Challenging Delegation and Symmetry as Limitations on Government Action

Localism is compatible with most libertarian thought,because it is just a framework to protect local autonomy.   Instead of government devolving into one big box containing one set of rules, there are many little boxes which are protected from being swallowed up into the one big box.  But what people put into those boxes is up to them.  One state could be libertarian, another limited-government conservative  another, for however long the free market of government would permit it, could even be liberal.   In that sense, Localism could be useful to minarchists who could accomplish in little steps what they could not achieve all at once- the actual implementation of their ideas.

Anarchist philosophy is more absolutist, and is only with great difficulty incorporated into any other framework.  The logic of anarchist thought is sound, but I do take issue with some of the premises, and of course faulty premises will lead to the wrong conclusion even if the logic is sound.

 I have already described my issues with "self-ownership" as understood by anarchists.  Why do we own our paycheck? Well, we worked for it, we created the wealth it represents, we chose to provide a service, etc. I can't help but notice that none of these things apply to self-ownership. The reasons that we might give to say we own things don't apply to ourselves. But please read the article on that one and let me move on to the subject for today- the concepts of Ethical Symmetry and Delegation of powers.

Ethical symmetry is the concept that what is moral for one man is moral for another. If one man claims rights or privileges that another man does not have, then we have ethical asymmetry.  Anarchists attempt to apply this principle to make the case that government agents should not have any powers that an individual does not have, since any power a government has (according to this view) are powers delegated from other people.

That brings us to the related concept of delegation of powers.  Under this view the government of the people cannot logically have powers or rights not delegated to it by the people.  If I do not have the right to steal, nor does the government via it's IRS agency. Someone must have the right to "steal" via taxation for the government to have that power. 

I believe that both these concepts in a subtle way deny the existence of an absolute moral order.  It is my position, and that of many others, that such a law exists, and that the Lawgiver (God) exists.  In such a case ethical asymmetry also exists if one is acting on behalf of the higher moral law.  In other words, ones authority to be the upholder of the higher moral law might be delegated to them by other persons, but the authority of the law itself comes from a higher source than fellow citizens.   

What I am getting at is that if there is a transcendent moral order, it "owns" us in the sense that it is our moral superior, not our equal. It owns the state too. That is to say, each individual does not get to re-create moral reality for his or her self from a blank sheet of paper. Nor does the state get to do so. Both the individual and the state start with a blank sheet of paper, but the moral order of the universe is what they are obligated to try and write out on that blank sheet of paper, though we all do so imperfectly. The state is not supreme over the individual nor the individual over the state, both are fallible humans and neither are sovereign in a transcendent sense of the word. Both are subject to the moral law.  

But if there is a Creator (and the Founders believed there was, and He was the source of all rights) then, while we have freedom of choice in this life as to whether we care to recognize Their sovereignty, they would still be sovereign on the same basis that you claim ownership of something you create. A Creator-Created relationship does not need to be symmetric in order to be just. 

Nor would the "delegation" of powers be limited to actions one could justly take as an individual.  The "delegation" comes from the Creator to the government, and from the Creator to the individual. The individuality may delegate powers to their government, but they are not solely the individual's powers.  They are recognizing a power beyond them, and giving their consent to the state to wield those powers.  One may be like Ron Paul and believe that the Creator's moral code is to grant the individual the maximum liberty possible without hurting others, but basis for such a view would not be individual sovereignty, it would be based on it being a key component of the moral code. I.E. the Sovereign gave the individual freedom to choose whether to conform to the moral code, not that the individual is the Sovereign over it.

The classic Christian position, which helped birth the governments which provided the most liberty in human history, did not share the premise that government is in a symmetric relationship with its subjects and that its powers were limited to those of its subjects.   Romans 13 describes agents of the state as "God's ministers" who are authorized to "honor those who do good and bring wrath on evil doers."   

That does not sound like a symmetrical relationship to me!  Nor does it sound like the powers of government are limited to a delegation of whatever powers an individual can have, at least on a morally relativistic basis.  God can do things to us that we can't justly do to Him, because He created us and knows more than us and is purer than we are. He is the parent, we are the child: Another well-known asymmetric relationship   And if agents of the state are also agents of God, so can they.

