Two Presidents Are Better Than One: The Case for a Bipartisan Executive Branch

Preface

ix Preface This book is about the very high price the United States pays for its one-person presidency and how it can avoid those costs by adopting a two-person presidency. When the framers of the Constitution decided to divide the legislative power between a House and Senate and rest an undivided executive power in a single president, they paved the way for the development of the “imperial presidency.” Presidents have assumed far more power than was intended by the founding fathers and far more power than is good for the country. The framers not only gave the United States a one-person presidency ; they also gave it a one-party presidency. One party controls the immense power of the modern White House. This has fostered the high levels of partisan conflict that prevent Congress and the president from addressing pressing problems facing the country. A oneparty presidency also prevents chief executives from recognizing the entire citizenry as their real constituency, leaving half or more of the public feeling unrepresented in the Oval Office. I began my thinking for this book while immersed in partisan conflict during my six years as a member of the Indiana House of x Preface Representatives. I quickly found that whether in Washington, DC, or Indiana, partisan conflict is not a phenomenon of the people we elect but of the political system that we elect them into. More specifically, I recognized that we will see high levels of partisan conflict at the national level as long as we have a one-person presidency. Every four years, we elect a president, and for the next four years, members of the party out of office try to block the president’s initiatives. Indeed, the next presidential campaign begins within twenty-four hours of Election Day. If we want a more bipartisan ethic in Washington, we need to change the structure of the executive branch. This is not surprising. James Madison rightly observed that the best way to encourage desirable political behavior is through appropriate design of the political system. Scholars can urge elected officers to govern in a bipartisan fashion, but appeals to virtue are far less successful than structural features that channel behavior in the right direction. Accordingly, if we are to lessen partisan conflict, we need to change the constitutional blueprint. Expanding representation in the White House beyond one political party can provide a much better incentive for cooperation across party lines. A two-person presidency also could address the other problems that the one-person presidency has spawned. It would restore the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, and by requiring a sharing of executive power across party lines, it would ensure a voice for the overwhelming majority of voters in the Oval Office. A two-person executive may seem odd to Americans used to a one-person presidency. But plural executives are much more the norm in western Europe and other parts of the world. The United States would do well to learn from the experience of other countries with executive power that is divided and shared. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Judy Failer, who encouraged me to develop my thinking about a two-person presidency into a book and who provided superb feedback and insights from the beginning of the process through final publication. I also am grateful for the commitment of Deborah Gershenowitz and her NYU Press colleagues to this project and their excellent Preface xi editorial and publishing guidance. It was a pleasure to work with Deborah, Despina Papazoglou Gimbel, Constance Grady, Mary Beth Jarrad, Andrew Katz, Jodi Narde, Clara Platter, and Betsy Steve. I have benefited considerably in the writing of this book from the thoughtful comments of Randall Bezanson, Subir Chakrabarti, Kathleen Clark, Dan Dalton, Talia Einhorn, Robert Elgie, Mark Graber, Deborah Hellman, Herbert Hovenkamp, Richard Izquierdo, Arend Lijphart, Gerard Magliocca, Scott Page, John Reitz, William Scheuerman, William Schneider, Ellen Waldman, and the anonymous peers who reviewed my manuscript. I also have benefited from participants in faculty workshops at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, University of Iowa College of Law, and S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah and from participants in sessions at annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, Law and...