What Chile Could Teach The United States About Preventing Government Shutdowns

What Chile Could Teach The United States About Preventing Government Shutdowns

Chile’s urgency provision is rooted in an important insight in constitutional design. It recognizes that legislation sometimes arises that is so important it must become the immediate business of the legislature, and that a forcing mechanism is sometimes necessary to ensure that such legislation receives a timely vote. Were a similar provision inserted into the United States Constitution — one allowing the president to bring a bill to the House floor and force a vote even against the House leadership’s will — that would likely be enough to end our current impasse and prevent leaders like Speaker Boehner from unilaterally vetoing legislation that enjoys majority support in the Congress.