Montesquieu's writings on the doctrine of separation of powers heavily influenced the American founding fathers such as Madison and Hamilton. The American Presidential system has proven to be one of the most stable and clean political systems. Yet other Presidential systems have proven open to usurpation by dictators and tyrants.

The Parliamentary system in comparison was an emergent system that grew out of the need to route power away from a Monarch while still maintaining their ceremonial authority. It mixes the executive and legislative arms of government, yet has proven a fairly stable form of liberal democracy.

It is fair to say that an future evolutionary form of Australian Government, at the state and federal level will have to incorporate a parliamentary system. There are many well established conventions and the Australian people are familiar with the system. Consequently, the positives and negatives of the parliamentary system need to be understood so any evolutionary system encourages the former and inhibits the latter.

Checks and Balances

Montesquieu divided the political sphere into sovereign and administrative. The monarch occupied the sovereign component and the administrative was dominated by the executive, legislative and judicial arms. This is the separation of powers. They are defined by;

• The executive executes laws.
• The legislative makes laws.
• The judicial interprets laws.

For example in a libertarian civic society. The Executive runs the police force. The Legislative makes the laws that the police force enforces and the Judicial interprets those laws to determine any punitive measures against offenders. That is government at its most simplest. Nothing about health, education, roads, child-care, tax-breaks, etc etc etc.

Oneness

An aspect of Montesquieu's political philosophy is that the separation of powers is at its most strongest when no individual can occupy a position in more than one branch of government at the one time. In Madison's implementation of this philosophy in the American republic, separation of powers is the means by which liberty is preserved and government's predilection to tyranny inhibited.

From the Federalist Paper No.47;

One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favour of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts. No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Madison saw that having those department's wholly separate from each other an operating in isolation was just as dangerous to liberty as having their powers collapsed into one person. Madison sought to tap the natural negative passions of humanity in the American implementation of Montesquieu's separation of powers, so that the three arms of government were balanced against each other in a kind of natural harmony. Where each arm would be maintaining a watchdog on each other. Protecting their own arm's influence and power while ensuring that the other arms do not gain more influence and power - especially at their own expense.

The magistrate in whom the whole executive power resides cannot of himself make a law, though he can put a negative on every law; nor administer justice in person, though he has the appointment of those who do administer it. The judges can exercise no executive prerogative, though they are shoots from the executive stock; nor any legislative function, though they may be advised with by the legislative councils. The entire legislature can perform no judiciary act, though by the joint act of two of its branches the judges may be removed from their offices, and though one of its branches is possessed of the judicial power in the last resort. The entire legislature, again, can exercise no executive prerogative, though one of its branches constitutes the supreme executive magistracy, and another, on the impeachment of a third, can try and condemn all the subordinate officers in the executive department.

In the United States we see this balancing act in the appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court. The Executive nominates judges. The Legislative has to confirm those appointments.

Governor-General and Prime Minister

In the Australian Parliamentary systems, the Executive is the Governor or Governor-General. The Legislative is the upper and lower houses. In the case of the States it is the Legislative Assemblies and Legislative Councils. For the Commonwealth Government it is the Senate and House of Representatives.

Parliamentary systems have an Executive Council that is composed of the chair and the Executive Cabinet. The Governor or Governor-General is the head of the Executive Council. The Prime Minister or Premier heads the Executive Cabinet who advises the Governor-General or Governor respectively. The cabinet is composed of senior ministers in the majority government such as the Treasurer and Foreign Minister.

A formal reading of the Australian Constitution would have the reader believe all Executive Authority is contained in the Governor-General as the Queen's representative. There is no mention of the position of Prime Minister. Section's 60 through 62 contain the mention of the Executive Council;

61. The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth.

62. There shall be a Federal Executive Council to advise the Governor-General in the government of the Commonwealth, and the members of the Council shall be chosen and summoned by the Governor-General and sworn as Executive Councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure.

