A Temporary Alignment of Politics and Religion: The U.S. Senate Sanctions Russia after a Funeral

It is easy to point to instances in which elected government-officials stage political theater for effect, for in the domain of politics, perception has a political currency that can leave a real imprint almost as if the staged were actual rather than pretense. When the leader of one group takes over as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from a person of another partisan group, for example, it is customary for them for the mallet literally to be handed over. In the U.S. Senate, its president, who is also the Vice President of the U.S., may sit in the presider’s chair during a vote if a tie is expected; the Senate President can vote only to break a tie. A certain depth of political meaning can go along with the actual presider presiding. Sometimes, however, an arrangement can have a depth of meaning as well as carry actual political weight. The Senate’s vote on additional economic sanctions on Russia on July 28, 2026 is a case in point, for the synchronicity itself could have caused goose-bumps on exposed skin. Even so, even profound political meaning (and fulfilment) is a far shot from religious belief and experience. Distinguishing these is important in this case, for the day of the vote included a very relevant funeral at the National Cathedral that many senators no doubt attended, and could be expected to ponder their own mortality and what may lie beyond.

The vote took place just hours after the funeral of Sen. Graham of South Carolina; that he, along with Sen. Blumenthal of Connecticut, had been the main Senate negotiator on the underlying deal with the White House meant that the timing of the vote was no accident and could be expected to be felt emotionally by the senators voting in the affirmative. As if this alignment were not laden with enough political-emotional meaning for the senators, the sitting president of Ukraine was watching the vote in the Senate gallery in the chamber, and such a relevant and high-status presence is itself remarkable. Referring to Zelensky, Sen. Blumenthal remarked, “watching his face when he was in the gallery as we were voting was truly a moment of joy.”[1] The word truly may be overused by politicians, but in this case, it is easy to believe the senator that the presence of the president of Ukraine enabled the 86 senators voting in favor to feel even a profound sense of meaning in what they were doing for an invaded people and its government. That Sen. Graham had been the chief negotiator of the legislation and many of his colleagues had been at his funeral just hours earlier may have added a sense of multi-layered significant meaning to the vote. The life/death element added to a sense of profound political meaning in a political act may even intimate a religious element in the mix.

Senators with a heightened sense of religiosity may have wondered whether a deity had weaved together the day’s events, and even been behind the passage of the legislation itself. The late senator is in heaven, a senator may have believed, and is looking down on what we’re doing in the chamber during this vote, and perhaps he even feels vindicated in his “hawkish” defense stance because the sitting president of Ukraine is even sitting in the gallery watching the vote! Unlike political meaning and significance felt profoundly, however, religious meaning and significance are qualitatively different. This means they are different in kind, rather than just that they are felt more deeply. To say that the late senator was in heaven is at best a loaded, controversial question; to posit the late senator’s soul has made it to heaven, assuming there is such a thing as an afterlife, goes far beyond anything that we can know, at least while we are corporeal.

To be sure, it could be that very moving political and religious meanings that affect a person profoundly are the same psychologically, rather than the religious sensibility being felt closer to one’s core sense of one’s being. Even so, the nature of the phenomenology of religion—the domain of religion—is very different than what the world of politics is. The political domain is entirely within our realm, and thus potentially is entirely within the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion. From the perspective of the religious domain, the world of politics is entirely within Creation, rather than transcending it. Religious belief and experience, however, are “open-ended” in that they are oriented to a reality, point (e.g., an entity, such as a deity) that is inherently beyond those limits that pertain to Creation. This is the main idea of the sixth-century Christian theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius.

For all that a senator’s sense of inner-fulfilment politically might be authentic, such as in casting a vote in favor of economic sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine unprovoked and thus in violation of international law (and in intentionally bombing civilian housing, a war crime), the experience at Sen. Graham’s funeral that a senator may have had in viewing one’s life, and life itself, as relative, and thus perhaps in yearning for a sense of inner peace that is based beyond, is fundamentally different. A senator would not ponder the afterlife anything like how the prospects of a pending piece of legislation would be assessed. Even though legislative Whips can be quite good at forecasting votes, none of us has any idea what, if anything, lies in store for us after we die. It follows that attempts to base a political system on any religious belief, which of course transcends human cognition, perception, and emotion by definition, is fraught with difficulty, to say the least. Even if seemingly successful, the output, such as the doctrine of the divine right of kings, can be said to be dogmatic in the sense of being too arbitrary to warrant any claims of being known rather than just a matter of belief.  

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1. Mary C. Jalonick, Kevin Freking, and Lisa Mascaro, “Senate Takes First Steps on Russian Sanctions as Zelenskyy Watches from Senate Gallery,” APnews.com, July 28, 2026.

Columbia: The United States of South America?

On March 8, 2026, The Associated Press reported on the voting in Columbia that took place that day “for a new Congress and to select candidates . . . in a primary-style contest ahead of a presidential election in May.”[1] This description could hardly be more “American,” in the sense of referring to the United States. I contend that this allusion to the U.S. is overdrawn. Were Columbia to apply for membership in the U.S., the accession would pertain to becoming a state, rather than to Columbia as a United States of South America merging with the other United States. Put another way, even though Columbia appropriated from the federal level of the U.S. in creating a presidency, a Congress that in turn consists of “The Senate” and “The House of Representatives,” and a presidential election process that includes something akin to primaries, Columbia corresponds to the American states (only without being members of a union as they are) rather than to the United States. Columbia’s accession into the U.S. as a state would not instantiate an empire within an empire.

One way of distinguishing Columbian politics from politics at the national level in the U.S. is to point out that the timespan for presidential campaigning in Columbia in 2026 between the “primaries” and the presidential general election was just months. Whereas that is plenty of time to campaign across Columbia, much more time is needed for U.S. presidential candidates to campaign in 50 states. Accordingly, the U.S. presidential campaign “season” is much longer—with the primaries themselves taking place over about 6 months. This is a great way to grasp the qualitative leap (i.e., rather than being a matter of degree) that separates and distinguishes a state from a union that is composed of many such states. Although only a few months are between the nominating political conventions and the general presidential election in the U.S., and only a few months are between the Columbian “primaries” and that presidential election, the American presidential campaign “season” is significantly front-loaded in part because the U.S. is an empire-scale federal system wherein the states play a role in the election of the federal president and thus should at least theoretically be campaigned in. It is not enough to campaign in an area the size of Columbia, for example.

Shifting from process to institutional analysis, Columbia’s system of government as unitary can be distinguished from the U.S.’s federal system. Although imitation has been said to be the highest form of flattery, referring to Columbia’s upper and lower legislative chambers as together being a Congress is misleading. In the United Colonies, which predates the United States, the Continental Congress was so named because it was viewed as international meetings rather than as a domestic legislature. So too, the Congress during the Articles of Confederation was understood to be an international body because the states were then sovereign countries. Although this changed in 1789 when the three branches of the federal government went into effect, the U.S. Senate was understood to be founded on principles of international law. Although the states were then only semi-sovereign (some governmental sovereignty having been delegated to the federal government), that polities rather than individuals would the members of the Senate and that the member-polities all would have the same number of votes meant that the U.S. Senate is an international chamber (i.e., founded on such principles, rather than national principles). The latter principles apply to the U.S. House of Representatives, so with the Senate, the Congress can be construed as a hybrid national-international institution. In utter contrast, Columbia’s Congress is solely domestic in nature—not a thread of international fiber being mixed in. This is so, too, of the legislatures of the U.S.’s member-states. So, in this way too, Columbia can be seen to correspond to a state in the U.S. rather than to the U.S. itself.

