More Roman U.S Government

[Kriegspfad]

Revisiting a past idea I had floated , I am intrigued by just how "Roman" the founders of the u.s tried to make it . What if the Founders had gone in fully wit their Roman fanfare and also paranoia of centralised authority, and adopted a more decentralised system.

Here's my timeline: The founders , instead of adopting the centralised executive system where the President is everything, go the more Swiss route , choosing a "leadership council" instead . This council is made up of the President, The Chancellor and the 2 Equal Consuls . The legislative is three chambered - The States-General ( upper house ) , The Senate ( middle house ) , and The Popular Assembly ( side note : this system recognises political parties as an essential part of the system - yes I am aware Washington's opposition to parties but they perform a check of balance in such a system, if someone has an alternative to them that doesn't just centralise power into a single office please add to the conversation) :

1) The States General is a council where the direct representatives of the state governments gather. These representatives are in their office as long as their home governments want them there . The States General elects the Chancellor for a term of 10 Years with no term limits , with a simple 50%+1 majority vote , the chancellor can be impeached at anytime, The Chancellor cannot be a member of the house and The Chancellor serves as head of State. The Cheif Justice of the supreme Court ( The "Cheif Justice is elected from within the members of the supreme Court by said members ) also appoints a "Speaker" to the house who acts as politically neutral moderator in the house - keeping order and running the house .

2) The Senate is the indirectly elected house where the entirity of the country is divided into electoral districts based on population and elections for these senates seats are done on a first past the post system. Senators have a 5 year term with no term limits . The Largest Political party in the senate that's in Government is demarcated as the "Government party" and the largest Political party in the senate that's not in Government/Coalition with the party in government is demarcated as the "Opposition party" . These two parties each select a "Consul" from among their ranks in the senate . Both Consuls are elected simultaneously at the start of the year and have a term of 1 year . The Cheif Justice also appoints a "Speaker" to the House. Only the Consuls can introduce legislature into the house however, with the Government Consul introducing bills first then the Opposition then the Government Consul again, so on and so forth . For every bill introduced by one Consul , the other has to introduce a bill too right after ( Consuls don't have an option to not use this power to introduce bills and stall the Senate , if they try to do so they will forced to resign by the speaker , with their party replacing them with a new Consul ) . Consuls can have unlimited amounts of terms but NEVER have consecutive terms .

3) The Popular Assembly is the directly elected house . The total popular vote of the entire nation is counted and each political party is assigned a number of seats based on what percentage of votes they won ( Israel's current system) . If Party A won 12% of the total national vote they get 12% of the seats. The party/coalition of parties that won the most votes in the Popular Assembly gets their Leader elected as President with a 5 Year term however there's A) a 50% minimum where the party/coalition of parties must have atleast 50% of the seats in the assembly and B) If the President ever losses support of atleast 50% of the assembly they lose their office . A candidate for President can have two 5 year terms ( consecutive or not ) but no more. The President is the the Head of Government. The Cheif Justice also appoints a "Speaker" to the Popular Assembly.

A bill must pass all three houses of the Legislature to become law but can originate from any house .

The President appoints directly all the Directors of the different Departments but the Leadership council takes all other executive actions collectively, here's how :

Say Consul A wants to do Thing X ( maybe declare war or Issue an executive order ) , they propose it to the council where the other three vote on it . If 2/3 three vote yes then the decision is taken otherwise not. Same with any of the other three proposing a decision. The person proposing themselves don't vote ( because ofcourse they would in favour. ) { And yes , The leadership council will reserve the power to declare war and peace }

Additionally, there would only be a single unified election every 5 years , where the people would vote for parties ( not candidates ) . The results of this election would decide the rest of the system.

This seems like a partical way to establish an Roman like decentralised democracy in the u.s . How would the u.s devolope with this system from the start ?

 

[Kriegspfad]

@viper23 I remember you pointing the flaws in my first scenario in the past , anything obvious that comes up this time?

 

[Mildtryth]

3) The Popular Assembly is the directly elected house . The total popular vote of the entire nation is counted and each political party is assigned a number of seats based on what percentage of votes they won ( Israel's current system) .

No way that is going to be feasible under the standards for communication and transport in the late 18th century. If anything, that would require greater centralization than OTL already from that point.