63. The provisions of this Constitution referring to the Governor-General in Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor-General acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council.

The Governor-General is largely a ceremonial position whose Executive powers don't extend far beyond commissioning governments, dissolving parliament and writs for elections. There is also the gnarly reserve powers. The implied power of the Governor-General to dissolve an elected government. This occurred when John Kerr removed the Gough Whitlam Government in 1975, and in NSW when Phillip Game removed the government of Jack Lang during 1932.

The informal power of the Executive arm of government is completely tied up in the Prime Minister and Executive Cabinet. Australia practices one of the most absolute forms of party discipline, consequently most of the Executive power is tied into the Prime Minister. Backbenchers are nothing more than numbers for the policies of the Prime Minister when bills come to parliamentary vote. This is true for the House of Representatives and Senate.

A Foot On Each Bank of the Murrumbidgee

The Australian Prime Minister and State Premiers have a foot in two arms of government; the Executive and Legislative. The Prime Minister and Premiers have control over what laws are enacted, how those laws are funded and how they are implemented. Courtesy of party discipline, the will of the Prime Minister is rarely, if ever crossed.

This congruence of the Executive and Legislative powers is the weakness in the Parliamentary system and where liberty requires the maximum protection. A Prime Minister can write a tyrannous law. Through party discipline can have it passed in the House of Representatives and Senate. Through convention the ceremonial Governor-General passes it. The Prime Minister, through the offices of the Executive; such as the Australian Federal Police, Australian Defence Force, Immigration Department etc; can then execute that law in an arbitrary manner.

We might scoff thinking we are a reasonable people, with a reasonable government, and that this it will never happen in Australia. But Australians are human too, and suffer from the negative passions as much as anyone else from other nations. Australian government history is littered with instances of tyranny against minorities and individuals.

Violence of Faction

Party discipline is very strong in Australia. Conscience voting in the House of Representatives and Assemblies is almost unheard of. Another issue with parties or factions is their potential violence. Once they reach the majority in government, they can use the monopoly on violence and coercion of the government to punish their opponents. Violence can be open, and include baton wielding police and military; it can also be insidious. Other examples of the violence of faction include;

• Abolition of the secret ballot
• Electoral Fraud
• Malapportionment

In the parliamentary system faction can also play a positive as well as negative role. As scrymarch noted, factions can be used to tack upstream against the political opinion of the majority. The change from protectionist policies to economic rationalism, and the volatility those policies entailed, is a good example of this.

Ironically it is likely that the factional structure of the majority government is what keeps the Prime Minister position from becoming a permanent dictator. Westminster systems suffer from a slow oscillation in the change of government, but this preferable to a usurper illegally claiming the Executive position.

The negative passions of humans include the desire for more power, and the desire to rule others in an absolute manner. In a liberal democracy the closest thing to this is the Prime Minister or Premier position. For every Prime Minister there is a Parliament full of Representatives who desire that position. A Prime Minister that reaches too far will be challenged by others wanting the throne.

The Prime Minister is not an elected position, those that occupy it do so at the pleasure and patience of the majority party. A President is a singular elected position and more open to being usurped for it. This does not mean that Parliamentary government is superior to a Presidential system. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Protecting Liberty

The straddling of the Prime Minister and Executive Cabinet across two arms of government is a cause for concern. It makes the enacting and execution of tyrannous laws particularly easy. In the case of minorities and individuals who have no representation in Parliament, it places them at undue risk to be subject to such laws.

The Australian Republic must first protect liberty. The operation of government is a secondary concern. For the purposes of equity, the Governor-General position must be popularly elected and have the confidence and legitimacy that stems from it. By the same token the Governor-General and Prime Minister must not be squabbling over who has the real Executive authority in the Westminster government.

