Checks & Balances

I really love it when liberal and conservative pundits agree on something, because it generally means that that thing is true. Sometimes it means that the thing is so trivial as to not matter, but occasionally it means that the thing is so important as to be above politics and spin, at least in the minds of the pundits in question.

In this case, conservative Norman Ornstein and liberal Thomas E. Mann have written this piece in the New York Times.

In it, they lay down a list of ways the current majority party have consolidated power, to the detriment of the process and of the nation.

Quoting directly from the piece (but re-formatted):

• Roll call votes on the House floor, which are supposed to take 15 minutes, are frequently stretched to one, two or three hours.
• Rules forbidding any amendments to bills on the floor have proliferated, stifling dissent and quashing legitimate debate.
• Omnibus bills, sometimes thousands of pages long, are brought to the floor with no notice, let alone the 72 hours the rules require.
• Conference committees exclude minority members and cut deals in private, sometimes even adding major provisions after the conference has closed.(1)
• Majority leaders still pressure members who object to the chicanery to vote yea in the legislation's one up-or-down vote.

The article also points out that majority Democrats once, in 1987, held open a budget vote for 30 minutes in order to find ONE additional vote, at which point the (then minority) Republicans, including minority Whip Dick Cheney, called it the worst abuse of power ever seen in Congress. Now such extensions are commonplace.

To be sure, this corruption is a logical extension of some things the Democratic members started when they were the majority, and so it's perhaps valid to say "Hey, we didn't start this, we're just continuing down the path". On the other hand, at least according to Ornstein and Mann, the Republicans have taken this corruption of the powerful to new levels.

Read the whole article. It isn't long. And if you can get past the visceral "You started it!", "Yeah, but I never did it this bad!" so common in partisan politics these days, perhaps we can agree it's time for a change.

Because the fact is, no matter WHO sets the direction and WHO drives furthest down that road, in both cases, precedent is set. This is the biggest reason why Republican and not just Democratic party members should be concerned. Expansion of majority power now WILL come back to bite Republicans on the butt the next time the political pendulum swings (and it always does) and they find themselves once again in the minority. Whether this happens in '06 or '08 or not for another generation, sooner or later it will happen, that's the nature of politics.

And when it does, do we REALLY want to hand that fully loaded weapon over to the other side?

Liam.

(1) I've never been absolutely sure how this works, but my understanding (someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that after a bill has passed in both the House and Senate, a Congressional conference is held, ostensibly to resolve differences in the two bills. This conference process is apparently being used to add or modify major provisions of bills after they've already passed both houses. I believe the final version must be ratified by both houses again, but it is often a political hot potato to be seen voting FOR a bill and then AGAINST the resolved version. The majority of Americans don't understand the process well enough to know why this happens, and tend to buy opposition party line that this comprises "flip flop" behavior.