Proposal for Restructuring the US Government: Add the Elected Executive Branch Position of Chancellor

This week's Wednesday post is kind of a re-post from my social media accounts. I don't feel bad about posting it here for the first time, though, because I think it still deserves more dissemination out there in society. A fair amount of people might not follow me on social media, too, so some might see it as new.

First some general updates: Uncanny submissions editing still taking up a lot of time, along with household chores and family/personal finance. Since I want to dedicate as much free time as possible to Uncanny temporarily while remaining somewhat sane, I've taken to reading a couple pages in the insurance continuing ed text book in the morning before work.

Not to worry, though: I ruminate during work hours and commuting over stuff I've read before the current busy time. This tedious time has always allowed my brain the "space" to detect patterns, reality test ideas and themes in my head, and clarify and organize everything into an articulate shape for when it comes to writing again. Sadly, these thoughts in my head don't always translate as well and with as much confidence when I sit down to put them onto paper.

Expect some interesting ideas once all that stuff gets cleared up, hopefully freeing up a lot of time. For now, though, take a look at this idea that I think the US should seriously take into consideration for incorporating into our federal government:

A lot of people don't like the Electoral College. Personally, I think it has its place in our government. At many times in the past, I've advocated for trying to remove the Apportionment Act of 1911 that puts an absolute limit on the seats in the House of Representatives then distributes the number of seats in some strange, archaic apportionment process.

Nowadays, though, I think it plays a part in protecting the interests of the minority rural population. I may not agree with how it came about, but I can appreciate the protection of these interests. After all, as much as we don't want a tyranny of one, a tyranny of a group, a tyranny of a minority, we also don't want a tyranny of the majority. The problem as we're experiencing today, though, we can enter into tyranny of a minority, and as long as they know how to do it (whether through nefarious or legitimate means), they can concentrate and compound their power to the point where it becomes very difficult to take it out of their hands.

So something needs to be done to also protect the insterests of the majority. In the last 17 years, we've had two fairly and really damn unpopular candidates become President of the United States without winning the popular vote. Push back our range of consideration back even further, President Clinton got the most votes, but he had less than 50% of the vote in 1992. If Ross Perot hadn't run then, George H.W. Bush very well could have gotten a second term.

The US has a weird system for electing their President. Let's not go even further back when States could determine how to assign their Electoral Votes in whatever the hell way that they wanted. States didn't have to give their everyday people a say in who would lead their country, even though their numbers counted to giving their state more power, more seats in the House, and more votes in the Electoral College, pretty much giving their power brokers and upper classes more power. . .and the only power that everyday people had was to move to some other state or territory to give their power to someone else (I expect to visit this phenomena more in the future as to how it relates to the present day).

Whereas all the above, to protect the interests of the majority and put a check and balance against a tyranny of the minority, I advocate for an elected position of Chancellor in the Executive Branch that has equal/veto power with President.

Chancellor is voted on at-large basis encompassing the whole country (even DC, Puerto Rico, and other citizens that don't have certain voting rights because of residency, etc.). It uses the same voting area on ballot as President.

A single person can occupy both the Chancellor and President position simultaneously, BUT a single person can't inhabit an elected position in the Executive Branch for longer than two terms (with some exception for someone who enters the position by involuntary relieving the duties of President or Chancellor - present rules would currently stand for that).

I like to imagine how things would look in our present government if we had the Chancellor position. If everyone in the country voted the same way they did back in November 2016, [45] would be President and HIllary Clinton would be Chancellor. She would act as a useful veto power against [45] (except for maybe some of the aggressive actions that could lead to war, except for maybe Korea), though I expect that [45] would still act like a spoiled brat, just that there would be an equal force to stop him from doing all the stupid Executive Orders or, at the least, diluting the Executive Orders and making them somewhat reasonable.

Plenty of people complain about the divisive Congress that seems to fight all the time or that one political party forces things down the throat of another while the other side tries to consolidate power to do the same once they get into power. With a Chancellor, it would force all the parties into dialogue, negotiation, and compromise. The different people and parties would have to work together to actually get anything. They would have to *GASP!* debate. You know, the way that Senator McCain wants everyone to do.

I also would like to think that if one person got a combination of votes that they won the Presidency and the Chancellorship, they could feel justified to actually say that they have a mandate. This especially would be the case if their party as the majority in the House and the Senate, which I have a hard time seeing happen. The Executive Branch and Senate might sync up every once in awhile, but I bet we have plenty of anti-Establishment districts represented in the House that they would create enough opposition to continue some level of debate to occur, though they might need to get a filibuster rule of their own to protect their minority interest at those times.

I honestly feel like creating the elected Executive Branch office of Chancellor would be the easiest and simplest way to add a popular check and balance on the Electoral College and House of Representatives representational democratic tyranny that can occur. Any thoughts, concord, or disagreement with this position?

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