An Endorsement for a Third chamber of Congress

An endorsement for a Third Chamber of Congress

By Joshua Drew Plovanic

To start this endorsement, I am going to discuss a little game called rock-paper-scissors. As far as I know everyone has played this game at least once in their life. Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock, and so on. It’s a hierarchy that has no clear top. In fact, any of the three could be on top of the hierarchy at any given time. In game theory I believe this is called a nash equilibrium, named after the famous mathematician John Nash.

Now, I am going to discuss our nation’s system of checks and balances. It is an equilibrium creator itself by having three branches of government in play with each checking the other two in some way, such as the president’s veto power over congress and his ability to appoint Supreme Court justices, and congress’s power to impeach the president and supreme court justices, and the Supreme Court’s power to determine the constitutionality of actions on the part of congress and the executive.

In my view the creation of a third chamber of congress would stabilize our current unstable and inefficient congress. Here is why. When you apply a system of checks and balance to one of the branches of the system of checks and balances, it can perform the same stabilizing functions as the broader system of checks and balances. Imagine this third chamber, let’s call it the chamber of Consuls, named after an old roman official of the ancient Roman Republic and Empire. The Chamber of Consuls would have 1 representative of each State with a total of 50 representatives, making it the most powerful chamber in congress. A tempting position for a politician huh. Anyways if you know anything about an equilibrium like the system of checks and balances, such a chamber would force congress to get something done. Each chamber would check the other two, and it would require two of the three to pass a law and send it to the executive, where the executive either signs it or vetoes it like usual. The reason all three chambers would be equal in standing is because they all represent the whole of the United States. In game theory, two forces of equal power always beat one force of equal power to them. In short, two against one always wins, hence making the system more efficient.

You keep the two party system, and have two parties in the three chambers. In each chamber, a majority above 50% is still required to pass a law. Then they send up the “hierarchy” and get it reviewed by the senate, and then the consuls. And then it’s sent to the president. Pretty cool huh.