Did Bicameralism get that Second “camera” Correct?
Thomas LyonsStephen Covey wrote that most people spend their time on that which is urgent, and not necessarily important. Effective people decide on their courses of action based on that which is important, irregardless of urgency. Back to this later…
In forming the federal government, the founding fathers initiated a bicameral legislature. If you’ve forgotten high school civics, smaller states feared being voted out of policy decisions; ergo we have a Senate, giving smaller states equal voice to larger states. Larger states feared inadequate representation for their larger populaces; ergo we have a House of Representatives to ensure pockets of citizens have equal voice.
I know I left some things out. The Senate was also intended to insulate the government from the unfiltered voice of the people, as Senators were originally elected by state legislatures to six-year terms. The House was to be this outlet of unadulterated popular thought as representatives are, to this day, elected every other year directly by the people.
Over time, both houses have done what they can to further insulate themselves from the people, the 17th amendment notwithstanding. Without codified term limits, re-election becomes a heightened priority of the elected official. There are two methods by which re-election becomes a bit easier: further self-insulation from the elected populace that an official represents, and when accountability necessitates it, do whatever the hell 51% of voters are immediately demanding.
We can see the former with organized efforts toward targeted redistricting, pork spending, and codified incumbent protection. The latter strategy, however, forces a representative who can’t fully qualify for government-fed populace-insulation to concede reason for the short-term interests of getting re-elected where the two don’t co-exist well. The result? Long-term issues, without an immediate threat to Joe Citizen, remain ignored.
This commonly occurs on Wall Street. CEOs are constantly at risk of shareholders voting them out or being fired by boards which represent them. It’s difficult to sell folks on long-term issues when their IRA needs a great dividend today. The same applies in politics. Social Security will crash in 2026, but the voter wants free health care today; perhaps said health care industry was doomed with the installation of Medicare, but how else was Lyndon Johnson to be re-elected?
Consider, instead, a bicameral legislature centered not on states and districts being equally heard. The House of Representatives would be entirely like it is today; citizens regularly voting directly for or against their officials. The second legislative body, which I’ll call the “Long-Term Representatives,” would be the vehicle by which long-term issues couldn’t remain ignored. LTRs would be fifty members strong, with an election occurring in two states every year. The winners of these annual elections would be given 25-year terms, or some other term of considerable length.
Of course, the Long-Term House needs some out-clauses to evict the underperforming. But given a 25-year outlook, the Long-Term House would be uniquely positioned to apply pressure on the Short-Term House to address Social Security’s Collapse, Alternative Energy, Peak Oil, and a host of other issues that no one with a two-year plan will effectively tackle. The Long-Term House would be the voice for that which is important, as it would be freed from “the tyranny of the urgent.”
This plan is not without its faults, of course. This plan only places a burden of addressing these issues on the newly created LTR House, but only negatively incentives it. I’m certainly open to other suggestions as to creating some more awareness of long-term problems. What is clear, however, is that a system that does incentive a reduction of self-accountability and enhances catering to short-term paranoia does no justice to issues that demand a longer-term focus.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
You brought up codified term limits, but did not compare them to your suggestion of LTRs. What do you think the advantages of term extensions are over codified term limits?
December 13th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Under our current system, at least politicians have an incentive to address short term problems. I see no advantage to creating a body which has no incentive to address either short-term or long-term problems.
December 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
The absence of long-term perspective is evidently a problem. Like you say, long term planning doesn’t occur because there is no immediate incentive. Members of a new chamber of congress with virtual life-terms would be insulated from pressure to ignore long-term good for short-term benefit, but where is the incentive to act with farsighted wisdom, rather than just to act for partisan advantage for a very long time? Reelection pressure may be an inefficient incentive, but its undeniably effective.
It looks to me like maybe you’re trying to dress oligarchy up in republican clothes, saying what we really ought to do is play at self-rule–let the House and Senate have the helm when there’s nothing important at stake, but for the big stuff, turn it over to these magically wise enlightened few.
December 14th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Well, this is after all a fallen world. Is force the only way to systematically affect change, or rather, bring about a positive long-term outcome?
This oligarchy you speak of; exactly how is that different from the Judiciary, but for judges and justices not claiming official party allegiances?
Before scoffing at this next idea, remember that our only orthodoxy is reason: perhaps instead of fixed long terms, 2 seats (or some number) will be randomly selected for an election each year. The mighty arm of random selection could strike at any time, forcing prudent decision-making always, while still virtually granting
December 19th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Well Tom, I’d say that the oligarchy Jeremy speaks of is different from the Judiciary as it was and should be, as opposed to how it frequently is today. The concepts of power for power’s sake and of the use of law to realize policies (instead of the use of policies to realize moral or ethical choices) are more recent developments in the US — not really existing before the New Deal, and not holding sway before the 60s.
And I don’t think that the Founders’ original vision missed the second camera. We chose to alter that vision to make it less republican and more democratic. Perhaps we erred, but if we did then that’s democracy.
You raise a legitimate question when you ask whether force is the only way to make lasting change, or to decide anything. Does Right exist? If so, what does it have to say when Might is not on its side? What, if anything, are we obliged to do when that happens? These questions go back at least as far as Thucydides and the Melian Dialogue.
The answer that I think the Founders came to was that Right exists, but, while Might does not make Right, in the end it is the only way to reliably enforce Right, so the most important thing for them was designing a system of laws to guarantee that Right would probably be done most of the time. That system included having a quasi-House of Lords more insulated from the whims of popular opinion that could act as a more deliberative check on legislative fads and passions. We, whether in wisdom or folly, altered that system to markedly decrease that insulation. But, assuming that we acted foolishly, I don’t think that reinstating it to a degree that even the Founders apparently thought unnecessary is the correct way to fix what we broke.