New Job

 Rose finally woke up after five years. Because she was in a special solution, her body remained healthy.

She was confused about what was going on. She had inherited all the memories of the real Rose, including the personality, mindset, etc. 

According to those same memories, she must be dead.

"Rob, what's going on?" she asked, looking at a full-body-size mirror.

Rob, who was looking at her from behind, said, "You came back to life!"

"But how?" She asked in astonishment. As far as she knew, once one died, even the best doctors couldn't bring them back to life.

Rob smiled and began making up a story. Technically, he didn't need an excuse. Rose is one of his soul splits. The fact that the soul split has her memories doesn't affect Rob's control.

As long as Rob wills, he can erase Rose's memories and replant his own. 

Rose's life and death are in his hands; still, it is not actually different from before.

Even in the past, as long as he wanted it, her life was easy to take; in fact, no matter who, as long as Rob wills, it's easy to kill them.

Of course, despite becoming a ghost, he is not a psychopath; he won't kill people for no reason.

As he has no plans to start messing with Rose's brain, he would have to make an excuse. 

"This is the new technology! Nobody yet knows about it." Rob said.

Rose was puzzled. She was very well-connected, so how could she not know about the 'new technology'? 

"Now, don't pay so much attention to the details! What is important is that you survived," said Rob. 

Rose nodded and asked another question, "Why does my body look different?" 

The body she looked at in the full-body mirror was absolutely not hers.

"Because everyone thinks Rose died, and you must also act as if you are 'Rose's' child," Rob said.

Rose nodded. She returned to life thanks to Rob, so she can't complain. She had already realized that whatever the method was, Rob didn't want it to leak.

She owes Rob a lot, so she wouldn't leak it.

This place was a protected forest, nearly untouched by human development. Otherwise, not a single tree would have survived human 'development.' 

In general, humans are a disaster for wild nature.

After wearing the clothes Rob prepared, the two went back to civilization. 

...

The government of this world has gone through lots of changes.

But, even after tens of thousands of years, the system's structure Rob negotiated back then survived to this day. 

The most important reason it survived for so long is Rob's soul splits were steering it in the right direction. 

Otherwise, no matter how well-designed, it would have disappeared in the long river of time. 

Now, some things inevitably changed. 

The federal government could make binding laws regarding regional governments in the original design. That led to the federal government enacting its policies with regional governments. 

Federal courts would hear state and local government lawsuits against regional governments.

The federal courts were biased toward who was paying their salary, so they took the side of regional governments, who were enacting the federal government's binding laws.

So, with a constitutional amendment, it was decided that the Supreme Constitutional Court would hear all lawsuits involving all levels of government. 

After that, the regional governments began losing many court challenges; even if they occasionally won, the en banc court reversed the decision. 

In general, the Supreme Constitutional Court went EN BANC in three main situations. 

If - A decision regarding ideological issues was contrary to a majority of the judge's beliefs. 

If - A broad ruling is made that ties the hands of other judges in other cases. All judges are bound to follow past precedents, so an overly broad decision could get in the way. 

If - Too many decisions on related subjects are in tension with each other. 

The federal government, having a minority on all EN BANC courts, lost all en banc cases. 

Its power, as a result, began to shrink. 

The Supreme Constitutional Court repeatedly ruled against the federal and regional governments, interpreting their powers as narrowly as possible. 

One provision in the Constitution prevents the federal government from withholding funding for one area because of separate, unrelated matters. 

The key word there is 'unrelated.'

"Unrelated" is not defined within the Constitution and is left open to interpretation. 

The court expanded the definition of 'unrelated' to cover nearly everything. 

For example, if the federal government withholds funding from rental assistance because the state government didn't distribute the funds as stipulated, the court would rule that how the money is distributed is 'unrelated' to the funding itself. 

Worse, the courts have gradually gotten used to ordering the federal government around, even preventing them from withdrawing the funding. 

Fortunately for everyone, Rob's soul splits were everywhere, so everyone adhered to the court orders even in those outrageous situations.

Some within the federal government called for ignoring constitutional court orders. They even made a move to justify their actions. 

The federal government sued the constitutional court in the federal court and got a declaratory judgment from the federal Supreme Court that said the Constitutional Supreme Court orders are advisory. 

That federal court order could have been a justification to ignore the orders of the Supreme Constitutional Court. Nothing in the Constitution prevented the Federal Supreme Court from ruling that way, so the federal government was legally in the clear, even ignoring the Supreme constitutional.

Many law professors and experts also agreed that the Supreme Constitutional Court overreached, so the popular support to ignore the court orders was there.

However, Rob's soul split used their influence to stop any effort to ignore the Supreme Constitutional Court's rulings. 

Any government ignoring courts would destabilize the country, and Rob wanted to prevent that no matter what. 

