If we come back from this, one of the first things needs to be the US Marshall service being moved under control of the Judiciary. So they have an actual enforcement arm for their decisions, instead of relying entirely on the Executive, which clearly will just ignore the decisions, and Congress will sit idly by.
Congress has two ways to override the Executive, one is veto overrides. The other is impeachment, which also can override the Judicial, and the processes include the enforcement of those decisions.
The Executive enforces laws as its primary function. As such, they can enforce those laws against the Legislative and Judicial as necessary.
One of the two main purposes of the Judicial branch is to ensure the other two are writing the laws correctly, and that those laws follow the requirements of existing ones, like the Constitution. So they can rule on passed laws, but they do not have a mechanism to enforce those, they rely on the Executive to do that, even if the Executive is the issue. Or they rely on the Legislative to act on a lack of enforcement.
The Judicial as it sits, is both one of the strongest and weakest links in the system. And until now, that weak part hasn’t really been exposed since the Justice Department has historically been generally left to operate independently of the President, even though nothing actually prevents it from being abused like this.
Congress also needs to re-establish it’s own enforcement capabilities. The “guard rooms” in the capitol need to be fitted with modern prison cells and the Sergeants at Arms of the House and Senate need to have contingents of trained officers under their own command. It’s high time that people refusing to answer to Congress or committing contempt of Congress be detained properly without having to wait on a corrupt Department of Justice to to their job.
Personally, if the USA gets a complete overhaul, I think that there should be checks and balances through how each branch gets personnel. Furthermore, a fourth branch, the military, so that the executive isn’t in charge of that function.
The staffing concept goes something like this:
Congress decides how many personnel the other branches can hire each year. Congress has to ask the judiciary, executive, and military branches to give them people to fill assorted roles as part of the congressional branch.
The judiciary hires and trains bureaucrats and military commanders. After they have completed training, they are passed onto the executive, congressional, and military branches. Every so often, commanders and burecrats will have to be retrained by the judiciary.
The executive will train ordinary soldiers, and release them into the service of the military. The executive also assigns logistical staff for the military, such as quartermasters, kitchen staff, and so on.
Once a bureaucrat or military member is a certain age, they can either retire or continue their career working for the judiciary. As members of the judicial branch, these workers can serve as bailiffs, enforcement troops for court orders, be assigned to serve congress as support staff, and so on. This means the judicial has a relatively fewer bodies than other branches, but they are also the most experienced.
The military can give the other branches defensive staff, such as cybersecurity experts, embassy guards, and so on.
Probably not perfect by any stretch, but the idea is to make it harder for any one branch to become “the” branch when it comes to human resources.
Ehh, that sounds over-engineered in my opinion, and reveals a lack of understanding of the organizational structure of the government. I understand you say it’s an overhaul, but I think it stretches credulity a little too far.
Aside from the fact that it’s unlikely to work as intended, it could also create a variety of unseen issues which may be even worse in the long run. Generally, large changes to the constitutional order need to be done with the utmost care. There’s a good reason it would require supermajorities in both chambers, as well as the agreement of a supermajority of member states. That being said, it’s not likely to gain that much support.
There are other more important changes that I think it would be better to focus on, which also have a greater chance of passing given enough support.
For instance, moving the Marshalls under the Judiciary is downright sensical; and as recent events make abundantly clear, necessary. Maybe even the entire DOJ, although putting prosecutors and sitting judges under the same authority might be dangerous.
We could add to that, giving Congress control over their own independent (and non-partisan; precisely how to achieve this would have to be worked out) security force.
Beyond that, we need electoral reform (ranked-choice voting and perhaps proportional representation), education reform (self-explanatory), healthcare reform (universal public healthcare, obviously), labor rights, consumer rights, the list goes on. Criminal justice reform as well. A lot of pieces of this pie, but that doesn’t mean we need to turn it into a pretzel.
Oh and of course, overturning the Citizens United ruling, bringing back Net Neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine, and undoing so many other harmful rulings that have accrued over the decades since Nixon and Reagan.
Undoing the legacies of Reaganomics more broadly and returning to a more FDR-style economic system.
And of course a full-blown demagafication project, and not half-assed like Reconstruction either.
There go your checks and balances.