Taking the protection of liberty and a popularly elected Governor-General as starting points this suggests the role of the Governor-General should be the enforcement of a Bill of Rights. Stopping repugnant and tyrannous legislation that comes from the Parliament. The Bill of Rights will serve to codify the legislation that the Governor-General can veto. If the Governor-General steps outside of that authority, it is impeachment time.

This role for the Governor-General protects the rights of the individual, but does not take in the potential for that role to be polluted by party discipline. Another arm of government is needed, a Fourth Estate in addition to the Executive, Legislative and Judicial. These are the Ratifiers. This is group of individuals, approximately one percent of the population at any time, that are chosen by sortition to give their vote to a particular bill.

The Ratifiers cannot vote yes for a bill, they can only vote no or abstain. An opt-out form of bill voting. They also do not contribute to the debate on a bill as Ratifiers. they can contribute as citizens, but not as Ratifiers. Being a Ratifier on a bill infers no title or authority. They are an anonymous group. A secret ballot for a legislative bill.

The Ratifiers are there as a statistical weight against party politics to stop truly repugnant legislation from ever getting to the Governor-General.

cam

One of the enlightenment thinkers which heavily influenced the American Republic was a French bloke with a big nose by the name of Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu . He came up with a technology called Separation of Powers. This is where government is divided into three distinct and independent areas; making laws, implementing laws and interpreting laws. We know these as the Legislative, Executive and Judicial.

The US has one of the purest systems of separation of powers, as well as one of the strongest systems of checks and balances. This is where each arm monitors the operations of the branches of government. I will discuss this in terms of the American Washington system. Westminster systems need not apply .

Back before liberal democracy they had a problem where kings, despots, tyrants etc used to make laws up on the spot, enforce those laws on the spot, hand down sentences on the spot and tax people on the spot. It represents arbitrary government and got a bit of a bad name.

The American founding fathers looked to all the present systems of government, read up on the enlightenment philosophers and decided to come up with something better. A system of government that was resilient to the negative and selfish passions of politicians. One that would make America free forever from the tyranny and despotism of being subject to a King.

They put down all this thinking into the US Constitution and Hamilton, Madison and Jay explained it in great detail in the Federalist Papers . A must read for anyone interested in the philosophical basis of the American republic.

• Executive: In the US system this is the Administration headed by the elected President. The executive cannot make laws, nor interpret them or pass sentence on them. The President can only execute the laws that the legislative branch of government has made.

• Legislative: This can be bicameral or unicameral. In the US it is bicameral with a Senate and a House of Representatives. These two houses make the laws and money bills. These are the laws that the Executive must execute. It also provides the funding to execute those laws.

• Judicial: This branch interprets laws that are made by the legislative.

The separation of powers doctrine also contains counterbalance. For instance the legislative must approve the executive's appointments to the judicial. The executive can veto a legislative bill. The judicial can determine a law made by the legislative unconstitutional.

These stop the branches acting in a tyrannical manner in their own little fiefdoms of distinct power.

This is all tied together with a constitution. A single document that describes in detail the powers of each branches and the checks and balances on each branch. The constitution defines the limits of executive, legislative and judicial authority. As a consequence, when interpreting government action, it is an absolute.

Through the factional system, politicians have impugned themselves to varying degrees from the limits written into constitutions. The next iteration or innovation for liberal democracy will probably be having a democratically elected magistrate who's sole concern and authority, is to ensure that the constitution is not being broken and tyranny being committed.

cam [ x-posted to husi ]

One of the benefits of a parliamentary system is that the Executive Cabinet is made up of elected ministers. This gives them a face, and some accountability outside of their ministry itself. As this article; Secretary Who? [reg] notes, in the Bush Cabinet there are a lot of unknown secretaries.

An elected cabinet has no better guarantee of accountability than an appointed one. Both the Howard Cabinet and Bush Cabinet contain members that should have resigned or been fired over issues that directly question the cabinet members direct competence to run their ministry (or department).

But Mark Vaile , as Minister for Trade, and as leader of the National Party is far more publicly visible than Carlos Gutierrez as Secretary of Commerce. This is despite Gutierrez being a former CEO of Kelloggs.

