It Might Be Time to Ditch 'Checks and Balances'

The political gridlock in DC can't seem to get much worse, and public opinion polls about Congress can't get much lower. At Medium, Peter Aldhous runs through the usual explanations—partisan media outlets, campaign donations run amok, gerrymandering, to name a few—but he thinks those fed up with the gridlock must ask a more fundamental question regarding the Founding Fathers: That would be "whether a band of eighteenth-century revolutionaries who had just thrown off the yoke of colonialism really have the answers we need for effective government today."

In short, we should think about whether the age of "checks and balances" has run its course, argues Aldhous. He acknowledges it's a "radical" idea, but allowing the majority party to have its way, at least temporarily, might be the only real solution. That might mean scrapping midterm elections, for example, which often result in a House dedicated solely to undermining the president's agenda. "Yes, what I’m proposing would mean accepting that sometimes we have to give those whose views we oppose a few years to put their ideas into practice," he writes. But we'd still be in a democracy, meaning voters can still "vote the bums out" as needed. Click for his full column. (More Congress stories.)