Parliamentary Procedure Counterfactuals
From Bryan Curtis’ profile of Rick Hertzberg:
With Obama in office, Hertzberg says he will turn his attention to another of his long-time obsessions: the byzantine structures of American government. Triumphant Democrats have discovered that big victories in 2008 haven’t instantly led to policy outcomes like, say, health care reform. In the British system, the public option would have been a fait accompli; in what Hertzberg calls our “ridiculously undemocratic” Senate, health care can be single-handedly dynamited by a Max Baucus or a Joe Lieberman.
“Right now, we have a situation where the human occupants are about as good as we’re going to get,” Hertzberg says. “So my attention goes back to the structure they’re trapped in. That’s what Obama and the Democrats are in the grip of now. And that remains to be fixed.”
Hertzberg is the inspiration for my own fixation on these issues, so I completely agree with him that this is where the temperature needs to be raised. That said, I think the particular counterfactual should be specified more precisely. One of the less remarked-upon consequences of our nutty system of legislation is that presidential campaign promises exist in this kind of odd state, mixing memory and desire. Some promises look back at presidential actions not taken—an EPA endangerment finding, signing SCHIP expansion, signing Fair Pay Act, signing minimum wage increase—and promise to do them. Others constitute a vague pseudo-promise to gin up legislative support for ideas that don’t have the votes needed to pass the Senate—EFCA, a public option with Medicare rates, a 100 percent auction of emissions permits.
Precisely because sophisticated observers understand that these “desire” promises aren’t really promises, interest-groups and voters who have strong feelings about these things don’t need to act on those feelings during a campaign. Consequently, candidates can make unrealistic promises to interest-groups or ideologues without fully facing the wrath of the other side. Ultimately, I think this not only breeds worse policy, but it breeds an unnecessarily childish political debate. If we knew in advance that election-winners would be basically able to implement their agendas, then it would be more necessary for party leaders to campaign on agendas that they think are compatible with electoral victory and governing success. One thing you see in Britain is that opposition parties with a realistic chance of winning tend to put forward relatively modest platforms full of explicit commitments to not change certain aspects of the policy status quo. Precisely because you can have wild swings in policy, leaders who want to win can’t just kinda sorta promise their base that they’ll get everything they want.
41 Responses to “Parliamentary Procedure Counterfactuals”
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November 10th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Frankly, I am not sure if a lot of the more eccentric aspects of Britain’s post-war leftism has to do with residual class war and the like, rather than any peculiarities of parliamentary procedure. One should note that Canada and New Zealand have exceedingly similar governing systems, and yet neither ever went as far in the socialist direction as did Britain.
Examine any Labour campaign platforms before Thatcher, and you’ll find that a great deal of the orientation was induced by class feeling. It was Thatcher who completely revamped the class-based post-war formation of British politics and re-oriented on a much commoner basis that is found in most other countries.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am
not sure if a lot of the more eccentric aspects of Britain’s post-war leftism didn’t have to do*
November 10th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Unfortunately, I think the childish political debate has a lot to do with the childish American electorate. Why else would unrealistic promises to interest groups or ideologues be effective? Why else would so many things of such slight significance in the federal government’s portfolio drive continually drive so many elections?
Also what is now up with http://www.matthewyglesias.com/ ?
I think some Russians hijacked your domain.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Corporate sponsored “human occupants” aren’t nearly as good as it can get.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Forget parlimentary procedure (as much as I prefer it). Could we just document clearly the many roadblocks to action in the Senate (anonymous holds, the fillibuster, etc.) and explain why the Democrats with 60 senators have more trouble getting their legislation through the Senate than the Republicians had with a smaller majority? Do these rules shift change depending on which party has a majority?
November 10th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Sorry, but we’re still going to expect Obama to keep his promises. If he didn’t mean them, if he didn’t think he could carry them out, he never should have made them.
Going “OMG, you guys didn’t really take me seriously!” a year later doesn’t. Nobody said “Give us 60 votes and maybe things will get better!” They said “Give us 60 votes and we’ll give you healthcare reform, EFCA, and clean up the executive branch.
These weren’t “psuedo-promises”. They were actual, full-on promises Obama made knowing full well he had no intention of even trying to keep them. Hell, he’s not even keeping his promises with regards to the scope of executive power that he COULD BE keeping. We really have no reason to believe anything other than that Obama didn’t mean anything at all that he said, and that he’s just one of the most brazen liars in American political history.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am
But I don’t *want* the executive writing legislation.
I’ll agree that our legislative procedures are screwed up, but that’s not a way I would want them to be fixed.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
wow, the thames is disgusting in that photo.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Dale -
I don’t think the executive writing legislation is the issue here – it’s the party in power writing legislation.
Besides,d the Executive has always had a role in writing legislation – the Executive prepares the Budget, after all.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Donsig, the problem is that people like Matt DESTEST the idea that we hold Democrats as a party responsible. We’re supposed to judge the party based on what 80% of the party believes, while ignoring the fact that it’s the other 20% that actualy calls all the shots and always gets what they want.
