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According to David Firestone of The New York Times, a “surprising number” of the Tea Party members were calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment of the US Constitution during the election campaign season of 2010. That amendment, which was ratified in 1913, provides for direct election by the people of each state of US senators. According to Firestone, “allowing Americans to choose their own senators seems so obvious that it is hard to remember that the nation’s founders didn’t really trust voters with the job. The people were given the right to elect House members. But senators were supposed to be a check on popular rowdiness and factionalism. They were appointed by state legislatures.” That it may seem so obvious to us does not mean that we have it right. Yet Firestone presumes so in writing, “a  modern appreciation of democracy — not to mention a clear-eyed appraisal of today’s dysfunctional state legislatures — should make the idea unthinkable.” Should it really?  Firestone seems biased in his dogmatism.

For one thing, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1786 didn’t want to restrict direct representative democracy in the US Government to the US House only out of fear of mob rule as Firestone suggests.  They thought the direct power of the state governments in the US Government would be necessary to keep the new empire from consolidating at the imperial level (i.e., in the US Government). Firestone himself admits that to most authors of the Constitution, “allowing states to appoint the Senate was the linchpin of the entire federalist system and the real reason there are two houses of Congress.” Whereas the British House of Lords represents wealth, the US Senate was to represent not only that, but semi-sovereign republics as well.  The latter likens the US Senate to the European Council rather than to the upper chamber of one of the EU’s states.  Firestone makes a category mistake where he avers that it “may be true that appointed senators, accountable only to state legislators, would never approve of many useful federal mandates designed to put the national interest above local parochialism — including everything from the minimum wage to the new health care reform law.” States commensurate with European kingdoms/countries are not local polities.  Furthermore, reducing the US Government to a “national” interest ignores the semi-sovereign nature of the states (and thus the international principles in the design of the US Senate as opposed to the US House, which is national in nature).

Firestone seems to misunderstand what the US Senate is.  In referring to returning to having the state legislatures appoint their delegates to the US Senate as an “elitist notion,” Firestone forgets that state legislators are elected by the people and in fact have smaller electorates than do US House or Senate members.  Empowering state legislators would ironically be to bring power back closer to the people.  ”Senate candidates have to raise so much money to run that they become beholden to special interests,” Tea Party members say according to Firestone.  The members ”argue that state legislators would not be as compromised and would choose senators who truly put their state’s needs first.” That in turn would restore checks and balance to federalism, wherein both the state and federal governments would be checked (by the other). This is not just a matter of state rights; rather, it is a matter of a viable federalism instead of consolidation. As Tim Bridgewater, who ousted Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah as the Republican candidate writes, “We traded senators who represent rights of states for senators who represent the rights of special interest groups.” By rights of the states, one can infer an empowerment of the representatives elected by the people of the states.  Such a change would hardly be anti-democratic or elitist; rather, it would reduce the power of the elitism in Washington DC.  A writer ought to be careful in dogmatically writing that something is ridiculous or unthinkable, for the lack of thought could come back to haunt him or her.  It is clear that Firestone is not very open to the possibility that he could be wrong.  The arrogance of centralized power at an empire-level is truly remarkable, even in its press.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/opinion/01tue4.html?hp

A constitutional moment engaging the citizenry is urgently needed with respect to the system of government in the United States. In short, the citizenry should decide, as a people, whether to revert back to a federal system or to make the political consolidation that has ensued official. If the latter, Alexander Hamilton's suggestion that the states be districts of the US Government, whose energy he thought could not directly extend to the outer reaches of the empire (i.e., into the wilderness of states distant from the seat of the U.S. Government). This was Hamilton's view in the U.S. Constitutional Convention; his writings eventually published in The Federalist Papers were meant to sell the proposed constitution rather than to give his own proposal. His own view may have come to pass, though through incremental Congressional encroachment on the turf of the governments of the several states and concurring U.S. Supreme Court assuaging (or enabling) doctrines.  I submit that this process of change over many years has eventuated in a gap between the system of governance as it is and as it is to be constitutionally.  Whereas some people argue that we must revert back to the constitution following a "strict" construction, I believe we the people, as a people, should commence a constitutional moment of heightened attention and debate concerning whether we want centralized consolidation (i.e., no states), decentralized consolidation (i.e., states as districts), or federalism (which entails dual sovereignty and a balance of power between the general government and the governments of the states).  I believe the latter is the best suited for an inherently diverse empire-scale political union, but that the people reach a decision is the imporant point now.  For otherwise, we will continue to live a lie--to claim to be a federal system while actually being consolidated: essentially flying with miscalibrated instruments. 

