As the Monkey Cage faithful know, I have been posting short essays on filibustering in an effort to contribute to the broader discussion of how Congress will (or won’t, or should) debate health care reform. My last post making a case for preserving the Senate filibuster sparked some skepticism from our colleagues Seth Masket and Matt Jarvis as well as Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein.
In this post I wanted to briefly respond to some of these thoughtful comments by making one main point: filibustering empowers the minority party to insist on a fair chance to debate major bills—and this is a good thing. Not only is it fair to the minority party—and good for the electoral process—to allow real debate on major legislation, it also enhances the legitimacy of the majority party and its actions.
1) Filibustering and Deliberation
It is common knowledge among Congress scholars that, over the last thirty years, the majority party in the U.S. House has steadily increased restrictions on amendments and debate on the House floor. The majority party’s power stems from its 9-4 majority on the Rules Committee, which issues “special rules” that govern debate on important bills. A simple majority is required to approve a special rule, so as long as the majority party sticks together it can control which issues comes to the House floor, how long they are debated, and which amendments will be allowed.
The problem with this system is that the ability of the minority to speak and offer amendments depends on the good humor of the majority. If some legislator wants to offer an amendment that will force the majority party members to make a politically awkward choice, then the majority party leadership can save their members grief by selecting which amendments can and cannot be offered to a specific bill. For example, if a House Republican wanted to offer amendment to the health care reform bill striking the penalties for individuals who refuse to get health insurance (arguing that this constitutes a “tax increase”), Speaker Pelosi and the Rules Committee could deny the Republican an opportunity to propose the amendment on the House floor.
In their book The Broken Branch, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein deplore the degeneration of deliberation in the House over the last three decades (see the update here), and point out that both parties, during their periods of majority status, have contributed to the gradual tightening of the screws on the House floor.
Why don’t we observe the same pattern in the Senate? In an effort to avoid filibusters, the majority party leadership consults with all interested senators—including minority party leaders—when bringing legislation to the Senate floor, with the goal of negotiating a unanimous consent agreement. If the majority party proposed the sort of debate ground rules that are common in the U.S. House, the minority party would simply say “no” and hold out for a full debate and amendment process.
Consequently, the Senate often ends up voting on more amendments than the House, including more amendments offered by the minority party. While I didn’t have time to survey every major bill over the last few years, I did scan some illustrative bills from 2003-6 (Republican majorities) and 2007-8 (Democratic majorities). Here are the number of votes on amendments (including motions to recommit with instructions in the House) by party in the House and Senate for major legislation:
The punch line is that, on many of the most important legislation of the last seven years, the members of the House generally have fewer opportunities to offer amendments (at least amendments interesting enough to merit a vote) than senators. On some bills, the members of the House were almost completely muzzled.
2) The Value of Legislative Debate
Why does open debate and amending matter? One rarely sees legislators on the floor of the House or Senate engaging in genuine dialogue so that their positions converge. However, floor debate can be useful as an information source for members of Congress watching on C-SPAN—debate can help them decide how to vote, to explain their votes, and to understand the talking points of the other side.
Amendments raised by the minority party can improve legislation (e.g. Republican amendments to limit medical lawsuits, if adopted, could help Obama achieve his campaign agenda). Even if they are defeated, they can improve the representative process by creating a clear record of how legislators stand on key issues. This should be especially important to my colleague Seth Masket, who worries about the effects of filibusters on party responsibility; in a healthy system of party responsibility, the minority party is able to explain how it would govern differently from the majority party (see Downs, Anthony). Roll call votes are a credible basis for understanding how the minority party would govern if given the chance.
Deliberation also has great public value. On some level, citizens want to believe that their views are heard and understood by lawmakers who take them seriously. Even if their viewpoint loses out—ESPECIALLY if their viewpoint loses out—they do not want to feel ignored or ramrodded by a hostile majority. For this reason, the more important the decision, the more important it is to have a full and free debate in Congress. Even if the “debate” is pure Kabuki theater of set speeches and fixed minds, there is great value in compelling the majority to make its case in public and letting the opposition state its case. Mike Mansfield, Senate majority leader from 1961 to 1976, credited the “longest debate” over the 1964 Civil Rights Act for its relatively swift acceptance by Southern whites despite its dramatic effect on social and economic relations. After 70+ days of debate and a two-thirds majority for cloture and passage, no Southerner could argue that his or her views were not voiced or heard, or that the supermajority supporting the bill was ill-informed or insincere.
Which brings us to health care, Obama, and Tea Parties. As we have all seen in recent months, there is a segment of American society that is virulently opposed to Obama, the Democratic agenda in general, and health care reform in particular. And for people outside this movement, their rhetoric and arguments can seem bizarre, conspiratorial, fallacious, and offensive. And yet, the anti-Obama activists are our fellow citizens. They can vote, and donate money. And buy guns…lots of guns. To the extent their arguments are misguided, deliberation may help to correct their views.
More important, anti-Obama activists seem to be driven by a sense by alienation—like many Americans, their lives are caught in an economic vortex beyond their control: 401ks depleted, houses devalued and foreclosed, wages stagnant or jobs evaporated. This is compounded by dramatic political changes that alienate citizens accustomed to being the dominant strain in society. Like the Simpsons locked out of their home by squatters, they may feel dispossessed by a coalition of outsiders—even when the outsiders are their own sons and daughters voting for Obama. In an insightful column, Ed Kilgore argues that the anti-Obama activists are not generally “racist”, but that race is an element in this sense of lost power, and fear of proposals (like health care) which would expand the power of others over their lives. GOP pollster Frank Luntz echoes this analysis: “The real reason why 72% of the people I interviewed say that they’re ‘mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore’ has nothing to do with racism. No, their rage is about a lack of accountability, a lack of respect, and a lack of progress in the nation’s capital.”
While it is unlikely that any Democratic action would convert these activists into Obama supporters, a full debate on health care reform could defuse their anger. They would observe that conservative lawmakers got a full and free chance to make their case. And open conversation by lawmakers who are publicly accountable for their claims would dispel some of the worst rumors about the bill, e.g. even the most conservative Republican member would have to admit that the bill does NOT establish death panels to allocate health care. A quick, partisan debate, on the other hand, would probably amplify anti-Obama activists’ sense of exclusion.
In the end, there may be some truth to Ezra Klein’s statement that “a chamber built for cooperation cannot function in an era of polarization”—the negotiations to bring a health care bill to the Senate floor will probably make a Byzantine blush—but if the price of cooperation is a full debate of health care, both parties and most Americans may come out ahead.