It’s the Institutions, Stupid
Yesterday’s David Brooks column contained a putative contrast between Barack Obama as a champion of “policy change” that’s responsible but dull, and John McCain who “is the champion of systemic change — after two decades of bickering and self-dealing, its time to shake up the whole system in order to get things done.” What does that mean? Brooks doesn’t know, he just says that “McCain promise of change is comprehensive and vehement, though it’s hard to know how it would actually work in office.” Brendan Nyhan is justifiably confused by this and countersthat “in reality, the way ‘policy change’ and ’systemic change’ typically happen is that the party in control of the presidency changes or the balance of power shifts in Congress.”
That’s true. I would add, though, that I think people should point out that it would be possible, in theory, to actually change the institutions of American politics. In the United States we do this very strange thing where almost every successful politician of either party and almost every pundit has a habit of complaining about gridlock, observing that Washington is broken, and other sundry clichés. And they’re right — we have a set of political institutions that were designed a very long time ago by men who, while intelligent, didn’t share modern values, didn’t have the benefit of observing different democratic political systems in operation, and had no sense of the challenges of modern politics. But at the same time as all this complaining about our broken system, the constitutional order that constitutes the broken system is revered. If, as a country, we really wanted to “change Washington” we could do what the Founders did, decide to scrap the whole thing, elect delegates to a big convention, and write a new one.
Now that’s not going to happen. But smaller institutional changes could be undertaken. Back during the primaries, a lot of liberals criticized Barack Obama for focusing too much on process and not enough on substance. If anything, I thought the problem was just that he didn’t go far enough. Periods of substantive change in American politics have often been associated with real procedural changes in the operations of government. Not “bringing people together” or “changing the culture of blah blah” but, say, actual shifts to curb the use of the filibuster and the power of committee chairs. Those were good ideas when they were done in the 1960s and 1970s, and it would make sense to keep moving in that direction. The prospects for major health care reform or climate change legislation would look very different if it took 50 Senators (plus the Vice President) to pass a bill rather than 60. This stuff is hugely important, and yet nobody talks about it.
31 Responses to “It’s the Institutions, Stupid”
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September 10th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Excellent post, Matt. True governmental reform focuses on institutions and the rules that govern them, not just issue-based policies. For instance, if we did away with the winner-takes-all primary system and instituted some sort of proportional representation, chances are we’d soon have viable third and fourth parties, and the many interests of our very diverse electorate could be much better represented in Congress. It’s terrible (but not unexpected, given the state of public education nowadays) that only a small portion of the American people even make a distinction between governmental institutions and politics in general, let alone seek to reform them.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
The prospects for major health care reform or climate change legislation would look very different if it took 50 Senators (plus the Vice President) to pass a bill rather than 60. This stuff is hugely important, and yet nobody talks about it.
The prospects for tax cuts and abortion restrictions would also look very different if it only took 50 Senators. Republicans will probably eventually regain control of the Senate, at which time Democrats currently expressing frustration with the procedural rules requiring supermajorities will suddenly rediscover the virtues of those rules.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Let’s scrap this nonsense and institute a parliamentary system.
Seriously.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I can imagine systemic changes I’d favor, such as one which might give people who are dissatisfied with the 2 parties a way to vote that would not be counterproductive. But of course the gridlock was deliberately contrived to some extent, and given our tendency to elect people who are pig-ignorant and/or batshit insane, probably not the worst thing in the world.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
What Brooks doesn’t say is that for the last 8 years, McCain has simply been saying whatever it is that raises his profile. McCain has become as empty a vessel as we’ve ever had in American politics. His ambition is not only his god, it’s his end point. There’s no indication that McCain wants to do much with the office. Brooks, even in craven-fawning mode, can’t point to any statement of belief that McCain has that can’t be contradicted by another McCain statement found with a 5 minute search in Google.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
And if we were to do such a thing, care to give us odds on (1) repeal of the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments; (2) establishment of Christianity as the state religion; (3) drastic revision or abolition of judicial review; (4) a much more powerful presidency; (5) turning over federal lands to the states; (6) widespread curtailments of federal regulatory powers.