Moreover, that would definitely clash with the different electoral systems that were in place within the states.

 

[Dan1988]

Hmm, in that case, the Founding Fathers would have to be more inspired by Pennsylvania's very democratic 1776 Constitution (which had such a plural executive) than Massachusetts' own Constitution (and it's the latter than formed one of the models for both the Virginia Plan and the overall layout of the Constitution as a whole). Apart from that, the problem then becomes that the more "Roman" the Constitution looks, the more on the ground it would lead to accusations of making the Government more "Papist" in orientation (you can imagine why). Stanning the Roman Republic can only get one so far in this case.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Apart from that, the problem then becomes that the more "Roman" the Constitution looks, the more on the ground it would lead to accusations of making the Government more "Papist" in orientation (you can imagine why).

People in the 18th century were quite capable of distinguishing between the Roman Republic and the Catholic Church.

 

[viper23]

Here's my timeline: The founders , instead of adopting the centralised executive system where the President is everything, go the more Swiss route , choosing a "leadership council" instead . This council is made up of the President, The Chancellor and the 2 Equal Consuls .

I do like the idea of a leadership council, but it needs an odd number of members to avoid deadlock--and the two consuls will almost certainly be at odds, so in practice it would come down to negotiations between the President and the Chancellor.

2) The Senate is the indirectly elected house where the entirity of the country is divided into electoral districts based on population and elections for these senates seats are done on a first past the post system. Senators have a 5 year term with no term limits . The Largest Political party in the senate that's in Government is demarcated as the "Government party" and the largest Political party in the senate that's not in Government/Coalition with the party in government is demarcated as the "Opposition party" . These two parties each select a "Consul" from among their ranks in the senate . Both Consuls are elected simultaneously at the start of the year and have a term of 1 year . The Cheif Justice also appoints a "Speaker" to the House. Only the Consuls can introduce legislature into the house however, with the Government Consul introducing bills first then the Opposition then the Government Consul again, so on and so forth . For every bill introduced by one Consul , the other has to introduce a bill too right after ( Consuls don't have an option to not use this power to introduce bills and stall the Senate , if they try to do so they will forced to resign by the speaker , with their party replacing them with a new Consul ) . Consuls can have unlimited amounts of terms but NEVER have consecutive terms .

The electoral district system introduces logistical complications--you have to handle electoral districts separately from the states (otherwise it's just an odd extension of the States General), which means you have to set up federal electoral infrastructure alongside the existing state infrastructure. This strikes me as a non-starter in the 18th century even before considering that this would only encourage centralization, as the infrastructure will already there for the federal government to address people directly.

The consul system in particular, though, invites disaster. First-past-the-post means there will only be two Senate parties/coalitions, both deeply in opposition to the other, and the consuls represent both equally in spite of the actual majorities. The two consuls will be constantly at loggerheads and the Opposition Consul's role is both useless and obstructive (he has to introduce bills onto the floor as a point of procedure, but those bills will almost certainly never gain traction when the Government consul has the clear majority). This is assuming consuls don't get veto power--if they do the Opposition Consul will just shut down the Senate at will, and with it the entire legislature. It's not clear how the Speaker can prevent this sort of behavior when the obstructive consul's party will just elect a new consul that will continue to be obstructive--switching off between two members to satisfy nonconsecutive terms.

If you absolutely have to have the consul system, I would switch out first-past-the-post for something proportional like the Assembly, and if the consuls have veto power either have there be three consuls and two have to sign off on the veto, or have a means by which a clear majority can override the veto. But frankly I think the legislature as a whole overcomplicated, a tangled mess, and likely to be constantly jammed up with on minute points of procedure, and you'd do well to cut out one of the chambers entirely.

Additionally, there would only be a single unified election every 5 years , where the people would vote for parties ( not candidates ) . The results of this election would decide the rest of the system.

This means no independent candidates for federal elections, which strikes me as an important check against parties, who, if parties are officially recognized, would have the legal means to raise the barrier of entry into politics and no incentives not to.

 

[Byzantion]

What if they establish some kind of secular Pontifex Maximus that overees the Rebublican Virtue in a sortiert of Temple and has a representative role like a head of state ?