Indeed, one reason why federalism fits so well for the U.S. is because of its empire-scale and the related interstate cultural heterogeneity. Massachusetts is very different than Oklahoma, culturally speaking, and Texas is very different than Hawaii. The claim that the regions of Columbia differ culturally to such an extent is based in part on the category mistake of treating a state-scale polity as being commensurate with, or equivalent to, a union of such states.

One implication of seeing Columbia in this light is that it and its neighbors could form a United States of South America, whose Congress would be hybrid-based on international and national principles of government. The Senate of such a Congress would represent Columbia and the other states rather than individual citizens (the direct election of U.S. senators by citizens of the respective states may thus be problematic). Were such a United States of South America in existence, a federal check on power-abuses at the state level would be possible (though not guaranteed). The need for and lack of such a check when the Columbians went to vote in March, 2026 is clear from the assertion made at the time by Columbian Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez “that a group of at least 2,400 people ‘allegedly heading to vote’ were detected trying to enter Columbia at an illegal border crossing with Venezuela in Norte de Santander, despite announced border closures during the election process.”[2] Sixty buses were waiting to take the people to voting stations. Columbia’s simple rather than federal polity did not include such safeguards as would surely come from the U.S. federal government were citizens of one state sent into another state as campaign volunteers to attempt to vote there. In the words of Sánchez, an “avalanche of illegal voting” happened in Columbia on March 8, 2026.[3] Whereas claims of widespread electoral fraud in some of the U.S. states in the 2020 presidential election were met with investigations by Congress and the U.S. Justice Department, which crucially are distinct from any of the state governments, the Columbian government had only itself to investigate why busloads of foreigners allegedly voted for candidates for president even though that government may have been blameworthy. It is not as if Columbia constituted a United States of South America. Of course, political corruption can occur at virtually any scale; the U.S. Federal Government is hardly immune, and neither is the government of the tiny polity of Rhode Island, for instance.

My point is merely that even though Columbia’s legislature is called a Congress and includes a chamber called a senate, Columbia does not have the checks and balances that are built into an empire-scale federal polity such as the United States. Even if some of the U.S. states had federal systems, those states would not thereby be equivalent to the U.S., or, more generally, to an empire-scale and international-national hybrid federal government.

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1. Astrid Suarez, “Colombians Are Electing a New Congress and Choosing Presidential Candidates,” The Associated Press, March 8, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

On the Role of the European Parliament: The Mercosur Treaty

With the European Council, which represents the E.U. states, having passed the Mercosur free-trade treaty by qualified-majority voting, the legislation went on to the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, to vote on final passage before being sent to E.U. President Von der Leyen for her signature. From the standpoint of this standard legislative procedure, it is significant that immediately following the vote in the Council, which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. Senate, efforts were being made to essentially side-step the Parliament, which is equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives. Von der Leyen’s plan to sign the treaty once it passed in the Council reflects both the disproportionate power of the state governments at the federal level in the E.U. and the fact that the U.S. House is excluded from voting on treaties, whereas the U.S. Senate votes to give its consent to them before the U.S. president ratifies them (or not).  

On 9 January, 2026, the European Council voted by a super majority representing 65% of the E.U.’s population and 55% of its states to approve the Mercosur free-trade treaty with four countries in South America. President Von der Leyen had completed the negotiations on the treaty two years earlier so E.U. companies could “gain access to a market of 280 million consumers . . . where some 30,000 E.U. firms” were already operating.[1] A massive free-trade area with a combined population of 700 million inhabitants would dwarf NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement). It is no wonder that on the heels of the Council’s vote, President Von der Leyen wrote in an official statement, “I greatly look forward to signing this landmark deal . . .”[2] Not so fast. The approval procedure “also requires the consent of the European Parliament.”[3] In the Parliament, a contingent of the Renew party saw an opportunity to scuttle the proposed treaty because of the fears of European farmers, mostly in the state of France, that free trade in agriculture could harm the E.U.’s farmers financially if enough European consumers buy agricultural products from the Mercosur countries rather than domestically.

Admittedly, getting the consent of the Council by even just by qualified-majority voting had been viewed as the challenge. A contingent of the Renew party could presumably be easily outvoted in the Parliament. Nevertheless, the focus on the Council is in line with the inordinate power wielded by the states at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Put another way, being slighted doubtlessly came as no surprise to the representatives in the Parliament. The chamber of the people had typically played second fiddle to the chamber of the states.

Even in the U.S., where the two federal legislative chambers have been viewed as equals since their founding, the U.S. House of Representatives is excluded from the procedure in which treaties proposed by the federal president are sent to the U.S. Senate for advice and to be confirmed (or rejected). If confirmed, the president can either ratify or refuse to do so. Such ratification is required for a treaty to go into effect. The U.S. House of Representatives is excluded.

Resonating with the exclusion of the U.S. House, the E.U. state chairing the Council at the time “used a legal procedure” just after the vote “to enable the provisional implementation of the agreement without a parliamentary vote.”[4] Although the Parliament’s upcoming vote could derail the treaty, the provisional implementation would make it more difficult for representatives to vote against the treaty because it would already be underway. Even if President Von der Leyen would sign the treaty before the Parliament’s vote, the treaty would be rendered invalid, but in setting up a fait accompli, the Commission and the Council were making use of momentum such that voting against the treaty would be more difficult. Furthermore, that the U.S. House is excluded from the legislative consent and ratification of U.S. treaties implicitly implies that maybe the European Parliament, which also represents citizens rather than states, should not be involved in the passage of E.U. treaties with other countries. In federal unions in which governmental sovereignty is divided, regardless of the proportions, the legislative chamber in which the semi-sovereign states are represented can be argued to be more important in international treaties precisely because of the sovereignty still reserved by the states in their political union should have a say, even if by qualified majority voting (in the E.U. Council) or a two-thirds majority (in the U.S. Senate).  Put another way, both of these bars, being higher than a simple majority, reflect the fact that the states in the E.U. and U.S. are semi-sovereign.

In tension with the argument that the E.U. Parliament and the U.S. House should also be included so the respective federal citizens could also have a say, the states might object that a defeat in either of those chambers would nullify what the semi-sovereign state governments have agreed to, and that such sovereignty, together with the limited sovereignty of the respective unions, should not be denied domestically with respect to relations with other countries. The tension here reveals a judgment call, which is of such a magnitude and indeterminacy to be properly determined by popular sovereignty—that which is reserved to the people themselves as an electorate. Moreover, this comparison of the E.U. and U.S. works so well that the equivalency of the two unions, even with the very different proportions of governmental sovereignty delegated by basic law to the federal level, can be easily grasped even by Euroskeptics and anti-federalists.

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1, Peggy Corlin, “E.U. Member States Back Mercosur Deal, French MEPs Vow Fight in Parliament,” Euronews.com, 9 January, 2026.
2, "Statement by President Von der Leyen on the Council's Decision to Endorse the EU-Mercossur Trade Agreement," The European Comission, 8 January, 2026.
3. Peggy Corlin, “E.U. Member States Back Mercosur Deal, French MEPs Vow Fight in Parliament,” Euronews.com, 9 January, 2026.
4. Ibid.

On the E.U.’s “Pragmatic” Federalism

It is ironic that even though European political theorists, including Immanuel Kant, Johannes Althusius, and Kenneth Wheare, made substantial contributions on the topic of federalism, even political leaders in the E.U. as late as 2025 were stumbling over the basics, getting the very concept wrong. Unfortunately, that has caused journalists to trip and fall too, leaving E.U. citizens grappling over the apparent problem of being citizens both of their state and the E.U. even though, according to former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi spoke in 2025 in favor of “’pragmatic federalism’ as the political conditions for a true, federal union do not exist in the E.U. at the moment.”[1] The claims that “pragmatic federalism” is somehow not indicative of “true” federalism, and, moreover, that somehow the E.U. has states that are semi-sovereign (as the E.U. itself has exclusive competences) and yet federalism does not apply are patently absurd. Draghi was confusing the politics of the moment, in which the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology was still too powerful for more governmental sovereignty to be moved to the federal level from the states, with whether the E.U. had a federal system already. In other words, “political conditions” are distinct from whether the E.U. has a federal system of public governance. Draghi’s assertion is all the more astounding not only because of his governmental experience at the federal level, but also because the dual-sovereignty (of the states and the Union) means that the E.U. fits within the category of modern federalism rather than confederalism (using Wheare’s terminology). Europeans have quite understandably been confused in trying to classify the E.U. away from the pull of the anti-federalist ideology in Europe.

