Good morning FRians and Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend. As usual, if we have a Monday post, it’s because Stephen Hall wrote one. Thank you so much Stephen!
It appears that a large number of leftists are whining about certain proposed legislation in lame-duck sessions in the Wisconsin and Michigan which mimic similar actions which occurred in North Carolina a couple of years ago.
In essence, the Republican legislatures seek to reign in the unilateral power of certain executive branch offices, particularly the Attorney General and the Governors office in these states, along with the Secretary of State office in Michigan.
They readily concede that: “It’s not uncommon for a party on the cusp of losing power to use its final days in office to pass significant legislation even after voters have rendered their verdict.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/gop-power-grab-wisconsin-and-michigan/577246/
However, they have taken to such extremist language as calling it a “legislative coup”, “an embarrassment”, and “more becoming of a Third World country”, all while admitting that such laws are being proposed and voted upon by a duly elected legislature and potentially signed by a sitting governor.
Democrats, naturally, oppose the legislative process by recourse to the courts in hopes that the third branch of government will overturn the actions of the other two at a time when a subsequent Democrat in the executive offices will back the judicial overreach.
Ironically, these leftists are calling the limiting and reduction of executive power by the legislature a “power grab”. It is, by definition, the exact opposite of a “power grab” being an explicit limitation on executive power and placing more power back in the hands of that branch of government most closely connected to the citizen, the legislature.
It is the nature of the political animal to not want to give up political power. On the other hand it is the nature of partisan politics to limit, as much as possible, the political power of one’s opponents.
Are these moves by the Republican majority legislatures designed to “strip power” from the incoming Democrat executive officials as the leftist assert? Technically, no.
You cannot strip power from an office holder who does not actually hold office. While if exclusively affects the incoming office holder, it actually takes power from the current office holder, largely with that office holder’s own consent.
The language used to oppose these proposed legislation is hyper-dramatic like every leftist cause, the end of the world, a travesty of biblical proportions, and a man-made cataclysm.
It is clearly designed as a partisan effort the reduce the power and limit the options of the incoming opposition party much in the vein of a poisoned pill, and the Democrats are already licking their lips in anticipation of some future retaliation against Republicans in the same vein.
Viewed from outside the political grudge match, is there a real problem with limiting executive authority? Is there a real problem with limiting the authority of incoming office-holders and their ability to abruptly change governmental policy?
The real question is when can such change ever occur? When can the power of government be limited, given that it is the nature of government to continually strive towards accumulating more power?
Is it necessary to engage in violent revolution or revolt and protest on a periodic basis as many of the Founding Fathers believed? “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” – Thomas Jefferson.
There exists a less violent means to reduce the power and scope of government, but it is severely limited and traditionally under-utilized. It is that natural inclination prior to the transition of power to limit the power of the incoming replacement faction.
If you fear that being out of power, the incoming faction will abuse that power against your own faction, ergo driving the desire to limit and restrict the very power and scope of government itself.
After the 1994 election, the newly elected Congress under the misguided leadership of Newt Gingrich took exactly the wrong approach to the issue.
Having been in the minority for decades, the new Republican majority changed the rules to give the minority a greater voice in legislation and a greater ability to amend or even block legislation which the minority opposed. In short, the Republicans decided to treat the Democrats the way that the Republicans had wished the Democrats would have treated them while they were in the minority.
The result was, quite predictably, that the Democrats used this leave granted them and opposed, blocked, and sabotaged much of the Republican proposed legislation. While some Republican legislation did get passed, albeit watered down versions, the “Contract with America” which had been such a political success, turned into a largely legislative disappointment.
Strategically speaking, when a party has the power to advance their agenda they ought to use that power to advance their agenda. The Republicans in ‘94, upon attaining that power in Congress, promptly gave up that power and then struggled to move their agenda.
The proper strategic time to reduce the power of government, regardless of which branch of government it is, is in that transition time when one is leaving office. It is the only viable time to reduce the power of the state and there is ample motivation to empower the minority when you are on the very verge of becoming that minority.
It is part of the foolish Keynesian economic theory that government should create debts to stimulate the economy then pay down those debts to slow down that economy. Of course, no politician ever actually wants to slow down the economy as it looks bad upon them, and any anticipated ill effects will fall on the next guy. Thus, government debts don’t ever really get paid.
Similarly, government power tends to grow when there is one party rule, regardless of which party is in power. In theory that state power should be reduced whenever a party is in the process of losing power, but like the Keynesian economic foolishness, we really have not witnessed the reduction of state power which should come about periodically.
However, unlike Keynesian economics, there is no real disincentive for the politician to reduce the power of the state whenever they are about to lose political power.
One of the reasons people really should throw the bums out on a regular basis is that only on their way out do they have a real valid reason to actually do the right thing, even if it is purely for the purpose of partisan bickering.
My home state has only had in its history two transitions of party power in the legislature. For the first seventy plus years the state was overwhelmingly Republican, however, with the rise of the power of the coal unions, the Democrats took control then proceeded to retain control for over eighty years. Only recently has the legislature turned back to Republican.
As you can imagine, the state government concentrated a lot of power during those long reigns of single party rule in the state. This concentrated state power has been one of the major economic restrictions holding back the state. Single party rule tends to promote corruption and what they euphemistically like to call “the old boys network”.
In all, this cacophony of leftist, and statist, whiners that their newly elected officials might not have all of the power of the current officials is music to the ears of anyone who hears the melodious syrens’ call of the limited government of a proper republic.
Change parties in power often, vote out incumbents, and you will hear every more complaining and whining. Their whining means that people are reducing the state power on their way out of office, which means the power of the citizen must grow in proportion.
