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[The Senate] is the Ur-Problem of America.
Loren Michael
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This flows from recent legislative events, or non-events if you prefer, as well as legislative (non-?) occurrences for the past very long time.
The US Senate is the fundamental cause or enabler of most of the pressing problems in America, and is the barrier to progress on those issues.
Regarding this topic, and this thread:
1) This isn't going to talk about how to abolish the Senate. I don't think that's possible, even as I think it's desirable.
2) This is going to possibly attempt to compare the problems that the Senate generates with other problems in America, and the Senate's relationship to those problems, if any. I am lazy and am going to get very drunk tonight so that may have to happen at another time though.
3) Given that laziness I'll probably end up stating some provocative assertions at the beginning and attempt to justify them later, or adjust them given others' input or whatever. Nuance is for pussy OPs.
4) The simple problem with the Senate is that the relatively small number of Senators means there's almost always a handful of them who are able and willing to sabotage or water-down a bill (or both). This, combined with the wildly unrepresentative nature of the Senate means that if Senators representing 17.82 percent of the population agree, they can get a majority in the current Senate. This is, as the link notes, not taking into account the filibuster. The smallest 20 states amount to 11.27 percent of the U.S. population, but if all of their senators band together they can successfully filibuster legislation, assuming they get +1 from any other state.
5) This is an enabler of essentially any issue where a relatively narrow interest wants to pass, modify, or suppress legislation at the expense of the majority. To the extent that money buys legislation, or money kills legislation, this is the body that is responsible. This is the body that made Obamacare a corporate giveaway. This is the body that kills gun safety legislation, every time. This is the body that is responsible for the lack of sensible legislation in regards to global warming, kept Guantanamo prisoners in Gitmo, keeps the Executive office understaffed, and hobbled America's response to the recent economic catastrophe.
6) The filibuster exacerbates all of the above problems.
7) Virtually any critique regarding "what is wrong with America today" can be traced to the Senate, and the filibuster. Root problems like revolving doors, money in politics, corporate influence, pork projects, etc. Correspondingly, any attempt to fix what is wrong with America that doesn't acknowledge the role and problem of the Senate is not a realistic attempt.
There are lots of issues in America. I'm basically a single-issue open borders immigration guy, even as I care about a bunch of other stuff (global warming is number two for me). That said, I recognize that the Senate is the thing that kills or maims any and every attempt to address things. It is a woodchipper for good policy and it is a gas guzzler of political capital. The Senate exacerbates collective action problems when in my view it should be resolving them. It is a problem not because Senators are evil (though many probably are) it is a problem because it is a system that has been decaying, it's been worse and worse at dealing with the fact that people are people and not angels, and is only going to get worse. I care about things, but I have to care about the Senate before I care about anything else.
Let's talk about the Senate. How has it ruined everything today? Has it ruined everything today? How can it be made better?
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PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The Senate: now ruining queues in Dunkin' Donuts stores all across DC!
This is DC, not Boston. We have Starbucks here, son.
No, seriously there are about 4 Dunkin Donuts in the entire city, but 4 Starbucks per corner.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
If all senators could be Ted Kennedy, I might feel differently, but as it is, I agree with OP that the senate is the worst. Le puke.
"Too much power" I agree with, "too much job security" I agree with, "too much influence" I agree with. I don't think salaries should be lowered though. If anything, they're Senators. They're the elite legislators of the most powerful country in history. They should be paid to reflect that, because they're going to be comparing dicks with some other extremely powerful people, and if they're not getting their dicks lengthened with a legit system of reasonable payments they're going to have that much more incentive to get their inches elsewhere.
The Senate has gotten worse in recent years primarily because of the radicalization of the Republican party, plain and simple. They're the ones who took a seldom-used mechanism (the filibuster) and applied it broadly to legislation. They're the ones who are overwhelmingly unrepresentative of both the American public as a whole and their own party.
The Senate is like an old car that doesn't go very fast, but the reason we're stopped is that a bunch of assholes won't let go of the emergency brake. You can argue that the Senate is a flawed, easily-manipulated system at present, and I won't disagree--but ultimately the responsibility (as well as the solution) rests with the people at the wheel.
Harry Reid started this obstructionism-as-representation nonsense.
Granted, I more often agreed with some of the measures his minority blocked during the Bush Administration... but blaming this entirely on Republicans only addresses what's wrong today.
