>> i began my thinking about two presidents as a state representative. i served in the indiana houston of representatives, and i was there for three terms, and like most candidates, when i first started running, i pledged to be bipartisan. i was going to work with my colleagues across the aisle and i would support good ideas, whether they were democratic or republican. and i tried very hard to do that. but i didn't find that it's very -- found quickly it's very difficult to remain above the partisan fray, and i came to the conclusion we don't get partisan conflict in washington or in indianapolis because we elect people who are inclined to be partisan. there's not a selection bias here. the problem is, our system, our political system, drives elected officials to be partisan. so i thought about it -- i'm very madison union about this, how to structure behavior, and i thought what is it about our system that fuels partisan conflict. and i came to the idea i discuss in my book, the partisan conflict at the national level is driven largely by the fact we give all of the executive power to one person, a single person, rather than having the executive power diedded among multiple office holders. so i want to persuade you with two points. the seeds for political different function started when the found fathers chose a single person, and to change to a two-party presidency in which the two presidents are true equals and come from different parties. ordinarily that would be democratic and republican but third-party candidates would be eligible and more likely we would get third-party candidates because it's easier to run second than first in our country. so, before i make my argument about why a single president is bad and two presidents are good, what do i mean by a two-person bipartisan presidency? and the two presidents have to be equal partners. that's very important. so if a bill passed congress both would have to sign before it would become law. they would have to agree on executive orders, supreme court nominees, decisions as commanders in chief of the military. they each would have their own vice president for succession and a small personal staff, but all other appointments, whether executive branch or judiciary, would be single joint appointee, and with that they can position -- fill positions quickly. instead of a democrat nominating a democratic person or republican with a republican, you would have a bipartisan nominee, and there wouldn't be incentive to delay or confirmation. the positions should be filled more quickly in all likelihood they would divide up primary responsibility. one might direct health care, the other education, one might focus on relations with european countries, this -- the other with asian countries, but all decisions have to be shared decisions. and joint decisionmaking would make for more representative decisionmaking. instead of having the republican championing their platform, for a democratic president pressing the policies of the democratic party, we would have presidential partners, advocating policies that represent the views of the full range of voters. so, how do we -- i said, political dysfunction, we can trace to the single presidency. isn't congress the problem? senators and representatives can't pass bills to balance our budget, they can't do anything about global warming or gun violence. even back on march 1st when they were faced with the sequester and the harsh budget cuts, that couldn't even get them to agree on a sensible budget reduction plan. so i think if we focus on congress or focus on the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem. as i said the problem of the causes are a result of the -- the founding fathers' decision to place a single executive atop the executive branch, a single president. why is having a single president a problem? what's wrong with that? well, i'll talk about what the framers thought, but what happened is modern presidents exercise an exceptional amount of power. what arthur she was called an imperial presidency, and because presidents wield immense power on behalf of one party they feel the high levels of partisan conflict in washington, and because they exercise their immense power on behalf of only one perspective they make too many decisions that are detrimental to the national interest. so let me talk about how we got to this imperial presidency and then why it causes problems. the founding fathers, of course, worried about cabin power, different branches becoming too powerful but they didn't protect against the imperial presidency because they didn't anticipate the executive role would play in our government. the framers worried about the legislative branch and congress would dominate. so when they wrote the constitution, that was what they were -- the concern, too powerful congress so they took steps to avoid legislative dominance. they gave the president a veto, and so on. but they misjudged things. my wife says i shouldn't criticize the framers, but they did get this wrong. because over the past 75 years, congress has transferred much of its authority to the executive branch, the presidents have amfully identified their power transfers with power grabs. so we have the creation of the administrative state. all these agencies like the environmental protection agency, housing housing housing and urban development, health and human services. and with the huge growth of the administrative state and departments and agencies, presidents have gained considerable and unanticipated domestic policymaking power. the president controls the issuing of regulations whether it's air quality, energy exploration, k through 12 education, health care, consumer protection, down the line, all these different concerns. rulemakeing is overseen by the president. finally, the rulemaking, presidents have other policymaking tools at their disposal so they can shape national policy through signing statements and executive orders and grant waivers from statutory obligations. so it's easy to find examples. president obama, under president obama's direction, without congress' participation, that we now have a doubling of fuel efficiency for cars, that will take effect between now and 2025. obama decided to expand offshore drilling for oil and gas. and granted lots of waivers to states from the requirements of the "no child left behind" statute. now morse of the -- now most of the central provisions they states are not responsibility, stem cell research, president bush said there would not be funding, president obama decided there would be. all decisions made by presidents. and