Many criticize American politics as broken, but misidentify the cause of the problem.

The problem isn’t that the Founding Fathers failed to anticipate that bad men (and back then, they were only concerned with men) might win power. They anticipated this possibility, and designed the Constitution to address it through the separation of powers between the three branches of government.

If one branch, Legislative, Executive, or Judicial overreached, the other branches would have the power to rein it in.

Our current situation is the result of changes we made, one shortly after the ratification of the Constitution which the founders were aware of, and one hundreds of years later, which the Founding Fathers could never have anticipated.

When the Executive branch acts illegally, the Judicial branch can step in to forbid and punish those illegal acts. This introduces a major vulnerability–the Executive branch is charged with executing the law. What happens if it choose to ignore the Judicial branch’s rulings?

This is where the Legislative branch comes in. Only the Senate has the power to confirm Executive appointments, or to ratify treaties. And if the Executive branch tries to ignore the law, the Legislative branch can impeach criminal officials.

Many of the Founding Fathers worried about the first change, the introduction of political parties. George Washington even warned against them in his farewell address:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

The rise of political parties meant that a President might coordinate with Legislators of his own party, and with their cooperation, appoint tractable judges.

However, this danger was addressed, at least to some extent, by the separation of powers. While Legistators might cooperate with a President of their own party, they would not do so to the detriment of their own power, and could always impeach a President who tried to far overreach the power of the executive branch.

Ironically, the change that weakened this protection was intended to enhance rather than endanger democracy.

Shifting from party caucuses to the primary system to determine which candidates would win their party’s nomination seemed like a good way to address the corruption many perceived in the “smoke-filled room” of party insiders making such decisions. But this structural change fundamentally changed the incentives for candidates.

In a caucus system, the goal was to convince party insiders of one’s electability. In a primary system, a candidate simply had to win the most votes in the party primary. What America failed to realize was that the surest way to win a primary was to appeal to the super-partisans who bothered to vote in primaries. And as gerrymandering became more common, and more and more congressional districts and states became “safe” seats for one of the two major parties, the primaries became the only elections which mattered.

What upset the balance of power was the ability of a President who was popular with a relatively small base of extremely loyal voters to control which candidates his party nominated. This could give such a President the power to threaten and intimidate Legislators of his own party into acceeding to his demands for fear of losing their seat to a more tractable candidate.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Shifting to non-partisan primaries, where all candidates run against each other, regardless of party would force candidates to appeal to all primary voters, not just the ones in their party. This doesn’t require a Federal law; the individual states determine how their elections are run.

Unfortunately, few states current operate with non-partisan primaries. Both political parties oppose them, since they would reduce the power of the parties! Currently, a few organizations such as the Institute for Political Innovation and Unite America are advocates for this change. If you are interested in a structural solution that could help restore our Founding Fathers’ intentions, please visit their websites and get involved.