Constitutional Reform and Effective Government

James Sundquist

doi:10.5771/9780815714309

Summary

For years the public has become increasingly disillusioned and cynical about its governmental institutions. In the face of alarming problems-most notably the $400 billion budget deficit-the government seems deadlocked, reduced to partisan posturing and bickering, with the president and Congress blaming each other for failure. And neither party can be held accountable. The public tendency is to blame individual leaders- or politicians as a class-but an insistent and growing number of experienced statesmen and political scientists believe that much of the difficulty can be traced to the governmental structure itself, designed in the eighteenth century and essentially unchanged since then. Is that inherited constitutional system adequate to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, or has the time come for fundamental change? Should we adopt an electoral system that encourages unified control of the presidency, the Senate and the House? Lengthen terms of office? Limit congressional terms? Abolish or modify the electoral college? Introduce a mechanism for calling special elections? Permit legislators to hold executive offices? Redistribute the balance of powers within the governmental system? In this revised edition of his highly acclaimed 1986 volume, James Sundquist reviews the origins and rationale of the constitutional structure and the current debate about whether reform is needed, then raises practical questions about what changes might work best if a consensus should emerge that the national government is too prone to stalemate to meet its responsibilities. Analyzing the main proposals advanced to adapt the Constitution to current conditions, he attempts to separate the workable ideas from the unworkable, the effective from the ineffective, the possibly feasible from the wholly infeasible, and finally arrives at a set of recommendations of his own.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-8230-8
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-1430-9
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 344
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
1. The Current Constitutional Debate No access
2. The Barriers to Constitutional Reform No access
3. The Parliamentary Model—and Incrementalism No access
4. What Changes Might Work? No access
1. Checks on the Congress No access
2. Checks on the President No access
3. The Process of Amendment No access
1. Presidential Tenure No access
2. Presidential Selection No access
3. Linking Cabinet and Congress No access
4. Direct Election of Senators No access
5. The Amendment Process No access
6. Approval of Treaties No access
7. Congressional Tenure No access
8. Removing a Failed President No access
9. The War Power No access
10. Efficiency, Leadership, and Accountability No access
1. The Accepted Theory of Party Government No access
2. The New Era of Divided Government No access
3. Evaluations of Divided Government No access
4. The Origins of Divided Government No access
5. Designing a Solution No access
6. The Presidential-Congressional Team Ticket No access
7. Two Simpler Approaches No access
8. Bonus Seats in Congress No access
9. Effectiveness versus Feasibility No access
1. Windows and Honeymoons No access
2. The Four-Eight-Four Plan No access
3. The Six-Six-Three Plan No access
4. Repeal of the Twenty-second Amendment No access
5. Limiting Congressional Terms No access
6. Electing the President No access
1. Special Elections as the Remedy No access
2. Designing the Special Election Mechanism No access
3. The Need for a Safety Valve No access
1. Modifying the Separation of Powers No access
2. Strengthening Political Parties No access
3. The Promise of Improved Collaboration No access
1. The Item Veto No access
2. The Legislative Veto No access
3. The War Power No access
4. Approval of Treaties No access
5. Breaking Deadlocks by Referenda No access
6. Preserving the Executive-Legislative Balance No access
1. The Difficulty of Doing Anything No access
2. Variations in the Amendment Process No access
3. The Problem of Gainers and Losers No access
1. A No access
2. B No access
3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
8. H No access
9. I No access
10. J No access
11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
14. N No access
15. O No access
16. P No access
17. Q No access
18. R No access
19. S No access
20. T No access
21. U No access
22. V No access
23. W No access
24. Y No access
25. Z No access