How Bipartisan Do You Want?
After reading some items from Ezra Klein and David Broder on the subject of bipartisanship and health reform, I think it’s worth pointing out that “bipartisan” is a concept that I think looks a bit weird when the underlying numbers are so lopsided. To see why, think bank to the stimulus debate.
Nobody really considered the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to be a triumph of bipartisan legislating. But it did get the votes of Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, and Susan Collins. If we assume the existence of Al Franken, in other words, there were 62 votes in favor of the bill. Under normal circumstances when a majority party has maybe 54 or 55 seats, then getting to 62 votes requires a pretty robustly bipartisan bill.
But of course there aren’t 46 or 45 Republicans, there are only 40. And why’s that? Well, a big part of the story is that Republicans who held vulnerable seats nonetheless voted in lockstep with their party leadership’s conservative agenda. Democrats, by the same token, got to where they are because the caucus tolerates many members who frequently deviate from the party line. But this means that the GOP has managed to make itself small precisely by minimizing the number of people who are likely to cross party lines. On Inauguration Day, there were only three Republicans left who regularly joined bipartisan compromises. Obama got all three for ARRA. And for his trouble, Senator Specter got essentially booted from the party. So now there are really only two “gettable” Republicans left. So does an Obama bill that Collins and Snowe sign on to a “bipartisan” bill? If there were six fewer Senate Democrats and six more moderate Senate Republicans, would getting all eight of them to sign on to something make it a moderate bill?
Personally, I’m more interested in a good bill than a bipartisan one. But the atmospherics of bipartisanship are important to the press. But the quality has been defined in a way that makes it essentially impossible to achieve. Normally, a bill that unites the base of one party with moderates in both parties counts as “bipartisan.” And that’s exactly what ARRA did. There just happen to be very very very few moderate Republicans. But that’s not Barack Obama’s fault. If Pat Toomey hadn’t mounted a primary against Arlen Specter, that might have been a third bipartisan vote for health reform. If Lincoln Chaffee hadn’t lost his seat, that might have been a fourth bipartisan vote for health reform. If the Virginia GOP hadn’t rigged the nominating process against Tom Davis, he might have been a bipartisan vote for health reform. But when you eliminate the moderates from your caucus, you eliminate yourself from the “bipartisan” game.
27 Responses to “How Bipartisan Do You Want?”
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June 11th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
You are overlooking the fact that the votes of Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh, Lieberman, and a number of other Democrats are not sure things even on cloture votes. It’s unfortunately the case due to the refusal of the Democratic majority to repeal the 60 votes for cloture rule at the start of this Congress that a select few “moderates” get to decide the actual contents of most controversial legislation. There’s not much of anything that can be done about that now barring Senator Reid having a sudden attack of chutzpah and reviving the “nuclear option.”
June 11th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I think Obama himself deserves a big share of the blame for the “bipartisan” dance. The “change” slogan started life in the Democratic primaries, and before that at the 2004 convention speech, as a conscious contrast to the politics of the age of George W. Bush. But because the only sense that the political media can make of “change” is “bipartisanship,” they took it to mean the same kind of thing as Bush himself meant in 2000 by promising to bring Republicans and Democrats together.
And Obama himself adopted this stance, that somehow if something wasn’t bipartisan than the promise of his candidacy was a failure. He should have insisted on defining the message himself, certainly in this respect.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I think this is key. “Bi-partisan” has been deemed by the press as an unqualified good. Thus, it is in the Republicans best interest to deny Obama this unqualified good. Since the media do not analyze whether any specific bill will have good effects or bad, Republicans won’t get credit for helping shape a good bill. Their only chance for political gain is to make Obama appear partisan.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Marshall has this right: Obama made his bipartisan bed, and he is going to have to lie in it for the time being, unless congress wants to push back against Obama on this one.
There’s really little point to bipartisanship outside of creating political cover for unpopular legislation.
Realistically, we had an election and chose Democratic ideas over Republican ideas. Thus, we should pass the Democratic ideas and the voters can decide to reward or punish the politicians who created them, based on the outcome. Which isn’t to say that Republicans should be shut out if they have something to contribute within the Democratic policy framework (like more money for rural clinics in Oklahoma, or something), but if the public doesn’t want Democratic plans, they can vote for Republicans. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
During the GW Bush administration, the Republican congress didn’t care at all if bills had bipartisan support. The exact opposite was true – they wouldn’t pass bills if they needed Dem support, they would only pass bills with “a majority of the majority.” This was an explicit strategy of marginalizing Democrats and eliminating any influence they might have on legislation(and drying up contributions to their campaigns by eliminating any reason a lobbyist might have to turn contributions their way). See, e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15423-2004Nov26.html
And the press didn’t care.
