Ezra Klein, discussing Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson’s retirement.  Read it.

I’ve never discussed this much here, but I am actually a big believer in the Parliamentary system of representative democracy.  I think our Constitutional Republic has certain fatal flaws that either must be reformed to address political reality, or scrapped entirely (Klein addresses a few of them above).  Even Britain has a vibrant 3rd party that was recently instrumental in forming a ruling coalition government with the Tories.  That coalition was able to pass an austerity program, reflecting their policy preferences, relatively quickly.  

Meanwhile, who can reasonably question that ideological partisanship, combined with procedural abuse, has prevented policymakers from implementing their solutions in America?  Britain’s austerity package did not face nearly the political hurdles that the Stimulus or Affordable Care Act did.  The latter was passed in the midst of what was possibly one of the most bitter political battles in recent memory.  It’s legitimacy continues to be contested to this day, even.  Yet Britain’s Tory-Lib Dem coalition was able to implement an austerity program quickly and with little trouble, at least when compared to what happened in America as we debated economic stimulus and healthcare reform.

Parliamentary systems have the advantage of allowing elected officials a certain degree of procedural leeway to act on their platform.  Under our system, an intransigent minority can essentially prevent the other side from achieving any of its policy goals; and quite often, the policies that do come through are half-measures and patch-work compromises that are incapable of completely addressing the problems they purport to solve because they don’t contain the full range of resources or legal instruments that are needed to facilitate the policies themselves.  The Affordable Care Act is a perfect example: you can bet that we would have a Public Option right now if Congress ran more like a Parliament.  

It also warrants mention that those who like the idea of a government that acts less are simply fooling themselves: grid-locked government more often just results in bad legislation squeaking through than it does in bad legislation being stopped.  Politicians who want to be re-elected need something to show for their constituents.  Often, that means passing a healthcare bill without a public option, or caving to tax cut extensions that are bankrupting the U.S. treasury.  For everything else, there’s always the filibuster.  The end result is that we’ve flirted with a completely avoidable economic disaster during the debt ceiling debate; we have a healthcare bill that is hopelessly flawed despite its good provisions; and we have a judiciary that is literally suffocating under Congressional obstruction of judicial nominees.

We can take the easy way out and blame one of the major parties.  Lord knows I’ve done plenty of that myself.  But the real problem is the system that allows all this to happen.  Perhaps adopting a European Parliamentary model isn’t necessarily the best course for America.  But we need, at minimum, procedural reforms in how our Constitutional Republic works.  Without them, our government will continue to be divided, impotent, and institutionally incapable of addressing our nation’s problems.

(via letterstomycountry)