With all due respect, I feel like this proposal has some major flaws. I won't talk about the aspect of implementing it which seems to me as just about as hard as implementing a Socialist revolution and reworking the constitution and congress as a whole, but the plan seems designed to create a staffer regime. Of course reform is needed to address the abuses of office but I'm not sure
The Imperial Chinese civil service seems to be a great inspiration here (the Roman system was always tied more to military victories) and while that system was ingenious, it also had patent flaws, especially ones deleterious to democratic rule. Giving civil service workers this level of institutional power would create an ossified intellectual class that could hinder democratic will through sabotage and delay should it not align with their ideas. With the legislative branch being more paralyzed day by day, the arm would lean more on this staffer regime that has stability. The result would be what is parodied by "Yes Minister": a morass of inexperienced legislators abandoning their duties to the staffers, and technocratic governance by any other name. Such a government might be efficient and perhaps even good, but it wouldn't be what the voters wanted.
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the risk of a staffer regime, similar to Yes Minister is plain. I do think a large part of that though comes in the norms and culture (yes, even rituals) that will happen if such a system comes to fruition. The staffers in my imagination are humble, pliant, genius servants to the public will, literally bowing to elected officials who themselves are still the boss. All they can do is translate the will of elected officials into law, and to refine them into better law; to transform Congress from a den of thieves into a respected den of experts and masters of the law. To an elected official, the bureaucracy should be like glasses to the vision challenged, or ergonomic shoes to the feet challenged. A tool to aid, not to oppress.
Flagging that Amanda Koski — who shared firsthand experiences with ex-Congressman Eric Swalwell that she viewed as red flags — has been digging into potential solutions for the lack of HR and oversight on Capitol Hill, where she used to work as a staffer. https://amandakoski.substack.com/p/the-swalwell-universe-why-we-need
With all due respect, I feel like this proposal has some major flaws. I won't talk about the aspect of implementing it which seems to me as just about as hard as implementing a Socialist revolution and reworking the constitution and congress as a whole, but the plan seems designed to create a staffer regime. Of course reform is needed to address the abuses of office but I'm not sure
The Imperial Chinese civil service seems to be a great inspiration here (the Roman system was always tied more to military victories) and while that system was ingenious, it also had patent flaws, especially ones deleterious to democratic rule. Giving civil service workers this level of institutional power would create an ossified intellectual class that could hinder democratic will through sabotage and delay should it not align with their ideas. With the legislative branch being more paralyzed day by day, the arm would lean more on this staffer regime that has stability. The result would be what is parodied by "Yes Minister": a morass of inexperienced legislators abandoning their duties to the staffers, and technocratic governance by any other name. Such a government might be efficient and perhaps even good, but it wouldn't be what the voters wanted.
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the risk of a staffer regime, similar to Yes Minister is plain. I do think a large part of that though comes in the norms and culture (yes, even rituals) that will happen if such a system comes to fruition. The staffers in my imagination are humble, pliant, genius servants to the public will, literally bowing to elected officials who themselves are still the boss. All they can do is translate the will of elected officials into law, and to refine them into better law; to transform Congress from a den of thieves into a respected den of experts and masters of the law. To an elected official, the bureaucracy should be like glasses to the vision challenged, or ergonomic shoes to the feet challenged. A tool to aid, not to oppress.
Flagging that Amanda Koski — who shared firsthand experiences with ex-Congressman Eric Swalwell that she viewed as red flags — has been digging into potential solutions for the lack of HR and oversight on Capitol Hill, where she used to work as a staffer. https://amandakoski.substack.com/p/the-swalwell-universe-why-we-need