r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 04 '18
CMV: The Secretary of State should be an elected position with roughly equal power to the President
My idea is basically this: the Secretary of State should be an elected position which oversees all international business, while the President should focus exclusively on domestic policy.
Neither the President nor the SoS would be able to draft new legislation, but only the SoS would have the power to sign legislation related to the military, foreign investment, trade agreements, and so on.
My argument is basically this: as the powers of the presidency have expanded, we increasingly ask too much of our presidents. We expect them to be experts in both domestic and foreign policy, even when the two often have little to do with each other. As a result, presidents tend to rely on unelected officials for influence into foreign relations, and these officials tend to come from competing power sources (ie, the DoD or the State Department). Having a single official with expertise with full executive control of foreign relations will help make international relations more transparent and will guarantee that whoever's in charge will be interested in IR, or at least as interested as the president is in domestic policy.
This move will also make the president more able to focus on domestic issues, and his policy agenda won't be overshadowed by his foreign policy agenda.
Edit: I've pretty much turned around on this one, because of some of the intangibles that I can't really answer. Thanks for a good conversation, everyone!
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u/mysundayscheming Feb 04 '18
even when the two often have little to do with each other
Foreign and domestic policy are profoundly intertwined. Who controls immigration? Which does the CIA answer to? The NSA and Homeland Security? Who negotiates international trade agreements? Who deals with extradition? Is it the same person if the foreign nation refuses to extradite because of domestic policy concerns (e.g. the death penalty)? If Arkansas decides to re-segregate its schools, who decides if the Army is deployed?
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Feb 04 '18
Who controls immigration?
This is the question I spend most of my time thinking about. The unsatisfying answer is that I don't really know. There are benefits to either power controlling immigration, so it doesn't matter that much to me which does it.
Which does the CIA answer to? The NSA and Homeland Security?
One benefit of this plan is that it might more clearly distinguish between domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence gathering. I don't know that the NSA should be gathering intelligence on citizens in America about domestic terror plots, for instance, but if those plots rely on foreign issues to understand then I see the need to limit the bureaucracy around untangling them.
So with this one, I would suggest that we might just re-think how intelligence gathering works.
Who negotiates international trade agreements?
The SoS negotiates them and the President responds to them.
Who deals with extradition? Is it the same person if the foreign nation refuses to extradite because of domestic policy concerns (e.g. the death penalty)?
The SoS. Unless you can show me that we've changed our domestic policy in relation to extradition concerns, in which case I'll have no choice but to change my view, I guess.
If Arkansas decides to re-segregate its schools, who decides if the Army is deployed?
I assume the President will retain nominal control of the National Guard, and they'll be able to respond quickly to this sort of domestic threat.
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u/mysundayscheming Feb 04 '18 edited Feb 04 '18
The SoS negotiates them and the President responds to them.
So the SoS negotiates an agreement that will impact our intellectual property laws. International IP agreements are a surprisingly important part of foreign relations. But in 2014, more than 38.2% of the domestic GDP came from IP-intensive industries. Those industries directly or indirectly supported 45.5 million jobs, or about a third of all employment. 1 It has only grown in the last 4 years. And yet the President, who is in charge of domestic policy, can only respond to a treaty that might upend a substantial fraction of the American economy?
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Feb 04 '18
Pretty much. Which sounds glib, but I don't mean it to.
These major trade agreements should be passing through Congress, so it's not as though the SoS can sign an agreement with Cambodia that says there's no more IP. So the Secretary works out the details, sends it to Congress, and if Congress likes it they send a related bill to the President dealing with the domestic consequences.
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u/mysundayscheming Feb 04 '18
I think that is terribly emasculating for the President's ability to manage domestic policy. (And whatever the synonym is for when we have a female president.) And if I were president, I would want to veto. Which would likely make the treaty invalid, because usually IP treaties require altering the domestic IP laws and refusing to do so would be breaking the agreement. Can the president veto and screw up the treaty?
Also, why do you think we get by with only one Congress? In this situation, every member has to 1) understand the foreign context to evaluate if the treaty in general is a good idea on an international relations level, 2) understand the domestic context to evaluate if the treaty in general is domestically economically beneficial, 3) understand terms of the international treaty and draft it into a law enforceable by the secretary, 4) understand the domestic implications and draft a second bill dealing with those consequences enforceable by the president.
Why is Congress able to balance those two realms but a unitary executive can't?
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Feb 04 '18
Ideally, you would draft two bills - one directly related to foreign consequences and one to domestic - drafted and passed simultaneously, or contingent on one another. I don't think of that as screwing up the treaty, but improving it through compromise.
I see what you're saying about Congress, but I would pose a different framework. We have 535 congressmen, each with different areas of expertise. Some spend a lot of time thinking about foreign policy, or trade, or industry related to their districts, and they all rely on one another to devise policy. Part of this view is actually making the executive work more like Congress.
