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"How the Shutdown Europeanized the US Constitution and How to Restore It" —Prof. Angelo Codevilla in the Library of Law and Liberty
By The James Wilson Institute •
Posted on Nov 25 2013
Writing in the Library of Law and Liberty, Prof. Angelo Codevilla reflects on the October 2013 U.S. government shutdown through the lens of its similarities to European parliamentary procedure.
Some excerpts:
"Democrats and Republicans, by entering and exiting the 2013 “government shutdown” without regard to America’s traditional Constitutional practices, practically instituted among us the European practice of single “crisis” votes that enable or disable governments. The remedy lies in removing any doubt as to what the US Constitution means."
"(T)he Republican Establishment’s acquiescence to the CR as a method of governance foisted upon America what amounts to a radical departure from the US Constitution and from American history. This Europeanization of American government is far bigger stuff than Obamacare."
"(P)roposing a Constitutional Amendment may be the only way to place this matter on the nation’s agenda. To the Art. I sect. 9 text “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law” the amendment would add “and no appropriation shall exceed in amount five percent of all the previous year’s appropriations combined.” That would eliminate the possibility of European-style government financing, and ensure that the government’s many activities would have to be separated for consideration in at least twenty appropriations bills, not just one. That is the way American government used to work and should work."
Read the whole piece here