Before one jumps to condemn me for trying to "impose my morality" I should point out that the Non-Aggression Principle itself, when used as a law, is itself an attempt to impose morality. It says the lines should be here, and not there.   Of course, everyone says that the code they attempt to impose on all is the most reasonable.   Yet we find that reasonable conclusions can vary based on the starting premises.

I am not even saying that the Non-Aggression Principle is wrong.  I can't know that. Maybe the Non-Aggression Principle is also the moral principle that the Divine Moral Order wants governments to operate under.  Maybe a government set up with the Non-aggression principle as the law would produce the best government the world has ever seen.  I am all for its adherents getting a chance to try it, and under localism they can.   My personal belief is that the Non-Aggression Principle is just that, a principle.  That is, something that is generally true.  This varies from the definition of a law, which is something that is always true without exception.

What I reject is "Ethical Symmetry" in the sense that "if you can't as an individual justly initiate force against me for something then you can't delegate the government to do it either."   When one is acting on behalf of another who is greater than they are, then they can justly behave in ways that they could not were they acting on their own authority.  If I am a middle manager for a company, I can't go outside my department and fire another middle manager and take over their department. But if the owner of the company authorizes me to do so, then I justly can. 

Christians are told "do not take your own revenge."  They are told that God will repay.  They are also told that the State is His Minister to bring wrath on evil doers.  In other words, in God's moral order this is an asymmetric relationship where the state can justly do things to an individual that another individual cannot justly do.

I have a similar objection to Delegation as used by anarchists.   God raises up governments, and when they grow either too just for their population or not just enough relative to their population, He brings them down.   The individual, when they elect, set up, consent to, or recognize a government, are agreeing that this is the body they will accept as executing God's will with the respect to the establishment of justice. 

This view of government has been lost, but it is consistent with the view that Republican government was founding on.  That view has produced a lot of human liberty, and I believe could have produced even more if it had been sustained.   Now whether that produces a government that is libertarian, or limited-government conservative or whatever is a different story, or likely one-hundred different stories depending on the character and desires of the people.  

The main thing I want people to take away from this is that there is more than one possible right answer to some very fundamental questions, depending on which premises are true.  Because of that, whatever kind of government you want to have, I hope you will see the benefit of getting there through a localist framework.

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Article V Convention Scenarios

Is an article V convention the last best hope to save the republic, or the quickest way to complete its demise?   Probably neither.   Two other scenarios are more likely.   The risk of a "runaway convention"  is less likely, but the probability is not zero, or even close to zero as some proponents of an article V maintain.   In this article, I will outline a less-likely, but still possible, disaster scenario in which the seeming "fail safes" are evaded, much to the shock and surprise of the folks back home.

To understand the basis for these scenarios one must understand the content of the article in question.   Amidst all the back and forth I have been amazed at how little attention has been paid to what is said, and not said, in article V itself.  Here then is the relevant text....

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;"

In the above paragraph, who is writing the call to convention in an amendments convention?  Its Congress.   The states only apply to Congress to call it, but the text of the article says that Congress is the entity responsible for calling it.  Look again at the wording if you have any doubt.  I have highlighted the relevant words in red so at to more easily connect them.

A second question.  Who is responsible for proposing the method of ratification of whatever the amendments convention proposes?   Again, its Congress which proposes the method by which the amendments would be ratified.  I have highlighted the relevant phrase in blue.

So Congress is the one writing the call to convention.  Much has been made of the fact that the wording indicates congress "shall" call a convention.   That is to say, much has been made of the fact that congress is obligated by the wording to call the convention, but not enough consideration has been given to the fact that the wording gives them not just the duty, but the authority, to write that call.   A reasonable expectation is that they would perform this duty with the same devotion to self-interest which has marked the performance of all of their other recent "service."  Therefore I fear we can expect no good from an article V convention unless we first do the hard work of taking back congress (and to this point most states have not even taken back their state legislatures yet).

