Non revolutionary ways to correct government

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

Whether I'd prefer a  parliamentary system to a presidential one has not been 
the focus of my posts.  My interest is more capacious than restricting the 
subject of nonrevolutionary  ways to correct government to merely a choice 
between these two systems of  governments.  My interests includes inquiries into 
the possibility of the  electorate removing government officials, their  
representatives removing such officials, and either or both engaging in  less drastic 
corrections such as censure, reprimand, and so forth. So Ilya is  quite 
incorrect to say my "argument implies that the president or PM should be  removable 
by recall (as in California) or some other mechanism that bypasses  
legislators and other political elites." My argument contains no such specific  
commitments at all.
 
        What I want to inquire  about is whether the rather tepid role the 
electorate plays in criticizing and  correcting the government, namely, voting 
every two to four years, polling,  letters to one's Congress persons, joining 
interest groups or protesting groups  is the best that democracy/republicanism 
has to offer. Nor am I enamored with  the catch as catch can methods of 
Congress "bucking" the President or individual  senators "rebuking" her. Such 
unfocused castigation typically contains less  than a modicum of communicative 
content. Even rebuking Senators often "spin" the  rebuke attempting to walk a 
tightrope between expressing the criticism and  severing their relationships with 
the President. What I seek are mechanisms  through which citizens can be made 
aware without much research on their  part that Congress or the electorate has 
scolded the President specifically for  acts of malevolence, 
maladministration, or incompetence, and are exhorting her  to change her ways if more severe 
means such as impeachment and removal  from office are to be avoided. 
 
        Do I have a decided  predilection in favor of the people removing a 
President rather than the  legislature? No. Or if I do, it would be the latter. 
What I'm arguing for  is a principle that the electorate must be involved in 
more direct, regular, and  formal ways in conveying their disapproval of 
governmental actions other merely  voting every two to four years. While I can't 
entirely achieve this without  examples, garnering the arguments in favor of 
that principle is more than I can  hope for without also committing myself to 
particular forms of  institutional design for expressing that principle. 
 
Bobby

Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/conlawprof/attachments/20050906/284129c2/attachment.html