Of Capital and Constitution

[penultima thule]

President-elect Obama.

Whenever I hear it seems such a clumsy construction, at not an ideal time.

After all what is more important ... what President-elect will do when he takes office in January, or what the incumbent does while he is still working the levers?

We have the odd problem with the world economy at the moment. The US is at the epicentre of this. As panaceas there are some seriously large sums of public monies being sloshed around and many corporatations and capitialist running dogs are trying to get their snouts and front trotters into the trough (if you pardon the taxidermy). And the administration that has a fair bit of responsibilty for creating the mess remains in charge for the next 2 months.

Now I'm sure that POTUS XLIII will keep President-elect fully briefed. But it's not like these two sing from the same economic hymm book. In such uncharted policy waters, a whole lot of managing this crisis of liquidity and confidence is a judgement call. A wrong decision here could well cruel President-elect's policy program for the entire term. It could be that the US car industry goes into meltdown before President-elect gets his opportunity to shimmie down Pennsylvania Avenue freezing his butt off to pick up the keys to the executive washroom, 66.8 million votes not withstanding.

Doesn't make one overflushed with confidence, if you know what I mean. Particulary when there are more effective models that have stood the test of time and crisis.

The issue is the US constitution making POTUS both Head of Government and Head of State, creating a problem in that you can't have two plenipotentiaries on site. The intervention by SCOTUS in 2000 is another instance, though that was to ensure there was a plenipotentiary on site. The same schmozzle happens in TPLAC's like Zimbabwe. But there are plenty of political models where is doesn't. For example, it doesn't in functioning democracies under the Westminister system. e.g. UK, Aust, New Zealand, Canada etc

As illustration the timeline for the last Australian election ran as follows. Prime Minister Howard called a general election on Oct 14 2007 for Nov 24 2007. Kevin Rudd, as leader of the ALP won that election and became PMOAXXVI. Rudd was sworn in on Dec 3 2007 and held his first Cabinet meeting on Dec 6 2007. All done and dusted in 9 weeks. By the constitution, the electoral writs must be returned in 100 days or less.

Transitions under Westminister systems are simpler for two principle reasons. Foremost the Head of State is is not up for election and therefore a "caretaker" administration keeps the wheels in motion for the 8-10 weeks between the writs being issued and their return. Also is the existance of an "independent" public service that serves both the outgoing and incoming administrations with independent advise and, of course, checks, balances and inertial. This factor is becoming of lesser significance as Westminister governments are increasingly employing a more political public service along the lines of the US model.

While it's not very likely that constitutional reform will appear on the agenda out of this. But for the sake of debate, why not? It's much more than that when the US constitution was being drafted they were not aware that a confluence of a crisis in capital markets, levels of debt beyond most comprehension and the US electoral cycle could see the entire US economy go into depression, and then exported to the rest of the world.

Remember that the Westminister system was in place long before the Founding Fathers started their deliberations and, in this instance anyway, they chose a lemon instead.