Unless you consider Jeffords an extremist, I don't believe this week's problem in the Senate has any connection to the issue we were discussing.
This article speaks to what I had in mind. As I have stated before, I'm pleased to see the parties aligning themselves ideologically so voters will know what they stand for rather than simply which colors they wear. OTOH, both sides seem to me to be tipping toward the edges in their agendas. That doesn't make sense to me. What makes sense to me is to align one's party ideologically but set one's agenda to capture the moderates along with one's core. Clinton did that to a considerable extent eight years ago. Bush talked about it in the campaign but he has pointed his agenda outward. Which is my interpretation of why Jeffords left, to the distinct disadvantage of the GOP.
Personally, I was glad to see it. Jeffords' politics are to the left of mine, but my long time remedy to the polarization has been to support divided government and I consciously vote for it. I do so because I don't want either extreme to be successful. Isn't that a sad state of affairs?
Karen
washingtonpost.com
The Polarizing Unity of Modern Politics. . .
By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, May 28, 2001; Page A23
The Jeffords party switch presents a political science conundrum. On the one hand, a liberal from the Northeast has joined the Senate's liberal caucus. This is good: It increases the ideological coherence of the party blocs in Congress, and coherent parties make it easier to advance legislation and offer voters a clear choice. On the other hand, James Jeffords's switch increases the ideological polarization of the parties. This is bad: The parties are moving away from the centrist views of most Americans, who respond by tuning out politics.
Good and bad: Which is it? Unfortunately, the bad greatly outweighs the good because of a quirk of postwar politics.
Consider first the increased party cohesion. In the 1960s the Republicans ranged from Nelson Rockefeller to Barry Goldwater, and the Democrats ranged from James Eastland, a southern segregationist, to Abraham Ribicoff, a proponent of busing. Since then, both parties have undergone a gradual sorting process. The National Journal grades senators on a conservative-liberal axis; 1999 was the first year in which all Republicans were to the right of the most conservative Democrat and all Democrats were to the left of the most liberal Republican.
This sorting process has boosted party unity. In 1970 members of Congress voted with their parties about 60 percent of the time; recently, the share has hovered between 80 percent and 90 percent. Although this may seem terrible if you happen to disagree with the majority party, it is on balance a good thing for democracy. The party that got elected gets a chance to enact the policies it campaigned on -- and to be held accountable for the outcome.
Now, consider the problem of polarization. In theory, increased party cohesion need not add to the overall polarization of politics; Jeffords's switch of party label, for example, does not change the range of opinions in the Senate. In practice, however, polarization is increasing. Jeffords-type switches decrease the range of opinion that each party's leaders have to accommodate, so they promote harsher views at the top of each bloc. Moreover, party cohesion has strengthened not just through party switches but also through personnel changes. A moderate retires from Congress; a hard-liner steps up.
This puts the congressional parties out of touch with the country. The General Social Survey shows that on most issues most Americans are centrists, and that (with a few exceptions such as abortion) they have grown more centrist since the first survey was conducted in 1972. At the same time, the surveys show that Americans have grown more tolerant. The gulf between the public's tolerant centrism and Congress's shrill polarization is probably one of the explanations for declining voter turnout and trust in government.
If this were the end of the story, it might be hard to say which effect is bigger: party cohesion, which strengthens democracy by reducing gridlock and promoting accountability; or party polarization, which tends in the opposite direction. But here's where a quirk of postwar politics enters the picture. That quirk is divided government.
In the first half of this century, the president's party controlled both chambers of Congress 85 percent of the time. Since 1955, however, this pattern has held for only one-third of the time, and more recently, the White House has nearly always been at loggerheads with at least one chamber of Congress. This trend toward divided government greatly dilutes the benefit of coherent parties.
During brief periods of unified government, the ruling party can pass important legislation and be held accountable for it: Think of Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction package, passed without the vote of a single Republican, or of the remarkably quick passage of the Bush tax cut. But most of the time government is divided, so party cohesion does not dissolve gridlock or promote accountability. It merely intensifies fighting between White House and Congress.
It is a sad irony that a moderate soul such as Jeffords should contribute to the polarization of politics that he so dislikes. But by joining the Democratic caucus as an independent, Jeffords has nudged along the process by which the congressional parties are migrating to the fringes, and he abruptly has returned the country to divided government. Gridlock will grow in all its grisly guises: stalled legislation, blocked nominees, threatened presidential vetoes. Accountability will be muddied. And the public will switch off.
The writer is a member of the editorial page staff.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company |