Given the politicians currently running this country, and the interests to whom they are beholden, a rewritten Constitution would almost certainly resemble the Articles of Confederation.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Thank you, Mixner, for proving why we need to eliminate the Senate and its gross over-representation of small populations.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Once again, David Brooks sets himself up for a punchline that isn’t what he intended:
“[John McCain] is the champion of systemic change”
So with twenty-eight years in Congress, it’s *McCain* who helped bring us to this point.
Or maybe things’ll be really different in years #29, 30, 31, and 32.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Re Matthews’ comment “If, as a country, we really wanted to “change Washington” we could do what the Founders did, decide to scrap the whole thing, elect delegates to a big convention, and write a new one.”
——————-
Sigh. That was NOT what happened.
What happened was that a bunch of greedy fucking bankers in Boston buttfucked the very Continental Army veterans who had suffered for years in order to expel the British.
Shay and his fellow veterans, growing tired of being screwed by draft dodgers who had gotten rich during the war trading with the enemy, rebelled.
George Washington ,hearing of the rebellion, did not exclaim at the idea of lawlessness. He screeched in horror that “Property” might not be safe from the mob.
So Honest George and the fucking weasel Alexander Hamilton embarked upon a CONSPIRACY to protect Rich Men.
They assembled a convention here in Philly which was merely supposed to work out some issues in interstate trade. After swearing the assembly to SECRECY — and posting armed guards at the door so “The People” could not listen in on what was going on, they embarked upon an illegal conspiracy to overthrow the existing government.
They had been careful to post Thomas Jefferson to France so they would not have any challenge to their plan. Alexander Hamilton, behind a thin veil of deceit , proposed setting up an American King, arguing that the British government that men had died to expel was “the best government in the world.”
The assembly, however, preferred to stick with a corrupt oligarchy — with the “Country being run by those who Own It.”
James Madison threw a veil of classical Aristotlian bullshit over the whole plot, arguing that the design was driven by careful consideration of the forces of history. A claim that would have made Julius Caesar howl with laughter.
Armed with Secrecy and Money, the well-organized Federalists railroaded approval of the new Constitution through the legislatures like shit through a goose. Here in Philly, bully boys for wealthy merchants seized two delegates and carried them to the Town Hall to force a vote of approval through before the delegates from Western Pennsylvania even had a chance to travel here and object.
Owning the presses helped a lot as well. The anti-Federalists complained bitterly that the whole show was over before they had a chance to even learn what was going on and to organize. North Carolina and Rhode Island were basically forced to approve the COnstitution at the point of a gun.
Today, US citizens are indoctrinated in high school with a careful-crafted lie. The morons who make up the Texas Board of Education ensure no publisher of textbooks will challenge the lie.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Not precisely true. The men at the Constitutional Convention had the benefit of watching the various state governments in action between 1776 and 1787. Which, to concede the larger point, is not a substitute for watching numerous industrial and post-industrial nation-states over a period of 200 years.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
given our tendency to elect people who are pig-ignorant and/or batshit insane
Stop making sexist remarks about Gov Palin, darn it!
September 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Excellent post. Here’s a good place to start: Let Alaska secede from the union. And good riddance.
Then let’s merge a few of those vast tracts of empty land between Chicago and Los Angeles that each get two votes in the Senate. Make a requirement for statehood be that your population merit more Congressmen than Senators.
Consolidate the knuckleheads.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Thank you, Mixner, for proving why we need to eliminate the Senate and its gross over-representation of small populations.
It doesn’t make sense to thank me for something I didn’t do.
Good luck in your campaign to eliminate the Senate. Let us know when it moves outside the realm of absurd fantasy.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I second McBundy George. The US system was innovative in the 18th century, but the irony is that the parliamentary system that evolved from the monarchies of Europe has turned out to deliver governments that can actually govern and an executive branch that is more accountable. This is obvious to anyone who has lived under and observed both systems.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Do we really want to eliminate gridlock? I know that everybody complains about it, but maybe if we can’t get 60 senators to vote for something that should be a sign that it isn’t a great idea. Don’t get me wrong I think that Committee Chairs shouldn’t be so powerful and shouldn’t favor seniority. But those things allow greater change without less consensus. The current gridlock isn’t just a result of our institutions it is also a result of the Bush/Rove strategy of winning elections by turning out the base rather than persuading swing voters.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I think that system in USA is OK. I like the principle of software design: “you can make it fool-proof, but not damn-fool-proof”. There is only so much you can assure on a constitutional level.