How might they rig a constitutional convention?  Many activists assume that Congress would write a simple call which would give the states maximum flexibility in how they might select delegates.  This assumption is not supported in the text of article V, and is not consistent with the behavior of recent Congresses.  There is nothing in the text of article V which restricts Congress in the drafting of the call to convention in any way.  Any dispute on this question would be decided by federal courts who have proven to be very favorable to their employers, even when claims of federal jurisdiction are not supported in the text of the Constitution.  And remember that in this case, the text does support claims of federal jurisdiction over the drafting of the call to convention.

Congress could decide to write the call so that there are "set aside" delegate seats for various organizations and interest groups.   With all this power at stake in one location, this high-stakes event will be of great interest to the lobbies which fund Congressional campaigns.   Why would this be the one occasion on which our representatives decided to listen to you rather than the people they have been having lunch with every day and who have been writing them large checks?  This would be the fund raising opportunity of the century for both D.C. based political parties.

So the Republicans might decide that each state's delegation should have a set aside for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce office in each state.  The Democrats might set aside seats for the state affiliates of Planned Parenthood, ACORN, and the National Organization for Women.   Both sides would be interested in making sure that the Federal Reserve and the large banks have significant representation.   Both sides would want to give lots of seats to the insiders who run the Republican and Democratic parties.   By the time they were done rewarding their contributors, few seats would be left for true grassroots delegates and little good could be expected from a convention where most of the delegates were simply picked from among the members of the present ruling class which has so twisted and ignored our current document.

Look at the way the two D.C. based political parties run their party conventions for a clue as to how those same people might write the rules for this convention.   Almost 20% of the delegates to the Democrat Convention in 2012 were "superdelegates" picked by the party with no input from the grassroots.   The Republicans had a similar class of delegates, which they called "unpledged" delegates.   But those represent just the most blatant end-runs around the democratic process.   Each state delegation also had their rules and procedures which amounted to a way for the party to get more "safe" delegates into those seats.   And they will write the rules to tilt the delegate selection process even further in their favor if they need to in order to maintain control- just witness the recent rules changes that the Republican establishment dishonestly rammed through in order to keep a conservatarian grassroots insurgency from taking root.

Still, just because terrible amendments are very likely to come out of an article V convention does not mean that those terrible amendments will wind up in the constitution.  There is one more significant protection against bad amendments becoming the law of the land, and that is a need for ratification in three fourths of the states.   State legislatures which are responsive to the people, or state conventions stocked with true grassroots delegates, would be very likely to refuse to ratify harmful amendments.   Proponents of an article five convention rightly point out that honest ratification conventions or state legislatures would refuse to ratify amendments blatantly hostile to liberty, and that 3/4ths of the states must ratify an amendment in order for it to be placed in the Constitution.

That argument is not without merit if you are trying to make the case that an article V convention won't change the constitution for the worse, but it does not speak at all to the other negative consequence of an article V convention- lost opportunity costs.   Congress' convention producing amendments that get blocked from ratification would make the outcome of this process a gigantic waste of time, energy, and effort.   Those whose argument for an article V is that we are running out of time would under this scenario use up even more time without getting any value from it.

There is no getting around the obvious conclusion that the "Amendments Convention" would be the convention that Congress wants to call, not the one you or I or Mark Levin wants to call.  Article V says that Congress calls it, not us, not the states, but Congress.  Federal judges won't even have to make excuses to hand their fellow federal government employees that power- it's hard-wired right into the text.  Those who say we have to do this because we are running out of time should have their argument turned right back around on them- we don't have time to waste for what would be in the most likely case a costly stalemate in favor of a corrupt status quo.

Another possibility is that even though the ratifying conventions are stocked with reasonably good delegates, they vote for amendments which they think will make things better but will in fact make things worse.  So not only would time, energy, and effort be wasted, but we would wind up with a constitution which codifies the establishment's over-reach.

How can this happen?  Well, at least two of Levin's proposed amendments fall into that category.   Superficially, they sound like they will be making things better but the practical effect of them would be to make things even worse than they are now.    See these pieces for a breakdown of his suggested amendments on taxation and on the judiciary.  Most of his other suggested amendments fall into the category of appearing to make things better but resulting in no significant change in the status quo- thus effectively making this another version of likely outcome #1- that the whole thing is a gigantic waste of precious time and resources.

