Inconsistency Is U.S. Politics’ Only Constant: Albert R. Hunt

Commentary by Albert R. Hunt

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- “A foolish consistency,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “is the hobgoblin of little minds.” If so, American politics is full of wise people.

Consistent they are not. On issues ranging from Senate filibusters to how to pay for health care or tax cuts to federal judges, where Democrats as well as Republicans stand depends on where they sit -- in the majority or not.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, in his vote last week against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, focused on “a nominee’s approach to judging,” stressing the importance of her “philosophy.” Four years ago, in voting to confirm Bush administration high-court appointee Samuel Alito, Hatch insisted “ideology should not be the determination.”

A fellow Republican, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, when George W. Bush was in the White House, said court nominees should reflect the views of the president who won the election. In opposing Sotomayor, he’s indignant at the appointment of a “liberal activist.”

On the other side, in nominating Sotomayor, President Barack Obama encouraged senators to “avoid the political posturing and ideological brinksmanship” of previous battles. Four years earlier, when Bush nominated John Roberts for chief justice, then-Senator Obama said the nominee’s “overarching political philosophy” made it impossible to vote for him.

Filibuster Flip-Flop

Then there’s the filibuster, which requires a supermajority in the Senate to cut off debate. In 1999, when Republicans controlled the legislature and Bill Clinton was president, the Democrats demanded an end to talkathons: “An up-or-down vote, that’s all we ask,” declared then-Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

The roles changed when it was the Republicans who held the White House. Then-Senate Republican leader Bill Frist threatened to unilaterally change the rules to stop the “the tyranny of the minority” in filibustering judicial nominations.

Earlier this year, the entire Senate Republican caucus (it then included Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter) threatened to filibuster Obama’s judicial appointments.

And Republicans are filibustering everything from the stimulus package to any consideration of a health-care overhaul to second-tier executive appointments.

‘Meaningless’ Scoring

Nowhere is the role reversal more pronounced than when it comes to using the Congressional Budget Office’s official “scoring,” which assesses how much a spending or tax measure will cost. When, under Bush, Republicans were pushing through expensive tax cuts they were furious at the CBO for using what they labeled static analysis, or failing to consider the growth effects these tax cuts might have. The CBO estimates were “meaningless,” then-House Republican Leader Tom DeLay of Texas insisted.

Today, it’s some Democrats who say CBO’s scoring is myopic on health care because it fails to consider the dynamic savings engendered in areas like prevention. “Any scoring that doesn’t understand that is not relevant to the way we work,” charges California Senator Barbara Boxer.

Both sides can use the CBO for bragging rights on health care; Republicans cite the nonpartisan office when it claims Democratic bills don’t pay for themselves; the Democrats cite it when CBO dismisses Republican charges that a public option on health care would drive private insurers out of business.

Erosion of Comity

All this reflects a partisan divide that seems to get more bitter and an accompanying erosion of comity in Washington.

CBO was established more than three decades ago to offer independent analysis of congressional initiatives with the goal of a more coherent and less piecemeal approach to fiscal actions. Remarkably, during both Democratic and Republican rule, it has retained its integrity and bipartisan standing.

“The CBO is a speed bump on the road to fiscal irresponsibility,” says the agency’s former director, Bob Reischauer.

Increasingly, however, lawmakers of both parties try to roll over this speed bump. When President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts were deemed to threaten more deficit hemorrhaging, the Republicans enacted smaller tax increases over three straight years. When the even bigger Bush tax cuts of 2001 were enacted, the reaction was to push more tax cuts.

Getting Around CBO

In the current health-care debate, some Democrats spend considerable time calculating how to get around the CBO.

Until recently, there was a political culture that facilitated the confirmation of judges. Congressional leaders, with a few exceptions, deferred to the president on Supreme Court appointments -- who almost always were in the mainstream of that party’s philosophy. (Former Chief Justice Earl Warren and recently retired Justice David Souter surprised their Republican sponsors by turning out to be liberals once on the court). Congress and home-state senators played a consultative role on lower-court judges.

The fiery fight over Reagan’s pick of activist Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 changed this. It’s now more common for Supreme Court and lower court nominations to be political struggles with the weapon of the filibuster omnipresent.

For much of its history, the Senate featured unlimited debate. In 1917, the procedures were changed so two-thirds of members could cut off discussion; that was changed to 60 votes in 1975. (By contrast, the House of Representatives has functioned under majority rule since 1842.)

Major to Minor

The Senate’s culture dictated that filibusters be used only for matters of major political contention; these primarily centered on the civil-rights struggles of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Now, filibusters are routine; it takes 60 votes to get anything important done. From 1950 to 1970, there averaged about two votes a year to close off filibusters, or invoke cloture. In this decade there have already been almost 300 cloture votes.

When Democrats are the obstructionists, Republicans scream supermajorities thwart the democratic process and are unconstitutional; now the Democrats make similar arguments. The Senate has always been able to set its own rules. Without the old culture and comity, however, the system encourages unnecessary impediments and petty arguing more than forging constructive consensus.

Still, Washington owes one debt to the practice. The first Senate filibuster, in 1790, blocked a bill establishing the seat of government in Philadelphia. Of course, if they had been successful the capital today would revel in a first place, instead of a last place, baseball team.

(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: August 2, 2009 06:00 EDT

		Email this article Printer friendly format