Here’s Ezra Klein writing Wednesday at his Washington Post blog on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,
[...]that’s sort of what the minority leader should be doing: Trying to get himself and his allies back into the majority. It’s not even a dirty, partisan thing, If you’re a Republican, and you believe Republican ideas improve the nation, then
you want to be back in power so you can get to work improving the nation. It’s a clean, partisan thing.
Ezra’s point is a smart one, there is a distinction to be made between the wanton obstructionism on display in this 111th Congress and the prerogative of a minority party to not compromise. Throughout the lead up to the 2006 mid-term elections I adamantly argued that it wasn’t the Democrats job to negotiate with Republicans over patently absurd policy proposals, like Social Security privatization. If there is no common ground on a particular policy then there’s no common ground and we shouldn’t expect the minority to, as the phrase goes, go along to get along. Why though were Republicans successful at marshaling through their agenda when they only controlled 51 seats in the Senate in the 108th Congress and 55 seats in the 109th Congress? Why do Democrats seem incapable of operating as a majority with control of 60 59 seats?
The Republicans use of the filibuster has obviously been egregious. Not cooperating with negotiations is one thing, flat out abusing Senate rules to prevent so much as a vote on key issues is quite another. But these filibuster rules were in place in 2005/2006 so we can’t merely blame the procedural hurdles for the present Senate morass. The problem lies not just in the institutions but within the Democratic Senate caucus itself.
For a number of reasons Senate Republicans are in complete lockstep today and generally enjoy far greater internal discipline than their Democratic counterparts. Partially this is based on the internal rules of their caucus. In the GOP Committee Chairmanships are not handed out based on seniority as they are in the Democratic caucus but rather through the Senate Republican Conference. Practically speaking this means that Senate Republicans who fall out of line with the party on key votes risk losing appointments to key committee positions. Think of Olympia Snowe’s behavior as she involved herself in “negotiations” on health care reform. She didn’t compromise and cross over because she has career ambitions that such compromise would jeopardize. Now contrast Snowe with Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus. At any point in the last year has either of these men acted as if they are the least bit concerned about offending the Majority Leader or The White House? Of course not, they understand that their party (or nominal party in the case of Lieberman) will not hold them accountable for their actions, no matter how egregious. In fact their party doesn’t even have a process for holding them accountable, never mind the backbone to actually follow such a procedure.
Besides internal rules there’s an underlying difference in the psychological make up of self-identifying liberals and conservatives. I’m obviously not a psychologist but there is a body of work that indicates that those who self-identify as conservatives are more likely to organize themselves in a top-down structure and respect directives from those in superior positions. Liberals – not so much. As Will Rogers famously quipped, “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” I’m not arguing that conservatives are mindless followers blindly falling into line. In general though Republicans have an inherent ability to hold together as a caucus in a manner that Democrats never seem to match when it really counts.
One final factor in the tight discipline exhibited by Republicans is their respect (fear?) of their base. The GOP base has proven extremely effective at enforcing ideological allegiance. For example, Republican candidates for office (all the way down to state legislative candidates) sign anti-tax pledges which are pushed by Grover Norquist’s group Americans for Tax Reform. If Republicans break the pledge they will face a primary – there is no doubt about this fact. The tax issue, more so than even abortion, is the litmus test for all Republicans. Any deviation from the party line will not be accepted and, in fact, will be punished. This isn’t necessarily an admirable trait that I’d like to see the Democrats adopt. It is though a material difference between the two parties.
Democrats are not afraid of their base, in fact many Democrats are openly disdainful of their base. In part this is a result of the hodge-podge of interest groups that compromise the Democratic base. If you think imposing discipline on the Senate Democrats is difficult try getting a broad based coalition of liberal interest groups to cooperate on a long-term strategic project. The end result is that with no credible threat from their base Democrats feel free to thumb their nose at base interests.
McConnell has been so successful because for a myriad of reasons but primary among them are the GOP’s internal rules which passively enforce discipline, his caucus’ is natural inclination to follow top-down directives and the base’s actively enforcing discipline through primaries. Given all of this McConnell doesn’t have to be particularly ruthless, Senate Republicans understand the rules and go along because its largely in their self-interest to do so.
None of this though is an excuse for Democratic ineptitude. Whatever you think of Mitch McConnell as a human being you cannot deny that he is supremely efficient in the narrow advancement of GOP power in the Senate. Democrats lack similar leverage within their own caucus and seem to not be inclined to use procedural measures to put Republicans in compromising votes, much less move to reform the Senate’s arcane cloture and filibuster rules. Indeed, on the Harry Reid doesn’t even show an inclination to make the Senate Republicans actually filibuster a bill. Democrats seem uncomfortable wielding power.
So yes, there are structural deficiencies in the United States Senate that are hamstringing Democrats. And yes, there are reasons why the caucus discipline exhibited by Republicans is not easily translatable to the Democratic majority. It’s going to take a willingness to go outside the norms of the Senate to deliver on the agenda that Democrats were elected to enact. Senate Democrats desperately need one of their own to step forward and fill the void, LBJ isn’t coming back from the grave to save them.
I have some thoughts on where Senate Democrats should turn, I’ll save those for a later column for now.
Photo by A Secret Country
T.R. Donoghue
T.R. Donoghue is an attorney living in Denver, Colorado where he works on labor and employment issues. T.R. has worked extensively in public policy and politics and on both state and national campaigns with a focus on health-care, education and economic justice issues. You ...
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