Classical Liberals & Constitutional Change: Moe, Howell Go Badly Astray on Presidential Power

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Ricochet: Classical Liberals & Constitutional Change: Moe, Howell Go Badly Astray on Presidential Power

Richard Epstein June 24, 2016

 

On April 26, Basic Books published a new book by Terry Moe and William G. Howell, Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government — And Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency, which then they thereafter summarized in a Defining Ideas Column on June 2. I responded in my own Defining Ideas Column on June 6, which challenged the idea that a modern constitution — or more precisely, their modern constitutional changes — was an improvement on the current structure. Their basic proposal is that the Constitution should create a second track for enacting new laws, whereby the President may propose new legislation which the two Houses of Congress must vote up-or-down, no amendments allowed, within some short period. The gist of that provision is to increase the power of the presidency relative to that of the Congress, in a way that virtually guarantees, especially when both Houses are in control of the President’s party, the passage of many new laws. Moe and Howell think that there is much to be had in ending gridlock and in overcoming the “profoundly ineffective” constitution that the Framers put into place for the agrarian nation of their time.

 

In my view, their proposal represents a huge backward step in constitutional government. The system with separation of powers on the one side, and checks and balances on the other, is not a peculiar response suitable only for a small agrarian politics nation. It is a calculated response against the dangers of political faction — one which rests on the judgment that the hasty enactment of laws is more dangerous that the delayed enactment of new laws. The obstacles that are put in the path of new legislation are a conscious effort to counter an endemic risk to all political institutions, ancient and modern, large or small.