The Washington Post article notes that there are other reasons for the cabinet secretaries being relatively anonymous. For one, the media doesn't cover them unless they are being appointed or sacked. Two the Bush Administration likes it that way; and thirdly, discipline is absolute. Policy decisions are being made in the White House. Cabinet secretaries do not make policy;

Modern presidents have all run their governments out of the White House. In the past few decades, first-tier Cabinet posts -- State, Defence, Justice and Treasury -- have retained some independent influence, but Cabinet secretaries on the outer rings have often found themselves on the receiving end of marching orders from twenty something White House aides.

Robert B. Reich, President Bill Clinton's Oxford buddy-turned-labour secretary, was so far out of the governing loop that he titled his memoir "Locked in the Cabinet." The White House staff -- once so tiny that President James K. Polk answered his administration's mail when his Cabinet went home for the summer -- became a sprawling army of special assistants, deputy assistants, advisers and analysts who carry out the president's agenda.

Policy decisions that Cabinet secretaries used to make are now hashed out in White House offices.

The other issue that the size of government has increased so drastically that there are numerous executive departments running as anonymous bureaucracies.

I like the idea of elected ministers, but I also like the idea of a completely separate executive. There is no easy solution to this that I know of, consequently, both come with trade offs.

Mid-term elections as a check and balance on the Executive are impossible in Australia due to the Feds and States being Westminster systems. This means the Executive is embedded in the Legislative as the Prime Minister or Premier led Executive Cabinet, not to mention the Executive functions of the Governor-General/Governors and Monarch. Would Australia benefit by having a Presidential system at the federal level? We are certainly mature enough and there have been some Australian governments that could have done with a party-machine based check and balance on their behaviour in parliament.

America was in the grips of civic excitement last night; televisions, websites, phones - all running hot. A friend of mine who runs a prominent political website spent his day watching the loads on the webservers increase as the east coast Americans left work, and the west coast Americans began to start slowing down the workday in the expectation of voting or going home.

Because of the inter-connected nature of the world with the reach of the internet, much of the world got caught up in it too. The Australian blogs being a good example. America watching is not only fun but wise, as the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet everyone is always keen to try and predict where the elephant in the room will choose to sit. It makes prudent sense.

The US mid-terms are a function of a Federal Presidential system. Australia does not have anything like it as we are a Federal Parliamentary system. Australia does not separate the executive and legislative branches of government.

In the United States the President is the Executive and is responsible for executing the laws that the Legislative (Congress - Senate and House of Representatives) make. Separating those two branches of government, the third is the judicial, is called >separation of powers .

Australians do not vote directly for the Executive in Australian Government as the Executive position is messy. There are four executive authorities in the Australian Constitution ; the Queen, the Governor-General, the Governor-General in Council and the Federal Executive Council. The constitution delegates the monarch's executive powers to the Governor-General. But the Governor-General is a Jekyll and Hyde constitutional position who can act independently as the Governor-General , or under the Federal Executive Council's advice as the Governor-General in Council .

Consequently, in the Australian Constitution, the Governor-General can dismiss an Executive Council, but the Executive Council can recommend the dismissal of the Governor-General in Council who must take that advice. That is not a check and balance; it is similar to what software developers call a race condition and an indication of poor design.

The Federal Executive Council is drawn from the Legislative body which in Australia is Parliament. The Executive Council can draw its members from the Senate and House of Representatives, totally breaking any form of separation of powers between Executive and Legislative in Australian government between those two branches.

The fear from systems that collapse different branches of government into the same body is that it will produce illiberal and arbitrary outcomes. For instance, dictatorship is a political position that places the executive, legislative and judicial responsibilities into one person. The success of the Westminster system in Britain was to route away the absolute executive power the monarch had in their political system into parliament which slowly became more and more representative and democratic. The innovation of the American system was to make real and functional the complete separation of powers.