So this horseshit now about how the press cares about “bipartisanship” really doesn’t persuade me. The press cares about appeasing the right wing. When the right wing is in power, that means supporting it. When it’s out of power, that means trying to prevent the majority from accomplishing anything by appealing to bipartisanship. Period.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
The press needs to assess the merits of public policy without actually understanding any given issue. I understand that you think bipartisanship is not a good measure, but what would be a better one? I often assume Democrats are more likely to be right about most stuff than Republicans, but the press isn’t going to do that.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
You are overlooking the fact that the votes of Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh, Lieberman, and a number of other Democrats are not sure things even on cloture votes.
In that case, you frame a bipartisan bill as one that gets a minor-league DINO on board (say, Bayh or Pryor or one of the ND moderates) and say “remember, Nelson/Lincoln/Landrieu are hard votes for the Dem majority to win”, and use that to squeeze the holdouts. Maybe they’ll be offended and jump: well, that just makes their votes bipartisan.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I see no actual reluctance on Obama’s part to pass bills with exactly as much Republican support as he needs, namely a couple Senators.
Anyway, I think Matt is making a good point, but I also think it is worth noting that the Republican Party has adopted unified opposition as a strategy–indeed, I suspect a few more Republicans Senators and a few Republican Representatives would be willing to vote for various aspects of Obama’s agenda, if not for this strategy of unified opposition.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Matt’s cribbing my points! He does read the comments!
Just yesterday I put it this way: when it comes to democratic legitimacy, the number of votes something gets matters more than the party of the voters. If all 60 Democrats support a bill, and all 40 Republicans oppose it, is this really less legitimate from 55 Democrats and 5 Republicans going Yea, and 40 Repubs going Nay? No. Maybe the motto should be, the voters have already decided. Bipartisanship becomes tricky when one party has less and less influence for the reason that the voters wanted them to have less and less influence.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
If we assume the existence of Al Franken
According to quantum theory, Al Franken may not actually exist.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
This is a good point. Another way to look at it is to consider the imbalance not only in the number of Senators in each party, but also the ideological territory those members cover. To simplify crassly, you might say there are three blocks in the Senate: the left, right, and center. A “bipartisan” bill is one that has the support of the center. But right now all but two of the Senators in the center are Dems.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I see Broder again equates compromise with abject surrender by the Democrats. Any compromise that eliminates a public option eliminates health care reform. Whatever is done today to increase coverage will fail tomorrow if costs are not contained. The creation of a large, non-profit, purchasing block is the only way to contain costs.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Matt’s right. Making bipartisanship gestures is pointless.
When Al Franken is on board (where the hell is he, anyway?) you make sure you lock up your 60. You ask the ladies from Maine, politely, to join you, but under no circumstances make concessions to them to make passage of a bill look more bipartisan. It would be ludicrous to empower two people for symbolic reasons.
If one or both join you, you can trumpet the bipartisan nature of the bill. If they don’t, you say you gave it the old college try. Oh well. Bill passed anyways.
As for the other 38 unmentionables? Who cares.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I don’t think Obama has defined change strictly on bipartisan terms. His “change” is as much about actually tackling health care reform, carbon emissions, etc. He does initially give a lot of lip service to bipartisanship – at least in terms of offering to hear out legitimate GOP ideas and concerns (and including such groups in high profile forums.) But in terms of getting stuff passed, I don’t see him wedded to bi-partisanship as an end to be sought above others. This gives him cover and up-front strategy doesn’t allow anyone to complain that they’ve been frozen out of negotiations, even if (hopefully) in the end none or few of their crappy ideas end up in the final product. It’s still pretty early on most issues to see if this is the norm.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
when it comes to health care reform, bi-partisan means a plan that is endorsed not only by the health care industry, but by the consumers as well.
in the more general sense, bi partisan needs to be defined (explicitly by the media, who still equates R’s and D’s as representing 50% of the population, which could hardly be further from the truth) more broadly, so as to include democratic voters, and many of the former republican (now independent) voters who still do not consider themselves liberals but are not willing to wear brownshirts in the current “religious right no taxes ever” republican party. If a bill is then “bi partisan” and thus has broad support, Obama has fulfilled his promise.
Finally, it is Obama’s promise of bipartisanship that in many ways is responsible for the exodus from the current republican party. It has become plain to see that the R’s are not interested in providing effective legislation with him (as the public believes that he is truly interested in governing with a consensus), and so his “blame for the bi partisan dance” is really a strategic masterpiece on his part.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
But the atmospherics of bipartisanship are important to the press.