That ideology has been a major impediment to the E.U. being able to govern. Although qualified-majority voting applies to some of the E.U.’s enumerated powers, or competencies, enough of the important matters of policy and law have been requiring unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers that the veto-power of each of the 27 state governments has “thrown a wrench” in the governmental machinery at the federal level, especially in foreign policy and defense. Whereas the U.S. at first federalized those areas, the E.U.’s initial emphasis was on economic policy and law, so drifting over to include the more traditionally-federalized domains has been stymied by recalcitrant governors threatening to wield their respective vetoes in the Council even in the face of an overwhelming consensus.

For example, between 2011 and 2025, “Hungary vetoed E.U. proposals more than any other member state . . ., with a total of 19.”[2] A “total of 46 vetoes,” moreover, were “exercised in the E.U. by 15 member states across 38 issues.”[3] Poland ranked second with seven vetoes. “Hungary has vetoed a significant number of joint foreign policy statements, but it has also blocked proposals to lend concrete support to Ukraine and start formal E.U. accession talks,” which are necessary for Ukraine to become the 28^th state in the Union.[4] It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, was by the end of 2025 “deliberately structuring its proposals [for legislation and foreign policies] in order to avoid requiring unanimous consent” from the states in the councils, which, after all, represent the states whereas the European Parliament represents E.U. citizens.[5] With such governmental machinery, plus the E.U.’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice, residing at the Union level, the claim that the E.U. is not a true federal union of states is utterly untenable. “Pragmatic” federalism, which is actually a governmental tool in the E.U.’s basic law, does not nullify the E.U.’s federal system, rendering the E.U. as a “multi-speed bloc.” That label actually signifies decadent jargon rather than any kind of governmental system that is capable of enacting federal laws that are binding on the states and anyone on the E.U.’s territory.

Pragmatic federalism is simply a tactic that the Commission can use to bypass the requirement of unanimity in the Councils, which, like the U.S. Senate, represent the states. The tactic was used, for example, to pass federal legislation to phase-out “Russian fuels under the REPowerEU framework” and to “extend the freeze on the Russian assets.”[6] So too, in passing legislation enabling the E.U. to issue debt to support Ukraine militarily, the European Council “bypassed the need for unanimity among member states” by “gathering those [state governors] who wanted to work together while keeping Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic out of the deal as a condition for it to go forward. In doing so, the E.U. . . . showed a new path forward—one where the unanimity requirement need no longer obstruct” the passage of legislation at the federal level.[7] States could be exempted, such as had been done in the Schengen Agreement and the Stability Pact. The exemption of particular states from a federal program, policy, law, or regulation does not invalidate the federal system; rather, the tool merely renders the federal system more flexible. In fact, the U.S. could benefit by adopting the mechanism, especially because so much power has accrued especially since 1865 at the federal level at the expense of state differences. Exempting certain states from a given proposal would not nullify America’s federal system.

Beyond “pragmatic” federalism in the E.U., the question of rendering the state-veto obsolete was being seriously considered by the end of 2025. With 27 states in the E.U. and Russia invading Ukraine just east of the E.U.’s territory, the E.U. could ill-afford the continuance of the veto, especially in the domains of foreign policy and defense. That unanimity would be required to amend the E.U.’s basic law to rid the union of the state-veto is itself a problem, but it could be solved by any states objecting to such a change being exempted from any “enhanced cooperation” that would be switched from unanimity to qualified-majority voting. In short, the precedents of the Schengen Agreement and the European Stability Pact, which are not incompatible with federalism, could be followed. In terms of such competencies of the E.U. that would be added to those that are already subject to qualified-majority voting, states like Hungary and Slovakia could be exempted. This is not to say that there would be a union, such as the “EU-26,” within the union, or a foreign policy union, a defense union, and so on. Such jargon, as well as the euphemistic-sounding “enhanced cooperation” and, even worse, “multi-speed bloc,” only obscures the point that in a federal system, states can be exempted from particular federal legislation (and policies) without the federal system itself being nullified. Also, to refer to exempting certain states as allowing for “voluntary co-operation” in “coalitions of the willing” is also misleading because there is nothing voluntary about being subject to qualified-majority voting on an E.U. competency manifesting as law. Reducing the E.U. to voluntary cooperation and coalitions of the willing undermines the European Union itself by detracting from what strength it does have as a “true federal union.” The extent of vacuous, ideological jargon outdoes even that of the American retail sector, in which customers are called “guests” and even “members,” customer orders are considered “perfect,” and one of the official public holidays is singled out intentionally to be (ideologically) obscured passive-aggressively as “happy holidays.” But I digress.

To be sure, within the E.U., the state-veto has been seen by some people as “the last resort to protect” state rights.[8] Tamás Lattmann, an international-law expert, said, “A veto power is the last line of defence of vital interests. Every case of circumvention has led to a set of new problems, often the inoperability or discrediting of the system itself.”[9] However, that states could be exempted means that their vital interests would not be threatened. Also, exempting states would not discredit the E.U.’s federal system. In fact, the U.S. federal system could arguably benefit by being more flexible, as so much governmental power has been federalized and “one size does not fit all” in an empire-scale federal union, whether in North America or Europe.

The argument that the state-veto “serves as an equalizer between smaller and larger member states” has also been made, especially because the European Parliament has representation by population.[10] During its debt crisis, for example, the state of Greece could have made the case that E.U. policy reflected the interests of German creditors to the extent that even the anti-austerity party was pressured to accept continued austerity. Furthermore, the smaller eastern states could legitimately argue that the large states in the west have disproportionate (even in terms of the population part of qualified majority voting) informal as well as formal power. The problem is in relying on a mechanism, the state veto, that has been such a detriment to the enactment of federal policy and law.  In the U.S. Senate, which was established principally to safeguard the interests of the small member states, the filibuster, which can be overridden by 60 votes (out of 100), is typically viewed as sufficient for the minority on any given question. To be sure, a minority is not the same as one state. In E.U. competencies subject to qualified majority voting, a single state, whether large or small, could vote no and yet be subject to a federal policy or law. The case of tariffs on Chinese imports was a case in point in 2025. If the filibuster mechanism is sufficient protection for small states in a legislative chamber in which each state has the same number of votes, then the number-of-states set at 65% in qualified majority voting could be deemed sufficient. Generally speaking, a majority of 65 percent has more democratic legitimacy than does a simple majority—a point that Americans might want to consider.

In conclusion, the Commission and Council could hardly be blamed for trying to obviate the state-veto without subjecting objecting states, for their vital interests are untouched because they are exempted. With enlargement of the Union being an issue, as well as the need for federalized defense and foreign policies given the military aggression of Russia and even Israel, the Union could no longer afford the veto-mechanism itself even by 2023. The mechanism actually pertains to confederalism, in which governmental sovereignty is retained by the states, rather than to modern federalism, in which the atom of governmental sovereignty is split, though not necessarily evenly, in a federal system between the states and the federal level. That the E.U., even initially in 1993, has the salient feature of dual sovereignty means that that union has never been a mere confederal system; the E.U. is thus well-within being a “true federal union.” Even though it has been in the interest of E.U. officials to appease Euroskeptics so to as to render them more docile, ideological denial has cost the European project severely, and the state-veto has played a major role in the self-inflicted federal impotency.

