Well, Teddy Kennedy is out of commission. But not totally. This shouldn't keep Democrats from passing legislation. Why can't Democrats do this? Hilzoy points out that Democrats could always vote for cloture and then vote no:
It's one thing to vote against something, and quite another to vote against the proposition that a majority should be able to determine whether or not it passes in the Senate. There are rare occasions when I could see doing that. (I would have filibustered the Iraq war, for instance.) But voting to sustain a filibuster ought to be very serious, and wholly different from simply not supporting a bill.Democrats ought at least to be able to insist that their members should not obstruct the agenda that the party as a whole has embraced. Absent some very compelling reason, voting to sustain a filibuster on any important piece of Democratic legislation ought to be seen not just as a way of not supporting a bill, but as undermining both the Democratic Party and the Senate as a body. And it should be punished. When Senators vote to sustain a filibuster of a bill that's a Democratic priority, they should absolutely lose seniority.
But of course, if Hilzoy were in the Senate, she wouldn't be Hilzoy; she'd be someone who had just spent some of the best years of their life putting themself into a position to get into the Senate. And she'd undoubtedly have plans to stay there for a good, long time, doing all manner of wonderful things for her constituents, and the world.
I am perhaps too fond of rational actor models, as I am constantly assured by angry commenters, but I assume that the reason Democrats can't get the votes for cloture is that many of their members do not want to vote at all--they come from states sufficiently finely balanced that voting either yes or no on things like healthcare could be their undoing. Moreover, I assume the reason the Democrats have not put the arm on their members is that they believe that doing so would result in the loss of their 60-vote majority in 2010. Even further, I believe that the Senate leadership is probably much better at assessing this particular risk than I am.
So what is a good Democrat to do? That, alas, I cannot answer, since I am not a good Democrat. All I have to offer is my own surprise that it's so hard to get things done even with those magical 60 votes.
Hilzoy is ignorant of political reality, like a lot of bloggers on the left. Megan, of course, is correct- some Democrat senators will not vote for cloture as a means to not having to cast a yes/no vote. In addition, voting for cloture will be equivalent to voting yes on a lot of bills that will greatly damage some Democrat senators chances of future reelection- not all Democrat senators are from solid liberal states like Massachusetts or New York.
Don't you mean Democratic senators?
No, I mean what I wrote, and I did so deliberately.
Jamie,
I did it because Democrats get so annoyed at that particular form even though it is gramatically correct either way. True, I was being a bit childish, but having dealt with this issue about once a month for years on end, I am entitled to needle those who get endlessly insulted by the omission of a simple suffix.
If the numbers don't support an ambitious legislative agenda, you are supposed to become less ambitious. If enough politicians would get voted out for voting for X, it's a strong sign that the public doesn't really want X and the government shouldn't be trying to impose X against their wills.
People with strong ideological commitments to changing the world often see the voting public as an obstacle. This is a problem. Failing to pass any particular bill is not.
The whole idea of voting to vote is kind of silly. Shouldn't they have a procedure for getting bills to vote and then follow it? I like the idea of a filibuster being an actual filibuster. If some Senator wants to stand up there and talk until he passes out, fine. But this "gentlemen's filibuster" thing is crap. A Senator shouldn't just get to declare, "I filibuster" and then everyone pretends like he's filibustering. Either do it or don't. And then vote.
This is why I want a term limit of 1 term. With such a short time in office, they won't have time to learn all these arcane procedures and therefore won't have them.
I agree. If filibustering actually meant what it's supposed to mean, they would be rare enough to not be a general problem, something you need to shoot for 60 votes to avoid. And the fact that it's being filibustered will usually mean there's a big problem and maybe we should slow down.
Megan, I haven't seen the critiques of "rational person" models, but I have to say, those people are wrong. Nearly everyone acts in their own interests as they see them. Most of the time, the complaint that something is done for no reason or no good reason simply means it's done for a reason the complainer doesn't think is very good. Which isn't the same thing. A corollary is that if a particular rational person model turns out to be wrong, the concept of the rational person model isn't wrong. Rather, the rationales identified are wrong or incomplete.
The thing I like about the real "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" filibuster is that someone has to really talk the whole time, and that the other business of the senate comes to a halt while they are doing it. If someone is going to filibuster, it ought to be the most important thing on the senates plate.
Yes, it is called Cloture.
I agree that a filibuster should mean an actual filibuster. But, as I understand it, please correct me if I am wrong, once a Senator has the floor they get to keep it, and all they would have to do is have an ally rise and ask if the Senator will yield (to them) and then they can filibuster for as long as they want. This tag team method can mean a real filibuster could last a very very long time.
I still think it would be good for America to get to see such things however.
They do have a procedure for getting bills to vote: Find sixty senators willing to approve bringing it to a vote. Although the specific details may be a bit convoluted, what this means is that in practice it takes a 60-vote supermajority to get legislation through the Senate. The value of this should be obvious: It's keeping the Democrats from pushing through their agenda.
I heartily endorse any procedural rules that make it more difficult to pass new legislation. Granted, this also keeps legislation that I like from getting through, but bills of that sort are greatly outnumbered by the ones I'd like to see filibustered indefinitely.
Or they avoid all risk because of a small percentage chance of catastrophic failure?
Leaders sometimes have to make bold decisions that say the benefit out weighs the risk.
At the same time, given the last 2 decades of decisions the Senate and House have made, perhaps we are better if they are gun shy and just 'hope it changes and just goes away'.
I think the problem here can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of the Republicans. If they would just do the honorable thing and dissolve themselves as a party, leaving us a truly progressive one-party state, then we could usher in the glorious utopia with a minimum of fuss. It would be better for everyone.
blighter, whether you are a master satirist or 100% serious (I work at a university so I could understand either), your posts are quickly becoming my favorite.
Thanks for the kind words, Grundles.
As to what percent of my rantings are satire & what percent serious, a gentleman never tells & neither shall I.
The answer is term limits. Besides freeing legislators to act more in line with their principles and reason, it will end the "career politician" problem. Politicians who consider their elected position "theirs" become arrogant, develop a mentality of aristocratic entitlement, and become disconnected from reality beyond the Beltway (you know, where people have to actually earn a living rather than take it away from others).
I think term limits would convert a Senate seat to merely one more stop in a political career. The professional politician would not go away even if we implemented Lone Star Planet policies.
Though I can dream, can't I?
Note well, grundles, that we have term limits in California, with the result that the legislature is made of implacable partisans who have zero incentive to do anything in particular, or knowledge how for that matter, and allow most of the bill writing and decisions to devolve onto their long-serving permanent staffs, and the lobbyists (both corporate and labor). On the federal level all of the institutional memory of our government would go to all the permanent types, who know they just need to wait out one troublemaker: the staffers and lobbyists, military hierarchy, and Federal Reserve.
Term limits are anti-democratic, and based on the proposition that people are incapable of deciding if someone should be voted out of office, but capable of making a reasonable decision about who should replace them. Term limits have made California into a permanent Italy. The concept is based on the superstitious progressive hokum that politics makes people "dirty," regardless of what they do or how they perform, and those dirty people must simply be washed from the system, regardless of how their constituents feel about them.
I would agree with you if gerrymandering wasn't such a huge factor in these situations.
I don't see how term limits mitigate jerrymandering; both cause the system to become more unrepresentative.
And I might add, that term limits have the effect of reinforcing the damage caused by jerrymandering. Jerrymandering makes the district safe for a party, and so the party uses state assembly ridings as the feeder stage for their nomeklatura apparatus. Term limits make sure that politicians starting their career as state legislators will be unable to develop a political base in their riding, and will be completely dependent on their party apparatus for their next job, because it's impossible for them to keep their job in public service by running for office, and keeping the trust of the voters.
Term limits are based on the proposition that an incumbent has a nearly-unassailable advantage, which is amplified by the fact that potential challengers know this and are deterred from running. Lobbyists are against term limits, which force them to keep breaking in new legislators.
Personally, I'd trade the current limit on the number of *total* terms for a limit of 2 or 3 *consecutive* terms in elective office. If politicians have been out of office for a couple of years, I think that would sufficiently reduce their unfair advantage — particularly if they're challenging an incumbent successor.
If Willie Brown wants to run again now, fine. Who'd have thunk Jerry Brown would have another shot at being governor?
"she'd be someone who had just spent some of the best years of their life putting themself into a position to get into the Senate."
In honor of the English department at your alma mater, can you replace "their" and "themself" with "her" and "herself"? Let Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas use a plural pronoun to refer to an individual.
"That, alas, I cannot answer, since I am not a good Democrat."
You mentioned last year that you registered as a Democrat. If you aren't a "good" Democrat, what are you? A bad one? An indifferent one?
"All I have to offer is my own surprise that it's so hard to get things done even with those magical 60 votes."
Why the surprise? The Democratic leadership is to the left of a significant number of Democrats in the Senate, particularly those from the heartland.
I believe the post where Megan claimed to have registered as a Democrat was an imposter. I'm pretty sure I recall her reluctantly voting for Obama, though I'm not completely certain.
She didn't vote in the last election due to not being registered.
In honor of the English department at your alma mater, can you replace "their" and "themself" with "her" and "herself"? Let Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas use a plural pronoun to refer to an individual.
If you want any replacement for reasons of correctness, it ought to be with the masculine, since that is the more usual gender of the generic. That said, asking for a replacement at all is pedantic at best and outright incorrect at worst. There is no official defining body for the English language, it is defined by use, and "they" as a third-person singular neuter pronoun is entirely accepted by 90% of English speakers. See the first half of this comic, before it gets weird.
I am curious of something. If Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson won't vote for the platform that Obama ran on(Yes, I know that Obama lost both Nebraska and Arkansas .. which is funny in a way .. because polls showed that Hillary would have crushed McCain in Arkansas .. so take that as you will) why do they call themselves Democrats? Isn't there some basic list of things that you have to support if you call yourself a Democrat? Otherwise it would be better off if Lincoln and Nelson switched parties(since they vote more often with the Republicans anyway).
Some of these people were Democrats before Obama was born. Why should adherence to his policies be an indicator of whether or not they belong in the party? Maybe Obama doesn't belong.
Moreover, I assume the reason the Democrats have not put the arm on their members is that they believe that doing so would result in the loss of their 60-vote majority in 2010. Even further, I believe that the Senate leadership is probably much better at assessing this particular risk than I am.
As a good Democrat, this line of reasoning drives me up the wall. The point of getting a majority (in the House) or a supermajority (in the Senate) is not so that you can keep it forever -- it's so that you can go ahead and implement your preferred policies, and obstructionism be damned! I would want nothing more than to pass the best legislation we can imagine, aimed at securing goals like universal health care and reductions in carbon emissions, and then let the policies work. If the best legislation we can come up with fails, then fine -- but at least we'll have made an honest effort. As it stands, though, we're passing programs that will almost necessarily fail, in order to salve Ben Nelson's ego. That's what I find insufferable.
If, by the way, we lose the 60-vote supermajority in 2010 as a result of having implemented some preferred policies, so be it -- we're not doing anything with it anyway, and I see no indication that Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe would be much tougher of a "get" than the most conservative Dem Senators.
Your point is spot on. To be fair, the republicans fell into the same trap. The small government platform died a horrible death when power for power's sake became their ideology.
You're ignoring Megan's point about self-interest and a desire to be reelected. Guys like Ben Nelson are representing moderate/centrist type constituencies, and you're equating "Democrat" with the new progressivism.
Not all Democrats support that ridiculous cap and trade bill, nor are they all gunning for government run health care. Guys like Ben Nelson represent THOSE Democrats.
Completely agree with Nelson. It is also a self-defeating strategy. The 1994 Republican victory was based on a bold agenda of smaller government and deregulation. After about 8 years (maybe less) most of the "big idea guys" like Newt were gone and we were left with the Tom Delay "power for its own sake" guys. This of course led to the preeminence of special interests /lobbyists (like the poor, they will always be with us, but you don't have to let them drive ALL the time) and spending that would cause a drunken sailor to die of shame. Combine it with a President focused almost only on foreign issues (with some justification) and an unjustified amount of party loyalty, and you have 2006 ready to go. The Dems seem to be treading the same path, except they are trotting and about to break into a sprint.
It's amazing how many problems term limits would solve. Campaign finance issues would be dramatically reduced as politicians wouldn't have to constantly raise money for reelection (last I heard several years ago a senator has to raise on average 20k a week every week of their term from the moment they get elected). You'd still need money to get elected, but there wouldn't be such an ongoing "payola" concern. If you're only in for 1 term the special interests are less likely to own you as you're not coming back to them to get re-elected.
I really enjoy the counter argument to term limits though: we'll end up electing a bunch of people who don't know how the government works and will do lasting damage to important programs and processes.
When our Congressmen actually start reading the bills that they vote for, then maybe that defense will have some sway...
I think the counterargument isn't that we'll get less experienced politicians, but rather that we'll have politicians without a solid reputation. When a politician has been in office since Noah has been popular, well, he's got a record that will tell you how he is likely to act. When all the faces are fresh, all you got is campaign promises to go by, and those are not worth much.
I'm still in favor of term limits, but you wanted a counter argument.
I think a bigger counter to term limits is that the legislators wind up even more dependent on the bureaucracy and lobbyists to explain things to them than they are now, with the result that the former (who are even less accountable to the electorate) become even more powerful. (Especially since lobbying interests would likely be a source of post-office employment for a legislator who, after all, would need to find something else to do in 2-6 years.) A single-term legislator isn't especially accountable to the electorate anyway, since the public has no chance to ratify or reject her record.
Careerist politicians present their own problems, of course-- there's no perfect system. But then, this should be one of those cases where the states can serve as laboratories for democracy. Are states with term limits measurably better or worse governed than states without?
I think the counterargument isn't that we'll get less experienced politicians, but rather that we'll have politicians without a solid reputation. When a politician has been in office since Noah has been popular, well, he's got a record that will tell you how he is likely to act. When all the faces are fresh, all you got is campaign promises to go by, and those are not worth much.
I'm still in favor of term limits, but you wanted a counter argument.
Another problem is that this gives the party machinery more power. A seasoned legislator can buck his party once in a while, while a new politician cannot. Also new politicians will have a harder time raising campaign money (being an unrecognized face) thus depending more on their party to finance their run. That financing is likely to have strings.
So instead of lobbyists going after legislators to vote their way, they will likely go after parties to get legislators elected who will vote their way
"we're not doing anything with it anyway"
You're not doing anything with it, but I suspect individual senators/representatives are steadiily handing out favors, receiving paychecks, receiving more questionable forms of compensation, and generally fulfilling the goals that they sought to accomplish by running for office.
I disagree. I want Senators openly responsible to someone other than lobbyists and campaign contributors.
I suggest we repeal the 17th amendment for at least one of a state's two senate seats. I want to give at least one of the two Senate seats back to the state legislatures.
That would do something to bring back federalism. It would make sure state government interests were directly represented in Congress.
It would greatly increase lobbyists' workloads. Lobbyists would have to lobby at least some state legislatures to get a majority in the Senate.
It'll never happen. Our Congresscritters want to be accountable to lobbyists and campaign contributors. That's where the money is.
"It's one thing to vote against something, and quite another to vote against the proposition that a majority should be able to determine whether or not it passes in the Senate."
This is all well and good, and ideally politicians would adopt this point of view, but it's out of touch with the reality in the Senate.
Voting for cloture is for all intents and purposes a yes vote on the bill. Sure, in theory you could vote no on the bill, but the bill only got passed because you voted for cloture, so the final no vote is pretty irrelevant. And everyone knows it, most of all Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln.
My preferred solution would be for a filibuster to revert to its traditional usage: if you want to stop something from coming up for a vote, you have to have people keep talking the whole time. That was how it worked ever since it was introduced, until it was recently warped to mean that every bill and nominee requires 60 votes to pass.
I doubt it's actually feasible to change the Senate rules. So really, as a good Democrat, there's nothing I can really think of to change this. Majority Leader Feingold or Sanders (yes, I know he's not technically in the party) might well cause a showdown on the Senate floor that would set precedent. Reid certainly won't do it, and I'm not so sure Durbin or Schumer would either.
The reason they don't do this is that it's actually harder on the majority than the minority. The majority has to stay there during the filibuster, or they lose their quorum. The minority only has to have one member at a time on the floor.
Maybe if every year the politicians were new, (some) voters would actually bother trying to figure out who they were rather than pulling the lever for the incumbent. I think it would be great of there were never incumbents on the ballot. Sure, some people would still vote straight party tickets, but that happens now.
As a slightly less preferred alternative to term limits, I'd be in favor of No Consecutive Terms.
The reason is not difficult to understand if you grant that each Senator's vote for cloture has its price. So a deal must be struck to get each vote, and in this regard the Senators have more in common with each other than with their respective caucuses, the President, or the hoi polloi of their parties. If the majority leader is unwilling or unable to hand out enough favors, then a non-routine bill stalls without a vote, regardless of the supermajority in one party. But it occurs to me this is not inevitable today, as new media casts its eye on the process and asks these "why" questions.
How about marking all ballots to show which candidate is the incumbent. That would make throwing the bums out easy.
I actually like the idea of Senators being chosen by the State legislatures instead of by vote. I think that was a horrible change.
I'd still vote for 1 or 2 term limits for Congress.
Isn't this all a bit premature? There's been lots of talk about the filibuster, but as yet no major piece of legislation has failed to make it to Obama's desk (because of a failure to get sixty votes) since he became president, right? Also, given the fact that Ted Kennedy has worked all his life to get national healthcare passed, don't you think he'd be able to make it for a critical vote, if one vote indeed is the difference? I expect if not, he'd resign. It's hardly likely, after all, that Deval Patrick wouldn't appoint a solid Democrat in his stead.
Quite true, Megan: but it goes beyond that, I think. Democratic senators from conservative states are well aware big pharma or big finance (or, name your lobby) aren't stupid. Such special interests are unlikely to fail to note that Senator so and so failed to do his utmost to keep a threatening bill from coming to the floor for a full vote. So, if Senator so and so doesn't do his fair share toward maintaining a filibuster, he may be punished when the offended lobby in question throws its support behind his eventual challenger in the next election. If it's one thing a purple state Democratic senator doesn't need, it's a well-financed opponent, or an opponent who is aided by lots of "independent" advertising. It's not just about avoiding awkward or controversial votes, in other words. It's also about buying peace with powerful special interests, by aiding them to keep profit-threatening bills from even making it to a full vote. That's why John Chait is quite right to note that liberals need the countervailing influence flowing from credible primary challenges from the left.
"It's hardly likely, after all, that Deval Patrick wouldn't appoint a solid Democrat in his stead."
Actually, in 2004 Massachusetts passed a law prohibiting governor appointments, out of fears Romney would replace Kerry with a Republican if he won.
Thanks. I stand corrected.
I'm sympathetic to the wishes for real talkathon filibusters, but I personally think the best system is the one that gives politicians the maximum number of opportunities to say "I voted for that bill before I voted against it."
Several thoughts:
One, a vote for cloture is in many ways the same thing a vote for the legislation or nominee that’s being debated/filibustered and while it’s possible to “split your vote” (voting for/against cloture and against/for the bill), you are more likely to embolden the people who disagree with the ultimate outcome because you helped to make it possible. Basically there’s very little upside for a Senator to “split” their vote.
Two, I think it’s amusing to hear Democrats after saying we had “eight years of Republican rule” complain that they can’t get their agenda through when they have a supermajority in the Senate, something that Bush 43 never had.
Three, as far as returning to “real filibusters,” I’m all for it. Right now the “let’s not and say we did” method of filibustering is less burdensome on the Majority Party because they don’t all have to stay up all night and listen to one or two Senators in the opposition party talking. Also, the MSM has been pretty slavishly devoted to advancing the Democrats’ legislative agenda (every time I see the news on my Yahoo account, it reads like a White House press release). If Republicans have to talk, it gives them an opportunity to act like an actual opposition party and point out all of the problems with the Democrats’ proposed cap and trade tax and federal takeover of health care and get coverage that they might not otherwise receive.
Yes, people often forget, or never knew, that maintaining a real filibuster is easier on the minority than it is on the majority since the body must always keep a sufficient number present for a quorum or be adjourned.
Is Senator Byrd back? I see he was released from the hospital on June 30th.
Remember, you need all 60 people to be present. Since Kennedy and Byrd are not currently ever present to vote, getting 60 votes is presently impossible. Throw in Specter, Lieberman, and the "Blue Dogs" and you are absolutely right. The Democrats cannot win a cloture vote and the GOP will continue on its quest of setting a new record for filibusters.
But if we're really going to examine why 60 votes can't be had, I think the proper place to look is those other 40 people hellbent on obstructing as much as possible.
the proper place to look is those other 40 people hellbent on obstructing as much as possible
That's a lot of credit you're giving them. If they are that good, might as well keep them.
<Sniff>. As a former Republican this is so nostalgic. "We have control, why the hell won't you people actually implement the policies you promised to implement?" Well, even though your highest priority (and mine, at the time) is policy based, their highest priority is to stay in the Senate. Most of these people aren't spectacularly well endowed with principles of any sort, so if you're thinking you'll find ten or twenty Senators willing to take one for the team be prepared to be disappointed.
I hear you -- there is little incentive for individual Senators to go out on a limb. One thing the Republicans do much better than the Democrats, though, is party discipline. Megan suggested that the fear of losing the 60-vote supermajority is what's holding the leadership back from imposing some serious discipline on the caucus, and what I'm saying is that there's no point in having that supermajority if you're not going to use it.
I'm not sure why you think Republicans are better at party discipline. Snowe and Collins (and Specter, when he was a Republican) seem to be pretty reliable Democratic votes for everything that really matters, like budgets and judicial nominations. Also, the smaller your minority is the easier it is to get everyone on board - that's just a side effect of having fewer people.
You say "there's no point in having that supermajority if you're not going to use it," because you're thinking there's some sort of universal agreement inside the party about what sort of legislation ought to be considered and passed. I would submit that out of 100 senators of both parties maybe 25, maybe, have a personal ideological framework that would compel them to vote this way or that regardless of polling. The other 75 simply don't care (within reason) what passes and what doesn't pass, as long as it doesn't threaten their numbers.
I'm not sure why you think Republicans are better at party discipline. Snowe and Collins (and Specter, when he was a Republican) seem to be pretty reliable Democratic votes for everything that really matters, like budgets and judicial nominations. Also, the smaller your minority is the easier it is to get everyone on board - that's just a side effect of having fewer people.
And your proof that they were reliable votes for the Democrats during the Bush years is where? I suppose you conveniently forgot how Bush and Santorum stumped for Snarlin' Arlen in 2004. Or how easy they went along with Obama's stimulus bill.
Yes, Bush supported Specter in 2004. What's your point? As soon as the election was over Specter was trying to engineer a deal that would give Democrats a veto over Supreme Court nominees. Given the way Specter acted (and voted) it was stupid for the Republicans to give him anything but a kick in the ass.
As for Snowe and Collins, the voting record is public. Why are you asking me for "evidence"?
This is sort of Olympian detachment, isn't it? Do you have anything to say about the filibuster on the merits? On reflection, this post reads like concern trolling :(
On the other hand, I guess not identifying oneself as being Republican or Democrat means one is free to express vague observations about how are government does or does not work, and throw ones hands up and say "Oh well! At least I'm not part of the problem!"
Why do we still have a Senate, anyway? It completely outlasted its purpose and it's undemocratic. The back and forth between the deliberative bodies reliably manages to make almost every bill worse than the original.
Nimed said: The back and forth between the deliberative bodies reliably manages to make almost every bill worse than the original.
You are, unfortunately, correct. The process tends to produce legislation that somehow manages to not achieve its stated objectives and while still being really expensive at the same time. But as a Californian and a student of history I also believe in the superiority of representative vs. direct democracy, so I'm not sure the dissolution of the Senate is the right solution. My libertarian inclinations tell me that the right answer is make sure politicians aren't responsible for all that much so as to limit the damage they do. But reality frustrates libertarian dreams all the time. Are there other systems -- like Euro parliaments, for example -- that are more "efficient" and that produce more coherent policies?
A sufficiently 'efficient' government is indistinguishable from a dictatorship; efficiency is a question of resources expended to accomplish a goal. Government isn't like a company, it isn't a means to an end, like profit, it's an end in itself. Efficiency in government is a question of how much resources are spent taking votes, and should never be a question of what the votes are on.
If you want a smaller government, they only thing you can really do is reduce the size of the polity. That's it. You want a small and efficient federal government? It's easy, simply restrict the number of people that can vote for its membership; we used to do this with senators, but for better or worse we don't anymore. This has made the senate much less "efficient" but more representative of a diversity of opinions.
When you place "limits" on the power of elected politicians, all you do is let their power flow to the unelected politicians, because you've done nothing to reduce the service demands upon the government, and someone will have to fill in the vacuum. You can't drown government in the bathtub by tying the hands of the people's representatives, just like you can't drown it by cutting tax revenue; in a republic the people's representatives are supposed to be the first and most powerful branch of government; weakening them only hands power to the presidency and judges.
If you don't want bad people in office, don't vote for bad people. And don't do like most California libertarians, and simply vote for the Republican (yes yes and write-in Ron Paul), and then use your party affiliation as an alibi to absolve yourself when the Republicans obstruct the majority.
jamie: Not much time to reply, but just quickly, point by point:
Perhaps "efficient" was a poor choice of words. I meant a system of deliberation between chambers that reduces, as much as possible, the amount of incoherence, contradiction, graft, waste, and rent-seeking that goes into legislation (e.g. a transportation or agriculture bill, which are really just patronage devices). You may be right, however, that such things are just part and parcel of democracy: like sausages, said Bismarck, nobody should see laws being made.
The relationship between small government and small polity is both questionable as well as dependent on your definition of small government. In strict material terms -- like money spent and resources conotrolled -- the government of Cuba is tiny compared to the US gov, reflecting the relative sizes of the two nations. In terms of its role in individuals' lives and autonomy, it's huge. The Lockean US constitution -- which defines the scope of government and its role in society and political economy -- was originally about protecting the inalienable universal rights that existed before humans created society and is therefore beyond a government's reach. The proposed European "constitution" -- concerning a polity just a bit bigger than the US -- in contrast, runs hundreds of pages and defines what restaurants in EU countries can serve, when they can serve it, and where they have to buy their fish and beef from and in what percentages. This, in a word, is stupid, and a soft form of tyranny.
Thus, when I say that, in an ideal world, the scope of a politician's concerns would be highly limited, I am saying that politicians (at least, at the national level) should not have any bearing whatsoever on such nonessential issues. Really, why should DC politicians have any say whatsoever over whether or not Terri Schiavo lives or dies? Part of the polarization of this country today is due to the fact that it truly matters where the president stands on abortion. I argue that it should not. Was FDR in favor of abortion? Was JFK? The answer is: we don't know, and it didn't matter anyway, because that was beyond the scope of their responsibilities. And we were better off for it.
Finally, I disagree that placing limits on the power of elected politicians automatically lets power flow to unelected politicians. (By the way, in the US system, who are the "unelected politicians?" Judges?) The whole point of the constitution, in its 18th-century context, was to create a society that was self-governed as much as possible. In other words, it placed limits on the power of government, on the belief that individuals should maintain as much autonomy as possible. It is truly a shame -- and a definite sign of the decline of liberalism -- if we have reached a point when the devolution of power to individuals is no longer even an option, that limiting the scope of government automatically means that "unelected politicians" gain more power.
As for California, the issue is far too large and complex to get into right now. I probably favor a new constitutional convention.
Bismarck was an authoritarian. He valued government process insofar as it let him do what he wanted; anything that stunk of multiple interest groups having a voice, to him, stunk of corruption and the grime of actually (gasp) passing laws in the voice of all the people. A law that did not speak with the voice of One Wise Man was, to him, a bad law.
Why would we want to reduce these things? What you call "incoherence" I call political disagreement. Graft is illegal, and rent-seeking and waste are in the eye of the beholder, a Californian's idea of waste is, to a Mississippian, a valuable commercial development. The best you can do is to make sure everyone who has a stake is made aware of their representatives actions. If an Alaskan knowingly elects a bribed man, who is a Minnesotan to say? And if a corrupt Californian wins office, clearly Californian's don't consider the corruption to be an issue.
I am of course, holding the voice of the voters in esteem here, and treating them as if they do actually have a say in the matter, and granting them the benefit of the doubt for their reasons. If you don't do that, I can see where our disagreement is.
I would consider all political appointees and lobbyists to be politicians, or at least "political actors", as well as the legislators. They all are participants in governance and use the political process to obtain the best outcome for their interest group. They aren't all "in government," but government and politics aren't the same thing.
It does, if you don't also reduce the scope of government along with the power potential of the part of government. Limiting the term of a senator has instantly made the senate an amnesiac, with no institutional memory. What is a good price for a fighter jet? What is the effect of cutting highway block grants, exactly? All of these questions will be answered by the CBO, the cabinet appointees, and lobbyists, who will now be in control of the framing of the questions.
Now, along with limiting the power of the legislature you could eliminate fighter jets or highway block grants, but now we start getting back into the issue of one mans's waste versus another.
With regard to your more theoretical points... I wouldn't say that a small polity relates to a small government, but I would say that a large polity precludes a small government. On the other hand, you are condemning the Cuban government for being "inefficient" (in your sense) because it's people do not enjoy liberty, but the people aren't participants in the Cuban polity, only Party members are, and the Cuban government probably does a sufficient job in fulfilling the objectives and representing the interests of party members. The polity of a nation-state isn't the same thing as people, and the appointment system for US Senators was specifically designed by the Framers, to keep the people out of the process, more or less so the senate would act a the voice of the elite political class -- at least that's how I read it. They talked a good game about "taming the passions' of the masses, but that was just the pitch.
Personally, I think the Lockean interpretation of Liberal Democracy is completely misguided, and my presumption is that the natural state of man is to be in bondage to the mighty, and that government is the only way out of this situation, so you're not going to get anywhere with me talking about inherent rights, because I regard inherent inalienable rights to be the province of the tooth fairy. Just letting you know.
Jamie,
Lots of stuff to think about.
As for the natural state of man, it's one of the eternal questions! No way to "solve" that puzzle...
A few questions for your consideration, though, because I enjoy these kinds of conversations: you say that the natural state of human beings is "to be in bondage to the mighty," and therefore you reject the notion of inherent inalienable rights.
Doesn't a state of nature preclude the existence of "mighty" and "weak?" If there are powerful and powerless, then, I would argue, you are no longer in a state of nature by definition.
And even conceding the issue, and the state of nature is indeed bondage, then how is bondage to government any different? Aren't you just trading one form of subjugation for another? And how can you believe that government power is somehow more benign than the power of the "mighty" men whom government is supposed to restrain, if governments are made up of men?
I assume, because mighty people exist in a state of nature, that you believe some people are strong and others weak by nature (rather than made that way by society or nurture). If the point of government is to restrain one half of the population because of who they are by nature, is that fair? What if you were one of the mighty? Would you not perceive as tyrannical a government whose entire raison d'etre is to antagonize you? Or do the mighty not deserve rights?
These are all rhetorical questions, with no "true" answers of course, offered solely for contemplation. Personally, I believe that anytime you stray from the universalism of the Enlightenment you regress into medieval territory, where government favors some citizens over others, and different laws apply to different people. Some may say this is fine and even necessary (affirmative action comes to mind), but in the end it is no better than naked tyranny. Governments are made of people, and (sorry Plato and Marx!) there's no such thing as a non-self-interested person. What's to stop them from defining people they don't like as the "mighty" whom the government is supposed to oppose? The government should not distinguish between the fundamental rights of its people, whether on the grounds of race, religion, or "mightiness."
I love it!!! How large a majority must the Democrats have before they bear the responsibility of the outcome of the legislative process? I would think less than the current 20 seats, but is it 25? 30?.
I also don't remember anyone mentioning the split congress when Bush was in office, after all he never had 60 seats, so definitionally the Republicans really weren't in control of congress.
"I also don't remember anyone mentioning the split congress when Bush was in office"
Right. There's a fundamental difference in how the two parties operate: Republicans act more like a European parliament-style party, in which they vote almost lockstep on every issue, while Democrats are far more individual. So with a Republican president and 50-55 Republican Senators, they get a lot of stuff passed because not every Democratic Senator is willing to oppose cloture.
Also, there are a decent amount moderate/centrist Democrats and very few Republicans that are anything but hard-right these days. Witness the stimulus, where with 57 Democrats at the time it took every bit of legislative muscle and tons of compromises to get the last three votes, one of which later switched parties over the fallout from his vote and the other two representing the entirety of the moderate wing. When Bush was in office it was far, far easier to peel off some of the many moderate Democrats.
Speaking of the stimulus bill, how many 'individual'-ist Democrats voted against it????
Right. Because the centrist Republicans were booted out of office in favor of centrist Democrats. The fact the Democrats can't come to agreement on everything shouldn't be a big shock, since we went through the same thing when Republicans were in the majority. There are quite a few districts out there where hard-anything doesn't sell very well - I don't see why you would expect voters who voted Republican just four years ago to favor the sorts of socialist policies the current administration is proposing.
When the worm turns there will be a whole lot of moderate/centrist Republicans and very few Democrats that are anything but hard left. Will you be surprised at that time when the Republicans don't vote as a block?
I made the same point earlier Re: Republicans never having a supermajority in the Senate and yet hearing constantly that we just had "eight years of Republican rule." The thing is I can easily point to pieces of legislation I didn’t like (e.g. NCLB and Medicare Part D) which had the fingerprints of Democrat Senators all over them in terms of their final versions even though they were passed in a Republican-controlled Senate. The porkulus bill, “cap and trade” tax, and nationalization of health care seem to be solely Democrat initiatives.
I was referring specifically to the California instance, where Republicans hold 29 of the 80 seats available, and are able to veto the California budget, because a budget can only pass with a two-thirds majority.
Right, so it's the 29 senators are the problem - not the fact that the majority can't win 3 of them over. No, there should never, ever be compromises. Unless California has one party with 53 seats, the state is officially in minority control?
The MAJORITY is responsible for getting legislation passed, and responsible for said legislation. If an ideal bill only gets 50 votes, the decision is passing nothing or making the compromises to get 3 votes. If they choose nothing, that is the MAJORITY's decision and blame should fall accordingly.
It's pure partisan hackery to claim that a minority is solely at fault simply because your party is in power.
Huh, no. The problem is the 2/3 requirement.
Under a 2/3 requirement, it isn't solely responsible. Unless the majority has 2/3 of the seats. The compromises are the responsibility of members of both parties. That's why they are called compromises.
By the way, just because it's the majority, you really don't need to write it in caps.
I agree. When 64% of a deliberative assembly isn't able to pass something without compromising, there's something wrong with the deliberative body in question. And that's not the current Republican Senators' fault. They are just playing by the rules of a lousy system.
Yeah, the majority Democrats are blameless - it's the rules that prevent them from drafting legislation that appeals to 10% of the Republican delegation.
Get real, there is no amount of maneuvering the Republican minority can due to push a budget through - only the majority 64% can do that. That they fail to compromise anything of substance should tell you where their priorities lie. The rules haven't changed recently, this is a failure of leadership on the Democrats of California's part and simply that.
No, that's something they will have to do sooner or later. I'm not assigning blame to any party. I just find it absurd that, with an electorial victory that got 64% of seats, you have to compromise.
Yes, a budget reflecting Republican policies would be strange indeed.
I'm glad you have such an aversion to partisan hackery.
You seem to hold the belief that, although Republican votes are needed to pass a budget, Republican Senators do not play a part in a compromise, only Democrats do. That you can, if you're a minority Senator, cross your arms and say "Until you do what I want you won't get my vote", and still have no responsibility whatsoever for what gets passed.
In sum you defend the existence of responsibility-free power. A strange ethical concept. Have you never read Spider-Man?
I just find it absurd that, with an electorial victory that got 64% of seats, you have to compromise.
But that has been the rule for a while - this isn't new. This buddget always required 2/3 support. If the majority chose to put forward a bill that can't get that in spite of one that could, that is their choice and their fault.
No, I don't support responsibility free power - you just don't get to blame the minority for the failings of the majority. Yes, the opposition gets to be more hardline as they aren't the ones wielding power. When something does pass, those who voted for it are responsible, and should be held accountable. The minority doesn't have to capitulate simply because they are small.
If there really were an emergency in Sacramento, the majority would act like. Right now it is still business as usual.
This makes sense if the minority has demonstrated that it will vote for any bill, but if the minority acts in bad faith, it can simply vote down all legislation and then assert at the polls that the majority is "do-nothing" and "unwilling to compromise," when the minority simply was unwilling to grant any votes at all under any circumstance, because it wanted to run against the "do-nothing" majority for campaign reasons. An organized minority effectively has a non-constructive act of no confidence.
What if their constituents don't approve of any of the bills proposed?
This makes sense if the majority has demonstrated that it will compromise on any bill, but if the majority acts in bad faith, it can simply introduce legislation and then assert at the polls that the minority is "obstructionist" and "unwilling to compromise," when the majority simply was unwilling to compromise at all under any circumstance, because it wanted to run against the "do-nothing" minority for campaign reasons.
See how that works - it's all perspective. The fact remains: those people in power bear the responsibility for legislation. The Democrats are on the hook here, all they have to do is shave off 3 republicans.
WWLBJD?
Would would Lyndon Baines Johnson do? To get his legislation through, he'd twist an arm or two. If health care reform doesn't pass, it's definitely Obama's fault, for he is the leader and it's the leader's obligation to lead.