As other commenters have already noted, America decided in 2008, they wanted the kind of policies that Obama ran on – end of Iraq War, end of GWBush fiscal mismanagement, etc.
The GOP, especially in the Senate, has decided that they don’t want to get on board with Obama in a bi-partisan fashion. So f*ck them! The public doesn’t care as long as the job gets done.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
You got 3 Senate Republicans (2 now that Specter flipped). Which means that the Democrats own this thing, for good or ill. My guess is that it won’t work, and it’s biggest impact will be debt, but either way – It’s your side of the aisle that gets to own this one.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Broder wants unanimity.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Then again, James, you thought it was a splendid idea to start murdering Iraqis for no particular reason. Why should anyone care what you think will happen next? Have you got some successful predictions in your history that make up for your support of mass murder? For some reason, that failure, and the consequent massive loss of human life, doesn’t weigh heavy on your conscience. Odd.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Matt’s right. Making bipartisanship gestures is pointless.
I very much disagree. It is crucial to remember that many Democrats in the Senate and the House need at lot of independents and often at least some registered Republicans to vote for them if they want to be reelected. So, in order for Obama to get his agenda through Congress, he needs to do whatever he can to provide political cover for these Democrats. And at least making bipartisan gestures is crucial to that effort, and it is working: Democrats are very happy with Obama, but so are independents, and even some Republicans, and those are the conditions under which it is to the advantage of the marginal Democrats to stay on Obama’s side in the end.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
What James doesn’t like to admit, maybe not even to himself, is that the way this has been set up, the Republicans own the problem, and the Democrats own the solution.
June 11th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
James, you thought electing George W Bush to the presidency would be a good idea, so who cares what you think will “work”? You had your chance to support fiscal conservatism, but instead you well full-bore right-wing loony when you decided that Clinton and Gore were somehow not worth voting for.
I’m not sure whether to regard loyalist Bushistas as objects of pity or outright disdain when they put on their “concern” face about spending under Obama. Mostly I think they need to STFU– these moral and mental losers are desperate for attention and desperate to be seen as people with “something to say” about politics when in fact they have no idea what they’re talking about and a track record of simply wanting to identify with movement conservatism over anything resembling good policy.
In short, James, the fact that you voted for Bush twice means that your opinions on these matters are worthless and are probably dishonest. You hate Democrats, and that’s the essence of your beliefs, you’ll support stupid wars and support torture to fulfill your desires to hate Democrats out of spite, and that’s about as far as it goes. Your fiscal concern is just your attempt at “play acting.”
I’m pretty much tired of these middle aged overgrown republican children bothering us with their worthless, ill-informed political beliefs.
June 11th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Meh. Bipartisian now means Democratic members and Blue-Dog.
That’s what progressives in congress need to start pushing.
Of course since the major news networks only have Republicans on, they have an up hill battle.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
The Republican party didn’t make itself small by refusing to tolerate dissent. They were the default party for 2 decades. For that entire time, they refused to tolerate dissent.
They made themselves a tiny party by massively fucking up the country. FDR didn’t tolerate dissent either, and he created a coalition that lasted for decades. Voters don’t care about how, they only care about results.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
They made themselves a tiny party by massively fucking up the country. FDR didn’t tolerate dissent either, and he created a coalition that lasted for decades.
Yeah FDR was all about Jim Crow. He didn’t have to compromise at all to get Southern Dems to vote for the New Deal.
On the topic of the post: why are Matt and others concluding that Obama didn’t get credit for being bipartisan on the stimulus package? Hasn’t poll after poll shown that the public viewed Obama as making reasonable bipartisan gestures and blamed the Republicans for not compromising with him?
June 12th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I enjoy reading Matt’s thoughts, as he tries to present facts from a liberal point of view. However, this is simply ridiculous:
“And for his trouble, Senator Specter got essentially booted from the party.”
June 12th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
I was a republican who voted for Obama.(Independent now) I don’t give a crap about bipartisanship!! The Dem’s need to take this opportunity to correct the appalling mess that we created. I don’t care if they have to shove it down the throats of those old,racist,bigoted,hypocrites who call themselves Republican Senators. Why are the Dem’s acting like they are the minority party? Have they been on the losing end for so long that they don’t realize what it is to have power?
I am hoping the young people get organized and start bombarding the Senators, and news media to let them know that we really voted for DEMOCRATIC ideas!!! and don’t care about those blow hards Nelson,McConnell,Grassey,Graham,Cantor,Boehner,McCain,Liberman etc.,etc.,
I’m 58 and have now become convinced that the old guys (anyone over 60) have totally lost touch with reality. We need term limits for the Senators!!