We’re allowed to dislike individual members, but holding the party responsible for it’s actual actions instead of it’s stated intentions is, according to our elite, immoral.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
“Precisely because sophisticated observers understand that these “desire” promises aren’t really promises, interest-groups and voters who have strong feelings about these things don’t need to act on those feelings during a campaign. Consequently, candidates can make unrealistic promises to interest-groups or ideologues without fully facing the wrath of the other side. Ultimately, I think this not only breeds worse policy, but it breeds an unnecessarily childish political debate.”
Of course, if folks like Matthew actually meant this, they would have been pushing for Obama to move healthcare reform through reconciliation to help bring about a 50 vote Senate.
But folks like Matthew and Hertzberg don’t mean it. They just trot out the idea from time to time to try to placate the Democratic base with lies.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
If we had the British system, the question of HCR would be moot as there is no way in hell that the Republican party would have chosen to hold elections in November.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Just another lame ass attempt to excuse away Obama’s endless lies and broken promises and, let us be plain, abysmal failures.
Ohhhhh, blame Congress! Ohhhhh, blame the guv’ment!
Ohhhhh, blame Bush!
What an effin whiner Matty has become!
Which of those made Obama cut his private side deals with Pharma and the AMA and AARP and all the other players,
side deals whose end effects will be a Health Care Dry Fuck Over
for middle class Americans?
Which of those made Obama appoint his Wall Street puppeteers?
Jeez Matty the list is endless for our South Side of Chicago pimp.
And like any good pimp Obama lies…
and lies…
and then lies some more.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Obviously the Senate is a huge problem but the main difference here is party discipline, not institutions. Imagine Sanders and Lieberman were actually Democrats: the situation would be the same, with 60 Democratic Senators.
Obama is both president and the leader of the party, and that should be enough to pass his agenda (whatever that actually is), if the Democratic “party” behaved like one.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
just curious – do corporations have rights as “citizens” in other countries the way activist 19th century Republican justices gave them rights here? I think that goes a long way toward explaining America’s governance problems.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
So the Tories will imidiantly get out of the EU once they are in power? And New Labour will imidigantly get back into the EU once they win again right?
November 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Parliaments are “democratic” until you get a party you don’t like that rams policy through that you dislike even more. I’m sure that the parliament lovers would be singing a different tune if the UK were being run by Thatcherites right now.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Most of the structural problems with our politics could be easily fixed if the majority party in the Senate simply changed the rules to do away with all the minority vetoes (anonymous holds, supermajority cloture, etc.). But Reid and company would rather keep those rules in place just in case they are back in the minority in the future than make the Senate operate democratically and actually pass meaningful reforms.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
If we knew in advance that election-winners would be basically able to implement their agendas, then it would be more necessary for party leaders to campaign on agendas that they think are compatible with electoral victory and governing success.
But we do know in advance that they *won’t* be able to implement their agendas, yet we still insist that they have detailed policy plans that never get implemented. So what pisses me off more is the almost universal pretense that a presidential candidate’s detailed policy plans are somehow relevant, when everyone knows quite well that what gets passed will likely not resemble what gets promised. And then after the election these same people assume that everybody knew that those policy plans were bullshit all along, and then they force the president to make the exact same policy proposals *all over again* as if the voting public didn’t fucking choose those proposals to begin with.
I don’t know what’s worse–that this whole health care reform process has been a complete circus, or that *everybody* seems to approve of the circus.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
If you want to talk about reforming the American legislative system (which I agree needs reforming) I think you need to do something about to structural blocks to third parties that have built up over the last 140 years or so. Particularly in the House the system is so baised to the dominate two parties that the barriers to new parties are overwelling. Wouldn’t it be better for the political atmosphere if the radical right had their own party to be pure in rather than trying to take over the Republican Party?
November 10th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
In one of Thatcher’s elections in the ’80’s she went down the Labour part manifesto (i.e. platform) and pointed out all the things they had promised to nationalize, etc. The manifesto became known as “the world’s longest suicide note.”
November 10th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Our system i f’d up because of money. Our problem is the Liebermen and Bauci don’t represent the people in their states. They represent whoever is funding the election campaign or is willing to sleep with them (in Liebaerman’s case).
November 10th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
just curious – do corporations have rights as “citizens” in other countries the way activist 19th century Republican justices gave them rights here? I think that goes a long way toward explaining America’s governance problems.
Yes, in every single fucking liberal democracy. How the fuck do you think limited liability is even supposed to work absent non-individual personhood?
The stupidity of leftists is, sometimes, just astounding.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
The manifesto became known as “the world’s longest suicide note.”