However, as we have seen in both systems, party discipline can over-ride structural designs for checks and balances and leave the Executive unencumbered by parliamentary or congressional scrutiny. Both countries saw limited oversight of the Executive's execution of laws while the Australian Parliament and American Congress both used party majorities to ram through legislation without sufficient internal or public reflection.

The US mid-term elections were as much about returning a check and balance to the Washington system of governance as anything else and it is through the design of the system that it is possible. The US house of Representatives comes up for re-election every two years while a third of the US Senate is up for election with each House election. The President's position is every four years. So there is a staggering of the election cycles between the Executive and Legislative.

This means that in the middle of a Presidential term American voters can place a party machine check and balance in the Legislative by having the opportunity to vote for House and Senate elections. Australian voters do not have the same opportunity other than an occasional bi-election to show their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. There have been more than a few Australian Executive Councils who could have done with a re-ordering of Parliament to place a check and balance on their executive behaviour and arrogance but since the Parliament is both Executive and Legislative that is impossible in the Australian system.

Am I arguing for a separate executive and a Presidential system for the Australian Federal government? Yes. The argument against Presidential systems is that they are less stable than Parliamentary ones, this is mainly because the Parliament collapses two branches into one giving the Prime Minister greater power than a President has. Pseudo-tyrants and one-party states can exist in a Parliamentary system, they cannot in a Presidential one.

Australia is a mature nation who has shown a strong commitment to liberal democracy and political stability. Even our most turbulent times such as the dismissal of Jack Lang and Gough Whitlam have been pretty tame by world standards. Through our commitment we have even made the clunky old archaic Westminster operate with some appearance of efficiency while dumping the absolute absurdities present in it. But that doesn't overcome the lack of separation of powers or missing checks and balances inherent in the Westminster system and Constitutional Monarchy.

Australia can easily handle a Presidential system. It is the logical iteration of democratic improvement from a constitutional monarchy that will simplify our constitutional system. Not only that, Australia can improve the constitutional form of a separate executive and bicameral legislative, so the nation after us that chooses a Presidential system will use the Australian Constitution as its template.

x-posted at clubtroppo

Parliamentary systems can cause electoral confusion. Voters in parliamentary elections do not get to directly vote for the executive. They vote for their local representative in the legislative. The executive is formed from the legislative based on being able to secure stable numbers to establish government.

Voters have to vote in their own interests. Do they vote in their legislative interests, or their executive interests? In the House it is a bit moot as the House is dominated by executive discipline and the Executive Cabinet is largely, though not entirely, formed from the House. In comparison voters tend to vote in their legislative interests in the Senate.

Sacha Blumen wrote a letter to the Star Observer on this issue.

This is where strong horizontal separation of powers is an asset. If the President was a completely separate branch of government from Parliament then there is no electoral confusion. You would be voting for the President (PM) directly on one ballot - in other words your executive electoral interest; while voting your legislative interests in the House and Senate on other ballot papers.

If we had complete separation of powers Sacha would not have had to put pen to paper.

During the Constitutional Conventions of the 1890s there were three competing constitutional schools, the British, the American and the Swiss. Most preferred the British system of parliament with its constitutional monarchy and embedded executive in the legislative. Henry Higgins was an admirer of the Swiss Canton system but a distinct minority at the conventions while Andrew Ingliss-Clark preferred the American federal system which at the time was the most innovative and sophisticated political structure. Federalism, Senate as a state house and a written constitution were aspects of the American School which we take for granted today in the Australian national government.

It is important not to mythologise about any political system as it then becomes impervious to necessary change but the American system remains more innovative constitutionally and democratically than the Australian one. The sheer diversity of the American federal system and the states maintaining the authority over elections, both primary and Presidential means American democracy is both messy and fascinating.

Australia has the upper hand in electoral technology but that has primarily been the states driving that innovation - not the national government. This is where the Australian system is messy, diverse and fascinating.