A third possible outcome, and this is less likely than the first two perhaps but not outrageously so, is that the political establishment rigs not only the Amendments Convention but also the ratification conventions.   The people at the "leadership" of the Republican and Democrat parties have a history of getting along with each other better than they do the grassroots outsiders of their own parties.

It could be that Congress stretches its authority to "propose" the "method of ratification".   That is, instead of just saying "we choose ratification by convention", that they would go on to write, as a part of their "proposal", a list of requirements for delegates to the ratification conventions which would essentially shut the grassroots out.   The head of the state association of bankers may not represent your interests, but if they are in your state they could be a delegate in a ratifying convention.   Personally, I feel that this would be an example of over-reach, that Congress was only meant to say which method of ratification would be used and in either case the details would be up to each state.   The problem is that the text does not say that.   The text is silent as to how much detail Congress' ratification "proposal" might entail, and any disputes over those limits will once again be decided by federal courts.

Some states would not stand for such micro-management, and might refuse to even call a convention, or call one in defiance of congress' call to convention with delegates of their own choosing.   In anticipation of such an event Congress could simply write the proposal the same way they wrote the recent Affordable Care Act.  That is, if state governments refuse to set up their own health care exchanges, the feds set one up for them.   They will use the same tactic regarding ratifying conventions.  Any states who fail to set up a "proper" ratifying convention will have one set up for them by the establishment.   In my view this would be an outrageously improper and illegal action- much like all their other improper and illegal actions which they are getting away with.  Yet once it is done, they will have the constitution they want and you will be the one violating it, not them.

But they may not even need to resort to such tactics.   After all, if less than a dozen states refuse to set up their stacked conventions, they can still get their amendments passed by the stacked conventions in the other states.  And these will be amendments which basically amend our current constitution out of existence by making all limits on federal power subject to the discretion of the President (i.e. meaningless).

Heck, it may not even be Congress that does the stacking. It may just direct the Governors to draft the call. How many Governors in this nation really answer to the grassroots and not their party's establishment and big donors?   The top of both parties want centralized power.   They both want out of the restraints and limits on the central government which the constitution places on them.  Both have done and are now doing things forbidden by the existing text of the document.  Why wouldn't they cut a deal with something for both of them?   And why wouldn't the Governor go along?  Because he would be afraid of losing his $50,000 a year job in Arkansas that he can't keep but for eight years anyway?   These people can offer each of the 38 governors who sell out millions in return for their treachery.  And half the population won't even know what happened.

Friends, we are in a mess, and unfortunately there is no way out of this mess which does not involve a lot of work and a long time.   There is no way out of this mess which allows most Americans to continue to comfortably put their trust in one of the two existing Beltway Parties.  There is no way to get good policy while leaving in place bad personnel because ultimately personnel is policy.   I want a solution, just as bad as you do, (here is a start) but I am not going to let my apprehension cloud my judgement and rush into something that by every reasonable look at the text of the article and the recent behavior of our political class will be at best a gigantic waste of time and resources and at worst the coup de grace of our Republic.

A Test of Character on an Article V Convention

The conservative movement is being split over the idea of whether we should or should not back an Article V Convention for the purpose of amending the constitution.   I am at great disadvantage on this question because I cannot tell my friends what they wish to hear.   On the other hand, I am at a great advantage because I am telling them the truth, and for people of virtue the truth has a power all of its own.  Here then is my testimony and findings of fact in this matter for your consideration:

Most of the debate over whether we should pursue Mark Levin's plan for a Convention centers on the question of whether such a convention can be "hijacked" for purposes beyond the scope intended by those grassroots people who first got the ball rolling on it.   Of course it can.   The idea that such an attractive target, with so much power at stake in one central location, will remain confined strictly to the wishes of those back home who originated the idea, is completely unreasonable.   The chances of a hi-jack may be low, or they may be high, but they will not be zero.   I think they will be high.   As a rule, the more power you have at stake in a distant central location, the greater the chances that this power will be used in a way not anticipated by or agreed to by those far away from that location.   This is the whole problem of Washington in a nutshell.

