A Fourth Branch of Government?

I was reminded of this when I read about the current situation in the Canadian Parliament. The Liberals, who are now the governing party in Canada, actually have under 45% of the seats in parliament, and there is some possibility that the members of two other parties, the Bloc Quebecois and the Conservatives, will work together to try to unseat the liberals.

This would bring into the picture the Governor General of Canada. This is a rather archaic office, since the Governor General is appointed by the Queen of England, and is her representative--but the Governor General normally has little or no power. (The present Governor General is a woman, and is apparently quite popular in Canada.)

However, in situations where there might be a dispute as to how a new government would be chosen, and how it would take office--a sequence of events which might now take place in Canada--the Governor General does have a useful function, in that the person holding the office, can make some of the decisions which are necessary in order for the transition to be made in a peaceful and timely fashion. This may or may not happen in the next few weeks.

This reminded me of an old proposal which was actually made before the Civil War, the idea that a fourth branch of goverment be added to the federal government in the United States. If I remember correctly, the original reason for the proposal was the fact that the Supreme Court made several decisions, the most famous of which was the Dred Scott case, which tended to increase the scope of slavery in the United States. A fourth branch of government would have a role vaguely similar to that of the Governor General in Canada, in that it would have no active power, but would have some influence on the conduct of government.

Since it's difficult to change the makeup of the Supreme Court unless one or more of the justices resigns, the proposal was, that a fourth branch of government be established, and that it have the sole function of defining and limiting the powers of the other branches of government. In particular, it would decide which cases the Supreme Court could hear and rule on. I don't remember what the name of the fourth branch was supposed to be, maybe the regulative branch or something like that. Of course, the Civil War eliminated the problem with which the fourth branch was supposed to deal.

However, some arguments can be made for the idea. As it stands today, all three branches of the federal government, more or less determine for themselves how much power they can exercise. This is particularly true for the executive and judicial branches. Judges are able to decide which cases they are to rule on, they then make decisions on those cases, and whatever they decide, becomes the effective law of the land. That's actually quite a bit of power to give to one individual, or one group of individuals, and it might make some sense to divide the responsibility for deciding which cases (and laws) are to be ruled on by the court, and what those rulings are. It would certainly reduce judicial power. And, of course, there are always questions about whether the President can undertake foreign military adventures without the consent of Congress.

I don't recall what the characteristics of the fourth branch were supposed to be, but I presume that an elective body the size of the Senate or smaller would have been chosen to be that branch. It would have had no active administrative, enforcement, or judicial functions, as I understand it.

I would suppose that a lot of people would think that this would be a new layer of unnecessary bureaucracy, and there would be no guarantee that it wouldn't be dominated by corporate interests or pressure groups. It would also have some similarity, structurally, to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, which is a body that isn't part of the regular federal government, but which has far-reaching effects on the economy and, by extension, on other things in the country. And we've seen how dominating leaders--such as Greenspan and Volcker--can get the Fed to do their will, something which could conceivably happen also in a fourth branch of government.

I don't think that anything of this type has even been tried in any government, although some haphazardly structured governments, like that of Czarist Russia, have had institutions without clear authority in certain areas of governance, and the conflicts which resulted, have placed de facto limitations on the power of those institutions whose powers weren't well defined.

[MacTheWolf]

Well..........technically, the USA has five branches of governmental influence:

1. Presidency
2. Congress
3. Supreme Court
4. Media
5. Lobbyists

I'll wager A-1 could come up with a few more

I think the media has been called the "fourth estate," (Cf. the French Revolution), but I guess that you could call it a branch, especially since so many members of the media have been in politics, or will some day be.

[Riverwind]

Originally Posted by MacTheWolf

Well..........technically, the USA has five branches of governmental influence:

1. Presidency
2. Congress
3. Supreme Court
4. Media
5. Lobbyists

I'll wager A-1 could come up with a few more

I would agree with you MacWolf, altho the order would be different


1. Lobbyists - Lets face it, Lobbyists hold the President and congress accountable to them.
2. Supreme Court - This group once in are not accountable to anybody.
3. Media - Watergate, Nixon, need I say more.
4. Presidency
4. Congress

- as you can see I have the President and congress tied, some presidents have been so powerful that they were all the way to Number One on this list, FDR comes to mind. I dont think Congress has ever had the power to be in the list higher then 3 or 4.

Oh well,

River

[SplitDik]

I live in Canada, so don't know American government well, but I thought the Electoral College was supposed to help those situations where the outcome of an election was not clear or needed to be overridden.

[A-1]

SplitDik,

Correct you are.

The electorates of the State cast ballots in the Electorial College after the election. This is what elects the President of the United States, not the popular vote. The electorates are determined by popular vote, and they have always been loyal to their party afilliations. Any legal challenge to the voting process after this occurs is moot. Whatever the court rules at that point does not change the fact that the President is elected.

Otherwise, we would still be in court with Al Gore's challenge of the 2000 Presidential election.

Isn't it funny how providence has provided a method for a problem back when there was no telegraph or modern communication of any kind that has kept disputes out of our modern day election process? Call it dumb luck if you want, but I have faith that a higher power was involved in this thing.

Of, course, I am still not so sure that AL Gore was not the best choice for President in 2000, even though he did some pretty stupid things in my estimation that blew the election for him. A Gore Presidency may have placed the world in a much different situation that it is in today, however, that is something of which we shall never know the outcome. (SIGH)

A-1