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1. Sandor Zsiros, “The EU Wants to End the Era of National Vetoes—But It’s Complicated,” Euronews.com, 23 December, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

A Reparations Loan or Common Debt: Undercut by State Rights

“State rights” was a common refrain by the eleven U.S. member states who sought to exit in 1861; the underlying fear was that the exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers, of the U.S., combined with the numerous accessions of new states, were already compromising the power of the eleven states to protect their economies from “encroachment.” In 1858, for instance, a tariff disadvantageous to those economies had been passed in spite of the “Southern” objections in the U.S. Senate. Had each member state had a veto, rather than just the ability to filibuster, the eleven states would have been able to protect the viability of their respective economies from encroachment by the Union. To be sure, the state rights claim that the U.S. was still just a bloc, as had been the case from 1781-1789 under the Articles of Confederation, was sheer denial, for the U.S. Constitution instituted a new kind of federalism—partly national, partly international—based on dual sovereignty, wherein both the member states and the Union have a portion of governmental sovereignty. It is this form of federalism, “modern federalism,” that the Europeans adopted in creating the European Union because the E.U. has exclusive competencies. But whereas the shift made by the Americans in the eighteenth century left the state-veto behind at the Union level, the Europeans retained the veto, which at the very least works against the effective operation of modern federalism. The arduous and much delayed task on a reparations loan for Ukraine in spite of the self-interested objection—and thus promised veto—of one state is a case in point. Even the alternative of the E.U. issuing debt faced state-level opposition, as was the case in the U.S. in the 1790s, but in that case, the self-interested states that were relatively clear of debt could not stop the issuance because none of those states could wield a veto at the federal level. This is important because back then, the American states were still widely viewed as countries by their respective inhabitants. “I must fight for my country,” General Lee told Lincoln in 1861, referring to Virginia. A refresher on American history could help Europeans cross the Rubicon to a more internally consistent modern federalism. Whether Euroskepticism or States’ Rights, the ideology, as etched into the E.U.’s Basic Law, is responsible for Van der Leyen’s headaches in getting the E.U. to put Ukraine in a position of strength against the Russian invaders.

A Union of states that allows a self-interested state to block federal action that is in the good of the whole Union is weak. So, when Ursula von der Leyen said late in 2025 that the European Commission would provide Belgium with sweeping guarantees to unblock a controversial reparations loan for Ukraine, a state official representing Belgium countered that the Commission’s proposals “do not address our concerns in a satisfactory manner. It is not acceptable to use the money and leave us alone facing the risks.”[1] That Belgium’s government could wield its veto gives “not acceptable” the ring of finality. This is despite the guarantees for Belgium consisting “of bilateral contributions by member states, a backstop by the EU budget, legal safeguards against retaliation and a new prohibition on transferring sovereign assets back to Russia.”[2] Experts could of course weigh in on how failproof these guarantees actually would be.

From the perspective of the E.U.’s federal system, the following statement made by President Von der Leyen is crucial: “We have created a very strong solidarity mechanism where in the very end the Union can intervene, because we want to make very sure to all our member states, but specifically also to Belgium, that we will share the burden in a fair way, as it is the European way.”[3] The problem is that to state officials, relying only on “the European way” was insufficient; the veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was also felt to be necessary for self-protection. Hence Belgium’s language includes “not acceptable.” Mistrust of the E.U. may be behind at least some of the resistance of the states to agree to an expansion of qualified majority voting.

For the eleven U.S. member states who tried in vain to exit the U.S. in 1861, another kind of qualified majority voting in the U.S. Senate was deemed to be insufficient to safeguard the Southern agrarian economies based on Plantation-level slave-labor. But for the E.U.’s state-veto, we have to go back to the disastrous Articles of Confederation Between the Several States, wherein the U.S. depended on voluntary financial contributions from the states and there was no common debt. The state-veto that is justified in confederal systems by the fact that all of the governmental sovereignty is retained by the states is toxic in modern federalism because the federal level is too prone to being hamstrung even with regard to proposals that are in the interests of the whole even if not in the self-interest of each and every state. A part should not be able to upend the common good.

That Von der Leyen had to go to such lengths that Belgium would have guarantees for its financial interest in attracting sovereign wealth funds in the future is indicative of just how toxic the state-veto mechanism is, especially when Russia was succeeding in invading Ukraine for years by the end of 2025 when the E.U. was yet again proposing a reparations loan (or common debt). This point alone should disabuse any State Rights folks from clutching so tight to the veto. Also, in a union of states, sometimes a state “takes one for the team.” This is true solidarity. “Man up,” may be the relevant expression, given Belgium’s intransigence, but, then again, I’m an American, hence rather crude and thus unbecoming at a European dinner party. “Lose the veto, guys,” I would readily and flatly say amid polite, too polished conversation.

The problem is that no one likes to give up power unless in a crisis, and an invasion to the east is evidently not a crisis. It may be that, like the Schengen Agreement and the Stability Pact, an exogenous “more closer union” may need to be formed by the more federalist-leaning states, sans the sordid veto, for another budget as well as foreign and defense policy. Instead of the 55% in qualified-majority voting (QMV), perhaps 60%, which matches the percent needed in the U.S. Senate to overcome a filibuster, could be used as a compromise. This is not to say that the E.U. and U.S. should converge; the Europeans are smart to fear the sort of consolidation at the Union level that eclipses any sort of federalism, and thus needed space for the states to act as per their respective cultures and ideologies. The American case clearly demonstrates that a citizenry giving primary loyalty to the state level cannot be relied upon as a safeguard in the distant future against creeping encroachments by the Union on the sovereignty retained by the member states. Even so, whereas the U.S. by 2025 had lapsed too close to consolidation at the expense of federalism, the E.U. risked dissolution by states plying themselves away from an ineffectual, internally hamstrung Union, for no one likes to be a part of self-inflicted weakness. Nietzsche taught us this.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Von der Leyen Pushes Ahead with Reparations Loan for Ukraine as Belgium Maintains Its Opposition,” Euronews.com, December 3, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

The E.U. without Enlargement: An Oxymoron?

The political debates concerning the accession of candidate states such as Texas, California, Alaska and even Hawaii into the U.S. were long past when the issue of enlargement became salient for the E.U. due to Russia’s unilateral, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In the American case, surely no one was arguing that the U.S. without being enlarged would cease to be credible, yet in 2025, a government official of the candidate state of Montenegro said as much of the European Union. Even if Filip Ivanovic was merely using rhetoric during an interview on October 4, 2025, even that should at least make sense. Making matters worse, his comments can be interpreted as ultimatums for the E.U. even though nothing binds the E.U. to annexing any future state. In fact, given the veto-power of state officials at the federal level in the E.U., enlargement should arguably come only after internal reform of the E.U.’s basic law concerning the power of the states at the federal level.

During the interview with Euronews, the deputy prime-minister of the candidate state said, “If enlargement does not happen . . . then the very concept of the European Union loses its credibility: It’s not European, and it’s not a union anymore.”[1] I demur. That E.U. territory did not at the time extend to the entire continent of Europe does not mean that the E.U. was not European. No one would seriously contend that any of the E.U. states were not European, so it follows that the E.U. itself, consisting of those states and a federal system, was not European. As for the E.U. not being a union unless it enlarged under the pressure of Putin’s militaristic aggression in Ukraine, the E.U.’s own constitutional or basic law at the time put any such claim to rest as ludicrous. It was the deputy prime-minister’s credibility that was actually on the line from his statement.