Sinclair Davidson, a former South African, commented in an article about jury duty;

Having lived in a country where there is no trial by jury (because juries only benefit the guilty) we should be grateful for legal niceties like this.

I feel the same way about the American political system. I consider it superior to the Australian Washminster or British Westminster systems. Despite the messiness of the American deliberative processes, even as a non-citizen, I consider myself better protected constitutionally than in the Australian one as a citizen.

It is fashionable to dump on America, and some of the absurdities that come out of the American system, but its history, even this century have been one of increasing liberalism, constitutionalism and republicanism. It is to be admired.

A criticism of the electoral college is that it gives too much prominence to the smaller states with its winner takes all electoral technology and warps the population's will such as the popular vote. The American founding fathers used the electoral college to protect against tyranny and usurpation by nobled tyrant, but also to try and balance the 'federal' and 'national' characters of the Washington system.

The Electoral College is an indirect voting mechanism. US citizens vote for representatives who then cast ballots for the US President. The electors do not have to cast their ballots as per the popular will in that state, they can defy the voters if necessary. This was done to protect against tyranny or a noble trying to usurp the democratic system. The convention however is that the electors vote in a block as per the citizen voters wishes. I imagine there would be all sorts of public discord and trouble if they did not.

The number of electoral college votes a state has is in direct proportion to the number of senators and representatives the state has. For instance California has fifty-five electors while Arizona has ten. For a President to be elected they must have a majority of electoral college votes. An advantage of this system is that it tends to legitimize the president-elect as the winner takes all system makes a larger winning margin than the national popular vote.

Most who argue that it is unfair base the injustice of the system on the electors being indirect, the states being winner takes all, and the popular will of the nation not necessarily being reflected in the electoral college outcome. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton defend the electoral college as an electoral method in Federalist Papers No.39 and No.68.

For Madison it was important politically, constitutionally and electorally to balance the federal and national aspects of the Washington System. As a federation, the US system was an amalgam of political equals in the colonies which are now known as the states. It was necessary to bring on board the smaller states in such a way that they would not be politically swamped by the larger ones of Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania. Today the large states are New York and California.

The 'federal' character of the system, such as the Senate and the electoral college keep the smaller states politically within the system as equal partners. The Washington system also contains national character such as the House which expands electorates based on population alone. The national aspect of the electoral college is that the number of electors expands with population, so while Montana gets a discrete voice with its electors, it is swamped by the larger number of electors in Florida.

Madison writes:

The next relation is, to the sources from which the ordinary powers of government are to be derived. The House of Representatives will derive its powers from the people of America; and the people will be represented in the same proportion, and on the same principle, as they are in the legislature of a particular State. So far the government is national, not federal.

The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, as they now are in the existing Congress. So far the government is federal, not national.

The executive power will be derived from a very compound source. The immediate election of the President is to be made by the States in their political characters. The votes allotted to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of the same society.

The eventual election, again, is to be made by that branch of the legislature which consists of the national representatives; but in this particular act they are to be thrown into the form of individual delegations, from so many distinct and coequal bodies politic.

From this aspect of the government it appears to be of a mixed character, presenting at least as many federal as national features.

Consequently Madison saw it as important for the executive to carry both the federal and national characteristics while maintaining a buffer against the executive being usurped by tyranny with the indirect election that comes through the electors. This also gives the states a voice in vetoing an executive that is not governing, or not going to governing in the federation's interests as well. Hamilton writes:

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.

A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.

The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.

The United States has been a stable democracy for two hundred years now but in 1787 there was no guarantee that executive power would pass from one President to another without violence or on-going revolution. Consequently we look at the indirect nature of the electoral college as a historical anachronism.

The United States is also an increasingly national political system than a federal one. The ongoing expansion of centralized power in Washington DC has meant that the policy prerogatives of the states is getting smaller and smaller with each Presidential term. The Bush Administration and Republican Congress for instance expanded central power into the states territory with the No Child Left Behind act. No state refused the money, weakening the federal character and state independence further.