I have my doubts. Suppose we do so, and then Putin will dig out some irregulaties concerning the original purchase transaction and proceed with an annexation? THEN we will learn that Wasilla is a town name commemorating the name of Czar Vasily. Then Putin will make a nefarious alliance with Denmark and Canadian independence will go away with a puff of smoke (Danes will not resist an offer delivering them Hans Island). At the end of the day, Russians will take the Yukon, Danes, the Maritimes and we will end up holding Alberta, with all the adverse aspects of having Alaska.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Seriously.
Aye, seriously. Right after we scrap English customary units and institute Le Système International d’Unités.
Unfortunately, good ideas are no match for American stubbornness.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Larry Sabato, the poli. sci. prof at UVA, wrote a book called “A More Perfect Constitution”. Worth the read on this topic, but he makes mainly the same point. The Constitution was not written by the founders as a final document and was meant to be tinkered with. We’ve barely changed it at all. After the Bill of Rights and a few just afterward, and throw out the Prohibition and its nemesis, the 21st. That leaves you with, what, 13 amendments. And other than expanding voting rights nothing really procedural. The 60 vote senate censure vote is their rule. It can be changed with a vote of the senate to anything.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Simplest and most honest reform of all: restore the principle for which the Revolution was actually fought, that population COMPELS representation.
Restore the balance of population and representation in the House that was arrested after the 1920 Census. (The 1910 Census was the last that led to an increase in representatives.)
That would require tripling the # of members in the House — and THAT, in turn, would eliminate gerrymandering (or at least make it useless for quite some time), radically reduce the power of individual representatives while forcing parties into a more meaningful role in the House.
It’d be cheaper, too — reduce personal staff, and provide more opportunities for popular movements WITHIN the House to gain support and committee leverage.
But, puh-leeze, do NOT create a parliamentary system or, even worse, proportional representation: somebody wins, and everybody else loses, each election.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Don Williams, despite the conspiratorial tone, is more or less right about Shays’ Rebellion (as well as things like Ethan Allen and the Green Mtn Boys, our first best radicals, or the Whiskey Rebels in 1794) and the Constitution.
It was a document of, by, and for merchants, bankers, commercial farmers and lawyers. Small farmers and artisans were pretty against it.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Re: The prospects for tax cuts and abortion restrictions would also look very different if it only took 50 Senators. Republicans will probably eventually regain control of the Senate, at which time Democrats currently expressing frustration with the procedural rules requiring supermajorities will suddenly rediscover the virtues of those rules.
In either case though the senators would have to face the public with the results of their votes. Gridlock excuses politicians from getting results as they can claim they tried to do the right thing but all those other evil guys stopped them.
Re: Given the politicians currently running this country, and the interests to whom they are beholden, a rewritten Constitution would almost certainly resemble the Articles of Confederation.
A new Constitution that veeered too radically toward either ideological extreme would have the end result of terminating the American nation as it now exists as some states would refuse to ratify it and those states would become sovereign nations as a result. Perhaps the dissidents would even band together as a new nation. My guess is a new Constititutional convention would labor under the same restraints the last one did: the need for compromise to keep everyone on board.
Re: The men at the Constitutional Convention had the benefit of watching the various state governments in action between 1776 and 1787.
They were also not interested in designing a democracy (”mob rule” to them). They were founding a republic of which examples abounded both ancient (Rome, etc.) and contemporary (the Netherlands, Switzerland).
Re: THEN we will learn that Wasilla is a town name commemorating the name of Czar Vasily.
More likely St Vasily, (AKA Basil), the hippie-like 16th century holy guy that ornate church in Moscow is named after.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Actually people talk about it all the time–just not in politics, but more in the universities. As far as I know, institutionalism, both the classical and new variants, is still very much alive and well in academia.
I think the real reason why pols avoid talking about institutional change is that it is just too fucking hard to achieve due to path-dependency.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I read that last word as “countershat”, which might be an appropriate response to a Brooks article, but would be a bit insulting to Brendan.
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