I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. Why does the federal government so consistently fail to carry out even its most basic and necessary functions? Why is it that Wal-Mart can get supplies to Katrina victims days ahead of FEMA? Why do private veterans hospitals provide top-notch care, while government run facilities like Walter Reed fester?

Simple. They have better administrators. Why are their administrators and managers better? Because they aren’t hamstrung by politics, and constantly changing priorities. Think about how difficult it must be to be a government bureaucrat. For four years, you’re told to do things one way, then four years later, you must do things entirely differently. Your priorities, goals, and methods are always in flux. Is it any wonder why bureaucrats get such a bad name? Witness President Bush’s recent attempt to replace heads of the major executive agencies with overtly political appointees that don’t share those agencies’ priorities. Witness this administration’s bald politicization of science. Should a Democrat get elected in 2008, it’s back to square one. Eight years of doing thing one way wasted.

All the while, if you’re a hard-working federal employee, there’s also always the chance that Congress will lob a few public criticisms in your direction, too.

Our regulators have arguably become the most important part of government. No area of law is vaster, more complicated, or more thorough than regulatory and administrative law. In many areas of commerce and industry, regulators have more power than Congressmen. And rightly so. They’ve spent their careers developing knowledge and acumen in a specific area. Your typical Congressman spends all of his time trying to get reelected.

Yet regulators are regularly subjected to abuse by Congress, their good work is regularly disrupted by changes in the political power structure, and when they bring criminal regulatory charges against an individual or corporation, they risk having all their good work tossed aside by lay juries that, frankly, aren’t nearly smart enough to render a verdict on the complex inner-workings of administrative law.

That’s why I’m arguing that we need a fourth branch of government. Call it the Administrative Branch.

The Administrative Branch’s duties would basically be to push the paper that makes the country work. All administrative law would no longer fall under the judicial branch. Any breaches of federal regulatory policy would now be heard in special courts serving under the Administrative Branch. The judges and juries in these courts would be federal bureaucrats with actual expertise in the areas of law they’re trying. This would free up our Judicial Branch federal courts to try drug dealers, online gamblers, and pornographers.

All regulatory agencies would also now serve under the Administrative Branch. There would be no political appointees in the Administrative Branch, either. It would be staffed entirely with career bureaucrats. Leaders of respective regulatory agencies would be civil servants who had risen through the ranks via the federal government’s normal process of awarding promotions. That way, the American electorate couldn’t, for example, overreact to a few high-profile regulatory mistakes by electing a president who would appoint political creatures to head these agencies, who would then steer them in a direction that while perhaps popular with the citizenry, is contrary to good, efficient government.

There would be no need to establish new constitutional checks and balances in the Administrative Branch because it would never really interact with the other branches. Simply put, all manner of regulation and regulatory law would now be handled by the Administrative Branch. Smart people with lots of experience as regulators would write new regulations, enforce those regulations, and adjudicate violations of those regulations. The Congress would be free to spend most of its time holding hearings on the ethics violations of the minority party. The executive would be freed up to wage new wars and defend the homeland. And the judiciary would be free to find new ways around the Constitution in order to imprison drug dealers and pornographers.

Meanwhile, the Administrative Branch would quietly conduct the business of running the country. Very smart people would keep our corporations in check, make sure consumers and the environment are protected, and do all of this free of the hassle of constant political manipulation and oversight.

I know as a libertarian I’m supposed to oppose new government entities. But America has gotten too big, too wealthy, and too populous for a mere three branches of government. We need a fourth to help keep the other three running smoothly. And more efficient government is also a pretty important libertarian principle, too, isn’t it?

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 10:41 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.