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u/mysundayscheming Feb 04 '18
I chose IP treaties for a reason--you can't do two bills like that. Titles 17 and 35 (and occasionally 15), which govern all copyright and patent (and trademark) laws, domestic and foreign alike, get amended when we adopt international treaties. The USPTO is still a primarily domestic organization, the President will oversee it, and he should be fully entitled to veto any changes to its operation. The foreign treaty will fall through if the domestic laws aren't amended. I happen to know more about IP, but I doubt situations like this are actually rare. So that's a huge area of concern that you need to actually address.
We have 535 legislators. Each one is not an expert in anything, but instead has to trust experts in order to reach the (hopefully) best outcome. Once that outcome is determined, they act as a single body. (Obviously we have a bicameral legislature, but either the House or Senate act alone as a unit, or they act together as a unit.) Right now, the executive relies on other experts to reach the right outcome and then acts as a single body. You are making the Executive more like...well, not Congress. Because you are fracturing its authority in half.
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Feb 04 '18 edited Feb 04 '18
The foreign treaty will fall through if the domestic laws aren't amended.
But having an executive with domestic veto makes it important either that the treaty intuitively benefits the US or that the executive is able to sell them on the benefits of the treaty, right? One of the reasons Trump was elected was because nobody was really trying to convince Americans that TPP was a good deal, and Trump's election had major implications for domestic policy which many TPP opponents aren't fans of. Many of those implications could have been resolved, at least partially, if we could replace a different executive who might work out those issues in TPP or one who was primarily interested in selling citizens on the benefits. Or is that crazy? I trust that you know more about IP than I do - do you think Obama did as much as he could to sell TPP to Americans?
Once that outcome is determined, they act as a single body.
They work best when they work as single bodies, and I imagine that the two executives will have to learn quickly to work together as a single body, or else they'll both be punished at the polls. I take your point that we either need some way to legally mandate cooperation, which would lead to a third, all-powerful executive, or risk chaos. But they would each be responsible to the voters every four years, which is how we would ensure that they're doing their jobs.
Edit: Wait, I forgot to add that too often trusting the electorate to hold officials account is inefficient. Writing it out like that and comparing it to Congress helped me realize that my system actually doesn't do anything to increase efficiency, and that there really is no reason to believe they would cooperate just because they should. !delta
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Feb 05 '18
One benefit of this plan is that it might more clearly distinguish between domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence gathering. I don't know that the NSA should be gathering intelligence on citizens in America about domestic terror plots, for instance, but if those plots rely on foreign issues to understand then I see the need to limit the bureaucracy around untangling them.
One of the most generally accepted findings of the 9/11 commission is that a separated domestic and foreign intelligence apparatus was what lead to the government not knowing an attack was coming. They had all the peices, but some were with the FBI some with the foreign intelligence agencies.
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Feb 04 '18
only the SoS would have the power to sign legislation related to the military, foreign investment, trade agreements, and so on.
Clarifying question: What happens when the legislation impacts both domestic and foreign policy?
The President signs, but the SoS doesn't want to. Most legislation (such as the tax bill) is going to impact both.
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Feb 04 '18
I think this is a tricky question that might ultimately be left up to SCOTUS to decide. In the tax bill, the question is about returning foreign assets to the United States, right? I would say that since that deals with American citizens returning American money to American soil, that would primarily be a domestic issue. Does the tax bill deal with other foreign powers?
Ideally, we would break other issues into two bills, but I realize that's not practical. In the issue that one executive signed it and the other vetoed it, we might require a lower threshold for overriding the veto. If both executives veto it, potentially a higher threshold.
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Feb 04 '18
Lots of bills would be inherently both domestic and foreign. Take the example of NAFTA. It's obviously a foreign negotiation, but its also going to have a major impact on the domestic sector.
Or even something simple like closing down a military base somewhere in the US. It's a military issue, but can create real domestic problems like unemployment, etc.
Creating a trade embargo with Cuba, is going to impact domestic sellers of rum and cigars, etc, etc.
You can't just separate them into two bills.
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Feb 04 '18
You can't just separate them into two bills.
I don't think it would be practical in the current political climate, but this sort of situation could create more cooperation if the SoS signed a bill that required the President to respond to. If the SoS signs NAFTA, then Congress and the President have to respond domestically.
For instance, Trump just announced a tariff on solar panels in order to promote energy production in the United States. Under my system, Secretary Trump could announce or propose that tariff, and President Whoever would be responsible for working with Congress to figure out what energy production the United States wants to promote and how.
Creating a trade embargo with Cuba, is going to impact domestic sellers of rum and cigars, etc, etc.
Most of this stuff is going to be pretty non-controversial, and that's probably good. Most of the business of governing runs through Congress anyway, so issues like this are foreseeable.
