American Royalty

[jennythereader]

The recent wedding of England's Prince William got me thinking about this.

Assume that for some reason the American public has decided that we want a monarch of our own. You have been put on the committee implementing it. Who do you chose to be the first monarch, how will the line of succession work, and what duties will the monarch have?

I'm not sure who specifically I'd chose to be the first ruler, but I know the type of person. Someone from a family with a long history of public service, both in elected office and in charitable positions. I think I'd also want a family that had been out of the limelight for a while. Anyone know what Teddy Roosevelt's descendants are up to lately?

My scheme for succession would have more in common with the ancient Celtic system of Tanistry than with any of the systems in use by any existing monarchies. The royal family would be defined as anyone who had a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent who held the throne. There would be a national election every 10 years to chose the heir from a pool defined as all members of the royal family over the age of 21 who have proven their commitment to national service by working as a teacher, in the military, as a police officer or fire-fighter, as a prosecutor or public defender, or doing significant charitable work (this might be tricky to define). When the monarch dies/steps down the current heir would take the throne (for life), and whoever came in second in the last election would become the heir until the next scheduled election. Having the monarch reign for life and choosing the heir from a specific family would contribute to stability, while having the ability to change heirs on a regular basis makes the system flexible.

As for duties, the first thing I'd have the American monarch do is take over all of the President's purely ceremonial/symbolic jobs. Things like christening battleships, opening exhibitions, hosting holiday parties, and so on. This would free up more of the President's time for doing actual administrative work. I'd probably also have the monarch take over the president of the Senate job from the Vice-President, and serve as a tie-breaking vote on those extremely rare occasions when the Supreme Court is evenly split.

Wow. I had no idea I'd put that much thought into this.

Comments

[seawasp]

If it's going to be an AMERICAN monarch he or she should be chosen by truly American ways, so clearly it should be a reality TV show with "America's Next King" and/or "America's Next Queen".

[seawasp]

This is assuming you just want them to have symbolic but not actual power. If you mean ACTUAL power, that's different.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I think a modern monarch should have a few real powers, but mostly be symbolic. But because they'd have those few real responsibilities I wouldn't trust somebody chosen by game show.

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

Me :-) With absolute, undivided power, with a hand-picked council responsible to me and me alone. No legislature and a judiciary whose last line of appeal was me. The state governments would be abolished in favour of 5-10 regional administrative units with no plenary power.

The only problem I haven't figured out yet is succession, so really, this only works if we've also come up with an immortality serum or something :-)

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I think you'd make a decent dictator for life.

[uncacreamy.livejournal.com]

This is a fine idea.