Tales of the Swamp

            Our last focus in the world of political advocacy was on what some might effectively refer to as the “swamp,” also known as the people who run our government and make the decisions that dictate the direction of the country. Perhaps one of the most important topics to delve into and understand, especially in today’s current political climate. Our readings focused on small aspects that affect policy making, such as earmarking and judicial behavior, while our speaker offered great insight into the day in the life of one of these decision makers. Reflecting on the readings and the speaker’s comments, as well as current events, it’s almost impossible not to notice how our current government is failing to make decisions despite all the pieces being in place for them to. Specifically, the negative effects of today’s highly partisan ideas and conversations have led to major failures for the majority caucus in attempts to pass a healthcare repeal, and as the world watches, these same issues could potentially derail a tax overhaul.

            As we discussed in class, effective governance is the result of accommodation. Our reading examined one of these accommodations in-depth: earmarks. Earmarks were used by Congressmen and women to secure funding within an appropriations bill for a specific project or issue in their district in return for their vote of approval. Our professor referred to this as “internal horse trading” or inside policy advocates - politicians were advocating and lobbying with themselves to achieve their political agendas. We also discussed the fact that there are a variety of venues which members can use to change or influence behavior, effectively, “greasing the wheels.” However, we no longer use earmarks and even pork barrel spending is frowned upon, to keep members from adding any and whichever addendum they would like to a bill, addendums that cannot be voted on by the whole body. The loss of this ‘accommodation’ method has led to a loss of governance and larger division of increasingly ideologically coherent parties.

    Our speaker reflected on the outcomes of this loss of accommodation and governance through his discussion of the hyper partisanship and polarization of the country. They acknowledged that people in their position are doing the job “for the people, to help the people,” but the only way they can do that, and the only real thing that matters on the hill is the number 218 (or 51). Those numbers reflect the majority seats needed on the respected floors of Congress to enact and push through policy change - the majority essentially is the ‘ultimate gatekeeping of policy.’ And while majority is needed to accomplish even the most mundane Congressional tasks these days, a few years ago the majority could be achieved through government lobbying of each other. Our speaker talked about the days when “blue dogs” and “Tuesday morning republicans,” members who were moderately partisan/leaning, and who were most likely to swing across the fence to make a deal. These members in the middle represented the clear majority of the American people as most Americans found themselves identifying as moderates.

However, as our professor and speaker noted, we are no longer living in a period of moderate swingers and American parliamentarianism - as Washington Post writer Michael Gerson describes it: “the polling snapshot of President Trump at one year since his election is interesting — if “interesting” is defined as a downward spiral of polarization, pettiness and prejudice that threatens the daily functioning and moral standing of the American republic. Our times are not normal — and it is a disservice to the country to normalize them.” This new hyper partisanship and loss of the middle ground is not helping anyone, not the majority or the minority, and two very big issues in country today that have been addressed in the last year reflect this.

    The biggest example of this failure has been in the GOP’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Since gaining the majority in the House, the Senate, and the Executive Office, the Republicans have yet to be able to pass a repeal due to their lack of accommodation and warped procedures. The most recent breakdown of majority control was with the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, in which the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, would not even call the vote to the floor because they knew it would be defeated. This was because of outcries from the public and Democrats, but also due to rushed process and loss their own party votes.

The Senate is using the budget reconciliation rules — a process that protects the result from death by filibuster but also hamstrings what the bills can actually do. The budget reconciliation process was created in 1974 to expedite Congress’s budget process. The idea was to create a shortcut for an annual bill aligning how much Congress intended to tax and spend with how much it was actually taxing and spending. The bill was given special protections from the normal delays and impediments of the legislative process — notably, it was protected from the Senate filibuster and could only be debated for 20 hours. The result was that a reconciliation bill could pass with only 51 votes, while normal legislation could be held to a 60-vote threshold. However, legislators began trying to use this process to push their pet projects through reconciliation which resulted in Congress creating a roadblock called the “Byrd Rule,” which limited the kinds of bills that could use the shortcut. The Byrd Rule holds that every provision of every bill that goes through reconciliation needs to raise or lower spending and taxes and that the minority party can challenge any provision of a budget reconciliation bill before the Senate parliamentarian that violates the Byrd Rule, it’s struck from the bill. And so, writing legislation under reconciliation means, first and foremost, trying to write a bill that will survive those parliamentary challenges. That’s a very different task than writing the best bill possible.

 Therefore, when the GOP uses reconciliation to write major legislation under extreme and bizarre constraints, such a deadline to pass the healthcare repeal by October 31, 2017 and releasing the bill barely two weeks beforehand, the result is that important bills in American politics are compromised and defective from the start. This was the case with the Graham-Cassidy bill, as Senators held only one hearing on the bill and changed it multiple times in attempts to reconcile with Senators who were against the bill. However, their accommodations were not enough to sway the votes of their own - of McCain, Murkowski, Collins, and Paul.

    The reconciliation process is a method which grants and allows for policy change within the government to increase and expand its authority. And despite the failures of its use in repealing Obamacare, the GOP has enacted it in both the House and the Senate as they fight to see their tax reform dreams come true. Reconciliation has allowed the bills to pass by slimmer margins than is normally needed and now the two different bills will head to conference to amend the differences between the two and ensure no parliamentary opposition. However, it should be noted, in the spirit of discussing accommodation, that while the House bill passed, the Senate bill was almost compromised due to a lack of compromise. The Senate holdouts were Senators Corker, Flake, and Johnson, who wanted to ensure certain aspects of the bill would not affect their policy agenda - for example, Johnson was fighting to raise the corporate tax rate to help small businesses, and Corker wanted a trigger to put in place. While some of these conditions were appeased, Corker’s was not, resulting in a nay vote from him, and the tax bill passing the Senate floor by a majority of only 51-49.

    As was mentioned, the bill is now headed to conference. Each party in the House and the Senate have nominated their “conferees,” the members who will work to create a single bill that does not violate the Byrd Rule and will be able to reach the President’s desk by Christmas. In this sense, the members will use the variety of venues our professor mentioned to change political minds and influence voting behavior. While the healthcare bill did not work out, the GOP is holding on to their majority by their teeth as they push for their number one goal of tax reform to pass.

    I mentioned in my opening that understanding these small aspects of the “swamp” is especially pertinent in today’s political world, and the two example of government lobbying in action that I discussed demonstrate this thoroughly (I believe). Hopefully in conference our representatives will attempt to achieve a bipartisan result - as our speaker noted, there is value in collective work and government. By achieving a bipartisan bill (which, honestly will probably note happen with the tax bill), the government will show the public that they are working to support their needs and that the government is effective. However, the hyper partisanship that is controlling the decision-making of members will only lead to further polarization, or a deeper “downward spiral.”