Justice Antonin Scalia died this weekend, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already declared that he wants the next president, not Obama, to appoint Scalia’s replacement. There is good reason to believe that he can make that happen.

The president may propose any legislation he wishes and nominate any candidate to the high court he wants. Whether his bill becomes law, and whether his nominee takes office, is not up to him.

Planned Paralysis

The US was designed to be this way. The founders feared an efficient government. They did not believe in the goodness of man… but in his corruption. They understood the need for government but wanted its authority to be limited.

When necessary, they wanted the government to act with general conviction among the people that something had to be done. Barring that condition, they expected gridlock.

It is interesting that Americans now regard the paralysis of government as pathological, and a government that gets things done as healthy.

There is frequently discussion of government being run in a businesslike manner. This misses the obvious point: government is not a business. The purpose of business is to make money. The purpose of the American government is to contain the worst impulses of human beings by making the drafting of legislation as difficult as possible, without rendering it impossible.

Businesses want efficient decision making. The founders feared an efficient government. Government is designed to thwart rapid decision making, while business thrives on it. The founders valued business. They feared the government. So business methods and government methods aren’t even vaguely connected.

The President as Commander in Chief

The exception of course is in foreign policy. The founders understood that it was a dangerous world, and whatever system they developed for domestic governance, and whatever provisions they made for signing treaties and other formalities of the state, the need to go to war might arise suddenly. Therefore, they gave the president another post in government: commander in chief.