this is just on the domestic side. on the foreign policy side, presidents have even more dominance. presidents play a far larger role in the determination of u.s. policy, and congress plays a far smaller role than the framers intended. so, recent illustration is when president obama decided that our military would be involved and intervene in libya was his decision. even though congress is supposed to decide when we send troops into battle overseas, but obama, truman, clinton, many presidents, have decided on their own without waiting for congress. presidents also reach agreements with other countries without congressional participation unilaterally decide about term night treaties and recognizing taiwan as the government, president carter terminated the mutual defense pact with taiwan. presidents decision on the right to the u.s. citizens to travel abroad. when we were prevent from visiting cuba, that was presidential decision. also revised our immigration policy. when congress failed to pass the dream act to create a path for young immigrants, people brought here as children by their parents, president obama implemented his own dream act when he waived deport indication and said he would grant work permits to young immigrants. now, it's not only -- so presidential powers increase, congress transferred power, presidents act it on their own. so there's been a shift of power. the other part of the piece of the puzzle is the vast expansion of u.s. power generally. the founders lived, the world powers were in europe. now the united states has become the great world power. so presidential power has increased, both because the u.s. powers increased dramatically, and the power that the u.s. government has, has been shifted from congress to the white house. so we no longer have the constitutional's designed for coequal branches of government. we now have politically dominant executive branch. so what do we do? many scholars say congress needs to assert itself, and use the checking balance of power. if congress served its rule we wouldn't have abuses like watergate and abu grain. but congress has proved incapable of fulfilling its checking and balancing role and transferred much of their authority to the white house. scholars aren't worried about this. congress, they say -- look, congress can't act decisively or efficiently. may have made sense to have a powerful congress, or at least a coequal congress, but in a modern american state, global economy and fast-moving technology, we need a strong executive. now, i don't think we need to settle that debate, where whether should have a powerful executive or not, is not critical to my argument. even if the executive branch had not accumulated too much power, it's amassed too much power for one person. that's the problem. when one person exercises this enormous power of the modern u.s. presidency, we shouldn't be surprised if the system breaks down. a single president represents the views of one political party. all of us, we all want to have a voice in our government. but only half the public has a meaningful input. right? currently we have a democratic president who represents the viewed of democratic voters. from 2001 to 2008 we had a republican president, who represented the views of republican voters. so, no wonder when you have one president from one party that -- the party out of power spends all of its time trying to regain the oval office and not enough of its time trying to address the country's needs. so under the current system, democrats and republicans fight tooth and nail every four years for the white house. hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. once the election is over, the new cycle begins. the candidates start traveling to new hampshire and iowa, and what happens in congress is the party of the president lines up behind the president's initiatives to bolster the president and make sure that it can retain the white house, and the losing party tries to block presidential initiatives so that they can weaken the white house, weaken the presidency, and then win it back in the next election. so you remember, when healthcare reform was being debated. former senator jim demint said you need to vote against obamacare. need to break the obama administration. senator mcconnell, the senate majority leader of the runs, announcing announcing in 2010 his highest priority as the senate majority leader was making barack obama a one-term president. now, if he had a coalition presidency where each party knew it would elect a partner, it wouldn't stand to gain as much power through tactics. they would still share the white house with the other party. then it would be freer to judge legislative proposals. so to put it another way, when you have winner take all elections, for presidencies whose power has grown to the level of imperial presidency, we shouldn't be surprised if we have high levels of partisan conflict. i if you go back, the increase in partisan conflict, going back to the 50s and 60s, there was much more of a working across party lines, and if you look at a graph of partisan conflict that's risen since 40s and 50s, gradually to levels we have today, well, presidential power has increased at the same time. it's not surprising. when you have -- we now have people elected with a small majority or minority of the popular vote, and substantial number of voters that feel their interests and concerns are not represented in a politically dominant white house. with had a two-person presidency nearly all voters would have their preferred candidate serving and they would be much more comfort able with initiatives emerging from the executive branch, and there would no longer be this massive diseffective voters who are receptive to a policy of obstruction. now, aren't there other causes of partisan conflict? i'm not -- i don't want to suggest that the imperial presidency is the only cause. there are other factors involved. but even so the argument for a bipartisan executive is strong. if elected officials have strong incentives for whatever reason to act in a highly partisan fashion, we need to have counterincentives to act in a bipartisan fashion in a bipartisan executive would not only address the imperial presidency factor and also proceed a counterbalance to partisan conflict for any cause. there's another problem with having a -- one-person presidency. it invites poor decisionmaking for the country. here's another area the of the change the founder did not anticipate. the nature of presidential power changed the way the framers saw is, congress about would be the policymaking