Originally, the Constitution specified that the candidate for President who got the most electoral votes would be President, and the runner up would be Vice President.
This was changed by the 12th Amendment, after which the states voted for the two offices together. Like the 17th Amendment, this removed one of the crucial checks and balances in the original system.
The more I see polls with percentages like 48-48, 45-43, and so on, the more I find myself thinking: If people are so evenly (and bitterly) divided, maybe we shouldn’t even choose a President. We should just keep changing candidates until we find someone that 2/3 (or 3/4, or 4/5) of the people can agree on.
Or, we could do this: We could repeal Amendment 12, and replace it with an amendment that says the two top vote-getters are co-Presidents. That is, together, they would have whatever powers are delegated to the President and the Vice President; but acting alone, neither could do anything.
Actually, there would be one exception: Either co-President, acting alone, would be able to veto a bill passed by Congress.
Interestingly, this might bring us closer to the idea of government by consent than any other scheme that is available to us (apart from nullification by randomly selected juries). There would be no way for a slight majority to make a major policy shift — like creating a national health care system out of thin air, or implementing a nationwide abortion ban, or imposing controls on guns or free speech, and so on — that doesn’t have the support of both major parties.
Think about how many bills both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump would sign. Or to put that another way, how many bills neither of them would veto.
Think about what kind of budget would be acceptable to both candidates and their supporters.
Think about what kind of foreign policy we’d have.
In fact, we’d end up with a country where, if you want something to happen, you pretty much have to make it happen, either alone or by collaborating with people who share your vision.
Now, on the one hand, Democrats might object, saying that there are all kinds of entitlements that would never get funding from the federal government. And they’re right. But what they’d be missing is that with tens of millions of registered members in their party, they could fund all those without the federal government, for their own members.
Similarly, Republicans might object, saying that there are all kinds of restrictions on immoral behavior that would never be punished by the federal government. And they’re right. But what they’d be missing is that with tens of millions of registered members in their party, they could impose all those without the federal government, on their own members.
So each party could give itself what it wants, without having the other party impose on it what it doesn’t want.
In other words, once it becomes impossible for either major party to use the slimmest of majorities to try to force its agenda on everyone else, each party would be forced to start considering how to do things through cooperation that they now imagine can only be done through coercion.
Which is how things ought to work in a free country, right?
Oh, and to make this all work, the amendment would have to add a clause stating that no federal statute or regulation (including those that we already have) can remain in force for more than ten years without re-authorization. This would allow laws that should never have been passed in the first place to be phased out gradually, rather than frozen in place forever.