At the time, nine possible states were officially designated by the Commission as candidates for statehood, with Montenegro being “the most advanced in implementing the constitutional, judicial and economic reforms” that are required.[2] But Montenegro being at an advanced stage does not mean that the E.U. was therefore duty-bound to annex the territory of the state as being within the Union. Even so, Ivanovic said the government of Montenegro “cannot accept” the refusal of the E.U. to extend statehood to Montenegro because the other possible states “would understand that whatever they do is in vain.”[3] Whether the government of Montenegro could or could not accept a negative decision should be irrelevant to the E.U. as it decides on whether, and by how much, and when to enlarge its territory by extending offers of statehood. Asking for something and then stating that unless it is given, the decision will be unacceptable is not the way to ask for something if the expectation is that the request will be granted.

Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary had been using the state’s veto in the European Council on proposals concerning enlargement and foreign policy. As a result of Orban’s siding with Putin rather than with the majority of other states in the Union, the Union was being back from within in being able to adequately help Ukraine to resist Russia’s invasion even though Putin’s militarism was not justified even by historical arguments because might does not itself make right. Enlarging the Union such that even more states would be able to wield a veto to styme the Union would be recipe for paralysis at the federal level, and so this consideration alone is credible in deciding when it would be best to admit new states. It is not as though taking account of the risk of being held up by a single state forestalling action on the federal level before taking up the matter of enlargement would lack in credibility. Rather, moderating the power of the individual veto, similar to how the U.S. Senate has moderated the power of the filibuster (which is based on the fact that the states retain some governmental sovereignty just as the E.U. states do), would be prudent as requisite to enlarging. Whether or not this strategy was acceptable to Montenegro is irrelevant.

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1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “EU Risks ‘Losing Credibility’ If It Fails to Enlarge, Montenegro’s Deputy PM Warns,” Euronews.com, 6 October 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage: A Self-Inflicted Wound

Why has the E.U. been sidelined amid the military tensions in the Middle East? The answer lies with the E.U.’s federal system, rather than the size of its economy or of its population. The E.U. certainly could have more geopolitical sway abroad were it not for a vulnerability being exploited within its own federal system. The vulnerability stems from a refusal by some state officials to recognize and respect the qualitative and quantitative differences between the federal and the state levels of the E.U. Specifically, when the governor (i.e., chief executive and/or head of state) of a state operates as if a federal-level official, especially that of a federal president, the authority of the actual federal president is undercut, hence weakening that person’s ability to convince the heads of foreign governments to include the E.U. president or foreign minister in multilateral negotiations centered on the Middle East, for example. Even unconsciously, foreign leaders may say to themselves, why should we respect the president of the E.U. if she is so easily upstaged by the leader of an E.U. state who is acting as if he were president of the European Commission?  To speak with one voice, and to be able to speak for the E.U. rather than just one state thereof, an E.U. official must be the speaker. Macron of the E.U. state of France cannot speak for the E.U., but Von der Leyen could, provided her space is respected by the governors of the states. This is not to say that this is the only reason why the E.U. has been sidelined from negotiations on Middle East warfare; rather, my contention is that this reason is typically overlooked due to the Euroskeptic ideological delusion that the E.U. does not have a federal system of government even though since 1993, governmental sovereignty has indeed been split between the states and the Union. Perhaps the underlying question here is whether continuing to clutch at the anti-federalist ideology is worth the E.U. continuing to be weakened unnecessarily from within, and thus sidelined from international negotiations that do not center on Europe. Making such blind-spots transparent is indeed a valuable occupation, even if it can be infuriating to people whose interests and ideology are served best if societies look the other way.

In June, 2025, Claude Moniquet, a European formerly in the field of intelligence, told a journalist that the E.U. had been left “sitting on the sidelines” as Israel pummeled Gaza and commenced a bombing in Iran.[1] “Europeans have been pretty much excluded from all major diplomatic manoeuvres around the war in Gaza or the war in Lebanon,” he added.[2] So even though the president of the E.U.’s executive branch, Ursula Von der Leyen, wrote on 13 June 2025, “Diplomatic efforts are crucial to preventing further escalation,” after having spoke with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, words are just words if they are from the sidelines rather than after having been dealt a hand of cards at the power-table.[3] I submit that the irrelevance of Von der Leyen’s words is partly due to Emmanuel Macron of the E.U. state of France having “stolen the thunder” by putting himself up as speaking for the E.U. on Gaza.

For instance, during a three-hour televised interview in early May, 2025, Macron said that Europe should consider sanctioning Israel over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where “hundreds of thousands” were thought to be “facing starvation.”[4] Even though he was understandably frustrated by the lack of sanctions at the federal level, the president of France had no place to speak for Europe, as he was not an E.U. official at the time. To be sure, the thorny problem of the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers on foreign-policy matters was a factor in the E.U.’s internal-weakness at the federal level, but Macron’s proper orientation was to contend that France should consider sanctioning Israel, if this had not already been done. Indeed, Macron said publicly on 30 May 2025 that France could harden its position on Israel. “The humanitarian blockade is creating a situation that is untenable on the ground,” he said.[5]

Yet two weeks later, Macron was visiting Greenland to represent Europe’s—not just France’s—objection to U.S. President Trump’s desire to make Greenland a U.S. territory. “The situation in Greenland is clearly a wakeup call for all Europeans,” he said as if he were president of the E.U. rather than the governor of an E.U. state.[6] This manner of situating the French president may seem harsh, but I submit that I have properly stated his role from the vantage point of the E.U. and particularly in terms of its federal system, wherein states are both qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from the federal level officials and governmental branches. Von der Leyen could have spoken for E.U. citizens rather than merely residents of the state of France were she to have visited Greenland, but Macron relegated such an opportunity for the E.U., and thus the collective clout that it potentially could have that a state could not. There is a cost, in other words, in a state official refusing to apply self-control when going into the spotlight is tempting. Were the U.S. president to try to invade Greenland, the E.U. president would have more economic clout than France could have with which to pressure Trump to cease and desist in his imperial designs.

This photo, from Euronews.com, illustrates Macron's usurption and how this impacts how the actual E.U. Commission president (pictured on the right) is viewed from abroad as compromised or weakened as a result..

Admittedly, involving state officials in foreign policy is arguably one way in which the E.U.’s federal system is a better case of federalism than the top-heavy American counterpart, but such involvement requires also giving E.U. officials, especially its (executive branch) president and foreign minister, enough authority with which to block state leaders from stealing the show on the societal stage. Although the U.S. had taken the doctrine of federal preemption of state action too far, some preemption would be justified in the E.U., especially as the governors do have a formal role even at the federal level in the European Council and through their ministers in the Council of Ministers on foreign policy. The proclivity to go beyond those federal institutions conflicts with the roles of the E.U. president and foreign minister in being able to lead the E.U. on foreign policy. A similar case of state overreach occurred when the prime minister of Italy sought to manipulate representatives in the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens rather than states.  Likewise, a governor of one of the republics in the U.S. can justifiably pressure a U.S. senator representing that governor’s state at the federal level, but the House representatives even in districts located in that state serve the U.S. citizens in those districts rather than the state government.

In short, political overreaching should be guarded against for a federal system to function optimally, such that benefits internationally from collective action at the federal level can be realized while the cultural and ideological interstate differences can be accommodated by there being policy domains retained by the state governments. Stealing the limelight of someone else is not conducive to a federal system being able to work both internally and as a political unit to the outside world. Put bluntly, if France’s Macron wants so to be president of the E.U., let him go through the process of candidacy at the end of Von der Leyen’s second term rather than usurp her role before then.

