Not to go beyond the leaves on the proverbial limb, but as a final (for now) proposal for “restructuring government,” if we really wanted to go crazy:
The Co-Presidents Amendment
The President shall be replaced with 3 co-presidents, one elected every two years, for a single 6-year term each, along with a new Vice-President that serves for only two years unless promoted to the Junior President position during their two year term. The longest seated is the Senior President, the next longest seated is the Mid-President, and the newest seated is the Junior President. All actions, executive orders, and other core duties of the office of President shall require the agreement of all three co-Presidents.
If the Senior President retires, dies, or otherwise becomes incapable of fulling the duties of office, the Mid-President shall assume the position of Senior President, the Junior President shall assume the position of Mid-President, and the Vice-President shall assume the position of Junior President. No replacement Vice-President shall be appointed. If this happens more than once in a 2-year cycle, then the usual constitutional order of succession shall be used to fill the position of Junior President until the next 2-year election.
No person shall serve more than 6 years total in any position of President. Should any person in the line of succession be beyond that limitation, then they shall be skipped in the line of succession. Should any person exceed the 6-year limit while in the position of Junior or Mid-President, they shall retire at the end of that two year cycle and the standard order of succession shall be applied, under all circumstances. No emergency or other argument shall allow a President to serve beyond the end of the 2-year cycle in which they have completed their 6-year limit.
A President, in too many ways, is just a baby, wannabe king. It was the first baby-step away from Kingships, but the Founders still had the view that a strong nation required a single strong leader. The problem with that is that a single “strong leader” can too easily abuse the system. They rightly recognized that power needed to be split between “co-equal branches” to prevent a run-away dictatorship. What they didn’t foresee (or, rather, didn’t provide for or protect against) was a run-away one-party situation where one party controlled both the Executive and Legislative branches, and the members of the Legislative branch meekly went along with the Executive taking a wrecking ball to the East Wing …er… the government. There are other possible solutions to that situation, but the above is one off-the-sleeve idea to blunt the edge of that possibility (from happening again).
The above is not really a serious possibility, nor even necessarily the best possibility, but it’s food for thought. There are many ‘what-ifs’ and scenarios that would need to be addressed when dealing with a co-Presidential office, but nothing insurmountable. I was tempted to stipulate, for example, that only a man could be elected for the first 2-year cycle, then only a woman could be elected for the next 2-year cycle, then alternating with every 2-year cycle. It’s fun to let loose the dogs of imagination.
Next, we’ll dive into more fertile fields with Power, Immunity, and Benefits – Limits & Guarantees, for which I currently have 16 entries. By the time we get through all of those, there may be 17, 18, 19… 🙂
-Everett