We tend to think that the job of legislatures involves maintaining and protecting the power of the people to choose their governments.
In fact their primary role is restoring the people’s power, and ensuring an equilibrium of power between all branches — because that’s what makes democracies functional and stabilised.
They do this by legislating. In particular by noting where power is accumulating and responding to such overreaches by passing laws that restore the balance between the branches on which stable democratic governance depends.
But right now this isn’t happening. Not in Australia, nor in the United States. Why? Because both houses of the people are gridlocked, unable to pass any controversial legislation, having forgotten about the measures designed to remedy weakness and corruption in the system that puts democracy at risk.
Let’s start with the Australian Parliament, which for the past decade has been unable to pass laws essential to our growth and prosperity. According to the Grattan Institute, of 73 reforms proposed between 2009-19, more than two-thirds failed. This stands in sharp contrast to the 1970s and ’80s when unpopular laws passed because politicians were willing to champion them for the public good.
Why can’t we get legislation through now? Grattan puts it down to the hyper-partisanship that sees important reforms ruled out by one side or the other, political patronage, and the incentives that make our representatives answerable to powerful vested interests that fund their campaigns rather than the voters.
Which is where the double-edged sword of legislative gridlock comes in. Not only does it stymie the passage of economic reforms essential to our prosperity, it also stops the people’s house from passing legislation designed to protect the people’s power. No federal ICAC has emerged from the past Parliament, despite the PM promising one during the 2019 election campaign. We also haven’t seen any federal campaign finance reforms. And the rorting of grants and stacking of key oversight bodies goes on and on and on.
The US Congress is in the same pickle. After Donald Trump’s open assault on democratic institutions and norms, it has failed to pass even one reform to stop a future president — including Trump if he wins in 2024 — obstructing justice by dangling pardons, exerting undue influence on the Justice Department, or violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials using their position to affect the result of an election.
As one disgusted commentator put it while noting the surprising absence of legislative and policy achievements to fortify American democracy: “I guess I wasn’t sceptical enough about Congress’s ability to legislate.”
So what can be done? The Grattan wish list includes strengthening the viability and reach of independent media, reform of the public service to increase its capacity and willingness to provide frank, fearless and expert policy advice to the government of the day, and measures to reduce the impulse for political patronage corrupting the awarding of government contracts, the making of policy decisions, and the granting of powerful appointments to partisan friends.
But they too wonder who — in a gridlocked Parliament — will champion the institutional changes needed to rebalance power so the people’s house can do its job again: passing legislative reforms that will improve the lives of all.
Their answer is timely given the imminent trek we’re all about to make to the polls.
The most politically realistic path to institutional change is for independent members of Parliament to champion institutional changes, particularly when they hold the balance of power.
Apparently those who vote for independents have “less trust in government, and more concern that the system is not working for them”.
So go forth you disadvantaged cynics and knock yourselves out.
