Not unlike a Supreme Court justice, I have previously hallucinated that the Founders were offering me their insight into the present moment, and I will probably do it again.
James Madison, a little less than 250 years ago, blowing on the ink of the Constitution so it dries: Well, there we have it! A perfect system of government!
Alexander Hamilton: I love to think of the future, 250 years from now! The House and the Senate, legislation moving carefully through one and into the other, like food through the small and large intestines!
James Madison: Exactly like that. I can see it now. It’s 1 a.m.! The members of the legislature have cast their votes, and one of them has rushed off the floor to hide. No one knows where he is! Now the president is threatening them! Now the speaker is gathering them in prayer!
George Washington: Hold on.
Madison: Just as we designed. It’s perfect. First, they will make a bill that is 940 pages long and includes “mystery” provisions put into it by “I don’t know” who.
Hamilton: Will it be a good bill?
Madison: No! To be clear, the bill will be just awful. It will have devastating effects on millions of people.
Hamilton: In order, perhaps, to save money?
Madison: No. It will not save money. It will COST money, even though the Senate will try to pretend that it doesn’t, through a novel budgetary move known as “lying.”
Hamilton: But how did it get to the House in the first place? Couldn’t the Senate stop it?
Madison: Sure they could. But Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska didn’t want to. She said, “This has been an awful process” and “My sincere hope is that this is not the final product.” Then, finally, she signaled her disapproval by voting for the bill after they put in a special provision to help whalers.
Hamilton: Ahh! It profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world, but for Whales?
Madison: What?
Hamilton: Never mind.
Madison: After the bill gets through the Senate, with the help of Vice President J. D. Vance, who tells everyone to ignore most of what is in it and just focus on the immigration parts—
Hamilton: Pro-immigration parts, right?
Madison: Ha!—it will be time for the final steps in this perfect process. First, a roll-call vote that will take a record amount of time, more than seven hours. And then another vote on the rule to bring the bill to the floor, which will take roughly five and a half hours!
Hamilton: I don’t understand. How could it last so long?
Madison: Simple. Because the speaker will realize he doesn’t have enough votes, and then he will simply wait until he has them. This isn’t a flaw of the process we’ve designed! It’s a triumph! Perhaps someday we will do elections like that, too.
Hamilton: We shouldn’t.
Madison: You’re the one who is always saying that the executive should be more like a king.
Hamilton: I take it back.
Madison: Before the rule passes, it will be time for the ritual 1 a.m. conversation between the president and Representative Thomas Massie. Remember, the president really wants the bill. He has been posting a lot about it on Truth Social, sometimes very menacingly.
Hamilton: He cares deeply about what is in it?
Madison: Actually, it’s unclear if he knows what’s in it! He genuinely might not! No one has a good theory of mind for him. Then, after the call, they will wait to vote until a representative named Scott Perry has driven back from Pennsylvania with a change of clothes.
Hamilton: I think you are just making things up now.
Madison: Then, the speaker of the House will take a picture of the holdouts.
Hamilton: But such a painting will take weeks!
Madison: Then, when Scott Perry is back with his clothes, they will circle up for a little prayer and finish the vote to bring the bill to the floor. And that’s just the rule vote! There will still be hours more debate! But at the end of it the bill will pass.
Hamilton: But they’re the legislature! They don’t have to just do what the president wants!
Madison: (Shaking his head.) The speaker of the House knows that he has to do what the president wants, due to the separation of powers.
Hamilton: (Sputtering.) But—
Madison: That’s how separation of powers works now. Understandably, after almost 250 years, the legislature is tired of being a coequal branch of government and wants to take a nap. The judiciary will be doing something similar.
Hamilton: I hope not.
Madison: (Shrugs.) That’s just the brilliance of the system we’ve designed. It will work for hundreds of years, but as soon as people stop wanting it to work, it’ll stop. Happy Fourth of July!
