Outlook is Murky on Bipartisanship/Stability Link
In a recapitulation of early talk of trying to write a stimulus bill that could secure eighty votes in the United States Senate, we’re now hearing things about Democratic Senators being eager to water down a health care reform bill in hopes of securing seventy votes to pass it. Brendan Nyhan observes that the most oft-stated rationale for the pursuit of this sort of majority is policy stability, bipartisan legislation is said to be more enduring and less subject to massive overall. He also observes that the evidence for this in the political science literature is pretty weak and ambiguous.
Any reasonable president or legislative leader should, I think, make a serious effort to bring as many people into the process who are genuinely interested in reform. And of course it makes sense to go the extra mile in terms of “courting” and so forth to try to get votes from across the aisle. But when you’re talking about a major policy concession like gutting a public option that could save the country hundreds of billions of dollars, then I think you ought to have a very good reason for making the concession. Speculative ideas about stability don’t, it seems to me, make the cut.
And of course it’s difficult to avoid the suspicion that some people who are citing Republican opposition as the reason for opposition to a robust public option may be dissembling to some extent. Bold progressive reform like a robust public option tends to threaten powerful and well-heeled interests. Many legislators—from both parties—are not always eager to threaten those interests. But legislators are also not eager to be seen as caving to powerful interests. If you can do what the special interests want, like drop a public plan, but say that you only did it at the insistence of someone else (Republicans!) then you get to have your cake and eat it, too. You’re not opposed to a public plan, you can assure people, but you’re a pragmatist. Then behind closed doors you can remind the special interests that when the chips were down you saved them.
18 Responses to “Outlook is Murky on Bipartisanship/Stability Link”
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June 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Then behind closed doors you can remind the special interests that when the chips were down you saved them.
You mean people like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu? They are cowards, plain and simple. Can someone tell me why these two are Democrats?
June 12th, 2009 at 11:43 am
“If you can do what the special interests want, like drop a public plan, but say that you only did it at the insistence of someone else (Republicans!) then you get to have your cake and eat it, too. You’re not opposed to a public plan, you can assure people, but you’re a pragmatist. Then behind closed doors you can remind the special interests that when the chips were down you saved them.”
This is one of the better pithy put-downs of Senate centrism that I’ve seen. It belongs on Mary Landrieu’s wikipedia page.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Remind me again who won the election and controls Congress and the White House, cause I think Max Baucus forgets. And if this public plan gets stripped out, Obama let him forget and should be held responsible. He’s the most popular politician in the party by far. Time to put some screws to these opportunists and cowards.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Hold on there about Mary. She’s no Ben Nelson. First of all, she’s in a legit red state trending even redder. Obama did win Omaha, after all. And while Mary isn’t exactly a superstar, Ben Nelson is one of the dumbest, most incoherent people in high office (Susan Collins is up there, too, though I do like Olympia Snowe).
June 12th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Also, remember when Dems were in the minority, and their excuse for not stopping the war (or doing anything else) was that they weren’t in the majority. Then they got the majority, but they couldn’t do anything because they didn’t have 60 votes in the Senate. Now that they have 60, they can’t do anything without 70 votes in the Senate. I think if voters elected 100 Democrats to the Senate, they wouldn’t be able to do anything without the approval of the Queen of England.
P.S. I just read Aravosis’ blog about Obama and DOMA and so I’m in a shitty anti-Dem mood today.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Max Baucus supports democrat positions 70% of the time
If he ever loses his republican replacement would support the demccrat postion 7% of the time
June 12th, 2009 at 11:57 am
The Senate is already heavily biased against the rule of the majority – representation by state not population, which grotesquely undervalues the interests of urban Americans; 6-year staggered senatorial terms, which protects senators from accountability on any one vote; and the power of individual senators to hold up and amend bills.
And on top of this we need even more anti-democratic requirements, like 70 votes?
