We already have a Pit thread on this, but I think the issue is important enough to merit the more sober and measured treatment typical of GD (oh, stop that snickering!).
Venezuela’s Congress just granted President Hugo Chavez the power to govern by decree for the next 18 months, for purposes of carrying out still more of the elements of his “Bolivarian revolution.”
On the one hand, this raises up images of “democratic despots” like Napoleon, the Reichstag voting emergency powers to Hitler, etc., etc. Once power like this is vested in a single person – it tends to remain there, whether that one person takes it with good or bad intentions. It’s scary! It’s scary!
OTOH, not always. And, as tagos pointed out in the Pit thread, the presidents of many other countries we generally count as democracies, such as France, Mexico and Indonesia, have similarly broad executive powers. So does the PM of the UK, under the doctrine of “Crown Prerogative.” And, as CBEScapee pointed out, this Ley Habilitante (Enabling Act) is perfectly constitutional in Venezuela and has been used to grant temporary decree powers to several previous presidents. And the present Congress resulted from an election the opposition ostentatiously boycotted, so they have no business complaining. And, no matter which way you look at it, as with everything else about the “Bolivarian Revolution,” it appears these are powers most Venezuelans really, really want Chavez to have. Rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, the people want it – and, as H.L. Mencken said, they deserve to get it good and hard.
So – is this decision an abandonment of democracy in Venezuela? A threat to democracy? Or a fulfillment of democracy?
All you need to do is imagine that the same thing had happened in the US under George Bush, after he had succeeded in getting Congress and the states to nullify the 22nd amendment. Now, answer those questions honestly.
OK, let’s assume that Bush didn’t nullify the 22nd amendment. Some wording in the Constitution allows him to gives himself Chavez-like powers until January 2009. He does so.
Since it’s legal and Bush the elected leader of the US, is this a blow for or against Democracy?
Neither, simply an exercise of something the Framers built into the Constitution for reasons that seemed good to them at the time – which ought to be enough for us, as I’m sure Bricker would agree. And if that were in the Constitution, W certainly would not be the first POTUS to use it.
The “unitary executive” theory, OTOH, is a hallucination.
I see absolutely no reason to let an executive rule by decree except in extreme situations (like everyone in Congress getting blown up by terrorists) and even then it’d only be in the interim period while the legislative branch gets back in order (two months, tops).
If Congress is willing to let him do whatever he wants, I guess that’s their prerogative. But they should at least have to have a separate vote on every new policy they want to rubber stamp… I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.
Of course it isn’t a separate issue!! Acts don’t exist in a vacuum, and in order to judge what Chavez is up to, you have to look at the sum of all his actions taken together.
I would. Currently, those agencies have broad power to make policy without any input from the elected branches of government. Inserting input from one branch of elected government is a more democratic method for setting policy. We may not all agree that is the best policy, but it is policy that has input from the electorate.
Sounds like a simple matter of an aggregate function in the spreadsheet: Since they already have the detail figures, just add them up. Mr. Bass is essentially arguing for the position of keeping the financial implications of new regulations away from the public. Why shouldn’t we be told the potential cost of federal regulations, especially since they’re already calculated?
As far as I can tell, the opposition doesn’t like the fact that the process is now more transparent to the electorate and denies a number of people of their ability to govern by regulatory fiat. Again, what’s wrong with this? Getting rid of such “unfunded mandates” is one of the things that the 1994 election results were based upon. I’m glad to see they’re finally getting with the program. To late to do this guy much good, but at least he (maybe) accomplished one thing in his pathetic career.
Regardless, a possible change in a small part of the regulatory process in the US has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, which is Chavez being handed dictatorial powers by his countries legislature. So, to keep the thread on-topic, that’s that last I’ll say about this.
Well, if W were POTUS, and the 22nd Amendment had been repealed, and Congress were considering granting him powers even more extraordinary than those he has already grabbed, I would not be against it on constitutional grounds, because your hypothetical assumes there would be none (as there are none in Venezuela). I might or might not be against it on democratic grounds, depending on whether W had a real solid electoral mandate in that alternate universe, as he does not in this one (whereas Chavez does). I certainly would be against it on policy grounds, because I don’t want W in particular having any more power. If, OTOH, our president under that scenario were a second FDR . . .