Remedies for the diseases of free government: Bicameralism, tricameralism, and health policy.

摘要

The problem that inspired this dissertation is the perception in the United States that our policy making system is in gridlock, a term used by civil engineers to describe an enormous traffic jam. The accused culprit for all of this gridlock was often said to be the separation of powers that includes a bicameral legislature. Academic criticism of the separation of powers imbedded in the United States Constitution is not a recent fad. This criticism is an American tradition. Is the separation of powers to blame for gridlock? Recent scholarship on this question is mixed. Accusations about the existence of gridlock have been used as the basis for arguments in favor of rewriting the Constitution. Before we contemplate such a serious step, the existence of gridlock and its causes must be established empirically. Does our system of separated powers lead to gridlock and, if so, what specific aspects of the system contribute to that state of affairs?; The primary method of analysis was time series regression. Two national-level and two state-level models are employed in this dissertation; bicameral and tricameral. The results for the national bicameral model were negative. The results for the national tricameral model were more positive but non-intuitive. Gridlock was found in unified and divided governments. The state bicameral model yielded positive results while the state tricameral model yielded negative results.; The tricameral model works at the national level because it takes into account official partisanship that did not exist at the time of the Framing and the broader institutional factors that can guide more complex entities. The bicameral model, on the other hand, could work better in Michigan than at the national level because the Michigan legislature with its 38 senators and 110 house members is more like the Congress at the time of the Framing than the national legislature.