Jakub Grygiel Quotes
The EU suffers from … a structural democratic deficit. Of its seven institutions, just one—the European Parliament—is directly elected by the people, and it cannot initiate legislation.
In the EU most of the government power is dominated by appointed elites and not elected representatives.
Jakub Grygiel, “The Return of Europe’s Nation-States”, Foreign Affairs, September / October 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In Dolgoff’s era, his argument was that the political parties were so powerful that it was they who controlled who held public office, not the voters. And the parties were controlled by a few party leaders. However, when the system was reformed in the latter part of the 20th century, the individual incumbent member of Congress in America was so hard to dislodge due to the role of money and the advantage of incumbency, that the class of professional politicians was still very powerful. Reform had reduced the control of political parties but not politicians.
This Pinkney view prevailed in the original Constitution, but this practice was reversed by the 17th Amendment of 1913. The source for this statement is the notes of Alexander Hamilton.
At the time the power and prestige of Congress relative to the Presidency , was much greater than it is today. It was McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, who began a 20th century trend which led to a reversal of the relationship between the Executive Branch and the Legislative.
