There are many advantages to a parliamentary system that our current system lacks:
(1) Accountability to the legislature. A Prime Minister can be compelled to answer questions about his job performance. There would be no Executive Privilege. I see no practical reason to shield the Executive from Legislative accountability. The Executive should exist purely to enforce the will of the legislature and not run off and do its own thing.
The only reason I could think of for maintaining executive privilege would be on issues of national security. But that could be taken care of by having the Prime Minister talk in secret sessions.
(2) Possibility of “No Confidence” votes. Under our current system, even a grossly incompetant President can remain in office with no means of removing him. Impeachment is insufficient to correct this problem because it’s only supposed to be for high crimes.
No Confidence would allow Congress to remove executive branch officials without any need to show he committed a crime. Officials like Donald Rumsfeld could be fired for their poor handling of scandals and negligence in performing their duties even if they haven’t technically committed any felonies.
(3) Distinction between Head of State and Head of Government. I think it’s crucial that we have such a distinction. In America people often take criticism of the President as an insult on the country itself instead of as a legitimate disagreement on policy matters. That’s because our President represents both our current government and the country.
If we separate these two functions, we can have it both ways: A figurehead we can all rally behind, and a head of government we are free to criticize without being labeled unpatriotic.
But it’s not going to happen. Ever. There is no consensus whatever for changing the Constitution, which would have to be amended to make a parliamentary system possible, and there never will be.
“Presidential vs. parliamentary system: Which is better?”
In his book The Frozen Republic (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996) – the most exhaustive and well-thought-out attack on the United States Constitution I have ever read – Daniel Lazare argues forcefully for the vigor and effectiveness of a parliamentary system as opposed to a separation-of-powers system. To put this in perspective, Lazare is a socialist and chafes at the elements of our constitution that were designed to impede state action – the federal system and the bicameral system, as well as separation of powers. He argues for devolving all effective power on the House of Representatives and reducing the Senate to the status of a symbolic advisory body, like the British House of Lords.
Correct me if I’m wrong. Our government doesn’t change with the election of a new president. The government under Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II are all the same government.
Not exactly. It would mean a complete rewrite of Article II, which provides for the office of president, and specifies the president’s powers and mode of election. The rest of the Constitution could remain as it is.
You’re either not American, or you’re forgetting high school civics. The Federal Government runs on a system of checks and balances, where each branch has a limited power to do its own thing, and a limited power to override the other branches. This means (in theory) that no one branch can “run off and do its own thing.” Executive can’t invade (or do much of anything) without approval from the Legislative branch. But Executive has veto power. Judicial can’t create laws, but it can interpret, change, or bar them. Legislative has to submit to the wills of the other two. This also means that a party simply winning majority of Legislative is not enough to establish sweeping policy change, and ditto with Executive, though the two branches together can, assuming Judicial finds it legal.
The system is rather inefficient by design, not by accident. The theory was that a stable government that makes changes slowly and can’t be swung in one term would work better, and for the most part, it has worked pretty well, given that political parties in America have tended to be on the moderate side, since they need swing votes.
The Executive branch is pretty carefully balanced. It can’t, as you say, just run off and do its own thing. The Pres and Veep actually have pretty limited direct powers beyond appointing people to positions and veto.
It would also allow a majority in Legislative (whose purpose is to make laws) to overthrow the entire Executive branch. No branch should have that power, no matter how unlikely it may be for it to be used (in the obvious example, why would the People elect a radically leftist Legislature and radically rightist Executive). Further, defining “no confidence” is up to interpretation, not legal status. There are plenty of political processes through which the Legislative can coerce the Executive into trimming someone it doesn’t like, or behaving a certain way - in essence, by just not cooperating with him. Executive can’t do much without Legislative support, and if enough of the Legislature is going to be THAT against Executive, they can easily override anything he wants done.
I think this was supposed to be the original role of the “president.” It has morphed into a figurehead position. I think that, even if he had a label like “Prime Minister,” the people would still see him in the same light. The reason? America is a large country. It will unite behind whatever figurehead is available - look at the Soviet Union or China, for example. Both have “diverse” heads of state, but nonetheless have a ranking official.
Oh, additionally, this would take a Constitutional Convention to do, which means (if I recall correctly) 2/3rd state approval. Basically, you have a lot of convincing to do.
I’m not sure why you need to separate those functions. I know for both Canada and Australia, the Head of State is a ceremonial position that could just as easily be done away with (at a MASSIVE cost savings).