Actually making a decision on the type of political system is better than having the system inadvertantly change as a byproduct of whatever issue is being legislated at the moment. If the latter habit continues, I suspect that the United States will continue along the trend of consolidation at the expense of the State governments, with Congress, the U.S. President, and the U.S. Supreme Court gaining more and more power without sufficient checks on their abuse of power.  Progressives could look back on Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court allowing President George W. Bush to essentially declare war on Iraq and command the forces, while conservatives could look back on "Obamacare" applying to every state. Being concerned about the government of the Union having too much power is or ought to be an American proclivity. So too, the need for a decision on what type of political system the United States should have bears on every citizen, regardless of party.  This is what a constitutional moment is, after all; the people itself rising to discuss the system of government itself without being distracted by partisan issues of the day. To be sure, such a moment requires self-discipline among the people and responsibility in the media, so to keep on topic.

I find myself wondering why I even make the arguments.  It would take so much energy and agreement just to get to a constitutional moment wherein the citizenry as a whole become engaged in revisiting the governance system itself.  We are so easily distracted, and do we, as a citizenry, really care whether our government is federal or consolidated?   It might be that most of the citizenry is ready to say good riddence to federalism.  If so, then so be it.  Let’s at least make a decision.  If we as a people are incapable of making such a decision, it might be asked whether we are capable of democracy itself. It would be ironic if we were preaching democracy to the Middle East while not embracing popular sovereignty here at home.

“In a sense, Europe seemed to be living down to expectations. Earlier, the foreign minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, warned against a 'minimalist solution' that would reduce the European Union’s 'opportunity to have a clear voice in the world.'"  Olivier Ferrand, president of Terra Nova, a center-left research institute in France, said, “It is quite astounding. . . . It is jaw-dropping. It is the end of ambition for the E.U. — really disappointing.”

I think these are rather extreme positions on the selection of Herman Van Rompuy on November 19, 2009 as the first non-rotated president of the European Council.  Moreover, I don’t think the E.U. is going the way of the dinasaur just because Van Rompuy was not well known at the time of his selection.  He has written six books, is a writer of Japanese poems, has consensus-skills, and seems humble enough.  Would popular election have yielded a better candidate? As the election would have been E.U.-wide, it is doubtful that a high proportion of the voters would have been sufficiently familiar with him to make an informed decision. 

The New York Times continues, “The deal that produced the two choices emerged as a result of backroom negotiations among leaders jockeying for future and more important economic portfolios that could be more powerful in the enlarged European Union, which is still more of an economic union than a political one and looks to remain so.”  However, the E.U. includes a popularly-elected Parliament. Is a parliament not political? Is a parliament not a government body?  Perhaps, moreover, we should simply say that transfers of sovereignty are now economic in nature.

One might ask: who would have a vested interest in perpetrating such a subterfuge wherein governmental institutions, whether intergovernmental (e.g., the European Council) or national (e.g., the E.U. Parliament) are to be portrayed as solely economic in nature? According to The New York Times,  “The leaders of Europe’s most powerful countries, France and Germany, did not want to be overshadowed. Nor apparently did their foreign ministers.”   After the European Council elected Van Rompuy, Gordon Brown, the then-current British Prime Minister who had been pushing for Tony Blair (his precursor), told reporters that the posts are only ceremonial anyway since the state governments are still in control.  However, is Van Rompuy's role in presiding over the European Council merely for show? Is there not power in chairing a political institution? Furthermore, are the heads of the state governments in charge of the E.U. Commission, the E.U. Parliament, and the European Court of Justice? Even within the European Council where the governors of the states sit, qualified majority voting on most issues means that any given state government is not in control. We can conclude that E.U. level officials are not mere gloss on a window, and that the member states have indeed transferred some of their governmental sovereignty to the E.U. Government. Lest is be thought otherwise--that the E.U. does not have a government, there is a saying in English: If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and swims like a duck, odds are it is a duck.  It might be useful to ask why it is in the interest of some that the obvious conclusion be withheld.

