The Founders
persuaded the colonists to support the revolution by blaming a long
list of problems on the King of England. They included this list in
the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration also served—pehaps
primarily—as a notice to the countries of Europe that the colonies
wanted a new country, not reconciliation with the King. The colonists
fought against the King and were not likely to accept a new monarch
in his place.
The Articles of
Confederation lacked a strong executive authority, which was seen as
a major weakness. So the new Constitution had to describe a middle
road. The office of the Presidency was a compromise between the power
of a monarch and the limited authority of an administrator appointed
by the Congress.
The President
at first glance appears impressive. But the President does not
propose a budget; only the House of Representatives can introduce
spending measures. The President can appoint his cabinet, but they
must be approved by the Senate. The President can negotiate and sign
treaties with foreign nations, but the Senate must approve them
before they go into effect. Likewise, the President appoints judges,
but the Senate approves them.
This situation
has lasted for two hundred years. At the beginning, when there was
mutual respect between Congress and President, the system worked
fairly well. As time went by, it worked less and less well. Today,
Congress sees its approval as conditional on concessions from the
executive branch, or simply as a way to attack the President.
It is
absolutely impossible to imagine a corporation operating successfully
under similar restrictions. The CEO appoints subordinate executives
without any interference from the Board of Directors. The CEO
proposes plans for the Board to approve, but once the plan is agreed
upon, the CEO may implement the plan in any manner he or she sees
fit. The President should have similar powers.
In line with
their limited powers under the new system, the Senate may have veto
power over presidential appointments, but only for 60 days. After
that waiting period, the appointment becomes official.
7.
Impeachment should be abolished
When it came
time to establish procedures for removing a President from office,
the Framers adopted a complex set of rules for impeachment, modeled
after the British Parliament's impeachment procedures. In recent
years, other procedures have been substituted for impeachment. The
House or Senate may expel a member without any complex,
quasi-judicial process. There is no reason to continue using this
creaky, 18th century artifact, except that it can be used to
completely stymie the political program of a president, as happened
in President Clinton's second term. That alone is a reason to abandon
the process, not to preserve it.
The last
impeachment proceedings held in the Congress, against William
Clinton, were entirely political in nature. The Republican House
indicted Clinton with only five democratic representatives voting to
impeach. The Republican Senate voted to convict Clinton with none of
the democratic senators joining the Republicans.
The
impreachment of President Clinton was a direct result of a Supreme
Court ruling that Paula Jones could bring a charge against him in a
civil court because there was little likelihood that he would be
hindered in his duties as president while answering the civil suit
(Clinton v. Jones, 1997). The Supreme Court was unanimous in this
decision and they were completely wrong. Clinton spent much of the
rest of his term as president embroiled in the Paula Jones case and
the impreachment that followed.
After the
National Initiative Amendment is passed, the Constitution may
substitute a much simpler procedure involving a recall election. The
House may vote for a recall by a two-thirds majority to place the
recall on a special election ballot. The election must be held within
30 days to avoid any undue delay. If the President loses the recall
election, he is immediately removed from office and the Vice
President assumes his duties.
8.
Sign International Treaties and Remove Exceptions
American
Exceptionalism is a theory that regards the U.S. as a special nation.
The idea has become part of conservative dogma since the 1980s.
Ronald Reagan introduced the concept, if not the name, in a speech
delivered to the first Conservative Political Action Committee.
Reagan claimed he had a mystical revelation that America was part of
a divine plan that involved men who believed in freedom and had a
special kind of courage.
Reagan backed
up his mystical belief in that speech with a number of examples drawn
from history, particularly the history of the founding fathers. Most
of his examples were entirely false, but Reagan connected with the
conservative movement with his folksy charm and his
Hollywood-inflected view of the world and world history.
Since the
1980s, the U.S. has withdrawn more and more from the family of
nations. It has failed to sign treaties that offered cooperation on
war and peace, the climate crisis, and the law of the sea. While
President George H. W. Bush conducted an attack on Iraq with a broad
coalition of nations under the auspices of the United Nations, his
son rejected the advice of the U.N., instead attacking Iraq with a
small coalition of U.S. allies. This action violated the United
Nations Charter by carrying out an aggressive war that did not
respond to a threat against our nation.
Bush appointed
an ambassador to the U.N. who stated that there was no United
Nations, that the U.S. was the only real power in the world and that
sometimes the U.S. could persuade other countries to follow its lead.
This is an expression of American exceptionalism that few countries
in the world could accept.
As a result of
this quasi-religious belief in American exceptionalism,
the U.S. Senate
has repeatedly failed to ratify treaties intended to increase
cooperation between the countries of the world. Instead of leading
the rest of the world, the U.S. has pursued its own interests in
despite of any other country's opinions.
The Supreme
Court has fallen in line with this belief. Its conservative members
refuse to consider any court rulings from outside the U.S. as
persuasive. This position is insulting to jurists in other countries,
especially those who have been working for world peace and
cooperation. Rulings of the Supreme Court have also reduced the reach
of the Alien Tort Statute, further eroding any possibility of legal
remedies for victims of injustice overseas.
We the people
must curtail the power of the Senate to block implementation of
treaties which the executive branch has negotiated and agreed to.
These treaties could be approved by initiative and referendum, but
that process is time-consuming and unnecessary. The Senate should
have the power to block treaties for one year only. After one year,
if the Senate hasn't approved a treaty, it should go into effect
automatically.
9.
Incorporate the International Declaration of the Rights of Man into
our Constitution
The U.S. helped
form the United Nations after World War II. We were then the world
leaders calling other nations to move toward a peaceful world. In
recent years, due in part to the theory of American Exceptionalism,
we have moved away from a vision of the world which was ours. We the
People should reclaim this vision.
The Framers
believed that the Bill of Rights guaranteed all the rights that
government should be concerned with. Their vision of the world did
not extend farther than that. At that moment in time, the Bill of
Rights was a laudable achievement. But we no longer stand at that
moment in time.
Americans
believed in 1945 that they possessed all the virtues in the world,
since their armies had just defeated the alliance that embodied all
the evils in the world. Sixty years later, we know better. We have
seen our own country commit unspeakable crimes, bomb defenseless
civilian populations, torture captives, imprison captured enemy
soldiers indefinitely without trial. We can have only two reactions
to these crimes: We can embrace a theory that defines them as
virtues, since the country that committed them is ordained by God to
be the savior of the world; or we can atone for our errors by
becoming the world leader for peace and prosperity that we once were
and can be again.
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