizations, but to the party national committees. The party committees in turn distribute the funds to presidential and congressional candidates.

A reformed and updated Federal Election Commission administers the law. State elections to party national committees suddenly become critically important, and the entire party apparatus, from top to bottom, is revitalized. The flow of power is more visible, the shape of power is more structured and its exercise is more responsible.

The challenge for Campaign ’88 is not only to make the case for change convincing, but to build coalitions of leaders and led that will make change possible.

The problem is not so much knowing how to make good promises, but knowing how to make good on the promises that are made.

Who’s responsible, who’s in charge? Most of the time the answer is ‘nobody in particular.’ Campaign ’88 should aim to change not the form of American national government but its process.