The current expectation for 2015 is that the Republicans will hold onto a substantial House majority and the Senate will settle somewhere near 50-50. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

By Eric Black | MINNPOST

“Writing for the current Harper’s, French historian Jean-Philippe Immarigeon offers a bold suggestion for U.S. constitutional reform that’s captured in a deliberately provocative essay title: “Dissolve Congress.”

“Unlike some frustrated Americans, he doesn’t imagine the members of the U.S. Congress being dropped en masse into a boiling cauldron of acid. By “dissolve,” he means that the United States should do what most democracies around the world do when their governments are deadlocked: adjourn the current session and call an election based on the issues that are causing the gridlock. Of course, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t allow for such a thing, but Immarigeon thinks it would be good if it did.

“‘There is nothing more tiresome to an American than to be lectured by a Frenchman,’ Immarigeon acknowledges with good humor (and considerable accuracy). But he notes that this feature is common to most democracies around the world. It doesn’t always produce the desired result, which presumably is a period of constructive action (or perhaps constructive inaction, if that is what the electorate has endorsed) in the government.”

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