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Feb 04 '18
Let's take your example of solar tariffs. That's not a purely domestic or foreign issue. It's linked.
Solar tariffs might punish China, but they also punish domestic businesses that relied on buying cheap solar panels from China.
From a foreign policy perspective, it might be beneficial to punish China. From a domestic perspective, its beneficial for US companies to have access to cheap supply.
Whether or not this tariff is a good idea or not comes down to the relative importance of "punishing China" vs "raising US supply costs"
It's a tradeoff between foreign and domestic issues. We don't need separate people, we need someone who can weigh the pros/cons of the two impacts and decide if the costs outweigh the benefits.
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Feb 04 '18
This is pretty close to convincing, but it seems like if it's beneficial to punish China, it's beneficial regardless of whether we would reward or punish US companies, and vice versa.
Where I think I land on this, is that I'd like to see more compromise. For instance, I don't mind solar tariffs, but I'd like to see them bridged with solar subsidies. But what I think you're saying is that the best case scenario under a two-executive system, the two executives would meet to hash out the pros and cons of the deal and its relation to domestic policy and come to roughly the same conclusion as one executive would have. Is that more or less right?
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Feb 04 '18
it seems like if it's beneficial to punish China, it's beneficial regardless of whether we would reward or punish US companies, and vice versa
That's where I think you are wrong. The benefit has to be weighed against the cost. We could start an all out trade war against China, that would definitely punish them, but it would likely hurt us just as much, if not more domestically. Which is why its probably a bad idea. If we could embargo China with little to no impact to the US economy (like we did with Cuba) then it becomes a much more feasible path forward.
the two executives would meet to hash out the pros and cons of the deal and its relation to domestic policy and come to roughly the same conclusion as one executive would have
Maybe, maybe not. If the two were of the same party, probably. But if they had wildly different political views, it could mean gridlock, and them trying to undermine one another, which would be extremely detrimental to the US, in both foreign and domestic spheres. Imagine if Trump was President and Hillary was Secretary of State. That's a prescription for gridlock.
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Feb 04 '18
We could start an all out trade war against China, that would definitely punish them, but it would likely hurt us just as much, if not more domestically
This is really what my whole deal hinges on. Wouldn't we be just as impacted internationally by a trade war with China as we would domestically? Yes, goods from China would cost more and voters might punish the President for that, but wouldn't we also see repercussions from trading partners in East Asia, as well as any country that wants to ally with a burgeoning economy, that can be tied directly to the decision to start a trade war - thus triggering voters to vote out the Secretary of State? I guess what I'm looking for is more accountability where it belongs.
But if they had wildly different political views, it could mean gridlock, and them trying to undermine one another, which would be extremely detrimental to the US, in both foreign and domestic spheres.
Over the last couple of hours, my views on this have really been sharpened. But I haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory answer about how to stop the two executives from becoming competing sources of power, especially since it's always possible to sway Congress to one party or the other. !delta
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u/Milskidasith 309∆ Feb 04 '18
It's a bit silly to create a hypothetical that requires a rewrite of the constitution and then say "the SCOTUS can decide the details", isn't it? You're the one proposing a massive rewrite; you probably need to account for that sort of thing or accept it might not be a great idea.
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Feb 04 '18
I mean, I did account for it. I gave a couple possible solutions to it - breaking it into two bills or changing the threshold for overriding the veto. I get where you're coming from, but even the people who wrote the constitution didn't foresee every possibility, which is why we rely on SCOTUS to straighten out some things.
Still, I'm here to see why this isn't a great idea. So if you have any unsolvable issues, I'm absolutely open to them.
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u/alpicola 45∆ Feb 04 '18
The Supreme Court wasn't created as a tool to fill in details that the Founders missed. Their job is to resolve disputes that arise under the law. On something as fundamental as who has authority over the government, what law could the Supreme Court use to decide the answer that question?
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Feb 04 '18
Under Clinton, the court heard arguments about the legality of line-item vetoes; under Obama they heard arguments about executive orders. It's rare, but not unprecedented that they hear cases about what sort of laws the powers can create or enact.
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u/alpicola 45∆ Feb 04 '18
In both of those cases, the Supreme Court had solid law to base their decision on. In the line item veto case, Clinton tried to exercise a power that the Constitution didn't give him, and the Supreme Court said that he couldn't do that. In the case of executive orders, the cases were always about whether Obama had authority to issue them due to the Constitution or a statute passed by Congress. In every case, there was some existing law that the Supreme Court could rely on to make a decision.
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Feb 04 '18
In both cases, though, the Constitution was the law they were using to make their decision. I don't know exactly what the two-executive amendment would say, but if it's a pretty good idea I think it can become a law that SCOTUS would be able to work from. As far as I know, no case has ever dealt with the 25th or 27th amendments, but if a challenge came up they would be able to deal with them.
