In Praise Of Gridlock

Government gridlock is a pejorative that careens around political circles to condemn the Constitution's separation of powers and checks and balances and the philosophical cornerstones of the American Revolution. Detractors of gridlock are traitors to our forefathers.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: The US Supreme Court can be seen from the recently restored US Capitol dome, on November 15, 2016 in Washington, D.C. The Architect of the Capitol has completed the restoration of the dome at a cost of $59.55 million. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: The US Supreme Court can be seen from the recently restored US Capitol dome, on November 15, 2016 in Washington, D.C. The Architect of the Capitol has completed the restoration of the dome at a cost of $59.55 million. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

Government gridlock is a pejorative that careens around political circles to condemn the Constitution's separation of powers and checks and balances and the philosophical cornerstones of the American Revolution. Detractors of gridlock are traitors to our forefathers.

The United States marked a break in history. All previous sovereignties had saluted power, empire, conquest, and riches as the summum bonum. The United States, in contrast, was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that government exists to safeguard a fair opportunity for everyone to develop their faculties, pursue their ambitions, and to determine why they exist. Liberty was viewed as inherently good, and coercion was viewed as inherently suspect.

The United States Constitution places a premium on liberty by requiring a high threshold of political consensus for the enactment of legislation--the very definition of coercion. Simple majority rule is blocked in at least seven respects: a division of the legislative power between the House and the Senate; two-year terms for House Members, but six-year terms for Senators; biennium elections for every House seat but only one-third of Senate seats; population-based representation in the House, but equal state representation in the Senate; the election of the President by the Electoral College that disproportionately favors small states; presidential veto power that can be overridden only by two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate; and, a United States Supreme Court appointed for life and empowered to nullify the acts of the Congress or the President as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has praised these checks on pure majority rule as a structural bill of rights to protect the people from tyranny. John Adams, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Stuart Mill, among others have observed that tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. James Madison elaborated in Federalist 10 that the key to justice was the dispersion of power to prevent any single faction from oppressing rivals. And Thomas Jefferson preached that, "Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities."

The Constitution's authors understood that by inviting government gridlock, some good laws might be frustrated. Alexander Hamilton convincingly justified the trade-off in defending the presidential veto in Federalist 73:

"It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments. They will consider every institution calculated to restrain the excess of law-making, and to keep things in the same state in which they happen to be at any given period, as much more likely to do good than harm; because it is favorable to greater stability in the system of legislation. The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones."

Indeed, it is the absence of gridlock that is destroying the United States. Without serious debate or checks, we have endorsed nine (9) multi-trillion dollar gratuitous presidential wars, limitless presidential power to kill, surveil or detain American citizens; to make treaties in the guise of executive agreements and statutes in the guise of executive orders; and, to govern in secrecy.

If we had more gridlock, we would be $10 trillion richer with vastly more liberty and safety. Gridlock should not be used as a pejorative but as a compliment.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot