Is Something Wrong with the GOP?
By The Horserace Blogger Posted in Republicans — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
After the 2004 election, conservatives all across the nation basked in the bright light of electoral success. For the first time in twenty years, a presidential candidate had run as an unabashed conservative -- and had earned a popular majority. Republicans, meanwhile, had extended their control over Congress, and again won important symbolic elections, unseating both Martin Frost and Tom Daschle. It was now time, many believed, to reshape the national landscape in the conservative image; time to scale back the excesses of FDR liberalism and replace them with neo-conservative reforms.
In a twist on the old metaphor, however, conservatives seem to have arrived at a summer of discontent. Morale among conservatives is ostensibly so slow these days that John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, authors of The Right Nation took to the e-pages of Opinion Journal last week to “cheer up conservatives.”
While focusing on the positive is always a good psychological strategy, the disappointments are difficult to ignore. Bush’s bold Social Security reform initiative now seems officially dead, despite White House assurances that it will continue to push for private accounts. Bolton’s nomination seems hopelessly bogged down. With Rehnquist’s resignation now imminent, there seems to be no resolution on our judicial controversy. Meanwhile, a whole host of reform measures -- from immigration reform to spending reform -- are not even on the GOP agenda for this session. Amidst all of this, Bush -- who appeared to be well placed to get much done in 2005 -- is suffering from low approval numbers and a public that does not seem to want to listen to him at all.
Hence -- the title question: is something wrong with the GOP? Amplification: why can they not get more done, why are the Democrats “winning,” and why does it appear like the 109th Congress will be business as usual?
In the space that follows, I will argue that there is nothing wrong with the GOP. They are not getting more done, the Democrats appear (only appear) to be winning and the 109th will be business as usual for structural reasons which get to the very heart of our political system.
The November bullishness of conservatives and GOP partisans has turned into bearishness because it was predicated upon something that does not exist, nor has ever existed, in American politics. This is the concept of “responsible party government.” Initially popularized at the turn of the last century (most notably by Woodrow Wilson), it was a powerful rallying cry of political scientists in the 1940s and 1950s.
The idea is simple. There should be popular control of (as opposed to popular participation in) government by way of political parties, which are unified and disciplined extra-governmental organizations that provide programs of ideas to satisfy wants and that, upon election, implement those programs. Citizens then vote for candidates based upon party affiliation. Most notably, England has this type of government. The average English voter knows, or should know, that if he votes for Tories, and the Tories win, he will get Tory bills passed at least until the next election.
Academics, who have always been as much political moralists as they have been political scientists, were quite hopped up on the idea in the middle of the last century. Even The American Political Science Association published an article in 1950 advocating reforms to bring the parties closer to this ideal. Indeed, many reforms have been passed which have helped this. In the last thirty years, reforms of presidential primaries have unified the political parties by taking nominating power from the hands of elite party bosses in the states. Further, congressional reforms, especially in the House, have enabled party leaders to more easily control the agenda and keep rank and file members in line. In 2002, Morris Fiorina of Stanford University concluded that the 50s reformers have gotten pretty much everything they asked for.
And yet -- we still lack responsible party government. This is why the GOP is so disappointing right now. They are not unified and coherent, and they do not have the power to enact that upon which they campaigned in 2004. Rogue Republicans like McCain and Hegel are important cogs in the wheel and the Democrats seem to have the power to slow, or even stop, the wheel altogether. Evaluated by the rubric of responsible party government, The Republican Party is quite weak.
Why is this the case? As I mentioned, it gets to the very heart of American political life. Austin Ranney, who eventually became one of the key activists in transforming the presidential nomination process on the Democratic side, argued in his Doctrine of Responsible Party Government (1954) that we lack responsible parties because we are inherently minoritarian, and that only when political scientists convince the public to forego its adherence to protecting the rights of the political minority can we ever enjoy it.
Our political structures are replete with minority protections, and -- if we take James Madison seriously -- we can understand why. In Federalist #51 (the most important text for understanding American politics), Madison argues that he designed our system with a “partition of power” to give governmental agents “the means of keeping each other in their proper places.” Separating the power of government across branches means that those within each branch will have, at times, opposing interests. Separating the legislative branch into two bodies means the same thing. Ditto for separating the federal, state and local governments. And making elections local, rather than national, is grist for this mill.
The political parties, of course, work to counter-act this trend. They are a unifying, centralizing feature of American political life. But this does not mean that they result in a centralization of political power. It means they centralize it enough so that the whole thing works (one of Madison’s failures was his inability to see that there must be a force like the political parties in his system, for otherwise nothing would ever be accomplished -- Madison, for his part, was one of the first true partisans of American politics, working closely with the first party “boss,” Thomas Jefferson). In the end, the parties are one force in American politics, one important force. But there are many other forces, some more powerful.
The moral of this story is that you really cannot expect too much from your political party. There is only so much it can do. As long as each district elects its own member, as long as the President is independent of the Senate which is independent of the House, as long as the states are free to pursue their own governmental programs -- you will always see what we are seeing now. You will always see a Chuck Hegel thwarting a Bill Frist, a President who cannot be more productive with a Congress that shares his partisan label, a division between northeastern and southern Republicans. This is indemic to our system.
Indeed, singular partisan control of government makes very little difference, historically speaking. David Mayhew of Yale University argues as much in Divided We Govern (1991). Tabulating the number of significant pieces of legislation from 1946 to 1990, he finds that when Congress and the White House are controlled by people from the same party, you get on average about 13 important bills. When government is divided? You get about 12! Using (almost) the same method as Mayhew (an examination of end-of-session wrap-ups in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Hill), I find that the 107th Congress, lauded by many for its productivity, produced 15 important pieces of legislation. And the supposedly lackluster 108th Congress produced 14 important pieces of legislation. Placed in broader historical context, one can see that this does not signal a very significant change from the norm. Putting a relatively strong, relatively unified party into power only yielded a few extra bills (and much of the output of the 107th can be traced directly to September 11th, 2001). My guess is that the 109th will, at the end of 2006, be on the low end of Mayhew’s average, but probably not by much.
We have had periods of great congressional productivity, and what appears to be responsible party government, but they are extremely rare. David Brady, also of Stanford, argues in Critical Elections and Congressional Policymaking (1988) that there have really only been three periods of great legislative productivity: 1860s, 1890s and 1930s. They follow elections where national issues dominate congressional elections, and there is a great number of new members of the same party elected to Congress. It is only under these rare conditions that one gets something like responsible party government, for it is only then that members of Congress are really motivated to engage in programmatic reform. Eventually, these periods tend to peter out, as the issues that brought the new members into office are dealt with. One might argue that 1994 fits Brady's model -- but, just as by 1942 the productivity of the first New Deal Congress had naturally run its course -- so has the 1994 "revolution."
Let’s amplify this point a little bit by delving into specific areas of conservative discontent. Conservatives these days seem most upset by three different areas of political life: the failure to eliminate pork barrel politics, the failure to enact Social Security reform, and the failure to tackle the problem of immigration. The argument here is not one that advocates pleasure that these reforms have not been enacted (I myself am not pleased). Rather, the argument is that one should not blame a weak GOP, or at least a GOP that is weak because its members are weak. Each of these failures, I think, can be related to the structural designs of our system. If one wishes to place blame, the blame is best placed at James Madison’s, rather than Bill Frist’s, feet.
Pork Barrel Politics: It is certainly true that the national GOP platform advocates eliminating wasteful government spending. Unfortunately, the national GOP platform does not have a seat on the House Appropriations Committee. The existence of pork barrel politics is a perfect example of forces countering responsible party government. Why does it exists? Because members stand for reelection by themselves. At the end of the day, it is up to them, and only them, to gain reelection. Speaking abstractly, it matters not a whit for the average member if the GOP gets everything, or nothing, that it wants. The only thing that matters is whether the average member’s district is pleased with that member. Pork barrel politics is a good way to improve a member’s standing, for two reasons. First, individual members actually have very little influence in getting legislation passed. Thus, it makes little sense for the average voter in IL-01 to hold Bobby Rush accountable if the GOP gets its way or if it fails to get its way. “Bringing home the bacon” is an alternative way of holding members accountable (which is not, of course, to say that it is ideal) because individual members usually do not suffer for collective performances. It is simply too difficult to identify their role in our complicated Congress. Second, most voters in most districts know very little about their congressman. A bridge being built, or a road being improved, is a good way to popularly advertise oneself to low-information voters. The fact that congressional districts are geographically based makes pork barrel all the more appealing, as you can target physical improvments for people living within a certain physical area.
In the end, the prevalence of pork barrel politics is both a direct and indirect consequence of our system. It is a direct consequence because it makes good political sense for a person elected from a geographical area, and whose election depends solely upon that area, to please those within the same area. It is an indirect consequence because it is very difficult for the average voter to evaluate an incumbent’s role in what congressional output has pleased or displeased him.
As long as these structural conditions remain, and as long as politicians seek above all reelection, you will always see pork barrel politics. Strong rhetoric from the national Republican Party will never change that, for strong rhetoric does not change the incentives of individual congressmen or their consistuents. Only reforms of the system itself (which I, incidentally, would strongly oppose) can eliminate pork barrel spending.
Social Security Reform: There are many reasons why Bush’s bold initiative for changing Social Security has failed. An important one, I think, is Bush himself. He simply bit off more than he could chew here and he did not consult enough with congressional Republicans before announcing this move. These, however, are individual reasons, ad hoc reasons. There are structural, generalizable, reasons why Social Security reform failed, and these reasons explain all sorts of failures over the years. Generally, attempts to radically reform parts of American life fail, and fail miserably.
Ultimately, it comes right down to the division of powers within Congress. It has important implications for the fate of party programs. There has been relatively written about these implications in political science, though important books have come out in the last few years that have begun to rectify this situation. One of the best is Keith Krehbiel’s Pivotal Politics. Krehbiel, also of Stanford (prospective poly sci grad students should take note how many great scholars are at Stanford!), notes that our system usually produces gridlock, and when gridlock is broken, it is usually broken by very large voting coalitions within Congress. Why is this the case? Krehbiel chalks it up to three “structure-induced pivot points” within Congress. The first pivot is the median voter, the swing voter, within the body. You have to get him if you want to get “half plus one.” The second is the filibuster voter. You have to get him if you want to prevent a filibuster. The third is the veto voter. You have to get him if you want to override a presidential veto. All three of these voters within Congress must be mollified for legislation to pass (although, in a situation where a Republican Congress is working to enact the legislation of a Republican President, the member at the veto pivot does not really matter -- though in the recent attempts to thwart Bush on stem cell research, he does).
Thus, you need a large coalition to pass bills. And you can really only pass bills when everybody in this large coalition believes that the proposed reform is better than the status quo. Now, for small, day-to-day legislation, there are ways around this. As R. Douglas Arnold of Princeton argues in The Logic of Congressional Action (1990), you can frequently “buy” members off by placing special bits of legislation into a large bill which they would not otherwise support. You can also use procedural tactics to give members “cover” for supporting bills which the folks at home would oppose. But on something as large as Social Security, the machinations of the House Rules Committee just will not cut it.
At the end of the day, there are simply not enough conservatives in Congress to get Bush’s conservative Social Security reform through. There are plenty of liberal Republicans (who can be liberal and be Republican precisely because the voters in their districts, and not the national party, elect them) who do not like the idea of private Social Security accounts. And you have a huge bloc of liberal Democrats, probably about 45 in the Senate, who will fight tooth-and-nail to defeat the measure. And our system is designed precisely with those senators in mind. If a minority wants to stop something from happening, they have the power to stop it. Pure and simple. Even a president fresh off the first national majority in 16 years cannot change that fact. As a general rule, Congress does not enact reforms on highly controversial issues -- and, if they do, they are usually meely-mouthed, more-heat-than-light, reforms that do not actually reform anything. That is the only way to get enough votes to get around those “pivots.”
Immigration Reform: Whenever I speak to conservatives, nothing seems to bring out their anger at the GOP more than immigration reform. Not only has the GOP done nothing to improve the enforcement of immigration regulations, they do not even have plans to do so. Not even 9/11, perhaps the greatest failure of our immigration system, has affected them. Why is this the case? Again, it is an issue of structure, pure and simple.
While the indirect effects of immigration, e.g. increasing the chances of a terrorist attack, are effects from which we all suffer, the direct effects, e.g. the costs of providing services to illegal immigrants and the drain on our economy, are more local. Illegal immigration really only affects a few areas: California (though not all of it), Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Chicago and New York City. Thus, you get a band of conservative Republicans, e.g. Tom Tancredo (CO-06) who strongly advocate conservative immigration reform, and a swath of liberal Democrats, e.g. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) who strongly oppose it. Meanwhile, the remaining members of Congress really do not have strong opinions either way on immigration, or at least strong opinions that come from their districts (which is usually what is needed to activate reform within the legislature). Tom Tancredo might want desperately to see immigration reform passed, and other Republicans might be sympathetic to such desires, but are they really going to work very hard to help him out? Melissa Hart (PA-04), for instance, sits on the Immigration, Border Security & Claims Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. She is the representative of the northern exurbs of Pittsburgh. Is it really in her electoral interests to dedicate herself to hearings, research and drafting of an immigration bill for the sake of Colorado’s Sixth District? Where is the electoral payoff for her? Her time and energy are best spent in the Science Committee, which (given the large number of for- and not-for-profit research institutions in her district) enhances her chances of getting reelected. It is a matter of costs versus benefits. For most Republican members, the costs of reforming immigration simply outweigh the benefits. This does not even begin to factor those on the other side who staunchly oppose any kind of immigration reform. Thus, the best political move for the leadership in both bodies is to simply keep immigration off the table, for they know that nothing will happen, and their time and resources are best spent elsewhere. It is, of course, true that illegal immigration affects all of us negatively; however, its negative effects are felt only indirectly, and (in terms of substance) relatively minorly. This does not add up to an inducement for congressional action.
Thus, we see again how the structure of our government works against strong parties. The national GOP might want immigration reform, and many individual Republicans might think it the most important job of the Congress. However, Congress is not nationally elected. It is locally elected, and that means that members from localities weakly/indirectly affected by immigration are not going to stick their necks on the line to help members from localities strongly/directly affected by it.
These are just a few examples of how the dreams of partisans do not reflect reality. Many more could be added, and they all follow the same Logic of Congressional Action (in Arnold’s phrase). This logic is created by the structure of our system. It is a centrifugal force in American political life. The parties, for sure, are a centripetal force. While the separation of powers works to divide and disperse power across the range of government, the parties work to centralize it and make it productive. The end result of this is something in the middle, which is exactly what we have.
The answer to the title question, then, is no. There is nothing wrong with today’s GOP. They are a strong, vibrant American political party. Viewed in the context of the 1980s Tory Party, of course they look weak. But that is not the fault of weak-willed Republican leaders. It is the “fault” of our political structure. The sole purpose of the latter is to prevent things from happening, and so we should not be surprised that, in the 109th Congress, things are prevented from happening!
As for worrying about a Democratic resurgence, I am not so worried. I believe that the Democrats are actually stronger than most people on the right think. At the same time, though, their apparent increase in strength in recent months is quite ephemeral. They appear to be strong because the system is currently biased in their favor. They are the minority in a minoritarian system -- it is easy for them to look tough and strong because toughness and strength, for them, are conditioned by their ability to block and obstruct in Congress. And it is easy to block and obstruct in Congress. It is much harder to get things done. The Democrats and Republicans, therefore, cannot be measured by the same rubric. Just as you would not bother declaring that Jeff Gordon’s car is faster than Carl Lewis, so you should not worry that the Democrats are right now stronger than the GOP.
In terms of moving forward with the conservative agenda, it is important to bear in mind our institutional context. Our system is so replete with checks-and-balances that one or two (or even three or four) elections does not a revolution make. Change does not come quickly and easily in our system. It takes a great deal of time and an even greater deal of tenacity. Don’t lose heart. Don’t fall prey to the glum. Don’t begin to believe that the GOP has lost its way. It’s just not true. They are just dealing with the same troubles that all majority parties have always faced: the thorny task of running our complicated system.
Jay Cost, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, is creator of The Horserace Blog. He can be reached at jay_cost@hotmail.com.
Personal Note: This is the third-to-last column the Horserace Blogger will put forth here at Red State. Following a piece on the recent surge of partisan vitriol and a prologue on the 2006 election, the Horserace Blogger will return to blogging at his own (new) site (details to follow).
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Is Something Wrong with the GOP? 24 Comments (0 topical, 24 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Your story meshes very well with my thoughts in my diary "Tradeoffs, no ideology." But I do have a few questions.
First, what is your take on the judicial nomination controversy? When you said there were 3 major sources of discontent among GOP voters, I thought the 3rd would be nominations, not immigration reform. Not to diminish the significance of immigration, but for now it's on the "backburner" and there is far more focus on the judiciary. I have a feeling you would argue that The Deal is another example of our system's inherent protection of minoritarianism, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Second, what is your criteria for "signficant legislation?" To me, that rather seems a matter of opinion. I may think the energy bill is a significant piece of legislation, but a lot of people probably do not know that an energy bill is being debated (those people don't post here obviously!). This is more a quibble than a question of substance, but I am curious.
Third, and lastly, for how long do you see the Democrats being a minority party? We are in the 11th year of Republican control of Congress, and whatever the strengths of the GOP may be, Americans like variety. I am heartened by stats showing Bush won 97 out of the 100 fastest growing counties, but I worry about low confidence numbers both in Bush and in Congress. Do you see the perceived weakness of the GOP, however unjustified it may be, haunting them in 2006, 2008, or 2010?
I hope my answers can meet your expectations.
(1) I was very pleased about The Deal, as I argued in my last article. I do not see it so much as a product of the minoritarian element of government but rather the action of a few perspicacious members who recognized that derailing the Senate would be bad for them.
(II) This is a great question. I am a big "methods" nut and so I appreciate it much. My definition of "significant" is akin to Mayhew's. Mayhew took "significant" to be that which contemporary journalists of Congress at the time thought worth mentioning in their wrap-up. He notes that it is inherently a difficult standard, but I think it works all right. Unfortunately, Mayhew has a "second sweep" that I could not replicate. He later looks to policy-area specialists who have commented on congressional legislation at some point in the future. This is designed to catch extra bills that the first sweep (looking at journalists) lacked. Fortunately for my argument, Mayhew does not use the second sweep to eliminate bills found in the first sweep, so the fact that the 107th and 108th are already above the average, at just one sweep, means that it will only be found to be higher above average should a second sweep be possible. Plus, I think I can avoid the problems with "significant" by doing a comparative analysis. Even if Mayhew's definition is off, we can still infer that the 107th and 108th are relatively more productive -- for if they are more productive by Mayhew's definition, we can reasonably expect them to be more productive using another definition of "significant."
(III) This is a tough question. I think the Democrats have a decent shot at the White House in 2008, provided (a) they nominate a strong candidate and (b) we nominate a weak one. If both candidates are strong or both are weak, the GOP will hold t he White House b/c they are better at mobilizing their base (the subject of my dissertation, btw). A "strong" Dem would be somebody who is credible on terror and relatively personable. A "strong" GOPer would be somebody outside Washington who can distance himself from Bush as the need might arise. As for changing Congress, I certainly think the GOP will hold it through the 2006 election, and I think they have a good shot at holding it into the future (into 2008, at the least). The reasoning behind this gets down to (a) Congressional being low-informational affairs that strongly favor the incumbent; (b) Redistricting that has made many districts, on both sides, extremely safe. For a turnover to happen in the House, something big and something surprising must happen. The Senate is m ore touch-and-go, and could very well swing back to the Dems in the near future (but unlikely in 2006).
I am flabbergasted that the Republicans have been unable to rein in spending under their watch. The question I have, and it gets to your argument, is how much is pork about "bringing home the bacon" and how much is driven by the corporate lobby - I for one would like to know. Call me old fashioned but I think the whole of congress is way too cozy with the corporate lobby (see today's energy bill as exhibit 1) and I am guessing (though without any evidence) that the corporate lobby's ability to help raise money for campaigns may have a bigger impact on generating pork than the odd highway project... (the quid pro quo is alive an well)..
I suppose that doesn't change the substance of your argument that the system is broken, but then again aren't we supposed to expect more from Republicans than naked self-interest?
are probably less a major issue for the public as a whole than immigration issues are. Only "true believers" on the right and left are fired up about judges. By contrast a fairly large fraction of the public is frustrated and angry over the current non-policy on immigration which has left us with virtually open borders and an unending rip tide of illegals awarming across those borders.
The tricky thing is that bringing home the bacon to the folks is very frequently tied up with the same maximand as appeasing corporate America. Corporate America are key contributors to candidates. Activity or inactivity can yield funds or refusal to fund opponents. Plus, corporations housed in a congressional district (as, for instance, Fore Systems is in Melissa Hart's PA-04 District) means that members have to help those businesses to keep those jobs there.
As for your final question, I would argue that one should not expect more from Republican politicians. Almost all of them are politicians before they are Republicans. And a key assumption in political science is that politicians are "single-minded seekers of reelection" (in Mayhew's phrase). Even if you get a pol who cares a great deal about conservatism, he has to stay in Congress to do something about it, which means reelection is priority #1.
I realized that was exactly what you were arguing... doh! To put a finer point on what I was trying to say, is that I guess fiscal conservatives have a heavier burden to carry in reconciling the conflict of personal need to get re-elected from a practical monetary standpoint and their ideals in running the country - otherwise what do they really stand for. I don't suppose there is an answer to this. Nevertheless it frustrates me as a pay as you go fiscal conservative.
Certainly there are a fair number of "safe" seats in the party where corporate largess is not necessary - I would use DeLay's flogging of the MTBE amendment as exhibit one - that's just a giant shift of cost onto the public from the private sector - totally against my free market sensiblities and from a guy who doesn't need to worry about "bringing home the bacon" to continue to serve in congress...
that if there does come a time when the pols try to seriously cut spending you aren't likely to see an actual cut in real dollar spending but rather a cut in growth UNLESS a major paradijm shift occurs in our national mindset in the major expenditure programs(ie Dod and HHS). That isn't likely so the best you can hope for is to see money cut from the growth. Simply slashing the Federal government isn't realistics no matter how determined you are to do it.
Maybe you believe that farm subsidies should be cut/eliminated or maybe you believe that HUD funding should be drastically cut the reality is that doing so is political disaster for either party.
That is the name many give for pork barrel politics. The idea is giving government largesse to "high demanders" rather than the most needy. This indicates how right you are about the ideological conflict that confronts congressional GOPers.
As for safe seats, in many respects, seats are safe because important groups are "bought off" well in advance of the election. Delay sits in a safe seat because he does lots of advance work to keep groups happy and therefore from thing searching for a new candidate. For somebody like Delay, eschewing this kind of pork barrel politics once in awhile is not a problem. But if he makes a pattern of it, groups in his district will become pissed off and start looking for an opportunity to strike.
But if he makes a pattern of it, groups in his district will become angered and start looking for an opportunity to strike.
I think you are right on here. Is there any hope? How does one reform the system? I think one way would be to change the nature of the congress.. today's districts are WAY too big, making them too distant from constituents and too beholden to big money to run campaigns.. if districts were smaller I think it would allow the House to blunt some of the effects of this - e.g., less money needed to run, more local candidates, fewer corporate interests per disctrict.
Kind of lends credence to my occasionally-stated theory that the Republican Party would be just as well-served in the minority as in the majority. The difference is that you have the knowledge to make such an idea credible, or at least understandable.
I have said that Republicans alone would be well-served as the governmental minority because the party ideology is better suited to it. But now that you have gotten me to thinking about it, because of the system, Democrats have proven that it applies to them as well. Above all, I prefer the American system to the responsible party system of a UK or other parliamentary democracy.
So, while I'm not advocating the GOP losing X-number of elections, or even ceding its majority (and I know you certainly aren't), would it really be a failure for the GOP or its platform to be a slight minority?
as a way to fight back? If congressional figures are not eternally trying to be reelected then they should be able to be Republicans first and politicians second.
I know there are arguments against term limits, but I have always felt that after being in washington for more than a few years, politicians become a political establishment rather than true private citizen representatives as envisaged by the founding fathers.
but the answer isn't just to slow the rate of growth, but to lower the spending per capita. Absolute numbers are irrelevant, the key number is how much do we spend per head that then needs to be covered by taxes. Obviously this also doesn't tackle the other side of the pork equation either, which is the use of "incentives" to shift costs from one group to another (usually the hapless individual taxpayer).
...though I used to.
I am opposed b/c one of the ways Congress can keep power from the executive is by becoming an authority on subjects. The venue by which this happens is the committee system, and it takes a good long while for committee members to develop policy expertise. This is necessary not only for effective oversight of the executive, but also so that Congress does not feel compelled to turn all authority over to the bureaucracy.
On a practical level, it will never, ever happen because constitutional amendments must begin in the Congress. So you are asking members to voluntarily give up their careers because their insistent desire to maintain their careers is a problem.
Nevertheless, I am sympathetic, very much so, with the desire to fix things.
lots of unintended consequences, as career politicians move around from job to job to continue being politicians. Not the least of which is to chase qualified public servants out of public service.
that term limits will never happen.
I still think the founding fathers would roll over in their grave knowing that Ted Kennedy has been a senator since 1962. 43 years is a bit long I think personally. (And yes, I know there are plenty of other senators who have been around forever too, Ted Kennedy just always sparks my ire.)
When I say term limits, I have generous ideas for term lengths - 16 - 20 years for members of the House, and 18 - 24 years for Senators, which is plenty of time to become an "expert" in an area.
I know this would not really fix the problem of pork barrel politics (something I abhor) but it would begin the breakdown of the "class" of "professional politicians". And yes, I am using "class" to mean a class of people like aristocrats, serfs, nobles, peasants, etc. I hold the quaint and outdated idea that politics isn't a profession and that people should have a profession outside of politics that they come from and return to after being elected to office.
that over 50% of the adult US population is qualified to be hold public office as much as many of the current ones are. They may not all have college degrees, but they have real world educations and they know how the real world works and how to maneuver through it. While the political world may operate under different rules, generally if you can successfully maneuver the real world you can figure out the rules of the political world and learn the ropes there too. But perhaps that is the problem with politics, it doesn't operate under the same rules as the real world.
But perhaps that is the problem with politics, it doesn't operate under the same rules as the real world.
LOL.. so true!
as an outsider I tend to agree with your analysis. Actually I'd take it a step further. The Republican party as it exists today was designed as a minority party, all the experience, rhetoric, etc that Republican politicians have is as an "oppressed minority", not as "the people in charge". It takes time to shift mental gears. Going from "government is not the solution, government is the problem" to "we are the government, here's our solution" isn't easy.
The Dems are facing the opposite problem of course. For years they've been playing the "reasonable majority" which is leaving them having a difficult time playing the "opponents to an out of control majority" role that the Republicans played so well. So the Dems have a tendancy to roll over and play dead when they should fight, its leftovers from not wanting to appear unreasonable and draconian when they had power.
Now, personally, I'm hoping that no one has time to settle into their new roles and that the party I dispise less will gain power again. I figure that the Republican Party is going to have a harder time adapting because conservatism is inherently opposed to change, but that's probably just my own prejudices speaking.
