representation in the decision-making
process. Congress is supposed to estab-lish
closeness between local interests and
concerns and the representative and so to
enable the people to bring to the table is-sues
that affect the citizen in a direct way.
The other role of Congress is allow
deliberation of different points of views.
Deliberation and compromise are vital
and necessary factors in maintaining the
legitimacy and functioning of the sys-tem.
Thus, the American party system
historically evolved in a different way
than the one in Europe. Party discipline
was practically nonexistent. Members
of Congress established a relationship
with constituencies. Party leadership
and party guidance were relatively un-important.
Congressional polarization
However, since the early 1990’s Ameri-can
political parties began to behave as
parliamentary parties where parties vote
in a block, and members of the party are
subjected to party discipline.
The Republican Party unanimously
blocked former U.S President Bill Clin-ton’s
economic and healthcare plans.
Starting in 1995 House Speaker Newt
Gingrich introduced the “Contract of
America” as a revolutionary project sup-posedly
supported by the Republican
Party as a whole.
Congressional polarization began to
evolve.
The Clinton Impeachment reflected
the intensity of this polarization. Li-kewise,
after former Republican Pre-sident
George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion
found itself in a quagmire, Democrats
saw an opportunity to attack the Re-publicans
politically, to gain political
points, and recover the three branches
of government. During the presidency of
Barack Obama, Republicans obstructed
legislative initiatives increasing a po-larization
that eventually gave birth to
Donald Trump.
A strong executive branch
The legislative crisis has also given birth
to a strong executive branch. An in-creased
decision-making process based
on executive prerogatives characterizes
the presidencies of George W. Bush, Ba-rack
Obama, and Donald Trump.
Many of the Bush administration’s
post-September 11 domestic strategies
challenged the role of the federal and
administrative courts in restraining ex-ecutive
action.
Obama sought to reshape the coun-try,
using executive orders to impose
regulations on economic life. Obama
also cut deals that lack enough support
in Congress, such as the Iran deal or
the normalization with Cuba. Close to
600 executive orders affecting mostly
domestic issues were issued.
Furthermore, a culture of party ral-lying
around the president intensified.
It started with the Democrats and the
Republicans followed suit up to the point
of cult of personality
Under Trump, the abuse of executive
power also occurred in areas where the
president’s authority is legal. There is
no doubt that the president is legally
entitled to appoint officers, fire prose-cutors,
agency directors, and certainly
cabinet ministers. However, a president
would rarely fire an officer because he
or she is investigating something the
president dislikes. Trump has demanded
full loyalty to his persona. He created a
genuflect model of the Government’s
administrative apparatus, including the
attorney general and other agencies that
have bene traditionally independent.
Time to wake up
Changes are now required. We need to
restore the capacity of Congress to de-liberate.
The party leadership needs to
withdraw from exercising party disci-pline
or aggressively interfering in the
relationship between representatives
and constituents. Executive power needs
to be exercised with caution. Ethical is-sues
must become legal issues. Punish-ment
for what is believed to be a lack of
loyalty without proper public justifica-tion
is not good for democracy.
As a student of Latin America, I ob-served
more often than not, abuse of
presidential power, legislative corrup-tion,
judicial weakening, and state col-lapse.
Every future president and members
of Congress must be aware of the con-sequences
of their actions.
Luis Fleischman is a professor of Sociology
at Palm Beach State College, the co-founder
of the think-tank the Palm Beach Center for
Democracy and Policy Research. He is also
the author of “Latin America in the Post-
Chavez Era: The Threat to U.S. Security,”
and the author of a forthcoming book, “The
Middle East Riddle: The Arab-Israeli Conflict
in Light of Political and Social Transforma-tions
in the Arab World.” to be published by
New Academia.”
Congress is supposed
to be one of the key
components in the
division of powers. © ISTOCK BY GETTYIMAGES / ABLOKHIN
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