Your debate and really be simplified to say, “should the US get rid of the President?”
You already have a parliamentary system built into your House of Representatives. If you’d like, just declare the party with the most members in the house to be your government, they would choose a party leader and he/she/it would be the President. Then replace all your Secretary positions with elected members from the same party. And voila you’ve got a parliamentary system. If you want, your cabinet (the President and Secretaries) could still hang out in the White House.
The only difference is that when the President decides to pass a bill, he or his Secretary will actually have to stand up in the House and defend that bill. And several times a week, members from the opposition party will be free to ask the President and his Secretaries questions that they will have to stand and avoid. Its fun, give it a try.
Curiously enough, I am in agreement with Zagadka. Great post IMO, pretty much says what I was going to say.
I have nothing against the Brits system btw. I just think our system works better for us than their system would work for us. Even if I didn’t, there isn’t a snow balls chance in hell that we are ever going to re-write the majority of the Constituation or revamp the government to this level. I disagree that it would merely be a re-write of Article II as Brain contends. That would be a quick fix and would unbalance the government. No, if we were REALLY going to do it, we’d have to re-write the checks and balances from the ground up IMO…something that is not going to happen.
Not really. Diplomatic realities require that we have someone to carry out the functions of the head of state. Frankly, by having a stand-in head of state, we save a fair amount of money versus what it would cost to have a separate one.*
I would be interested in the comparisons between the cost of the functions of the governor general and the costs incurred by the presidents of various countries while performing the same functions.
*Not to say the British get the short end of the stick. You only ever hear about the amount taken from the treasury to pay for the monarchy’s state business (the Civil List); what you don’t hear about is the fact that the revenue from the monarchy’s personal domains (the Crown Estate), well in excess of this amount, is surrendered into the government’s treasury in exchange for the Civil List. cite
In parliamentary systems, the prime minister is head of government. He is a very political figure, and oftentimes a divisive one. Thus, events and rituals requiring the entire nation be represented, like state funerals, Olympic games, military awards, and the like, if represented by the prime minister, would serve only to anger a good chunk of the population.
For better or worse, the recent experiences of both Clinton and Bush bear this out.
Thus, such systems usually have a figurehead, serving above the political fray, acting as head of state. Sometimes this figurehead is a member of a royal family. More often it is an elder statesman who gets named to a post of president or governor general.
In the United States, the vice-president usually assumes the ceremonial roles associated with a head of state.
Different systems, different rules. I see no reason to change, myself. But I don’t think anybody else needs to adopt our system, either.
There are many advantages to both systems. One advantage of the parlimentary system I have not seen in here was pointed out by Barbara Tuchman in “The March of Folly”. In parlimentary systems the various ministers of government, what we would see as the President’s cabinet, are actually ministers of parliment. This provides them with an out in cases where they disagree with the Prime Minister. That is, they can resign their seat as the Intererior Minister, for example and simply take up their seat in parliment. This means that they still have a voice. For telling, for instance, why they left the government. Cabinet members, on the other hand have to resigne themselves to leaving government altogether if they decide to leave thier post. It can mean that cabinet ministers will knuckle under to a policy which they might otherwise oppose.
Also, I very much like the idea that a President has to stand up before congress and answer questions. I enjoy watching Blair doing it every chance I get.
Meanwhile, I think the the seperation of powers has a profound limiting effect on government. The recent experience with the Clinton Presidency is, I think, proof of this. While the Bush Presidency might be an example of the follies possible when the Congress and the President are from the same party. Just a thought.
I guess that’s what I don’t understand. I mean, I don’t really like Bush, but I don’t see how him going to a state funeral or hosting the Olympics would bother me. There’s not even anything really partisan or controversial he can do there.
government here is becoming increasingly presidential in style. Prime Minister Blair treats Parliament with total contempt, save as an instrument to do his bidding, and the ability of M.P.s, let alone members of the Lords, to hold the executive to account or achieve worthwhile change to anything is rapidly shrinking.
Many countries of the world follow such a scheme. I think we need a non political ceremonial Head of State. Having a President who is both Head of State and Head of Government makes it damned near impossible to criticize him during times of crises. Why do you think Bush’s approval rating jumped to 90% right after 9/11? Did he magically become a better President because there was a major terrorist attack under his watch? No. Even people who normally hated Bush supported him in the days following the crises because he not only personifies our government, he personifies the United States itself. Any criticism of him in tough times is often seen as attacking our country. This opens a door to give him free reign to do whatever he wants. That is why we need to separate these roles.