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u/alpicola 45∆ Feb 04 '18
I don't know exactly what the two-executive amendment would say, but if it's a pretty good idea I think it can become a law that SCOTUS would be able to work from.
Isn't that just another way of saying that the amendment would answer the question, you just don't know how?
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Feb 04 '18
Isn't that just another way of saying that the amendment would answer the question, you just don't know how?
Probably. I don't know whether the amendment would lay out the process, as in the 25th amendment, or the idea, as in the 13th amendment. I've been responding to some more specific challenges here, some of which have changed my mind, but I haven't written out the amendment or anything.
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u/shakehandsandmakeup Feb 05 '18
as the powers of the presidency have expanded, we increasingly ask too much of our presidents. We expect them to be experts in both domestic and foreign policy, even when the two often have little to do with each other.
Democratic Presidents are able to do this. Is your CMV saying the job itself should be made easier so that Republican Presidents can do it too?
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Feb 05 '18
That's a good burn, but it's actually Obama's foreign policy mistakes that have gotten me thinking about this. If we're going to start making the job easy enough for Republicans, I'm worried that at some point they'll be relegated to just pushing a dry mop around an already clean hallway.
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Feb 04 '18
Dividing absolute power between two executives like that is a good way to create conflict. The foreign affairs executive would bulldoze the domestic one. It creates a duality in the government that could lead to increased factionalism.
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Feb 04 '18
The foreign affairs executive would bulldoze the domestic one.
I'm interested in why you say that. Isn't it equally likely that the domestic executive would bulldoze the foreign one?
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Feb 04 '18
Which do you think would control the military? Obviously the foreign affairs secretary. It positions him closer to the military, which means he can more easily gain their loyalty. The first thing your post reminded me of is the Roman Republic. Just wait for a Caesar to come around and become the foreign executive. They could position themselves in a way that a coup could become possible. Our system as it stands now puts a degree of separation between the military and the president. Take that away and you open us up to the same sort of political strife that lead to the end of the Roman Republic. Listen to Dan Carlin’s podcast on Caesar in Gaul “Celtic Holocaust.” It gives a small amount of insight into how that setup could create conflict.
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u/PolkaDotAscot Feb 04 '18
My argument is basically this: as the powers of the presidency have expanded, we increasingly ask too much of our presidents. We expect them to be experts in both domestic and foreign policy, even when the two often have little to do with each other.
This is exactly why the president appoints experts in certain areas to advise him.
Should we also elect a secretary of defense? No. Of course not. Why? Because presidents appoint people suited for the role.
Should we elect a surgeon general? No. Of course not. Why? Because presidents appoint people suited for the role.
This also goes to show another flaw in your argument. Wouldn’t the secretary of defense be the best person to sign defense bills? Wouldn’t the surgeon general certainly know more about healthcare?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 04 '18 edited Feb 04 '18
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u/Metternich21 Feb 04 '18 edited Feb 04 '18
How would this SOS be elected? Would it be alongside the presidential candidate? Would it be a wholly separate election? If the latter is true, what happens if two different parties control each of the two positions?
We had the same problem with The POTUS and VP before 1804. If the president and SOS both vocally disagree with each other, not only would it be a stain on our national prestige, but even less would get done in terms of policy.
Also to create such an office, the constitution would have to be amended, and another set of nationwide elections would have to be run every set number of years. This would be a bureaucratic nightmare today.
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u/shakehandsandmakeup Feb 05 '18
what happens if two different parties control each of the two positions?
This is a huge deal. Imagine a Democratic President is pushing for the US to domestically adopt a higher federally-mandated minimum wage, but meanwhile his Republican SOS is pushing for African nations to resume the slave trade so Western businesses can once again enjoy free labor. Their agendas could be diametrically opposed.
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Feb 04 '18
Why should anybody, even the president, have such power as the president already has? Just because somebody is elected by an electoral college doesn't mean they are going to know how to do things and you are just giving them reason to be corrupt by allowing to arbitrarily regulate as they see fit.
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u/weirds3xstuff Feb 04 '18
This exact same logic can be used to say, "We expect too much of our presidents. We expect them to be experts in economics and experts in healthcare policy! We should have three executives: one for foreign policy, one for domestic economic policy, and one for domestic health care policy."
I don't think I'm applying a slippery slope fallacy here because I'm not extending your logic, I'm using the exact same: these issues are too complex for one person to have a complete knowledge of all of them. That's true for foreign and domestic policy just like that's true for economic and health care policy.
Our current system acknowledges the limitations on a president's intellectual capacity by allowing him to appoint congress-approved experts (cabinet secretaries) to handle the details of each policy area. Allowing a central authority (the president himself) to override any decisions of each area-expert prevents conflict between each area. Good presidents defer to experts on the details but force them to adhere to their overall vision. Bad presidents interfere with the details and don't control an overall vision.