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1. Jeremy Fleming-Jones, “Europe Left on Diplomatic ‘Sidelines’ in Israel Iran Conflict,” Euronews.com, June 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Gavin Blackburn, “Macron on ‘Crusade against Jewish State,’ Israel Says Following Criticism of Gaza War,” Euronews.com, 30 May 2025.
5. Reuters, “France May Toughen Stance on Israel If It Continues Blocking Gaza Aid, Macron Says,” Reuters.com, May 30, 2025.
6. Emma De Ruiter, “Macron Reaffirms Support for Greenland during Visit Ahead of G7 Summit,” Euronews.com, 15 June, 2025.

A U.S. Senator Thrown to the Ground: Security on Steroids

A U.S. Senator being thrown to the ground and handcuffed rather than escorted out of the building because he asked a difficult question for the speaker holding a news conference illustrates not only the bias towards using excessive force that having police power lavishes on human nature, but also a proclivity toward excessiveness without any internal mental check that is entwined in virtually any human brain. That the primary arresting FBI employee was the only person in the room wearing a bulletproof vest inside the federal (government) building may also reveal his penchant for exaggeration—or, going too far without realizing it. The prescription in terms of public policy is a strengthening of checks on law-enforcement employees even, if possible, by embedding other municipal (or federal) employees whose sole function it is to evaluate police conduct either by listening in or observing even in real time. A U.S. senator being thrown to the ground and handcuffed in a federal building in California rather than escorted out of the building evinces a power-trip more base, violent, and primitive than the typical power-trips that occur on the “floor” of the U.S. Senate. It must have been a shock to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla on June 12, 2025 to be physically shoved to the ground, especially if the rationale for his removal from the press conference was itself an exaggeration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was holding a news conference in early June, 2025 as protests against the arrests of illegal aliens were going on outside in downtown Los Angeles in California, when U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla said, “I have questions for the secretary!”[1] Even if the senator was trying to visibly score political points with his constituents by interjecting, which, by the way, would be in the realm of the sort of power-trip that is quite common in politics, the reaction of the Trump Administration may point to a trumped up political reason for the violent way in which the senator was manhandled by Secret Service employees and then the FBI agent. The White House accused Padilla of “disrespectful political theatre” and Noem herself accused the senator of having ‘made a scene.”[2] If these opinions were behind the manhandling of the senator, then “criminalizing politics” steeped to a new low: instant violence against the elected representative for being political. The violence itself is much worse than merely charging someone for being political in a way that offends someone else in power.

For its part, the Secret Service lied that Padilla had “lunged at Secretary Noem,” and furthermore that the agents there “thought he was an attacker.”[3] Reviewing the video of the event shows the willingness of people with guns to lie to protect themselves, which I contend is reason enough for additional checks on law-enforcement employees, whether federal or state. That the senator, the most senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s Border Security and Immigration subcommittee, announced repeatedly that he was a U.S. Senator belies the credibility of the claim that he was thought to be an attacker.

California’s Gavin Newsom, head of state, chief executive, and commander-in-chief of California’s National Guard (i.e., army) wrote online a poignant point worthy of our consideration: “If they can handcuff a US Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you.”[4] Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much imagining to consider the actuality of employees of a government in law enforcement presuming that the law is theirs to make in real time—casting a blind eye intentionally on the actual law—and lying and threatening even victims of a crime with arrest should they object. Enforcing existing law does not give a government employee the discretion with which to ignore the law and even come up with one’s own law and yet how easy it is simply to ignore this vital point in the carrying out of one’s “duties.” I have witnessed this mentality enough to know that it is too common to ignore, and thus I contend that more checks are needed on law-enforcement employees on the non-supervisory level locally, at the member-state level, and at the federal level in the United States. The problem is worse “on the ground” than has reached the public air-waves.

Even if Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, was right in opining, “Padilla embarrassed himself and his constituents with this immature, theatre-kid stunt” because “he wanted attention,”[5] treating the senator as if he were an attacker rather than simply escorting him out of the building—or even letting him remain and treat the altercation between him and Noem as political—reveals an emotionally jejune, hyper-“trigger-happy” mentality among the Secret Service and FBI employees in that federal building. Such a mentality among government employees who have been given the legal right to use force is, I submit, dangerous, and thus should be exculpated from the ranks of law enforcement in any jurisdiction, lest the trend eventuate in people being surrounded by security simply for being angry and even raising one’s voice at a political event. Treating such as a threat is itself passive-aggressive, which as we have seen can turn outright aggressive given the human, all too human proclivity to go to far. 

Put more plainly, assuming that lies used to cover-up the underlying mental ailment, Secret Service employees who perceived the senator lunge at Noem and thought Padilla was an attacker should be put on mental-health leave so they can relax and untighten, and be subjected to psychological tests on latent aggression, for their sort of power-trip is much more dangerous than that which goes on in the U.S. Senate—and the White House, for this incident is but a glimpse toward a realization that not enough had been done even in multiple jurisdictions to root out the sordid pathology from the field of law-enforcement. De facto absolute power “on the ground” loves a vacuum of accountability, and is even willing to lie to keep it at bay.

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1. Ali Abbas Ahmadi and Kwasi G. Asiedu, “US Senator Dragged Out of LA News Conference and Handcuffed,” BBC.com, June 13, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

The European Union Is Not a Trading Bloc

The European Union can be distinguished fundamentally from the previous European Economic Community in several ways, just as the Articles of Confederation can be distinguished on a fundamental level politically from the U.S. Constitution. Both Europe and America have made a qualitative jump, rather than merely as a matter of degree or further extent. In both cases, politically speaking, governmental sovereignty has been split between a union and state governments. Furthermore, in both cases, the domains of power being handled at the federal level have increased. In the case of the U.S., the coverage has expanded beyond Washington’s Continental Army. In the case of the E.U. even by 2024, the union’s coverage had come to extend well beyond a common market and trade policy to include non-economic domains of power, or competencies, too. In this regard, the E.U.'s federal level resembles a government.

After her reelection as President of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, in 2024, Ursula von der Leyen had some jobs to fill. Among them, each state was to designate one person to be a commissioner. It was up to the president to assign each person to an area, or domain, of power, which were hardly all economic in nature.

Among the dream jobs, besides Competition and Economic & Financial Affairs is Foreign and Security Policy, which is a traditional domain of a government. To be sure, the Competition Commissioner has considerable power “to block mergers, fine big companies, and ban state subsidies that distort markets—and, unlike most other E.U. commissioners, [the Competition Commissioner] doesn’t need to sign off decisions with governments or [the European Parliament].”[1] This represents a transfer of governmental sovereignty has taken effect from the state governments to that of the European Union (which also means that the E.U. had indeed a government of its own distinct from those of the states). Even though I suspect this is most true for economic portfolios, because a majority of E.U. competencies are subject to qualified majority voting instead of the principle of unanimity, the E.U.’s governmental sovereignty extends beyond the economic domain.

Among the rising stars of portfolios are two: Defense and Enlargement, rather than only Industry and Digital. That defense in particular was projected to be enhanced in Von der Leyen’s second administration supports the point that the E.U. was indeed thought of as a government, even if behind a veil of Euroskeptic (i.e., states’ rights) denial.

Among the golden oldie portfolios are climate, migration and justice, rather than just energy and trade. To be sure, on immigration there was still “a lack of real E.U. power.”[2] But “with concerns about media freedom and judicial independence” on the state level “on the rise,” the justice portfolio could “set a bold new direction in protecting the rule of law” within the union—power that can hardly be reduced to economics. Indeed, in enforcing justice within states rather than only at the federal level, the Justice Commissioner’s position itself supports the point that governmental sovereignty was in fact dual in the E.U. even in 2024.