Term limits make sure that politicians...will be completely dependent on their party apparatus for their next job, because it's impossible for them to keep their job in public service by running for office, and keeping the trust of the voters.
They could always leave politics and get a real job.
Public service is a real job. ;) Don't defame the American System of Government just to feed your hysterical personal grudges against Teh Luz3r Politishuns.
Oh, I agree public service is a real job. I don't agree that 90% of what politicians do is "public service."
The people on my HOA board are doing a service to the neighborhood at considerable personal cost. The people who spend decades in Congress are gratifying their somewhat weird whims and appetites at great cost to the rest of us.
I don't think I'd support hard term limits, but I'd like to see people self-limiting their terms, if for no other reason than anybody who likes that job is too creepy to be allowed to keep it.
I'm not sure where I sit on term limits. I used to be in favor of them, for pretty much the reasons listed above.
However, I probably have to side with jamie on this one, now. He's backed up by a book called Assignment: Pentagon written by a retired Air Force general. The book is about how to succeed as a military officer in Pentagon assignments and takes no positions on anything like term limits. However, a piece of advice in the book leads me to believe that jamie has the right of it when he says that little experience in elected officials will transfer a lot of power to the bureaucracy. I don't have the book in front of me, but it essentially says (I'm really paraphrasing):
If you start sharply limiting the length of Congressional service, you'll see long-term civil service employees be able to play a lot more games with Congress than you already do, since they know that they'll outlast the Congressmen.
It's funny you should mention that. When I worked as a military contractor it was on a landlocked naval installation in Southern California. The place was basically an R&D orgainization staffed by a few hundred civil servants and associated contractors. But since it was a naval installation we had two uniformed Navy - a captain and his XO (a commander).
It's not exactly a dream posting for a captain in the Navy, so this is where careers went to die. We got a new captain every eighteen months or so when the current guy retired.
Since it takes a good six months to orient yourself for a job like that, the civil servants had complete control over everything that happened in that installation. They could tell the captain whatever they needed to to get him to sign things - by the time he figured out he was getting the mushroom treatment his retirement party was already on the calendar. And they could drag their feet until he was gone if he actually wanted to do something.
Term limits don't eliminate the problem. They just move it into the bureaucracy. If you know a guy is going to be gone in a couple years you don't need to worry about burning him, especially if he can't fire you.
A lot of this is just excuse mongering. I mean, for some time, it has been "we have wanted to do all these great things for the American people, but those evil Republicans have been standing in the way". Well, now they aren't in the way, and stuff is still not getting done. Who knew?
When I said, "Shouldn't they have a procedure for getting bills to vote and then follow it?" I meant a procredure that did not include voting twice. Though as someone else mentioned, anything that makes it harder to pass laws is probably a good thing. How about a vote before even considering the bill. Then a vote on a rough draft. Then an automatic cloture vote (60+ required) to allow for a vote on passing the bill. Then one final vote where "Yes" means the bill is canceled.
In addition to term limits, I'd like to see a reduction in the budget for Congressional staff. Maybe we should have them meet only once every two years for three months or something. Give them a six year term limit (one term for the Senate, three for the House) and then pay them $10 million dollars (cash, tax-free) upon retirement to reduce the ability of lobbyists to influence them.
Let me preface my remarks by saying that I agree with your general point of needing to get Congress out of the way of progress.
I don't have time to dig in to Congressional procedure at the moment, but if I recall correctly, it's more or less like what you describe right now.
A bill is introduced, then goes to a committee (where most of them die), gets sent to a subcommittee by vote, gets amended to death with a vote for each amendment, gets voted out of subcommittee and committee, then gets read on the floor by title, gets debated, gets amended by vote a bunch of times, then they'll vote to close debate if it's in the Senate (the cloture we're discussing), and finally vote on the final bill.
I'm sure I have some stuff out of sequence, or missing some steps. But each bill gets voted on a bunch of times, and has a lot of chances to die--the vast, vast majority do. We just don't see them, because they're in the committee process. Somebody who's seen this up close and personal can correct me, but I was always under the impression that the final floor vote is always something of a formality and a piece of theater. The leadership usually knows how the vote will go before they pass a bill out of committee, and will probably just let it die a quiet death on the committee table if it won't pass a floor vote--unless, of course, they want to make a media production out of a bill failure.
Note that everybody does this at their job. If you know a proposal you're making is going to go nowhere, you usually just drop it rather than spending your (office) political capital to push it through to a refusal by whoever needs to approve it.
To get back to your point, a lot of what you're complaining about is rooted in that we've had Congress running for 220 years now, so they've had a lot of time to get procedures down for dealing with a lot of bills quickly. I often wonder if the dearth of legislation in earlier times was more that the institution hadn't figured out how to deal with a lot of legislation, rather than earlier people being more enlightened on the role of government. After all, what a good conservative should recognize is that the basic nature of people in the past is no different from us, we just have cooler stuff.
As much as it pains me to say this, I say that term limits, as well as most of what you propose above, will make things much worse. One thing I've learned from being in an organization that rotates people through leadership positions quickly is that the long-term individuals are the ones who really run things and often get a rubber stamp from the official leaders. What you're proposing will move what little oversight our elected leaders have to the people with permament jobs in the executive branch. Your proposal will probably increase the amount of bad legislation, since the lack of time will cause Congress to hastily approve whatever the executive branch or lobbyists drop in front of them. It'll probably cause more corruption, as well, since everyone will take what they can get while they're there.