After a final 13-hour negotiation, Nelson's support for the bill was won after two concessions: a compromise on abortion, modifying the language of the bill "to give states the right to prohibit coverage of abortion within their own insurance exchanges" (requiring consumers to pay for the procedure out-of-pocket, if the state decided it); and an amendment to offer a higher rate of Medicaid reimbursement for Nebraska.
Recall also that Reid kept the filibuster, and that Democrats in the Senate love the filibuster at least as much as Republicans. They get to extract concessions too! Read this. Carl Levin, the Democratic Senator from Michigan was one of the guys most vocally against filibuster reform (though to be sure, he and John McCain submitted a watered-down "reform" that would have solved essentially no problems).
Chanus is correct that Republicans are only the latest iteration of Senate abusers. The graph in this article should be sufficient to show that this isn't just the Republicans being assholes. The latest minority-Republican Congresses have been the worst for filibusters ever, but the minority-Democratic Congresses immediately prior were at the time the worst congresses ever for the filibuster. Republicans could have registered exactly the same complaint as Astaereth six years ago.
Regardless though, an institution that doesn't work if the veneer of a gentleman's agreement isn't adhered to is a poor institution.
From that last article, my emphasis:
An interesting implication of this graph: The filibuster has become more common even as it’s become easier to break. Until 1917, the filibuster couldn’t be stopped. And until 1975, you needed two-thirds of the Senate, rather than three-fifths. So as it’s become less powerful, it’s become more common. What that means is that the rise of the filibuster is largely about “norms” in the Senate. It didn’t become more effective and thus more popular. It actually became less effective, but parties chose to use it more.
There’s an interesting question around exactly when this change in norms happened. If you look at the graph, you have three major moments of discontinuity. One, around 1972, that appears to provoke reform of the filibuster rules so cloture is easier to achieve. Another, in the early 1990s, that seems covers the latter half of George H.W. Bush’s administration and the beginning of Bill Clinton’s presidency. And then the practice absolutely skyrockets when Barack Obama takes office.
We can argue about why there were these jumps. But their long-term effect seems to be to raise the bar permanently. Every time filibustering becomes much more common, it pretty much remains at that level, even as Congress and the White House changes hands. So the filibuster becomes more common under Bill Clinton, but remains almost that common under George W. Bush.
It's bad now, and it's only going to get worse. Republican political agendas are problematic, but they're problematic because of the Senate.
So many times. Just another indicator with what is wrong with the Senate, I guess. It's difficult to believe the same people vote again and again for a person who doesn't share even a majority of their views on important issues.
I've always though that government jobs should all pay the same. Soldier, postman, senator. Pay them the same.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I think it would make things a little less greed based.
It's a pretty terrible idea, really.
A soldier and a postman don't do nearly the same jobs, and their jobs don't come with nearly the same risk.
For example.
As well, paying Senators less than we do now only further incentivizes taking lobbyist money and cutting sweetheart deals.
Like I said. Not saying it's a good idea.
Their pay isn't a huge deal for me - I understand and agree with your counterargument - though their retirement incentives do bother me.
I have my own beef with lobbyists. I think everyone does actually.
Or the unofficial lobbying opportunities?
Because the former are little different than mine. Or any other federal employee. Most of what I hear about Congress's benefits are either misunderstandings or straight up myths.
Senators vest in FERS after a single term because all federal employees (including me) vest after five years. However, their annuity will reflect that six years of service...which is to say the percentage will be low.
They gain annuity at a slightly higher rate, but they also, iirc, pay in at a higher rate to compensate. This is to account for the fact that, duh, members of congress are "hired" at an advanced age compared to normal employees.
Edit: if there's some specific benefit you think is unique to Congress, I'll address it...but like I said, most I hear are misunderstanding of myth. The biggest Congress specific benefits I can remember (other than franking) are the special Congressional clinic (they have to pay in for access) and access at military facilities (for themselves, not family). These are hardly crazy, though.
Greed in the upper echelons of government/politics is about power, not money. The actual salary a senator gets is a drop in the bucket. Their ability to write and vote on legislation means they control a hell of a lot more than that pittance. Drop the Senate salary to $40k/year, and they'll still have lobbyists bribing them.