That there were Commissioners of Agriculture and Budget also points to the E.U. being a government, as governments typically have their own budgets and have agriculture policies. Indeed, having territory, which the E.U. does indeed have, is a hallmark of being a government. The portfolios of Cohesion, Neighborhood, Home Affairs, Environment, Health, and Social Rights all contradict the supposition that the E.U. was economic in nature even as late as 2024. Social rights especially do not reduce to economics, but, rather, are fundamentally political in nature. Whether or not natural rights exist as John Locke argued, governments can institute and protect (as well as take away) social rights. The additional portfolios of Demography, Foresight, the Mediterranean, and “the E.U. way of life” all also go beyond the economic domain. So many portfolios at a high level in the Commission are not expressly or even mostly economic that it cannot be said that the E.U. was an economic organization at least by 2024 when Von der Leyen’s second term began with an emphasis on defense at the federal level, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Among the plethora of implications, the European Union cannot be characterized like the EEC was, as a single-issue organization; rather, in part because the federal competencies had grown broadly by 2024, we can speak of there being a federal government. There are of course other reasons why this is so in contradistinction to both the EEC and the American Articles of Confederation, both of which were solely international rather than a blend of national and international as evinced by the E.U. and U.S. Whereas in the U.S., that the U.S. Senate is founded on international principles has been commonly forgotten, most Europeans conveniently look over the fact that the European Parliament is founded on national rather than international principles.

Ideology is a great distorter, especially in politics and religion. To refer to the E.U. as an economic bloc is the epitome of intransigence in the face of political reality. That such a psychosis has been perpetuated by journalists in the service of ideologues, giving the brain sickness (recall Nietzsche’s use of the expression!) a patina of official legitimacy, is truly astonishing given the breadth of portfolios in the Commission alone.

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1. Gerardo Fortuna and Jack Schickler, “Demogra-what? A Definitive Guide to European Commission Portfolios,” Euronews, August 8, 2024.
2. Ibid.

Differentiating the European Council and Parliament: Meloni of Italy

At the federal level of the E.U., the European Council, like the Senate in the U.S., represents the states, whereas the European Parliament, like the U.S. House of Representatives, represents citizens—that’s right, E.U. citizens. The theory behind this difference is a modification of traditional federalism theory, wherein only the polities in a federation are represented at the federal level. In this traditional way of doing federalism, individuals, or citizens, belong only to the first level of political organization. Althusius’s Political Digest (1603) describes that theory, borrowing a lot from the example of the Holy Roman Empire. The advent of both polities and federal citizens being directly represented at a federal level was born out of compromise during the American Constitutional Convention in 1787. The E.U. replicated the structure, wherein the state governments and E.U. citizens (or legal residents) each have their own channel of access to affect federal law and policy on the federal level. For one of the two to cross over and eclipse the other in its own channel is suboptimal because both vantage points contribute to sound federal law in a way that enables them to protect their respective interests, which are not identical. It is thus not appropriate for a state government, including its governor or head of state, to direct members of Parliament how to vote on a given bill, whether their districts are within or outside of the state.

On July 18, 2024, Giorgia Meloni, the governor of the E.U. state of Italy, “ordered the 24 MEPs,” or members of Parliament of her state-level Fratelli d’Italia, or Brothers of Italy, group “to vote against the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission.”[1] I contend that those representatives were instead duty-bound to vote the interests of their respective voters rather than serve as an additional resource for the state government at the federal level, or else to vote along with the rest of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party in the Parliament, rather than as a state group representing the state’s government. This is admittedly a different perspective than that which both American and European media outlets have intentionally or unintentionally absorbed from the Euroskeptic ideology wherein the European Parliament is really even a legislative body and thus does not have its own parties (and interests).

From an American perspective, it would be like the governor of a state ordering representatives of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote a certain way, rather than in line with the wishes or interests of the constituents in the respective districts or the federal-level party recognized by the U.S. House.  The U.S. Senate is where the state governments are to exercise their authority at the federal level even though this line is more direct in the European Council because the heads of the state governments themselves sit in that chamber, rather than separately elected senators. Indeed, Meloni already had her chance to vote against Von der Leyen’s nomination in the European Council—Meloni abstained. For her to order members of Parliament to vote against the nominee essentially doubled Meloni’s, and thus her state government’s, role at the federal level. Not only is this excessive; it also eclipses the voice of the E.U. citizens in the districts of the MEPs who followed Meloni’s order. That is to say, the order upset the balance of inputs—that of the states and the E.U. citizens—feeding into the federal level.

Given the staying power of the principle of unanimity at the federal level as of 2024, the power of the state governments at the federal level was arguably too much anyway for the viability of the E.U.’s functioning at the federal level. Eclipsing the voice of the people by attempting to subordinate their directly elected representatives (even though by party) worsens the imbalance.

In his text, Federal Government, Kenneth Wheare describes a federal system as wheels within a wheel. All of those should be in balance for the system as a whole to function well. I disagree strongly with his claim that a balance of powers between the states and the federal institutions is not necessary. He claims that the state governments need only have one domain of authority that is autonomous of the federal government for the federal system to be viable, but such an imbalance would be tantamount to political consolidation rather than dual-sovereignty, wherein the states are not eclipsed by federal preemption and power. After nearly 250 years, the U.S. federal system was arguably much closer to consolidation than in that union’s first 50 years. After 30 years, the E.U. suffered from the opposite danger: too much state power, and thus a risk of dissolution. Although strong institutional safeguards to prevent eventual consolidation at the expense of viable federalism were advisable in the E.U., given the historical trajectory of the U.S. towards consolidation in an empire in which one size does not fit all, given the different cultures therein, too much of a role for the state governments at the federal level was itself a danger for the E.U. in 2024. The staying power of the principle of unanimity alone threatened to excessively encumber E.U. policy-making and law, and thus fuel Euroskeptic movements toward the dissolution of the union (which is neither a bloc nor an international organization). Furthermore, eclipsing the sacred relationship between the representatives in the Parliament and their respective constituencies, E.U. citizens, worsens the “democracy deficit.” Just as the U.S. House was originally intended as the democratic body at the federal level in the U.S., as U.S. senators were initially chosen by their respective state governments and the president by the Electoral College, the European Parliament can be seen as the sole repository of democracy in the European Union. A look at how the Commission’s president is nominated and elected without E.U. citizens voting on the question and the fact that the European Council represents the state governments rather than their respective peoples directly demonstrate the importance of the Parliament in terms of direct representative democracy at the federal level.

In short, the E.U. state governments should keep their paws off the European Parliament; the European Council and the Council of the E.U. is where state-level officials can affect federal policy and law at the federal level. If anything, the authority of the Parliament should have been strengthened in 2024 relative to the powers of the Commission and especially the European Council (and the Council of the E.U.). At the very least, all of the political groups in the Parliament should have been recognized at the federal level as political parties in themselves rather than as informal groups of state-level parties. In 2024, the drastic imbalance in the federal system in favor of the state governments, whose individual and collective interests are in theory and practice different than that of the E.U. both as a federal system and in terms of federal policy and law, was a major problem that did not need to be worsened by encroachments. From a federal perspective, the governor of the E.U. state of Italy was coloring outside the lines in seeking more influence at the federal level. Objecting to this does not suggest in the least that protections for the state governments against possible federal encroachment, as has happened in the U.S., should be disabled or torn down.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Analysis: Giorgia Meloni’s Façade as a Pragmatic E.U. Leader Has Suddenly Crumbled,” Euronews, July 19, 2024.

The Senate Trial of President Trump: Riddled with Conflicts of Interest

At the beginning of a U.S. Senate trial on whether to remove an impeached U.S. president from office, the senators take an oath to be impartial jurists. The impartiality is important because the senators are theoretically to listen to the partial U.S. House prosecuting managers and the president’s defense lawyers. Were the senators themselves partial, they would simply reflect the two sides that make their respective cases. In the trial of Donald Trump, I submit that few if any senators had any intention of being impartial and thus as serving as a jurist rather than as an extension of the prosecutors or defense. In effect, the verdict is left to whichever political party controls the Senate. I contend that having the Senate try presidents is problematic due to a conflict of interest.

