Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Let's Think About a U.S. Parliament

Republicans and Democrats seem too weak to govern. More parties might work better.

January 22, 2018 at 4:02 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

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During the last U.S. government shutdown, in 2013, the columnist Max Fisher directed my attention to Australia. In 1975, the legislature there couldn’t get its act together to fund the government, which shut down. Queen Elizabeth’s official representative in Australia — remember, she is also Queen of Australia — dismissed the prime minister, appointed a replacement who passed a funding bill, and then, three hours later, dismissed the rest of the Australian parliament. New elections were held. According to Fisher, “they haven't had another shutdown since.”

Now the U.S. government is at peak dysfunction, so it’s interesting to ask what Americans might learn from Australians. Nobody’s ready to give the British monarch authority over the U.S. government. But as an amusing diversion, consider whether there’s something to be said for a U.S. parliamentary system.