Raise the salary to $4mil/year, still have the same problem too. I think we've now established that salary of Senators doesn't really matter. Next issue.
The issue with lobbyists if the cost of elections and how we fund them.
It's not the raw values you should be concerned about but the marginal values.
Increasing senator pay and job security (IE only public funds for election) would increase the chances that they would produce optimal outcomes rather than outcomes contingent on corporate donations. The fundamental problem with politics is that absent forbidding politicians from having gainful employment after they leave there is not much of a way to police recriprocation. Basically, remember all of those crazy people saying that we should move to a recriprocity economy? That is what senators are currently operating in.
To stop that you would basically have to end the ability of a senator to receive any kind of income except that provided by the state for as long as they live.
Basically what I am saying this that of you want to fix that you have to pay all legislators a salary for as long as they live that doesn't depend on how long they serve and is sufficient to support them and their families. You must forbid them from doing any kind of work for pay at all. You must make campaign contributions unrecoverable or entirely public and ideally strictly publicly funded. IE you must remove the threat of eviction from office in both monetary and ideological terms
Re: Loren Michael
The filibuster has gotten easier to use not harder to use over the years. While it is the case that the filibuster requires less votes to break it is also the case that in the past the filibuster required that the party responsible partake in much more effort.
Sure you only need 60 votes to break it now but now you don't even have to keep standing while you're holding up business
That's it. No more effort required.
And since Democrats don't control 60 votes and Republicans are exceptionally good at keeping their members in line (in the Senate at least), that's all they need to do.
(facepalm)
It's not a "threat", it's how the rules were revised.
Lobbyists don't pay senators salaries.
Lobbyists donate to senators campaigns.
100% Only Public financing of Campaigns is the solution to the problem you posit. EDIT: Although the Current supreme court has pretty much thrown that and much less radical campaign finance reform out the window.
Salary doesn't have anything to do with it, but I totally empathize with the desire to dock the bastards pay.
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The talking filibuster still is impossible to break.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
I think you're splitting hairs a bit.
Bills fail with less than 60 votes because you need 60 votes for cloture.
Filibustering doesn't actually happen, except recently in the case of Rand Paul's nonsense about drones. The rules are invoked requiring cloture, but no one actually has to do anything other than that.
No, what I'm pointing out is that there are two forms of filibuster, each based on a different rule.
Right and in the second form, you don't actually filibuster. You just threaten to by invoking the rules requiring cloture.
If Dems had 61 votes, the second either form would not work and we'd have people reading from the phonebook instead of doing nothing at all after invoking the rules. (E: Got my wires crossed, there. 60 votes defeats either, assuming you even have enough Senators to invoke cloture)
It's effectively little more than the threat of a filibuster.
Lobbyists don't pay senators salaries today.
You're discounting the ability of Senators to time shift their salaries from when they are in office to when they are no longer. It is not uncommon for a Senator, after they are no longer in office, to become a lobbyist or work for the industries that they supported during their tenure. While we would not consider this equilibrium for the single term game, when multiple games are played and observed between many senators and lobbyists it becomes easy to see how this is a potential and likely equilibrium.
This ability to shift salaries is one of the reasons why it is very difficult to eliminate the influence of lobbyists and other organizations in politics. No explicit contract exists however if any industry or lobby does not follow through on the implicit contract they lose the ability to influence current senators who will gravitate to those industries and lobbies which uphold their implicit promises.
Theoretically it maybe possible to detect when this happens by examining the salaries of former senators. Practically, however, this is impossible. Just as the strict prohibition proposed may not work because senators can shift their salaries to their family using the same mechanism they would shift the salary to their future self.
Low salaries or term limits will just make the door revolve faster.
Or end the ability of Senators to have gainful employment at the end of their Tenure. You would still have the problem of family though and I am not sure how far you would/could go in making a Senators family unemployable/strictly on the government dole.
In terms of productivity though it would probably be pretty cheap. It would cost about 1 billion dollars a year to pay a $200k salary to 8560 people (about 16 times the current size of the U.S. Senate an House of Representatives)
Poppy Cock.
People do not become US Senators so that they can get fat lobbying jobs after they are done being a US Senator.
That is just a fringe benefit.
People become senators --and want to stay senators-- so that they can wield power and Influence, or as a rung to even higher office.
The manner in which persons become and stay senators is by grifting vast sums of wealth and using it to wage campaigns.
