Kelleher argues that dozens of countries, including some former Soviet bloc nations, boast higher standards of living for their people, more progressive social policies and a government unburdened by the enormous power of lobbying.
Their secret, he said, lies in their form of government: They all have parliaments. If America wants to emulate their success, Kelleher said, we ought to have a parliament, too.
(Kelleher's only other win was in 1971 when he won a seat to Montana's Constitutional Convention. There, he also unsuccessfully pitched a parliament.)
Now when the 85-year-old Kelleher talks about an American parliament, he's doing so not as the presumed third-party loser, but as a mainstream party's candidate for statewide federal office.
The Missoulian's State Bureau decided to examine what it would take to realize Kelleher's unusual dream. We talked to historians, constitutional law experts and political scientists about what it would take to end 219 years of government as we know it.
The U.S. Constitution spells out how America's democratic government works. We have a president who is popularly elected by the people or at least, popularly elected by the Electoral College. The president appoints cabinet members to run federal agencies, like the departments of Interior and State.
We also have a two-chamber legislative branch, where laws and the federal budget are written. We have a 435-member House of Representatives, called the “lower house” because it was intended to be closer to the people. And we have a 100-member Senate, called the “upper house” because it was intended to be more deliberative.
The U.S. Constitution also balances the power of each branch of government, calling for a host of checks and balances, like the president's veto power - and the power of Congress to override such a veto.
Parliaments are different. They can take many forms, but most don't have a popularly elected president as we understand it. (France is the only European nation to have a president with more than ceremonial powers. He's the commander in chief of the French Army and can authorize the use of nuclear weapons, but he doesn't pick the cabinet.)
A parliament's legislative branch is similar to ours, in that it typically has two houses: an upper house and a lower house. Canada, for example, even calls its “upper house” the Senate, borrowing from the United States.
In England, credited with inventing the modern parliament, the upper house is called the House of Lords and until recently it was reserved for nobility; no everyday citizens need apply. England's lower house is called the House of Commons.
In the kind of parliament Kelleher proposes, people wouldn't vote for individuals, but for parties. The party with the most seats would control the government and elect the prime minister from within its own membership.
The prime minister would function much like a U.S. president. The parliament also would select cabinet members to run government agencies and they, too, would be picked from among elected members of parliament.
So while we have a separate executive branch headed by a popularly elected president, in a parliament the executive and legislative branches would be combined.
There are several ways to turn America into a parliamentary form of government.
One way, said Allen Yarnell, a U.S. political history professor and vice-president of student affairs at Montana State University in Bozeman, would be to scrap the entire U.S. Constitution and rewrite it. Such a move would essentially require a new constitutional convention.
There are some obvious flaws with this approach. First, countries rarely discard their organizing documents and scrap their system of government without some sort of major event, like a war, said Rob Natelson, professor of constitutional law at the University of Montana.
France has re-visited its system of government several times. For example, it rewrote its system of government after the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, Natelson said, and then again after World War II.
Plus, Yarnell said, the rewrite idea presupposes a massive public outcry for a parliament, which isn't under way in America. Even when America has faced severe, internal conflict, the country has never chosen a different kind of government.
Take the Civil War, Yarnell said. The nation divided itself for four, bloody years in which 620,000 soldiers died along with an unknown number of civilians. But when it was all over, nobody talked about doing away with the presidency.
Another route to a parliament, Natelson said, would be to work within the U.S. Constitution and amend it, although that method is not without serious complications of its own. First, it's very difficult to amend the Constitution; in the 219 years since the document went into effect, it's only been amended 18 times. (Officially, the Constitution has 27 amendments; however the first 10, known as the Bill of Rights, were passed in one fell swoop.)
Amendments can be proposed one of two ways: A two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate may propose an amendment. That's the only way the Constitution has ever been amended, Natelson said, but it is as possible for two-thirds of all the state Legislatures to collectively call for a constitutional convention.
After amendments are approved by Congress, they must then be ratified by at least three-fourths of all the state legislatures, or 34 states.
Natelson said it makes the most sense to propose one massive parliamentary amendment, rather than a series of interlocking smaller ones. That way, he said, you don't run the risk of some of the amendments passing and others failing.
The U.S. Senate cannot be amended without scrapping the entire Constitution. So the only way to create a parliament otherwise would be to fold the presidency into the House of Representatives, Natelson said.
Most likely, you'd just do away with the presidency and, instead, assign the current jobs of the president to the Speaker of the House, who would function like a prime minister, he said.
The House would also be responsible for picking the cabinet from its own members. Essentially, Natelson said, the House would take over the presidency and you'd have just two branches of government.
You'd also have to revisit the part of the Constitution that deal with elections - to say nothing of election laws - because a parliament would have citizens voting for parties, not people.
Natelson said the idea has “two great problems. Trying to structure an amendment of that size without a revolution” would be difficult, he said.
“The second thing is the presidency has proven to be an excellent office for the management of foreign affairs,” he said.
Ironically, Natelson said, the American system of government was modeled after the British system in 1787 and, in some ways, more closely resembles the British system of yester-century than Britain's current parliament does.
So, in some ways, Natelson said, the American system is more true to the origins of parliament - at least as parliament worked when the framers drafted the Constitution.
Back then, the English king had many of the same duties assigned to the U.S. president. He ratified treaties and functioned as a head of state, Natelson said.
The English Parliament had two bodies: the House of Lords and the House of Commons, analogous to our Senate and House of Representatives, although the American system adopted some obvious Democratic reforms, Natelson said, like doing away with the concept of “lords,” to say nothing of abolishing the whole monarchy business.
Kelleher stresses the strengths of modern parliaments, but Natelson said they have many problems, too.
In America, the power of all three branches of government is tempered by the other. Each branch is supposed to keep the other in check. But in the English Parliament, for example, the prime minister can basically do what he or she likes so long as his party or coalition is in control, Natelson said. There is no check on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's power.
“This has caused significant concern in Britain,” Natelson said.
While both scholars detailed an almost insurmountable mountain of practical problems associated with creating an American parliament, Yarnell said the biggest lies with the American people: It's been more than 200 years since we started this separation of powers thing and we really seem to like our system. No one has ever seriously discussed changing it.
What's more, it seems to be working.
“I can't predict the future, but based upon the past,” Yarnell said, “I don't know that we're about to change.”
But Kelleher disagrees. He said in a recent interview that he believes Americans are ready for a parliament - and that's why he won Montana's Republican primary.
“I didn't get the votes; parliament got the votes,” he said. “I'm satisfied that the people in this state who voted Republican want radical change in their government and they want it without violence.”
Kelleher also asserted that it's easier than Natelson and Yarnell implied to change the U.S. Constitution. After all, it's been amended many times.
“Anybody who can type as fast (as a reporter) can rewrite the Constitution in an hour,” he said.
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