Apparently that was actually the coinage of an internal Labour memo, from a Labour peer who saw that the platform was insane.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
20: The two party thing is a red herring in this debate. Coalitions will form either in the legislature or in the parties themselves. Neither is inherently superior to the other. We have clear evidence of major parties in the United States adopting popular third party positions. The issues is that the majority party should be able to advance their legislative agenda. The problem lies with the US Senate. Two votes per state is already bad enough, but the filibuster is an atrocity, not to mention anonymous holds.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Just to repeat, there is no such thing as limited liability absent corporate personhood. That’s why Sotomayor’s strange musings about it was so fucking unbelievably stupid.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Maybe. The radical left has taken over the Democratic Party. At this point I suspect that most Dem’s are longing for the days of centrist Bill Clinton and are kicking themselves for dumping Hillary for Obama.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
What were the “unrealistic promises” on policy that George Bush was elected on in 2000? I remember tax cuts (check), education reform (check), and anti-abortion stuff (gag rule in term 1, sc justices in term 2). Aside from a “humbler foreign policy” that was clearly overtaken by events, I don’t remember any first-term Bush promises that fizzled like half of Obama’s agenda has, even with much weaker Congressional support.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I wish all the libs who get on this “why can’t we be more like Europe” jag ever so often would at least give some indication that they understand a parliament in American might look much more like the ones in Italy or India than the one in Britain.
Mike
November 10th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Just to repeat, there is no such thing as limited liability absent corporate personhood.
Yes but the question is about extending basic constitutional rights to corporations. You can have limited liability absent other constitutional rights.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Bush had the majority of Democrats behind him for most of his stupid idears.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
What were the “unrealistic promises” on policy that George Bush was elected on in 2000?
Bush Changes Pledge on Emissions
Philadelphia Inquirer
March 14, 2001
Reversing a campaign pledge he made in September, President Bush announced yesterday that he would not regulate power plants’ emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists say contributes to global warming. Bush’s change in position contradicted the public stance taken recently by Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Whitman….
*****
And this wasn’t the only bankrupt Bush campaign promise. Of course when someone cherry picks a list, those things that aren’t necessarily on one’s own personal radar often get overlooked
November 10th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Yes but the question is about extending basic constitutional rights to corporations. You can have limited liability absent other constitutional rights.
Shhhh. Don’t distract Myles SG from humiliating himself.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Yes but the question is about extending basic constitutional rights to corporations. You can have limited liability absent other constitutional rights.
No. In every single developed country, companies are viewed as full, legal persons (in Taiwan I believe the actual nomenclature for a corporation is So-&-So Legal Person), and thus possess the rights, in entirety, granted to all other legal persons. In America this extends to constitutional rights.
I honestly could not understand the fixation of really shockingly retrograde leftists in disputing corporate legal personhood, of all things. What next, rights to private property?
November 10th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
And how do you suppose companies are to behave as full, legal persons absent, and without prejudice of, the full rights of full, legal persons as noted in the Constitution?
November 10th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
As far as Bush goes, the most obvious unworkable promises were Immigration and Soc Sec reform. If this were Britain, both would probably be law.
On a separate note, I made an intemperate post last week conflating Matt’s delight that Soc Sec reform was crushed with support for the filibuster and anti-majoritarianism more generally. I was wrong, and the only excuse I can give was that I was pissed. Post in haste, repent at leisure. Sorry, Matt.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I honestly could not understand the fixation of really shockingly retrograde leftists in disputing corporate legal personhood, of all things. What next, rights to private property?
Gosh, I hope no one tells Myles SG about the German and Japanese constitutions!
November 10th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
You’ve written enough of these posts, Matt: anyone who follows you even casually gets the point. Now it’s time for you and Ezra and David Roberts and Hertzberg to start exploring solutions. Here are some ideas. All of them may be bad, but let’s at least rule them out, and keep working until we have some good ones:
– support change-congress.org’s attack on the campaign finance issue
– try to persuade 51 senators to rein in the filibuster
– get organized about primarying swing dems
– foment progressive grass roots in the swing dem’s states
To reiterate, I think your collective work in focusing on this problem has been a real public service, but THAT WORK IS DONE. Now it is time to take the next step.
BTW, Ezra and David have both replied to me, in effect “I don’t have any ideas; why don’t you show me yours if you think it’s that easy?” I find this unpersuasive for several reasons, but it boils down to this: “ease” is irrelevant once need is demonstrated. If y’all aren’t contributing any more on what we all agree are the most pressing issues of the day, what is the point of your work?
November 10th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Taking my own advice:
We need to make Senate more majoritarian. Options: (1) Change Constitution (2) Get Senate to change own rules and behavior. (2) Looks daunting but not by comparison with (1), so let’s focus on (2).
How to get Senate to change own rules and behavior? (3) Get new majoritarian Senators. (4) Persuade existing Senators to become majoritarian.
(5) How many existing Senators are already majoritarian? (6) How many non-majoritarian do we need to flip (is the total 50+Biden, 51, 60, 67?). (7) Given the flip count, start looking at strategies: persuasion, pressure, replacment.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
If only we could break our Senate into actual political parties… So that the 3% Greens and Constitutionalists and Socialists and Conservatives would have their own nuts rather than tying us to the real disparity that is our Senate.
I used to think the Senate was a good idea; because of economic activity with resource industries, some places would be people-poor but still have something to add. And farming states are people poor but need representation because replacing farms with houses is stupid.
Except the reverse has happened. We replace farms with houses because farms don’t get protection because their senators are in bed with whatever single industry there is, and the equal representation in the House doesn’t balance it all out.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
2000 Election. Nader and the Greens. Isn’t this what they spent significant time talking about?