Phyllis Schlafly and others point out that the convention which produced our present constitution was itself a "runaway convention." It was originally authorized by Congress only and solely to suggest amendments to the then-existing constitution, called the "Articles of Confederation".  The Continental Congress did not give the delegates any authority to produce an entirely new compact.  On the pro-convention side, men like Michael Farris attempt to dismiss Schafly's concerns.   Farris' highly deceptive arguments are dealt with here.   

If that link is not enough to convince you, consider that in the 1787 convention two-thirds of New York's delegation left when they realized that the convention had "gone rogue" and was exceeding their authority in writing a new constitution rather than suggesting amendments for the then-existing one.   Here is the report of those two delegates where they explain just that.  If any of you are wondering which side is telling you the truth about this issue, those two short links, the one in this paragraph and the one which ends the paragraph above, should tell you all you need to know.  It is then up to you if you want to side with those who are telling you the truth, or those who are not.

Levin sells readers on the idea that James Madison, considered the "father of the Constitution", included Article V as some sort of "fail safe" if people lost control of their government.   The truth is that Madison was a federalist.  One, to his credit, who accepted that the Constitution we wound up with gave the central government less power than he would have liked, but a federalist never-the-less.   His passages in the Federalist Papers that Levin cites are explanations of what an Article V convention would be like, not an endorsement of an article V convention.  If you want to know how Madison really felt about a "General Convention" which was similar to though not necessarily the same as an an Article V convention, then look to his letter to one G. L. Turberville in Nov. of 1788:

"3. If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having a greater latitude than the Congress appointed to administer and support as well as to amend the system; it would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; an election into it would be courted by the most violent partizans on both sides; it w^d probably consist of the most heterogeneous characters; would be the very focus of that flame which has already too much heated men of all parties; would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts but inadmissible in other parts of the Union might have a dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric. Under all these circumstances it seems scarcely to be presumable that the deliberations of the body could be conducted in harmony, or terminate in the general good. Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention, which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a Second, meeting in the present temper of America and under all the disadvantages I have mentioned."

So while Levin is going around selling this thing as Madison's provision for the people to take back a wayward federal government, Madison himself thought a similar convention would be a disaster.  As a federalist, he much preferred that any changes go through Congress.   The option to go through the states to call a convention was an attempt to peel off supporters of the George Mason position that there should be a way to amend the constitution which completely by-passed Congress.   Mason lost that one, and many others.

Madison and the other federalists stole a march on the anti-federalists when drafting Article V. It is Congress which gets to issue the call to convention which produces whatever amendments the states are even allowed to consider. It is they who decide whether those amendments are to ratified by "conventions" or by the state legislatures. 

Who decides who gets to be a delegate at the amendments convention? The article is silent on that, but it does say Congress is giving the call, and it will take only one federal employee (a judge) to determine that they get to decide. Do you think I will get to be a delegate under that scenario? Do you think you will be? We will see conventions run by "community organizers" before we see that.  

Some Indiana Senator thinks he can use state law to insure that delegates to an Article V convention stay within the state-mandated call to convention.   That is an absurd vanity.   Congress, and Congress alone, is authorized by the Constitution to give the call to convention, and there is every reason to believe that any federal judges who would decide the matter would rule that what the Constitution itself says on the matter would trump Indiana law.   We discovered a decade or so ago that Arkansas cannot limit the terms of Congressmen because judges ruled that the federal constitution does not explicitly permit them to do so.  In the same way it is extremely probable that federal judges will rule that states cannot limit the purview of Article V convention delegates.  Indeed the case is even stronger for that because the Constitution is not just silent as to who has the power to define the terms of the convention, but explicitly says that Congress is to issue the call.

If any amendment, any words on paper, really could turn dishonest men into honest ones then the plan will still fail because the dishonest men get to decide on what amendments may be considered for ratification, and to some unknown extent even who votes to ratify those words into the constitution.   Even if the conventions in the states are not picked by Congress, what those conventions get to vote on is decided by a convention which will be. 

