Process and Substance: Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
(cc photo by humbertomoreno)
Ezra Klein remarks on our present dilemma:
I think that analytically honest political commentators right now should be struggling with a pretty hard choice: Do you try to maximize the possibility of good, if still insufficient, outcomes? Or do you admit what many people already know and say that our political process has gone into total system failure and the overriding priority is building the long-term case for structural reform of America’s lawmaking process? Put another way, can you really solve any of our policy problems until you solve our fundamental political problem? And don’t think about it in terms of when your team is in power. Think of it in terms of the next 30 years, and the challenges we face.
I think that this is a bit of a false choice. Normally, procedural and substantive reforms go together. Certainly you saw that the substantive legislation of the Civil Rights and Great Society period were intimately related to reforms of how congress operated. The New Deal required a revamping of Supreme Court constitutional doctrine and the construction of a modern administrative state apparatus. Even in 2009, it’s important to recall that the essential backdrop of today’s Waxman-Markey vote (substantive) was Henry Waxman’s successful challenge to John Dingell to helm the Energy & Commerce Committee.
For Waxman, there was no contradiction between seeking a substantive reform of energy policy and seeking a procedural shakeup. The problem is that very few other senior Democrats seem to be thinking Waxman-style. In particular, almost nobody in the United States Senate seems willing to admit that the Senate’s rules are a huge impediment to sound public policy rather than cute and lovable quirks.
14 Responses to “Process and Substance: Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together”
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June 26th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I just think it is a bad bet to assume that “building the long-term case for structural reform” by opposing incremental progress will not only work in the time frame necessary, but work in a way that makes things better and not worse.
I also think it is important to note that in many of these cases, just getting started is likely the hardest part. In other words, once we have some sort of public option for health care, or some sort of carbon pricing scheme, or so on, it will be much, much easier to improve it once people have some experience with the relevant program. Of course, that is based on the assumption the critics are wrong about the disasters likely to result from these efforts–but they very likely are.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I am thinking Mr. Klein is working on a attitude problem that will facilitate his joining Dan Froomkin in the unemployment line. But as long as he doesn’t criticize Will, Krauthammer, Kristof et al he may make it which is not really worth it to me.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
By the way, there was just an exchange during the House debate that seemed to imply in virtue of being Minority Leader, Boehner has a right to filibuster Waxman-Markey.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
By the way, there was just an exchange during the House debate that seemed to imply in virtue of being Minority Leader, Boehner has a right to filibuster Waxman-Markey.
Which he appears to be actually doing. Of course, the filibuster applies to him only. The good old-fashioned way! We’ll see how long he can stay up there.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
MERKEL AND THE MESSIAH
(Does Germany Care About Germany?)
The question is not does the Empire Still Care about Germany, the real question that should be asked is does Germany care about Germany, as it is clear when (NO) sitting member of the Imperial (544) Court of the Empire made an effort to attend the awards ceremony at the Library of Congress, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel was awarded the Warburg Prize, given by the important trans-Atlantic organization, Atlantik Brucke. The Empire clearly turns a deaf ear, ignoring not only the German people but to the (500M) Five-Hundred million people of the (EU) European Union, hitching the Empire to the Far East and the (PRC) Peoples Republic of China, and Japan.
(Germany Sphere or Hierarchical?)
How does Germany see itself, inline with the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China move away from using the dollar to back their economies, and the need for economic diversification, or the Status Quo Hierarchical Structure (IMF) International Monetary Fund Loan Sharking Corporation, appointed by the Empire? The Empire uninterested in its increasing international deal with a loose monetary policy, having increased the production of dollars printed, by Empire out of control money-printing machines of (45%) Forty-Five Percent, with the Empire central back creating money out to the thin air, borrowing from capital markets, with the Federal Reserve buying its own self printed securities, as foreign investors including Japan and China are reluctant to purchase Empire bonds, to support its continued living style, well beyond its means, planning a healthcare program the equivalent of adding the economic debt Spain to that of the Empire, expected to increase its debt three fold within the next decade, fueling hype-inflation, as the Yankee Greenback Dollar has dropping (40%), Forty-Percent against the Euro. Which system is best for Germany in the (21st) XXI Twenty-First Century; spend like there is no tomorrow or planned spending for a better tomorrow?
(The War on Islam)
What is in the best interests of Germany and the (EU), to continue its involvement in the War on Islam, which is bipolar, having a viewpoint of there of a difference the Iraq, and (Af-Pak) theaters of War on Islam, which are in fact (2) two theaters within the (1) One War being fought upon the Islamic Crescent. Were does Germany and the (EU) see themselves between the present and (2050), Germany has (3.5K) Three-Thousand-Five-Hundred, (2) Two-Brigades of Troops, in the Northern of Afghanistan, having had (350 KIA) Three-Hundred-Fifty, Killed In Action, which would mean (3.5K) Three-Thousand-Five-Hundred, have been wounded, and out of that (40%), Forty-Percent, or (1.4K), One-Thousand-Four-Hundred, with life altering wounds. At the same time proclaiming the Iraq Theater of Action as Illegal, and providing Asylum to Deserting Empire Troops in Germany. This is a completely Bi-Polar view on the War on Islam, what is in the best interests of Germany, between the present and (2050), what does Germany or the (EU) stand to gain by their further involvement in the War on Islam?
