The dysfunctional state of the United States' form of republican government begs a question: is the system that once yielded "one nation, indivisible" up to the task of uniting a nation as deeply riven by polarization of wealth, race, social values, and economic theory, as it was divided by even worse evils during the ante-bellum years?
Our history is that of a swinging political pendulum - testing extremes but invariably returning to a functional center. Yet it is the center that is increasingly seen by both the left and the right to have failed to address the needs of the American people. Populist rhetoric on both ends of the political spectrum has rendered our deliberative legislative process moribund, and the pendulum may be stuck at one extreme or another for the foreseeable future.
While it is not reasonable to imagine the emergence of consensus for radical shifts in our political system, there is a system that the political party out of power can unilaterally adopt from Westminster-style parliamentary governments – the formation and maintenance of a shadow cabinet. Heretofore not a part of the American tradition, shadow cabinets are how the opposition party in most other democracies develops policy, maintains a coherent message and advances the expertise of senior party members with whom the national electorate can become familiar in advance of the minority party taking power.
Both of our parties are themselves divided between their own extreme and moderate wings – with Trumpism having produced a possible third front within a Republican Party most recently split between the moderate conservative and tea party elements. The Sanders/Clinton divide is case in point for the Democrats. When the party in power becomes schizophrenic, it generally falls in subsequent elections. And if both major political parties are devoid of internal accord, the door to extremism opens wide.
But what if the party out of power in the White House and in the minority in one or both houses of Congress were to approach governance as if it too had a contemporaneous role in policy making? What if a caucus of its members in Congress elected a shadow cabinet (with weighted voting to equalize the influence of senators and representatives) with members pledged to lead the formation of unified policy consensus for each cabinet-level office of the executive?
Members of such a shadow cabinet would commit to assume their designated role in the actual cabinet of the next president of their party, and the party’s presidential nominees would commit to appoint them under most circumstances (with due regard to a president’s ultimate constitutional prerogatives). Shadow cabinet secretaries would likely be senior congressional committee members within each area of expertise, but the party caucus could reach out to state governors or private citizens with extraordinary expertise to be a party shadow secretary.
While thankless in some respects, due to having policy responsibility but no power, the shadow cabinet would be a desirable proving ground for future electoral leadership – not a group of pundits, but a real alternative to those then holding the reins of executive authority.
The role of shadow cabinet members would be to act as party spokesperson and coordinate party policy activities (and legislative activities when the party out of power in the White House is also in the minority in one or both houses of congress) so as to present the electorate with a comprehensive set of legislative alternatives that the party’s presidential aspirants would be expected to support. Vigorous debates among wings of the party would still occur, but not – as in Sanders vs. Clinton – focused on the presidential election cycle, when they are most confusing to the electorate and ultimately harmful to all wings of the party.
Among a number of the stark failures of the Hillary Clinton campaign was the candidate’s almost obsessive determination not to be locked into policy prescriptions, other than in the most general fashion. She failed against a man who, while offering what at best can be called highly unconventional policy (“build that wall” etc.) was pretty specific on what he would do as president. A shadow cabinet and the policies it develops and maintains would prevent a repeat of such ill-advised behavior.
While a formal shadow cabinet would be new to the U.S., there are somewhat similar precedents. The Democratic Leadership Council that existed from 1985 to 2011, brought Bill Clinton and the so-called “New Democrats” to power and set the stage for President Barack Obama’s turn towards a New Democrat policy agenda following his election. The DLC, for better or worse, mapped out a set of centrist, “third way” policies that the Democratic Party eventually coalesced behind – and its members went on to serve in senior positions in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. To a lesser extent, one can also look to the Contract with America platform advanced by The Heritage Foundation via Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey in 1994, a comprehensive policy offering supported by all but two members of the Republican minority in the House. It performed a similar function in the Republicans’ seizure of power in both houses of congress in 1995 (for the first time in 50 years).
But those ad hoc mechanisms were implemented at a time when we still had a functioning legislature and the nation was nowhere near as torn as it is today. At 242 years of age, the U.S. has reached the leading edge of governmental decrepitude. It is time to reach back to our parliamentary origins to reinvigorate our political process.
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