When Ben Franklin emerged from Independence Hall on the day that the announcement was made that their work was done and a new Constitution had been written, a woman approached him and asked, “Mr. Franklin, what form of government have you given us?”
His reply tells us a lot. “A republic, madam. If you can keep it.” Which, of course brings us to the question—what the hell is the difference? We’ve all heard the response to gripes about democracy, but do we know what it means? We are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. OK, what’s the difference? It tells us much about the original question regarding whether or not the Founders believed in democracy.
The basic principle of democracy is that government is “by the people.” The society makes the choices of public policy through expression of the popular will. Hence, in its essential component the majority rules. But is that a good thing? Is it even possible? Certainly not in a large society and arguably not even in a small group. Large societies would find it impossible to poll the electorate for decision making. It simply isn’t practical to ask everyone what to do about a problem and even if it were, the decision might not be made with very much information by the group. Who wants to come home from a hard day flipping burgers at the local fast-food emporium to study the ramifications of tax policy, highway construction and relations with Lower Slobovia. The hell with it, just vote no on everything!
So, we have the less direct form of democracy, representative government. It seems like a pretty good idea. The members of the society choose representatives to make the decisions on our behalf. We elect candidates based on their qualifications, experience, and platforms to become knowledgeable on the issues and then select the best course of action for the society in consideration of priorities, availability of resources and the public good. If they do what the majority prefers, they keep their job. If they don’t satisfy the people, they get “un-elected.” And, if they find that their decisions aren’t what the masses want, they have a limited opportunity to convince the great unwashed of the wisdom of their choice and why it is a better course for most of us.
But, that only slows the tyranny of the majority a bit. The elected representatives will still pander to the masses. It’s “bread and circuses” in slow motion. Give them what they want and I’ll be able to keep my job and the perks that come with it. Upset the greater number and I’ll be looking for a new gig. If we read the Constitution that came out of Philadelphia, we’ll begin to see that even this indirect form of democracy didn’t reassure the Founders. They wanted a bit more control.
They gave us some unusual process to form our federal government. It’s a very strange balancing act between public input and control by the educated elites. The Madisonian concept of three distinct branches of government breaks from the British parliamentary concept of fusion of power that merges executive, legislative and judicial functions. Separating the functions and then structuring those elusive checks and balances we all talk about is a masterful work. But, was the described government a democracy?
Let’s take a look at how the people select the membership of that government. It isn’t as straightforward as most of us think. (A lot of folks learned that in the 2000 presidential election!)
First, let’s look at the biggest branch of the government, the legislature. We’ve got a bicameral legislature in the Constitution, one comprised of two chambers unequal in size, power, and selection method. The larger chamber, the House of Representatives, dilutes the power the most. More members from smaller districts mean less authority and impact on policy. They are the ones that get elected directly by the people. True and simple indirect democracy in a nutshell.
But, the Senate was a different story. From the ratification of the Constitution until the 17th Amendment in 1913, the two senators from each state were NOT elected! They were appointed by the legislatures of the respective states. Certainly we could argue that this was democracy, but it was democracy once-removed from the electorate. The legislature of the state got elected, but then it would be one of the “good ol’ boys” who got the prize of going to the Senate of the US. This is clearly a method of keeping the emotional masses from having too great an influence on policy. And, these appointees could quite effectively negate the directly elected group on the other side of the legislature from running away with things. (Since 1913, we have had direct election of senators. Clearly democracy but we might debate whether that is a better method.)
The executive might be the smallest branch of the government, but it could also be the largest depending upon how we measure. There are only two Constitutional positions—the prez and the veep. If we look at the total number of functionaries in the executive however, we find millions. But, only two are elected. All of the rest are appointed and hired. Not very democratic at that level. Let’s just consider the presidency for the sake of determining the Founder’s commitment to democracy. Is he/she elected by the great unwashed? Not exactly!
Since 2000, only the totally uninvolved are unaware of the Electoral College. We almost all know now that the President is elected by the EC, not the popular vote. And, the EC rules are largely determined by the respective states, not by the Constitution. Who is an elector? We have to go to the states to find out the selection processes. How do they vote? Again, the rules are generated locally in large measure.
We can draw some generalities regarding the EC. Most states have pluralities determining a vote for all electors under a “unit rule.” Get the most popular votes in a state, not necessarily a majority of the votes, and you get all of the states electoral votes. Even those states that don’t have legislative mandate for a bloc vote of electors will do so by custom. The result is that presidents are often elected with less than a popular majority. In many instances, considerably less. The process also means that careful counting of a state’s EC votes can lead a candidate to focus on a remarkably small number of states to create a winning EC majority. Clearly not very democratic at that level. Add one last piece to the mix—many state electors are appointed rather than directly elected.
Finally we get to the third component of the federal government, the judiciary. Not elected at all. In fact, that is a pretty good thing as far as justice is concerned since the judges won’t be running for re-election at the expense of plaintiffs and defendants in front of them. No, the judges are appointed by a President who is not directly elected and confirmed by a Senate which was for the first 120 years of the Republic not elected either.
All of this should lead to the conclusion that the Founders were pretty apprehensive regarding the ability of the people to govern themselves effectively. We’ve moved toward popular democracy considerably since the first years of the nation, but most assuredly there are still a lot of buffers between the masses and the policy makers. Good thing or bad thing? Probably quite a bit of both.
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