As a result of Rob's influence, the federal government passed a law that declared orders from the Supreme Constitutional Court as binding. That law, in effect, overruled the Federal Supreme Court.

Rob wasn't worried. 

He has had many soul splits in state and local governments. Each of those has friends and colleagues themselves, many in important positions. 

Nobody would think of secession or anything destabilizing with all of them there. 

But the result is that today, the federal government is mostly an empty shell; states are de facto independent countries. 

The federal government still receives its 45% share of taxes. However, anytime they try to withdraw it and force states to comply with the conditions, the Constitutional Supreme Court rules against them and grants the states permanent injunctions.

In many democratic countries, courts are often overlooked by ordinary people, but they may even be more important than the president. Courts often decide the balance of power between branches. 

Of course, that is only for democratic countries. In dictatorships, like the former UISEC, one person controls everything. Back then, even if Rob didn't have control of the Supreme Court, he could have forced his word through using his control of the entire army.

...

Talking about government formation and systems is fun. 

But, on the ground, it takes excruciating work. 

The federal minister of health looked at the pile of reports on his desk and sighed. 

He was Philip Brown, a man in his 50s with short white hair and beard. Nowadays, a beard is out of fashion, so his beard is quite famous. 

Opening one of the letters and reading, he sighed and threw it away. 

He is used to these kinds of letters. It was about a state not complying with conditions set by the federal Standards Act. 

In short, the federal government couldn't do anything. 

The constitutional court has made it so hard to withdraw funding that it's basically impossible. No matter how much the state violates the conditions, the federal government could only issue warnings and not much else. 

As a result, the federal government has been trying to grant less money to state and local governments. 

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires federal governments to aid financially. It's just that aid already pledged couldn't be withdrawn. 

That incentivized the federal government not to create any money grant program at all. 

Currently, only around 50% of the federal government's income goes to the state and local and regional governments as aid. 

The rest is spent on the federal army, ministries, and employees.

As a result, federal employees are extremely well-paid; the job is trendy. 

Philip, for example, receives 1 million yearly income. 

One million yearly is at least ten times more than his counterparts on the state level. 

What's more, he has fewer things to do. He usually only reads and signs letters for a few hours and nothing more. 

He can also have part-time jobs!

But seeing how the laws are being violated everywhere in the federation is frustrating.

Browsing through the letters, he saw one from the president's chief of staff. 

With a serious face, he opened the letters. 

After reading for a while, his eyes widened. He has been fired! 

Many don't know, but the president's chief of staff is the most powerful position besides the president himself. 

He read further, and his expression eased. They won't fire him; they will transfer him from the Ministry of Health to the Minister of Medical Research. 

The minister of medical research is very powerful. She is extremely well-funded and is in charge of advancing medical science. 

She may look beneath the minister of health, but in practice, She does much more than the minister of health; her salary is twice as high.

Philip smiled; this is a promotion! 

He read on and saw the name of his successor as the minister of health. 

"Rose?" he thought doubtfully. 

The Rose he knew died a few years ago. So, this Rose must be someone else. 

But, he doesn't know any other Rose connected enough to be promoted as a federal minister. 

Even though federal ministers have little practical power, their prestige is very high. 

"Anyways, I got to pack my things," he began to pack his things excitedly.

...

A few days later, Rose looked at her new room. 

This is the job Rob made for her.

Sitting on the chair, she began reading the letters. 

"The federal government is in a crisis," she sighed. 

She knew the situation. As far as she knew, the federal government may as well not exist at all. 

"I should tell Rob we should think of some reform!" she thought.

In Rose's opinion, a reform would be challenging to accomplish. After all, she doesn't know Rob has soul splits everywhere and could reform all he wants. 

Taking out her phone, she sent a message to Rob. 

To this day, the government works on physical paper letters. It's unbelievable when considering that technology is so advanced that some companies have installed chips in the brain to communicate from afar.

...

Rob read the messages and deleted them while shaking his head. The weakness of the federal government is by design. 

He won't fix it because everything is as he wants. 

A strong federal government makes it harder for the people's voices to be heard. 

Now, Rob doesn't need power; he is an immortal who can live forever. He only needs to wait for the world to be realized. 

Letting people have a better and freer life wouldn't harm him, so why not do it? 

Rob is best described as lawful neutral, with a slight lean toward good. 

He does what benefits him, but in the case of something that has no benefit or harm, he chooses the opinion that helps the people. 

"But still, maybe I should do a tweak that at least gives a role to the federal government?"

...

A few months later, a constitutional amendment was ratified.

It declared that state and local governments would be bound by laws that the federal government passes IF, after a referendum, a majority of 51% of voters vote for it. 

The states laughed the matter off. 

They are now too arrogant to think anyone could force them to do what they don't want. They were gravely mistaken.