OK, so the risk of having an Article V Convention is not zero, the risk may even be high, but if the potential reward is also high couldn't that justify the high risk?   Perhaps.  But the potential reward is not high.  No matter how well he sells it, even if Levin got every amendment he is pushing ratified into the Constitution it would not fundamentally solve any of our government's problems.   I have broken down the policy value of four of his amendments, but the one on taxation is most instructive because the math is so clear.   Read this analysis of the policy impact of his suggested amendment on taxation and then decide if you think he is selling real answers or false hope.  It is the same on the others.  No monetary proposal which leaves the Federal Reserve system unscathed will fundamentally solve any of our problems in this vital area of government.

There then, are enough of the facts of the matter so that an honest person might distinguish between who is offering you hard truth and who is selling false hope.   I know that people are anxious right now, and this is the political equivalent of a "get rich quick" scheme.   We don't have to do the hard work of turning over our state legislature from the sellouts who gave us Obamacare and called it another name.   We don't have to purge our federal delegation who consistently vote against our interests.  We don't have to purge our political party, or God forbid, sever our ties and quit lending our good name to one of the two political gangs which have bankrupted our nation.   No, we can skip all of that hard work.  We don't have to cut our expenses, we don't have to work harder and get more income.  We need only give our account information to this nice salesperson who offers us this way to escape from our dilemma without having to make all of those hard choices.   

This is an enticing idea, but its not the truth.   We are going to have to make some hard choices.  We did not get in this mess in one year or ten and we are not going to get out of it in one year or ten either.   We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but if we will honor and work for what is true we can, by the grace of God, do it.    But we have to love the truth enough to embrace it even when it involves some pain.  We have to hate lies enough to reject them even when they sound so sweet and relatively easy.  This, like much of life, is not just a choice, its a test of character.

Liberty Amendments vs. Localist Solutions on Limiting Federal Bureaucracy

I have been reading "The Liberty Amendments" by Mark Levin.   I can't help it.  It is like trying to take one's eyes off of a train wreck.   He is quite good at outlining the problems, many are.   It's his so-called "solutions" which reek.   Though the way he sells it makes them sound superficially plausible, when scrutinized it becomes clear that they would be a massive amount of wasted effort.  Even if they could be implemented risk-free, and they can't, they would not solve the problems which Levin claims they would solve.

What I would like to do here is compare his "solutions" for curbing federal bureaucracy with the more subtle, elegant, and effective solutions found in Localism, A Philosophy of Government.   I have done the same comparison with the approach each work has to Judicial Tyranny, Federal Government Spending, and Federal Taxation.   These articles demonstrate that in many ways we would actually be worse off than we are now if we adopted what Levin claims are solutions.

As it concerns the federal bureaucracy, Levin does a fine job of outlining the problem- that Congress has given up much of its law-making responsibility to executive branch bureaucrats.  They write laws with very vague definitions and then allow the regulators to fill in the blanks.  As he does with all of the problems he writes about in The Liberty Amendments,on this issue Levin rushes for a superficial, hamfisted non-solution without ever addressing the root causes of the problem.  Why has Congress done this?   What is the root cause of this problem?  Instead of trying to treat the symptoms as Levin does, Localism treats the root causes.

Why does Congress abdicate its authority to make law to Executive Branch bureaucracies? What is maddening is that Levin correctly answers this question- then suggests non-solutions which don't address the "why" which he acknowledges.  Levin writes:

"It would seem counterintuitive for Congress to surrender its own power to executive branch entities of its own making, and for a President to surrender his own decision-making authority to an administrative state.  But if the purpose is to centralize and concentrate power in the federal government, in defiance of our founding principles and the Constitution,- as the Statists have preached and promoted actively for over a century- then the frequent and broad delegation of lawmaking power to a permanent, ever-present federal bureaucracy, insulated from public influence, makes perfect sense."

Yes, that's it exactly.  Both parties are bought and paid for by global corporate interests.   Congressmen and Senators of both parties don't much care about turf battles with the executive branch, because both are there to consolidate various legislative powers into the executive branch.  They are there to consolidate power on behalf of their respective hierarchy, so that government can "get things done" on behalf of the interests which fund their political club.     The President is also the titular leader of one of the two parties anyway, so half the legislature always wants to get more power to the captain of "their team."

