Why Legislature?
The legislature should be the primary entity of governance in a democracy. Here’s why.
Legislatures are Deliberative
It is often said in the US that Congress is the most “deliberative” branch of government. But what does that actually mean?
Deliberation is the contest of ideas that takes place in the legislature’s halls. It is the floor debates where legislators go up and give speeches. It is the hearings the Senate and House hold to interview experts before writing legislation. Most importantly, it is every backroom debate where legislators shape and reshape legislation, ironing out all the disagreements to come forward with a written document people can support.
Deliberation is good because the better ideas win and are refined before implementation. Even in a polarized setting, better ideas from both sides is likely to be better overall.
The extent to which a legislature is deliberative varies. U.S. Congress has gotten less deliberative in recent years as legislation is increasingly crafted in back-rooms by a few high-ranking legislators and released only a few days before the legislature votes on it. The legislature also isn’t the only deliberative entity in a government - the Federal Reserve board deliberates, there is a lot of deliberation before the executive branch changes a regulation, etc. Nevertheless, deliberation is an important strength of legislatures.
…But Can Act Quickly and Decisively When Needed
Pretty much everyone acknowledges the above, that one of the great strengths of a legislature is its deliberation. Many, however, assume that this is always the case, that you need to give the executive power when quick or decisive action is needed. This is especially true in matters of war, when people are quick to give the executive a blank check.
But in fact, one of the great things about legislatures is that they can act quickly and decisively when necessary. This is because of supermajority requirements, a topic I’ll go in greater detail on in another piece. Legislatures can, when enough of their members agree, skip through long debates and holiday breaks and instead vote quickly on urgent matters. They can also take drastic actions like suspending normal elections if the situation calls for it and enough members agree. That’s not to say there are never situations where the deliberative tendency of a legislature becomes harmful, but legislatures are quite flexible.
Legislatures are Moderate
On any issue where views differ substantially, the median vote in a legislature is usually going to be more moderate than the radicals in society. This is dependent on electoral systems, but generally the median legislator is more moderate than a president would be. This is I think the most effective consensus democracy tool and one of the most important factors underlying democracy; without it, the mechanisms you have to ensure democratic functioning and some stability in policy are pretty weak.
Note also that the legislature allows the median vote on different issues to be different people. Even if you create an electoral system that encourages election of a moderate president, that moderate president will still have to be one person who may have radical views on a few issues. A legislature can be moderate on fiscal issues and immigration and abortion without there needing to be a single person who is moderate on all three.
Legislatures are Pluralist
Pluralist in Deliberation
The intuition here is that just having a seat at the table is a massive boost to a group/movement, for which I will use the blanket term “interest group”. If there is a legislator who will go up to the podium and rail against any bill that hurts dairy farmers, and other members agree that this is a reasonable concern and modify bills to prevent this, that is a huge win for dairy farmers. Because there are lots of legislators and each one can focus on the areas of law they are interested in, this is a good way of representing many smaller interest group.
In deliberation, the power of smaller interest groups comes from their ability to persuade others of their concerns. I think the general intuition behind “marketplace of ideas” makes this a clear positive. The more views, the merrier.
Pluralist in Voting
Representatives don’t just have a voice - they have a vote.
Whereas pluralism in deliberation happens naturally by random chance when your legislature is big enough, vote pluralism is highly dependent on the electoral system. If the legislature is elected in a proportional electoral system where the libertarian party gets 13% of the vote and therefore 13% of the seats, there’s a good chance they can block legislation that goes against the libertarian ideology. If the legislature is elected by single-member districts like in the US, then libertarians which are spread out geographically will get very few seats, and instead geographical interest groups like midwestern farmers or Appalachian coal miners become important.
In votes on specific issues, a legislator’s vote is mostly determined by where they stand on a single issue axis, and in that case we’re taking advantage of the moderation principle discussed above. Vote pluralism, on the other hand, becomes very important for complex negotiations like for the budget, where everybody gets a bit of what they want.
In the US, because we have geographic districts, this is most easily seen with the practice of earmarks, also called “pork”. In every spending bill, there is significant funding allocated for local projects - bridges, housing projects, community health initiatives, etc. These projects are requested by legislators for their districts at least in part to help win re-election. Spending money on local projects is a controversial practice, but I think this vote pluralism is a more clear positive with the non-geographical systems they have in most of Europe, where every ideology gets some of what they want. If we grant that every ideology has some rationale behind them, it seems generally optimal for everyone’s priorities to find some place in policy.
Legislatures Contain Personal Interest
The legislature’s structure makes for a great backstop toward dictatorship. Because all legislators are power-hungry politicians, they are a lot less likely to make any single person dictator, while a single president has a ton of interest in making themselves dictator. Sometimes the legislature’s interest in being renominated ends up being bad - they have less incentive to change the rules of democracy in a positive way, since the current rules caused them to be elected - but overall I think it’s more good than bad.
When it comes to corruption, I think the story is less clear. If most of the legislature is corrupt, like in most developing countries, national policy will end up being corrupt. If most of the legislature is not corrupt, like in most developed countries, they can diminish the power of any few corrupt members. When it comes to a leader, it is more of a roll-of-the-dice as to whether they end up being corrupt or not. Relative to the incentive to be re-elected, there’s a lot less of this idea of playing the personal incentives of the legislators off one another; usually they all benefit from more corrupt national policy. The one advantage I think the legislature has is that it just physically takes more money to bribe a bigger body, but I don’t know how much this actually comes into play.
Most of this constitutional design series will consist of pros and cons and hedging and discussion of several options. The legislature being the best primary political entity, however, is something I feel quite strongly about. Every democracy should, at the very least, have a legislature that writes laws and passes them by majority vote. This will serve as the basis on which I build up different constitutional elements and discuss design decisions. Next up - the executive and the leader.