So is the Electoral College unfair?

Not really. The national voice is provided for in its unadulterated form in the House. The federal voice is pure in form in the Senate. The election of the President and Vice President is intended to be a mix of the two with the added safety valve of indirect election. It has worked well for the US so far and the winner takes all aspect of the federal system in the electoral college has given added legitimacy to Presidents who have barely won the national popular vote. The Electoral College as an electoral system sits neatly within the design and goals of the Washington system of politics and constitutional structure.

Matthew Yglesias argues that the separation of the executive and legislative in the Washington system leads to the legislative making policy rather than the White House:

Even though it's typical for staff talent to flow from the Hill to the White House and even though the professional staff resources of the executive branch far exceed those of the congress, the details of legislation are written by congress and then it's left up to the White House to accept or reject the bills.

This has been a recurrent theme in several of his posts about policy. Many Australians look at the Washington system with envy as it so cleanly separates the executive and legislative. The Australian Washminster parliamentary system blends the executive into the legislative - both House of Representatives and Senate - through the executive cabinet and executive council.

The innovation in the Australian system is the absolute discipline the executive has over the legislative. This can be traced back to Labor's pledge which was enacted in the early part of the 19thC. This ensured that Labor was always a voting block - no matter what. The opposing parties to Labor; such as the modern Liberal Party have similar mechanisms to ensure absolute party discipline and a voting block. This means the executive and legislative are essentially one in the Australian system. The legislative never rejects the executives policies or bills.

It is interesting that the previous Republican Administration and Congressional majority under Bush, Hastert and Delay mimicked the Australian mechanism for absolute discipline. They used a bunch of procedural methods that stretched both convention and ethics to achieve that - such as threatening party members and keeping votes open until representatives votes were ensured. The meant that executive policy was executed exactly as the Bush Administration intended into legislation.

The current Democratic Administration and Congressional majority don't work under the banner of absolute discipline and has multiple splinter groups that vote outside of the party caucus or leadership. For instance in the current health care legislation Democrats such as Kucinich voted no as it didn't have a single payer system. The so-called conservative Democrats; the blue dogs, actually caucus and often vote as an internal block within the party.

I think this is a strength of the American system. In the Australian parliament the only time party discipline isn't enforced is when the executive decides that a piece of legislation can be a conscience vote. So again it is the dominance of the executive that over-rides the whole system.

Yglesias' argument is that policy is better when it flows through the executive and is then approved or denied by a separate legislative body voting on it rather than the inverse in the American system where the legislative implements policy in legislation and then the executive signs or vetoes it.

I don't know if this stands. Exceptionally bad policy has come from the Executive in the Australian parliament, often under the pressure of re-election. The Tampa Affair is a good example; another is the Aboriginal intervention. Both have led to expansive executive government and the minimizing of state autonomy. The dominance of the executive in the Australian system has made Australia more like a British system than a federal one.

This is a negative in my opinion, especially as most political systems are designed to minimize arbitrary government and tyranny. Given some of the executive government actions during the current terror scare and its value as an excuse for the executive to use executive exception to place people outside of the purview of the legislative and judicial, removing any political right from an individual, I think the checks against arbitrary government, tyranny and executive exception are very necessary.

Australia has a mix of government structures and the parliamentary system enables the executive to get their way in all cases through party discipline. In some places the governance has been worse for a unicameral parliament - Queensland in the Joh years stands out for it - but in other states a bicameral system has not been sufficient to stop corruption; NSW in the 70s being a good example.

Yglesias' argument is that the legislative should act as a check on the policy making of the executive. Because of the dominance of the executive in the Australian parliamentary system and the absolute party discipline the political parties in Australia practice, this does not hold true for Australia unless a minor party is holding the balance of power in one of the legislative houses.