Our dubious Constitution (continued)

[Miguel Schor]

I don't think that the differences between parliamentarism and 
presidentialism can be collapsed that readily. Deciding whether to opt 
for efficiency in government by facilitating dependence between the 
legislature and the executive or whether to opt for constitutional 
roadblocks to policymaking by instituting independence between the 
branches is an important design choice that has real world implications. 
Sandy's question was whether a new democracy should seek to thread the 
needle by adopting presidentialism while facilitating the removal of 
incompetent presidents by the legislature.  I think it would be a bad 
idea.  New democracies are crisis prone and find it difficult to fashion 
effective government.  Facilitating the removal of presidents would only 
exacerbate this problem.  Presidents can be and often are elected 
without a majority in the legislature.  It would be far too easy, 
therefore, to remove them in a presidential system that allowed for a 
vote of no confidence.  Miguel

isomin at gmu.edu wrote:

>I'm not sure that impeachment is really all that rare.  Out of 43 US presidents, 2 have been impeached (Johnson and Clinton) and one was forced to resign for fear of impeachment (Nixon). At least 4 or 5 other presidents died early enough in their terms that there was little opportunity to impeach even if people had wanted to do it. 
>
>So some 8-10% of all US presidents who served a full term have either been impeached or forced to resign to avoid it. That is a percentage comparable to the percentage of British prime ministers or German chancellors who have been forced to resign for similar reasons. French presidents, by the way, are actually more difficult to remove during their terms than American ones (and none ever has been, despite considerable malfeasance in several cases). 
>
>True, Clinton and Johnson remained in office thanks to the Senate, but both ended up in very weak political positions.
>
>As compared to other major democracies, the US head of state doesn't seem to be all that much more difficult to remove than is the norm. Given the risk of false positives (removing good leaders when they should be kept in place), I would hesitate to make impeachment too much easier than it is now - this despite my considerable dissatisfaction with President  Bush and his "big government conservatism."
>
>
>
>
>Ilya Somin
>Assistant Professor of Law
>George Mason University School of Law
>3301 Fairfax Dr.
>Arlington, VA 22201
>ph: 703-993-8069
>fax: 703-993-8202
>e-mail: isomin at gmu.edu
>Website: http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/
>  
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The House can impeach the president any time it wants to, and the 
> Senate can convict.  It's only by custom that impeachment is so rarely 
> utilized.  We discussed this in my Con Law class this year, and most 
> students seemed to agree that there should be a lower threshold for 
> impeachment.  The fact that Jimmy Carter managed to stay president for 
> four years is enough evidence for me that the threshold should be lowered.
>  
> In a message dated 3/16/2006 7:37:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu writes:
>
>
>     So I ask once more why it is such a great feature of our Constitution
>     that there is no way to get rid of a president deemed
>     "incompetent," an
>     "idiot," or a "liar" but what appears to be a majority of Americans?
>     (It simply does not make sense that "good" would represent a majority
>     response if the most frequent single response is "incompetent.") How
>     many of you, advising countries adopting new constitutions, would
>     advise
>     that they take a leaf rom the US book and make it impossible to
>     get rid
>     of a non-criminal president who is "merely" "imcompetent," an "idiot,"
>     or a "liar"? And if so, why?  I should note that I am impressed by
>     some
>     recent literature suggesting that it might not make all that much a
>     difference whether a country goes the parliamentary or presidential
>     route.  And I have earlier conceded that there are, no doubt,
>     incompetent, idiotic, of mendacious prime ministers who exercise
>     enough
>     control over their coalitions, by means fair or foul, to maintain
>     themselves in power.   
>
>  
> David E. Bernstein
> Visiting Professor
> University of Michigan School of Law
> Professor
> George Mason University School of Law
> http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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