That wealth most often comes from Large Donors.
If you were talking about US Congress Persons it would be a more credible to mention the revolving door between office and lobbying.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
We could surmise that they are entirely in it for the power, but that would force us to question whether or not lobbying positions themselves are "high power" and if we concluded that they were we would have to ask why Senators also commanded high sums from those firms. Under this construction the relative value on power and money that Senators place won't influence their decision to accept such a position and to vote for things the lobbyist wants (though it will modify both the price and the success of my proposed solution)
I just don't buy the idea that Senators are so insensitive to money (and yet still beholden to the interests large donors)
The falsifier to your assertion is the number of senators who quit office after one term to become lobbyists.
It's a short list.
Solving the problem of the revolving door senator to lobbyist connection is like solving the problem of voter fraud in the US (or solving the problem of hand gun violence one rifle at a time). It's a solution in search of a problem.
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Edit
More to the point.
Post election Fat Lobbying Jobs are a bigger deal than Gerrymandering caused radicalism, in creating intractable conflict within the senate?
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
Why would it be a long list? Senators get paid their future salary for the actions they take in the Senate if they quit the Senate why would they get a cushy job as a lobbyist?
I would be happy to get more formal with this model if you wanted but that will probably have to wait a good deal of time since I have other important maths to do.
Maybe, i don't know. Also gerrymandering causes radicalism? Those systems seem to endogenous to make sense of that claim. Why would a "non radical" not gerrymander? (especially if they were worried about gerrymandering by "radicals").
Gerrymandering is certainly an issue of enfranchisement but I am not sure it has anything to do with the radicalization of the Republican party or their willingness to use the filibuster.
To the point of the Falsifier -> Any reasonable person should be able to see the inferential linkage there. Especially a degreed professional.
To the Point of Gerrymandering and Radicalization -> This is essentially the main narrative of political discourse for the past two years in the US. Where you been?
Everyone from Redstate to Politico to Nate Silver have remarked on the topic at length.
Feel free to wade through two years of discourse and catch up.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
Re: falsifier
Ok strictly there is not a reason such a model would predict that senators would leave after one term. Here is an example using a strict contract rather than implied.
Suppose that I were to pay you a sum for every positive post you made about me. You would get this sum (properly increased so as to compensate for time discounting. IE i hold the money and pay you interest on it payable at collection) at the end of your posting such that you could never post anything ever again.
Would you post one thing and then never post again? Or would you post a lot of stuff over many months or years and then collect?
The model that has senators as a revolving door works in the same way; if they made only one vote and then started lobbying their pay would be very low. But if they were a senator for a very long time their pay would be very high. The amount of time people worked would of course be different but we could predict that the more they cared about money the longer they would work in the senate all other things equal.
Re: gerrymandering
You're confusing "gerrymandering is effective at capturing seats" and "gerrymandering is causing political operatives to be more radical". Certainly it is true that gerrymandering can make it easier for a radical to enter the legislature but again this is not the same thing. Part of the reason it is not the same thing is that gerrymandering requires an exchange. In order to push a district to an even more radical candidate the district must shed those on the other side of the political spectrum into another district and so make those or that district less radical. All things equal, if you're closer to the center its easier to gerrymander a district to vote you in.
In addition to this exchange issue, gerrymandering should be able to be used just as effectively by the non radical. This forces us to ask the question "why are radicals better at gerrymandering". Maybe it's true, I don't know, but the question is not so simple as you're making it out to be. To be succinct as to the cause of this confusion, i think you're conflating the fact that Republicans seem to be better at gerrymandering and the fact that Republicans are radical.
In today's political climate it may be hard to disentangle those issues however, there exists a much better answer. Republicans are more spread out this makes it easier to draw contiguous maps which snip off democrats without diluting the final median voter significantly. This is likely tangential to the issue of why republicans are so radical now.
Edit: posted on a phone will correct auto correct when I am home
edit 2: Done, also please stop being a Goose.
Substantial Edit:
The links you provide make no such argument as you're claiming and the one from Politico actually reinforces my point.
The Republican party has a primary problem in that Republicans who are too conservative for their districts are running in the primary, winning, and then costing the Republicans seats (Politico identifies 5 specifically iirc) because they can't win the district. Why can't they win the district? A: Because the district was gerrymandered for someone who was less radical