Call me discouraged, but as long as Americans continue to view government as the responsible source for their well-being (for a good article on it look here) and as long as Congresscritters view their own re-election as their be all and end all reason for being in Congress, our Republic will continue to deteriorate.
There are so few in Congress who actually care about the good of the nation and so many who are only interested in their own re-election bid, and so many Americans who are totally ignorant of anything related to our government (other than the most recent bridge being built over their particular creek) we can only survive as a nation due to the inertia of failure (It takes a long time for a great car to rust down to nothing.)
Flyerhawk, you are correct that term limits will never pass due to the unwillingness of Congress to get off the gravy train. Horserace Blogger, you are mistaken that it would cause them to become untrained monkeys (Just a joke, I know that they are not really well trained monkeys now.) An interested party can become an expert in virtually any field in a matter of two years. (As a matter of fact, that would get you a masters.) Most fields require a maximum of 6 months if you put your mind to it.
Furthermore, in relation to the current experts in Congressional committees, I will quote Krempasky, "If this is mastery, I'm a donut." (Did I get that just right?)
If you're in your 90s... time to retire. A guy like Strom Thurmond could keep getting elected into his 90s because of a state grateful for his pork. But he stayed in the Senate for one term too many. Robert Byrd should consider retiring too.
- Good to hear you'll be blogging on your site again. I look forward to it.
- Your list of high-productivity legislative eras leaves out the 1960s - the Civil Rights bills, Medicare, all sorts of Great Society nonsense. Doesn't that count as a major exception? And if it doesn't, isn't it doubly frustrating that it's so easy to get programs like this constructed and so hard to reform or eliminate them?
It seems to me that the real frustration is not just with district-level pork barrelism but with the broader fact that the system seems biased in favor of any and all increases in government funding, and we're making no headway against that. Indeed, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to whether there is any point, or would be any likelihood of making a difference, if Congressional Republicans were able to enact changes to the way the budget process has been run since the early 1970s.
3. Immigration's a bad example because (1) there is a very large part of the core conservative coalition - businesses - that is opposed to immigration reform, either openly or implicitly (the WSJ is openly pro-immigration, although favoring some reforms) and (2) Bush himself is lukewarm on the issue - he barely mentioned it during the campaign - in large part because he recognizes that being the party of immigration reform carries enormous, potentially fatal political risks for the party as a whole (in a time when the Latino vote is the largest potential future swing constituency nobody wants to do to the national GOP what Pete Wilson did to the California GOP).
I would add to my prior comment that a better example of an issue Bush campaigned on and that is broadly supported by many elements of the GOP but on which we've seen minimal progress is tort reform. (Yes, there's been the Class Action Fairness Act, and some aspects of the bankruptcy bill could be characterized as lawsuit reform, but neither actually instituted outcome-determinative barriers to suit or limitations on damages).
I hope my response does it justice.
Regarding the Great Society period, Mayhew accounts for it in his work. He notes a "bulge" in the middle period of his study (which ranged from 1946 to 1990), but the bulge is not as big as one might think.
Your reasons about why immigration is a bad example actually, I think, is an example of why it is a doubly good example. You rightly mention what I failed to include, i.e. immigration is not a position where the GOP is unified (though I would take mild exception to your characterization of both what I was discussing and what the WSJ thinks about it, i.e. improving enforcement of laws rather than reform of laws -- I am guessing, just guessing b/c I am not positive, that the WSJ wants strong enforcement of existing laws). But this overall strengthens my point about the GOP not being a unified party. Even if most rank-and-file GOPers want immigration changes, important factions therein can lead to inaction. This again gets to the heart of Ranney's point that responsible party government requires first and foremost unified parties. This is an example of disunity.
Bush's lukewarmness can be seen as directly correlated to this lack of unity, I think -- well...that and the fact that there are certain demographic groups he wants to pick up.
Again, though I did not mention this in my original point, I think your insightful comments actually buttress my overall argument.
You make me look short-winded.