(Germanys 106 Year Occupation)
How long will Germany continue to be under Empire Occupation, by the year (2050), Germany will have been under the continued Occupation of the Empire for a period of (106) One-Hundred-Six years, it has been under the continued occupation of the Empire to date for (65) Six-Five Years. This is not new to the Empire as it has now Occupied Cuba, for (114) One-Hundred-Fourteen-Years, since (1895), and had Occupied the Philippines’ Islands for (105) One-Hundred-Five years up until the year (2000). The British and French long ago ended their occupation of Germany and when the (USSR) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics fell, Russian Troops ended their occupation of Germany, how much longer before Germany becomes an unoccupied sovereign independent nation once again? Is Germany a Sovereign State or Vassal State of the Empire? By (2050) the Empire Occupation Force will represent a Black-African-Muslim-Arabic Speaking Empire, vastly different from the Empire Occupation Force of (1944).
(The New Germany)
The Kyoto Protocol, Nordstream Pipeline which will move gas under the Baltic from Russia to Germany, the constant drum beat by the Empire media and its movie industry of Germany as a Neo-Nazis State, extending from its birth to the present day, and the list goes on. When will Germany get off its knees and once again take its place as a power-house within the New Economic Sphere of the (EU) European Union in the Worlds New Economic Reality, this is the question that the New Germany should be asking instead of does the Empire Care About Germany, does Germany any longer need or care about the Empire into the (21st) XXI Twenty-First Century.
TRIATHLON
June 26th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I’m sorry I don’t have a hard copy of the Hart-Ruddman report, because now all the hits are limited to national security issues. The report was far more broad and it addressed the limitations of a government structure that hasn’t changed in forty years. Scientific education for Congressmen was addressed. That a representative can get on the Congressional floor and say that global warming is a hoax, bespeaks an institutional ignorance that is not being properly challenged.
Why the press plays like the truth lies somewhere between the facts and the tales of shills is another issue, but it certainly enables congressional ignorance and inertia.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
preemptive – don’t feed le troll / paranoid schizophrenic.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
but obama has nothing like the great society, or new deal planned, so what do we do now?
June 26th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
As long as well over 90 percent of the GOPocrat incumbents in Congress win reelection time after time, nothing will change.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:52 am
” Certainly you saw that the substantive legislation of the Civil Rights and Great Society period were intimately related to reforms of how congress operated.”
Not so much. What are the key reforms of Congress in any proximity to this period? The weakening of the Seniority System? Didn’t happen until 1975, a decade after the spurt of activity that saw the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Federal Aid to Education and the War on Poverty. The reform of the filibuster -such as it was- also dates from 1975. The “Subcommittee Bill of Rights” was I think in 1971.
The only significant rules change that preceded the Great Society was the expansion of the House Rules Committee in 1961 and by itself that really did not lead to much. Medicare and Federal Aid to Education were still blocked for the rest of Kennedy’s Presidency.
Or is the argument that the Great Society caused the decentralized Congress of the 1970s and 1980s. Not clear what the causal story would be there.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Foreigner here.
What are the rules of the US Senate that are problematic?
June 27th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Foreigner,
Of primary concern is the filibuster, which allows one Senator to keep debate open on a bill (prevent a simple majority vote from occurring to move the bill forward). In order to stop a filibuster, a vote must be taken to invoke “cloture” and end ‘debate’ (no real debate takes place, it is used as a naked obstructionist tactic by Republicans); to invoke cloture requires a 2/3 majority, or 60 senators. When the Republicans were in power they successfully cowed Democrats into not filibustering much at all, and even threatening to eliminate the filibuster. As a result most of Bush’s legislation sailed through on a majority vote. Now, however, you will hear talk of the 60-vote requirement in the Senate because, well, the Republicans are filibustering everything, indefinitely. The rules for amendments also make it such that a determined minority can take up ungodly amounts of the Senate’s time considering each individual amendment to a bill.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Well, I think it’s quite obvious that American empire at this time represents the greatest threat to the human species, the prospect of its survival. And it’s not about the “lawmaking process”, it’s about the socio-economic system that defines politics.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:27 am
For Waxman, there was no contradiction between seeking a substantive reform of energy policy and seeking a procedural shakeup.
What procedural shakeup did Waxman’s defeat of Dingell involve?
I can’t find in the contemporaneous media reporting of Waxman’s victory any indication that the established Senate procedure for selecting committee chairs was not followed.