OPINION:
Those nations that have been most successful in protecting liberty are characterized by strong institutions and traditions that are part of the national culture. The U.S. came very close to losing its liberty-protecting institutions this past year. Leaders of the ruling Democratic party advocated policies that would have, in essence, changed the country from a federal republic to a majoritarian democracy. All too many forget that the goal is liberty, not democracy, which is merely one of the tools to obtain and protect liberty.
If the various pollsters are correct and the Republicans do make a clean sweep, they need to have some real plans, not just for investigations, but for institutional changes that will fix the fundamentals, or they too will be swept out in the subsequent election after they initially gain power.
The American Founders had a justifiable fear of unrestrained democracy. Majoritarian democracies all too often ended up trampling the rights of minorities and eventually imposing the outright repression of those dissenting from the majority view.
The American Founders spoke about their fear that the “passions of the moment” could cause a simple democratic majority to abolish essential liberties, which is why they chose to give us a constitutional republic rather than a democracy.
The Constitution guarantees the people certain unalienable rights, including freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, the right to bear arms, etc. These rights can only be taken away by a lengthy, cumbersome constitutional amendment process, which has the explicit intent of delaying quick action so that the passions of the time might cool, and giving wiser heads the opportunity to make reasoned arguments before the Congress and the media, but also before state legislatures, which are necessary for ratification.
The process has worked well. Other than the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights), which were in essence part of the original Constitution, there have only been 17 amendments over the 235 years that the Constitution has been in effect. Several of the amendments were necessary to extend liberties and the voting franchise to all Americans, including the anti-slavery amendments and giving women the right to vote. The 18th Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages, was repealed by the 21st Amendment (correcting the original mistake).
Two amendments, the 16th allowing a federal income tax and the 17th calling for the direct election of senators rather than having them selected by state legislatures, in retrospect may have been a mistake. The idea that state legislatures should select senators for staggered six-year terms and even direct their votes was designed to counter the populism of the House, to protect the interest of the states, and to shield the federal government from special interests. Again, it protected the country from short-term passions and rampant majoritarianism.
There were charges that “senatorial elections” were being bought as members of state legislatures were accused of trading votes for money. Certainly, some hanky-panky took place but probably not much as alleged; however, the popular and press outcry did result in the direct-election amendment being ratified in 1913. The unintended consequence of the amendment was to make it easier to pass questionable legislation, because there was no longer the restraint of the states on their senators’ actions.
The institution of the filibuster, which became a U.S. Senate rule in 1806, and required a 60% supermajority to cut off debate, served as a restraint on simple majoritarianism despite the direct election of senators after 1913. In recent years, the use of the filibuster has been increasingly restricted, with the Democrats last year threatening to abolish it altogether. In the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has largely abolished the long-established committee system whereby proposed legislation originated in House committees and was subject to hearings, debates and amendments. Much legislation now comes directly from the speaker’s office, as another move toward simple majoritarianism.
The 16th Amendment, by establishing a direct income tax, greatly accelerated the ability of the federal government to tax and spend; and that, coupled with a decline in the role of the appropriations committees, has destroyed almost all restraints on spending growth and debt accumulation. The federal debt as a percentage of GDP is now more than 100% and growing rapidly. The result is that the portion of the annual budget now spent on interest on the debt is growing at a much faster rate than GDP or the federal budget — which mathematically is unsustainable. This will lead to a money meltdown.
It may be too late to change the course without fundamental reform, again illustrating that unrestrained majority democracy is not sustainable and may end in disaster. The longer-term fix is to amend the Constitution to require super-majorities for all measures that increase taxes and spending to balance off the pressure on elected officials to always spend more on projects that benefit various subsets of voters.
In order to replace the restraining effect of the filibuster and the selection of senators by state legislators, the country needs to reestablish effective supermajority vote requirements in the Senate for approval of all judges and senior executive branch officials. This should somewhat mitigate the decline in competence of executive branch officials as they would actually be subject to better oversight and evaluation.
Much of the recent hyper-partisanship is a result of moving to simple majorities for legislation and policies. Supermajority requirements often force compromise and civility.
• Richard W. Rahn is chair of the Institute for Global Economic Growth and MCon LLC.
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