Please. 50 + 1. That’s democracy.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
@ bluesmoke:
True, but Montana is not Idaho. The have a Dem governor and 2 Dem senators. This isn’t Inhofe country.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
… “a major policy concession like gutting a public option that could save the country hundreds of billions of dollars.”
And if pigs could fly they’d dump your shit on us from the clouds.
But the important thing is to provide ObaFuhrer cover for his ongoing sellout.
And hey, how’s about that ObaFuhrer treating Inspectors General the way Bushit treated the US Attorneys?
And of course lying about it as only the ObaFuhrer can!
June 12th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
What I want to know is why Dems don’t claim health care reform as exclusively theirs, pass the most likely to succeed reform (most covered at least cost) and beat Reps over the head with it for the next 50 years? If too many Dems threatened to vote for a bill 5 years ago, Hastert would put stuff in so no Dem dared vote for it making it a Rep only bill. Maybe Conrad and Nelson and the rest should read William Kristol’s take on it in the early ’90’s. Could there be anything worse for Dems as to be seen as weakly caving and then putting out a bad bill that accomplishes little?
June 12th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
This is ridiculous. With or without the “public plan”, the Senate will be hard pressed to find even *two* Republican yes votes for the final bill.
This is sooooooooooooooo stupid. I predict the public plan will be stripped from the final bill and less than two Republican’s will vote yes on the final thing. Watch.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
the following link suggests that you need 60 votes per senate rules to pass a public plan for health care reform
it also suggests that kent conrad and max baucus will not vote for health care reform unless it meets the 60 vote threshold
June 12th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Whatever link you were meaning to include, bluesmoke, reconciliation was explicitly written into the budget so that if health care isn’t done by Oct 15, then 51 votes are needed rather than 60. So I’m really not getting why they don’t just tell Nelson and Landrieu to fuck off.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
You mean people like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu? They are cowards, plain and simple. Can someone tell me why these two are Democrats?
They may be cowards, but there are surely plenty of cowards in the House, too, but Boss Pelosi, bless her, doesn’t allow them to get away with it. We need an LBJ as majority leader in the Senate. It’s the leadership, stupid.
Remind me again who won the election and controls Congress and the White House, cause I think Max Baucus forgets.
Baucus certainly doesn’t forget anything. He knows that that Obama controls the White House, that progressive Democrats under Nancy Pelosi’s thumb control the House, and that fully-bought and paid for conservatives of both parties control the Senate. The problem is not that Baucus’s memory is too weak. The problem is that it’s too strong.
But when you’re talking about a major policy concession like gutting a public option that could save the country hundreds of billions of dollars, then I think you ought to have a very good reason for making the concession.
This is a nice way to put, and I’ve heard very little emphasis on cost as a justification for the public option. But by all accounts worries about rising debt and spending are getting the public’s attention, so why can’t Democrats loudly and insistently trumpet this point to the media in making their case for the public option? Frame the debate, in other words, as an argument between irresponsible spendthrift “conservatives” who don’t care about your grandchildren’s future debt load, and fiscally responsible, civic-minded moderates who want to universalize coverage in the most cost-effective manner possible? How come Democrats suck so much at media spin? It’s really frustrating.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
It would take just a handful of progressive Democrats to put an end to this nonsense: a small coalition to say that everything you do to get votes 61 through 70 is going to cost you our support.
Not enough attacking from the left.
June 12th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Even if bipartisan support prolonged the life of programs, it isn’t needed here. Once people get a public option for health care, they’ll tar and feather any pols who try to take it away. That’s why the fight is bitter. There’s no undoing it once it’s done.
June 12th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The problem is the economic effects some Democratic Senators face go beyond losing campaign funds and extend to a tiny reduction of their own personal fortunes. Sure it will benefit the country, and be a huge political boon to the party for decades, but some Senators might have to retire with incredible wealth rather than staggering wealth.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I’m sorry but seriously WTF is the point of a bill WITHOUT a public option?