To be sure, removal from office requires a two-thirds majority so the verdict cannot be made only by one party—especially if it is other than that which the president heads. Yet to reply in such a scenario on the party that the president heads brings in a conflict of interest. Such a conflict is particularly pronounced when the president’s party controls the Senate. In such a case, even the rules of the trial, which are decided by majority vote, can be expected to be skewed in favor of the defendant (i.e., the president). It is simply too much to ask human nature to be impartial whether in setting up the trial or in acting as an impartial jurist in such a conflict of interest. This is why I contend in Institutional Conflicts of Interest that conflicts of interest are inherently unethical (i.e., even they are not exploited for personal or institutional gain).

The gravity of the conflict of interest can be easily detected when it is being exploited in rather obvious ways. Sen. Lindsey Graham (Republican), “a close ally of the [Republican] president, criticized Democratic House managers’ arguments at the trial in recent days, calling Thursday’s presentations ‘like way too much. [1] Graham made the comment when the prosecutors were making their opening statement, so the implication is that he was already not impartial for he did not wait until even the conclusion of both opening statements to make his statement. The sheer brazenness suggests that senators of both parties may have regarded the oath of impartiality as a sham. Indeed, even the labeling of the prosecutors as Democrats and the defense attorneys as Republicans can tell us that political partisanship dwarfed the oath.

In the trial of President Trump, the party he headed at the time controlled the Senate. Given this conflict of interest, it is not surprising (sadly) to find the trail schedule modified to suite the president. After he complained about low television viewership-levels on Saturdays being “Death Valley in T.V.,” the Senate’s majority leader announced that the first day of the president’s defense attorneys’ opening statement, which was on a Saturday, would only be for a few hours. The defense was “planning a more robust presentation for Monday and Tuesday.[2] To be sure, two Democratic Senators running for president had campaign events scheduled for that Saturday night, but I submit that the majority leader was more attentive to the defendant’s wishes than to campaigning senators of the other party—the one that the president does not head. The defendant was able to schedule his own trial.

The president’s reach extended even to whether the trial would have witnesses! Former National Security Director John Bolton could have provided a first-hand account of the president having admitted to holding appropriated military aid to Ukraine until the Ukraine president publicly announced that his government was launching an investigation into Trump’s likely presidential rival in 2020, Joe Biden (and his son). But the president’s majority party in the Senate refused to allow the witness nonetheless, even as the president’s defense argued that the prosecutors had not provided first-hand account testimony from an impeachment witness in the House (which in turn is debatable).

Impartial jurists of the president’s party argued as if they were part of the defense that calling witnesses could run into the obstacle of the president claiming executive privilege. One of the prosecutors, a member of the opposition party, replied that the U.S. Chief Justice, who was presiding over the trial, could make such a determination, but such a rule could be overridden by a majority vote (the president’s party being in the majority) by the Senate.[3] Here again the institutional conflict of interest is evident. Senators of the president’s own party could vote to override the Chief Justice to block witnesses in the trial.

Even in terms of documents that the president had refused to provide to the U.S. House in its impeachment investigation, the Senate’s majority looked the other way. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a prosecuting manager, said in the opening statement, "The House investigative committees sought a total of 71 specific categories of documents from six different agencies and offices. President Trump blocked every single one of these requests, all of them." Between Dec. 27, 2019 and Oct. 10, 2019, Garcia said, “House investigative committees issued subpoenas to the State Department, the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Defense and the Energy Department. Some agencies initially suggested that they might comply. Some turned over documents to the Trump administration so they could be turned over the Congress. But in the end, the president turned over nothing in response to the House impeachment inquiry,” she said.[4] Surely national security would not have been compromised in all of those documents, yet the Senate exploiting the conflict of interest would tell future presidents that supplying documents critical of the administrations can be avoided. What then of the legislative check on the executive branch?

Was the trial of President Trump even a trial without witnesses, potentially critical documents, and even an impartial jury? To the extent that the defendant could get his way even in the voting on the trial’s rules, could the trial be viewed as valid? Apparently it was. Not even the Chief Justice could enforce the oath of impartiality. Senators having made statements showing prejudice for or against the defendants could perhaps have been disqualified. The two-third majority could then perhaps have been applied to senators with an open mind, although silence does not necessary mean that a person is impartial. Also, presumable the Senate could override the ruling on particular senators or forbid such rulings, as no one likes to be excluded. Again we would find a conflict of interest in the disciplined being able to overrule the impartial judge.

Hamilton suggested at the constitutional convention that the U.S. Supreme Court decide whether an impeached president should be removed from office. It was felt, however, that such a role would put the impartial court into the political realm, especially to the extent that the justices are biased toward the defendant one way or the other. Justices are nominated by presidents, after all. I contend that such bias would be less intense than in the U.S. Senate because judicial reasoning and judgment can temper the influence of politics in the Supreme Court even though ideological bias is likely present generally (though it may be indirect, rather than direct as in the Senate). Put another way, the defendant’s party controlled the Senate, but the justices would be less likely to take orders from the defendant, especially given the Court’s reverence for the institution of a trial (e.g., witnesses, impartial judges and thus scheduling). In contrast, senators may tend to view a trial of a president as fitting within the framework of a political debate, wherein no one is impartial and “horse-trading” to get votes to exploit a conflict of interest are acceptable. Imagine a jury of a criminal trial making deals in deliberation such as, “You vote guilty and I’ll see that you get a car loan.” In the Senate, the majority (and minority) leader could privately promise something of political or economic value to a senator of the same party who would otherwise vote to allow witnesses. Indeed, if enough majority-party senators are not impartial, setting the rules of the trial is also a conflict of interest. In the Trump trial, the majority leader was opposed to witnesses even before he took the oath of impartiality. Rather than having the Senate establish the rules, the U.S. Supreme Court could do so in order to obviate the conflict of interest, which is especially pronounced when the Senate votes on rules (such as whether to allow witnesses) during the trial!

What about having the American electorate act as the jury? Is there any basis to assume that We the People would be less partisan? The biases in the Senate may be a muffled representation of a polarized electorate. Additionally, the electorate was largely not following the trial, let alone listening to the opening and closing statements. In the case of the Trump trial, the next presidential election would be in less than a year. In a presidential election, a myriad of factors come into play--the articles of impleachment being just two. Less knowledge of the case is needed; the matter is more one of an overall judgment of the incumbent (as well as the challenger). Lest it be argued that the regular elections be sufficient to hold a president accountable, such reliance would do nothing to purge the U.S. of a criminal such as Nixon mid-term in order to stop the bleeding. It may be that a majority of the senators assessed the two articles of impeachment against Trump as not sufficient to justify removing the president from office, but given the institutional (and possibly personal) conflicts of interest, the electorate cannot be confident. Judging from the smile on the majority leader's face just after he met with a republican senator previously in favor of allowing John Boltan to testify, I believe that horse-trading went on regarding the setting of at least one of the trail's rules. If it sounds strange that jurists in a trial would do such a thing even on whether to alter the trial rules, remember that institutional conflicts of interest can operate like black holes in that the gravitational force is powerful and light cannot escape.

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1. Rebecca Ballhaus, “Lindsey Graham Says Bidens' Actions Need More Scrutiny,” The Wall Street Journal, Jan 24, 2020.

2. Natalie Andrews and Rebecca Ballhaus, “Impeachment Schedule for Today and Tomorrow,” The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2020.

3. Linsey Wise, “Schiff Calls Fears of Witness Fights Delaying Trial ‘Nonsense’,” The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2020.

4. Linsey Wise, “Demings: Trump’s Obstruction Was ‘Categorical, Indiscriminate, and Historically Unprecedented’,” The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2020.