afternoon the president would be the executor. the executive branch. the president would be an implementer of policy, not a shaper of policy. but the president now has become a major shaper. perhaps the primary creator of policy for our country. and that is not a good idea because when we have policy being made, we want it to be made by multiple people of different perspectives, and a robust debate, deliberative process. the framers are right. if you have a president who is going to be an executor of policy, yes, you want a decisive person that can act with dispatch but the correctly reserved policymakerring for a deliberative body like congress or the supreme court. wood dry wilson said the whole purpose of democracy is we may hold counsel with one another and not depend on the understanding of one man, good there is much truth in the max jim that two headed-better than one. you look at studies by psychologisties, shared decisionmaking works better than unilateral decisionmaking. it's not hard to find examples of bad unilateral decisionmaking, and i'll pick on george w. bush and his decision to take us into iraq. single decisions can make us make very beside decisions. if you had two president proves different parties, then they bring different problem-solving porches, and better skills for better decisionmaker, two presidents with different perspectives would make more good choices and fewer bad choices than single president. i understand single presidents don't act in isolation. they consult members of their cabinet and staff so they do enjoy many of the benefits of group decisionmaking. nevertheless there's a big difference between making decisions after -- as opposed to share decisionmaking with the partner who is inclined to challenge their inclinations. an example i like to use to illustrate is imagine the supreme court, we have nine justices, decisionmaking authority, different perspectivetives. if you had one justice, scalia or ginsburg, who had eight very experienced law clerks, it would be a very different supreme court. and it's not only the two presidents would give us better leadership when there's time for study and deliberation, but even in times for crisis. don't we need single northwestern i don't think that's right. part of the problem is look what happens? when we're in times of crisis, one of the problems of single decisionmakers often act in authoritarian and constitutional ways. during world war ii we had the internment of japanese americans. after 9/11, the torture of suspects of terror. and having a single person making those decisions -- congress and the courts were supposed to check presidential abuses of power, but we have seen historically congress and the courts have not stepped up when they needed to. so having a two-person bipartisan presidency would give us the kind of internal check on executive branch that we need, precisely in emergencies when other checks are not effective. and two persons -- we don't have to sacrifice rapid decisionmaking. presidents always consult trusted advisers before making decisions. and consider israel. a country that has had to respond to attacks, major threats to national security, and they always convene their cabinet. first a smaller national security cabinet, then the full cabinet, before they decide on their response. in fact some deliberation is good. even in the face of unexpected events and international events. an example i like to use is in 2008, during the presidential campaign, when georgia and russia got in a little war. john mccain immediately condemns russia. barack obama waits a few days to find out, get more information, and he did so wisely, because it turned out both georgia and russia were at fault. so sometimes acting quickly and decisively can lead to beside decisionmaking. all right. why wouldn't two presidents just bring their partisan conflicts into the white house? would mitt romney and barack obama really cooperate? that's what they framers were talking about. alecer in hamilton talks about multiple presidents, rivalries. it don't thing that would happen. in fact the very good reason to think they'll develop a cooperative relationship. first, they wouldn't have incentives to have conflictual ual don connect newell relationships in tip tall power, sharing settings, each person or different people feel that by maneuvering and jockeying for power they can establish a dominant position, but in a college presidency i -- coalition presidency i propose no amount of maneuvering or back-stabbing or doing whatever else could lead to a dominant position. no matter what it would be a 50-50 relationship for the current term and after re-election. so there wouldn't be incentive to engage in conflict. more than that there would be a very important incentive to cooperate. when presidents reach the white house, they're at the top of the political ladder. at that point, the primary concern is the legacy. how are they going to go down in the history books? and george w. bush's decision to invade iraq -- when he went in to depose saddam hussein. one of the reasons for this decisions is that he was influenced by the potential for introducing democratic governance to the arab middle east. if we could set up a democratic government in iraq it would be a model for other countries, and george w. bush's legacy would be transforming a major region of the world. even though, remember during the campaign, he said we shouldn't be engauged in nation-building, but when huh thought about his legacy he was willing to do that. you read the promise, the account of the first year of the obama administration, he talked about the decision, should be do health care or not? and obama'sed a sliders saying do not do health care. what the public wants is you to focus on the economy. unemployment is 10%. that's where you need put your efforts. don't want you being diverted. and what essentially persuaded obama for him to decide i'm doing health care anywhere was his legacy, providing for greatness, he needed health care, a goal that eluded presidents for a century. so, two members of his coalition presidency spent their terms locking horns they wouldn't be able to have the kind of achievements, establish the kind of record that would have important legacy for the ages. so, that's why i think it would work out. it's not only my fairly educate guess but we have other support. switzerland i like to use as an example. does it work anywhere else? in switzerland they're executive branch they call a federal council, hat seven department heads, and they possess equal decisionmaking authority. there's no first