Levin complains that "Congress seems more than willing to abandon its core function to the executive branch and accept the status quo....."   Yes it does, and nothing Levin suggests as a solution will change that.  He admits the purpose of Congress giving away its rule-making authority is to centralize power, but does not say anything about why congress works like that.  Why have they abandoned their instituted function and chosen near-irrelevancy?   It's a result of the party system.   Throwing up a couple of amendments to try and make congress take its job back won't help, because the root problem is that Congress does not wish to do the job the Founders assigned it.  They want to empower the executives, and fund-raisers, of their respective parties.

We need to reform our candidate election system so that it is easier to get good people in office and easier for them to stand against these forces and institutions which facilitate, neigh compel even, centralization.  The unified party system is the flywheel of this monstrous system.  Corporate money spins it.

Levin does not even address the harm that the unified party system has done to our former representative Constitutional Republic.   When I say an "unified party system" I mean that the same political machine through which state candidates are run is also the machine through which federal candidates are run.  And that same machine backs candidates for both legislative offices and executive offices.  

This undermines the intent of the Founding Fathers when they set up our government of checks and balances.   The states were supposed to check and balance the federal government, and at both levels the Legislative branch was supposed to check the Executive branch.   This is the root cause, the reason why our legislative branch is giving away its authority, becoming more despised and more irrelevant.  The unified party system undermines the defining features of our political system, but Levin does not talk about it.  No one wants to talk about it except the localists.

Localism not only mandates institutional separation of political parties by state, it places reasonable limits on incorporation so that they do not become so large as to swallow up our economy and political system.    It also advocates run-offs (preferably instant run-offs) for all elections so that citizens no longer fear "splitting the vote" and electing their least preferred alternative.  This and other measures will empower regional groups within a state to directly sponsor independent candidates for office.  Political parties will get decentralized and de-emphasised in a localist nation.

Regulatory capture becomes a serious issue when giant corporate entities gain too much influence over the agencies which are supposed to be regulating them.  The bureaucracy then serves the biggest players in the industry, and erects barriers to entry for potential competitors.

Corporations in a localist nation can only be owned by real persons, not other corporations.   This prevents the abuse of incorporation to off-load risk into a subsidiary that can be left holding the bag when a giant liability issue arises.   Many regulatory agencies have grown up around managing the risks which grow around that practice- localism would ban the practice, thus eliminating the need for any bureaucracy to manage it.

Regulatory agencies do not have full sovereign immunity in a localist society.   They are liable for their actions in that those bureaucrats who run the agencies can be removed from their jobs by a judicial ruling should an agency be found culpable for exceeding their authority, becoming captured by players in the industry, or other malfeasance.

Not that they would be common at any rate.  In localism, the interstate commerce power of Congress would be extremely curtailed, and that is the source of authority for most regulations.   States can even agree among themselves to suspend a federal regulation based on the interstate commerce clause as it applies to commerce between them.   And suits at common law are preferred over regulatory solutions at any rate.

Compare these measures, which strike at the very root and heart of the problem, with the heavy-handed attempt to bludgeon the symptoms away in Levin's book.   He wants an amendment which says that every agency has to be renewed by a vote of Congress every three years.   How will that help until you first address the root cause that we have a Congress full of people who want to abdicate their responsibilities?

He also wants the amendment to say that all new regulations that will cost over $100 million dollars to comply with  (according to FEDGOV) would have to be approved by a special congressional panel.    In Arkansas, we had a law which said that all school purchases over $5,000 had to be bid out.   Of course what happened is that superintendents split their orders up so that they would have five, ten, or twenty individual orders all under $5,000.   This system would be gamed the same way.  They will just break one regulation into two parts.

That's if they even need to.  The special panel members would be picked by the House Speaker and the Minority Leader.   The most inside of the insiders would be picking trustworthy minions from safe seats to keep up business as usual.  Can you think of a worse way?   These amendments look like window dressing to me- they have the superficial appearance of trying to fix the problem while actually leaving the worst of our system in place.

In conclusion, the problem of federal bureaucracy taking over the legislative function is real.  Nothing in The Liberty Amendments will fix it though, because it attempts to address symptoms, not root causes.   We must go deeper, systemically and intellectually, to the philosophy of Localism in order to return our Republic to the Founders' vision of a just, limited, and decentralized government.