| Scalia has some good points, however some notes A gridlocked political system is not guaranteed to create "good legislation" as Scalia puts it, take US as a prime example of that, almost every legislation is packed with pork and other things unrelated to the legalisation itself. To Scalia defence he might have meant "not awful legislation", like avoid harming a minority, because of the bicameral legislature. But good legislation? No. It is true that in Europe it is common to mix the legislative and the executive with the same election and thus chamber. However in Sweden the executive power is divided in half, with the elected prime minister with his cabinet (regeringen) on the one hand and the independent government agencies (myndigheter) on the other. This is a separation of powers that US doesn't have. And it is in the executive that has the highest risk of political corrupt behaviour, because it deals with all the practical details of running a country, therefore separating the executive into two separate branches, the elected and the civil servants, creates better protection against political corruption. Scalia main argument is that US can't become the Soviet union because of the bicameral gridlock built into the system, however what we have seen in the US when the legislature is politically paralyzed is that the executive, and to some extent the judiciary, has encroached on the legislative powers. How many of the wars that US has been involved in since the second world war has been formally approved constitutionally by the senate? Zero. Did President Obama execute a US citizen without a trial? Yes. This is a gap in Scalias argument, the executive power is too unrestricted, hence it is the US executive power that will be removing citizen rights from the citizenry, not the legislature. |