Currently across the federal government of The United States of America, exists a three-branch structure. It is a beautifully well-thought-out system and yet, advances in system-level govern-tech basically died with the founding of the USA.
What is the 4th branch?
A branch of elected officials that only has the ability to remove laws.
What does this solve?
If the intention of good governance is limited in nature then by most accounts it has failed over the last 200 years or so. While the Supreme Court does eventually remove laws that are unconstitutional it doesn’t remove bad laws, laws that are in the scope of being constitutional and a detriment to everyone involved. The 4th branch would act primarily as a body that looks through the pre-existing laws and removes ones that are no longer followed in practice and laws that the electorate wants to be removed but that the legislature and courts have not gotten around to removing.
The ever-expansive nature of government means that more laws are created, but there is no real mechanism to measure redundancy or failure of policy. In some sense, a feature of the system is that passing laws should be difficult. When that sense is eroded and looked like a bug, then the people clamor for more work to be done by the legislative body. The legislature then passes laws for their constituents, but the work of checking to see whether the laws worked is then in the hands of a body that is incentivized to ignore the failures to pass an upcoming law.
The 4th branch could then be used as a way to look at the careers of legislative officials and what laws got passed that ultimately had to be removed because of the negative effects on the constituents.
The Uniquely American Solution
The United States Constitution is often thought of as a single system of government, but in some deeper sense, it is three. The House of Representivates exists as a democracy, the Executive branch exists as a monarchy, and the Judiciary and Senate(prior to the seventeenth amendment) exist as an aristocracy. The fourth branch would resemble anarchy. It would have no power over the citizens, for it cannot create law. It would only be able to make people freer.
Implementation
Interestingly enough because of the nature of government in US states. Any government can implement these solutions currently. It would require constitutional changes on the state level, but it is definitely feasible.
Thanks for reading. I’ve heard that a philosopher should probably write some things down. So those are some words. If people are interested I’ll write something on decentralized districting. Please no low-quality talk about your personal politics, I’m likely not that interested.
Very informative, also innovative! A branch solely dedicated to expelling the “bad laws”? I’m here for it, but if I may pose a question: do you think this exact theory was thought of and it was passed on, as in those with said power didn’t agree to it? Don’t you think having a branch dedicated to getting rid of outdated laws, or “flawed laws” has been said before? By anyone? Not to say you didn’t think this naturally, but just wondering if there was an origin of where your idea sparked. Just a thought! Great post!
This is an interesting idea. Even in the worst case where it's wrong, it's still inspiring.
I'm curious why something like this wouldn't work, or maybe wouldn't have the benefit you might expect.
In software, removing unused code has limited benefit. And you usually don't have code that does nothing, or does something "bad". Laws are probably the same. You might remove them only to realize that you did actually need that law, even if it had some negative side effects.
Starting over is risky too, but sea steaders think that's the ultimate answer because the existing system is beyond repair. But starting over and re-building the entire app is a huge risk and often fails. So the solution is to rewrite leaf nodes (pages, components) in your new system, and then work your way up.
IMO, the solution to fixing our laws is to put new laws into a new framework, and manage law like it's code (look for dependences, etc). And then slowly refactor to simplify and streamline the whole thing.