If we come back from this, one of the first things needs to be the US Marshall service being moved under control of the Judiciary. So they have an actual enforcement arm for their decisions, instead of relying entirely on the Executive, which clearly will just ignore the decisions, and Congress will sit idly by.
Congress has two ways to override the Executive, one is veto overrides. The other is impeachment, which also can override the Judicial, and the processes include the enforcement of those decisions.
The Executive enforces laws as its primary function. As such, they can enforce those laws against the Legislative and Judicial as necessary.
One of the two main purposes of the Judicial branch is to ensure the other two are writing the laws correctly, and that those laws follow the requirements of existing ones, like the Constitution. So they can rule on passed laws, but they do not have a mechanism to enforce those, they rely on the Executive to do that, even if the Executive is the issue. Or they rely on the Legislative to act on a lack of enforcement.
The Judicial as it sits, is both one of the strongest and weakest links in the system. And until now, that weak part hasn’t really been exposed since the Justice Department has historically been generally left to operate independently of the President, even though nothing actually prevents it from being abused like this.
Congress also needs to re-establish it’s own enforcement capabilities. The “guard rooms” in the capitol need to be fitted with modern prison cells and the Sergeants at Arms of the House and Senate need to have contingents of trained officers under their own command. It’s high time that people refusing to answer to Congress or committing contempt of Congress be detained properly without having to wait on a corrupt Department of Justice to to their job.
That’s a great idea, and in hindsight it’s ridiculous that it isn’t already like that.
Personally, if the USA gets a complete overhaul, I think that there should be checks and balances through how each branch gets personnel. Furthermore, a fourth branch, the military, so that the executive isn’t in charge of that function.
The staffing concept goes something like this:
Congress decides how many personnel the other branches can hire each year. Congress has to ask the judiciary, executive, and military branches to give them people to fill assorted roles as part of the congressional branch.
The judiciary hires and trains bureaucrats and military commanders. After they have completed training, they are passed onto the executive, congressional, and military branches. Every so often, commanders and burecrats will have to be retrained by the judiciary.
The executive will train ordinary soldiers, and release them into the service of the military. The executive also assigns logistical staff for the military, such as quartermasters, kitchen staff, and so on.
Once a bureaucrat or military member is a certain age, they can either retire or continue their career working for the judiciary. As members of the judicial branch, these workers can serve as bailiffs, enforcement troops for court orders, be assigned to serve congress as support staff, and so on. This means the judicial has a relatively fewer bodies than other branches, but they are also the most experienced.
The military can give the other branches defensive staff, such as cybersecurity experts, embassy guards, and so on.
Probably not perfect by any stretch, but the idea is to make it harder for any one branch to become “the” branch when it comes to human resources.
Ehh, that sounds over-engineered in my opinion, and reveals a lack of understanding of the organizational structure of the government. I understand you say it’s an overhaul, but I think it stretches credulity a little too far.
Aside from the fact that it’s unlikely to work as intended, it could also create a variety of unseen issues which may be even worse in the long run. Generally, large changes to the constitutional order need to be done with the utmost care. There’s a good reason it would require supermajorities in both chambers, as well as the agreement of a supermajority of member states. That being said, it’s not likely to gain that much support.
There are other more important changes that I think it would be better to focus on, which also have a greater chance of passing given enough support.
For instance, moving the Marshalls under the Judiciary is downright sensical; and as recent events make abundantly clear, necessary. Maybe even the entire DOJ, although putting prosecutors and sitting judges under the same authority might be dangerous.
We could add to that, giving Congress control over their own independent (and non-partisan; precisely how to achieve this would have to be worked out) security force.
Beyond that, we need electoral reform (ranked-choice voting and perhaps proportional representation), education reform (self-explanatory), healthcare reform (universal public healthcare, obviously), labor rights, consumer rights, the list goes on. Criminal justice reform as well. A lot of pieces of this pie, but that doesn’t mean we need to turn it into a pretzel.
Oh and of course, overturning the Citizens United ruling, bringing back Net Neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine, and undoing so many other harmful rulings that have accrued over the decades since Nixon and Reagan.
Undoing the legacies of Reaganomics more broadly and returning to a more FDR-style economic system.
And of course a full-blown demagafication project, and not half-assed like Reconstruction either.