The Georgia Runoffs and Our Embattled Constitution | RealClearPolitics
It s understandable that the national debate should focus on which party will control the Senate and just how radical the Democrats program will be if they do. But just beneath the surface lurk potential constitutional issues, which have received almost no attention. The basic problem is this: although America s Founders were deeply concerned about tyranny, centralized power, and the suppression of individual rights and constructed institutional barriers to prevent those abuses, they never envisioned the mechanisms that pose serious threats today.
One of those threats is one-party rule. It s understandable the Founders missed that since they worked before the age of entrenched and nationalized political parties. The closest analogues were England s Whigs and Tories, but they were a far cry from modern parties. The political world envisioned by America s Founders was populated not by parties but by cross-cutting factions, much like today s interest groups. The Federalist Papers (especially the famous No. 10, written by James Madison as Publius ) argued that, in a large republic like America, multiple factions would emerge, push against each other, and usually block any one from dominating.