My only caveat concerning the selection of Van Rompuy is that the consensus maker was not the sort to make transparent the "duck" subterfuge and denial, which had gone unchecked at the expense of greater European integration. In other words, the E.U. needs its own leaders who can garnish attention for the E.U. itself (i.e., apart from its state governments) because if integration falters, the danger will be dissolution unless or until more governmental sovereignty is transferred to the E.U. As for Van Rompuy's low name recognition outside Belgium at the time of his selection, let’s not forget that few, if any, presidents of the U.S. Senate (the Vice President of the U.S.) have been known at the beginning of their respective terms. Of course, outside of breaking tie votes, the president of the U.S. Senate (whose members are the member states of the union) is more ceremonial than is the president of the European Council.  In fact, senators regularly stand in for the presiding officer when the U.S. Senate is in session, whereas Van Rompuy himself presides over sessions of the European Council.  Also, the European Council is possibly more powerful among E.U. governmental institutions than the U.S. Senate is in the U.S. This is probably so because the state governments in the E.U. have more power at the E.U. level than the American state governments do in the U.S. This could explain why Van Rompuy's position, the President of the European Council, is powerful (because the Council he chairs is powerful) even if Van Rompuy had been an unknown outside of Belgium and was not an attention-getter in the media (e.g., unlike Tony Blair).

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/world/europe/20union.html?_r=1&ref=world

As of 2011, Russia had 11 time zones, from the Polish border to near Alaska, a system so vast that a traveller could get a walloping case of jet lag from a domestic flight.  In 2009, Russia was considering shedding some of its time zones.  People running businesses in the far east were complaining because the regulators were typically in Moscow, which could be several hours behind.    The issue blossomed at the end of 2009 into an intense debate across the Russian Federation about how Russians saw themselves, about how the regions should relate to the center, and about how to address the age-old problem of creating a sense of unity in a diverse federation that had been consolidated politically.  In short, the issue concerned the challenges involved in a consolidated empire. 

The sheer amount of territory in an empire that is made up of republics that are on the scale of independent states or countries makes “one size fits all” from the center extremely difficult.  It might have been different when kingdoms and empires were smaller—such as the medieval sort (e.g. the Swiss confederation and the Netherlands—both empires on a medieval scale but states in modern terms).  For China, the US, the EU and Russia, the extent of geography is a limitation on how much centralized authority is possible.  The Chinese government maintains one time zone for China, when there could easily be four or five.  In the case of Russia, such consolidation would mean that people in some places would be getting up and having breakfast in the middle of the night!   Even reducing the number of zones could make it more difficult on some, given the short duration of daylight in the winter.   Consider, for example, the trouble of going to and from daylight savings time in the US and EU.  Eliminating a few time zones in Russia would be to act as though a few hours difference doesn’t matter much.  The far east may already be two hours off of the correct biological time—meaning the most fitting with the human biological clock. 

In the end, the problem is one of consolidating an empire-scale polity.  Given the inherent heterogenuity involved in such an expanse, there are limitations in what can be done centrally.  Moscow can’t simply issue an order and expect that every Russian city will be awake and thus able to reply immediately.  Resentment toward central control in such cases (i.e., empires) is quite natural.  Indeed, proposals to modify the time zones have stirred deep suspicions, especially in the Far East and Siberia, where people have long resented Moscow, much the way people in places like Idaho distrust the goings-on in Washington.  So the issue is not simply one of whether time zones should be adjusted.  The tensions come when an empire seeks an inordinate amount of centralized control—more than that which is consistent with natural differences.  A consolidated empire on the modern scale (i.e., early-modern kingdoms being the scale of the units) is an artificial construction.   The time zones, I submit, should be oriented to biological clocks, while the federal system is given greater weight (i.e., more autonomy for the republics and regions).  “We have to look at this from a biological standpoint, how it is going to affect health,” said Yekaterina Degtyareva, 27, a personnel manager who lives in Novosibirsk, the most populous city in Siberia, and often travels to the Far East and Moscow. “If it is going to be a centralized, so-called totalitarian decision, then nothing good will come of it.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/world/europe/07zones.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=russia%20time&st=cse