Political Gridlock: It’S Time for a Reboot!

© 2014 Ned Witting. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/03/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6979-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6978-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6977-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904125

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Contents

Introduction: When Did the Patients Take Over the Asylum?

Part I: Factors That Contribute to Polarization

Election Apparatus: Who Gets Elected and Why

The Two-Primary Effect: The Root of Extremism

The District-Design Effect: Is Your Vote a Placebo?

The Motivation Effect: An Ounce of Motivation Is Worth a Pound of Everything Else

Party Leverage: The Power Multiplier

The Road Ahead: A Parable

Legislative Apparatus: What Determines What Gets Done

Media Influence: Truth, Lies, and Propaganda?

Political Spin

Part II: Strategies to Reduce Polarization and Gridlock

Existing Efforts to Reduce Gridlock

Ways to Bolster Bipartisanship: Mitigation Strategies

Two-Primary Effect Strategies

District-Design Effect Strategies

The Motivation Effect Strategies

Party Leverage Strategies

Political Spin Strategies

Media Influence Strategies

Summary

Part III: The Moderate Manifesto

Overview

The Plan of Action

Phase 1: Individual Initiatives

Phase 2: Legislative Initiatives

Phase 3: Other Initiatives

We Can Do This!

Summary and Conclusions

Glossary

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Appendix F

Endnotes

Introduction: When Did the Patients Take Over the Asylum?

If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

- Matt 3:25

On October 16, 2013, after two weeks of a government shutdown and within hours of the time the US Government would reach the limit of its borrowing capacity, the US Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling. In the vote, 18 Senators and 144 members of the House of Representatives, all members of the Republican Party, voted nay on the bill, in essence voting to allow the United States to go bankrupt. There was no other alternative. I had to ask myself, What were they thinking? Did they believe it would have no consequences? Did they figure that bankruptcy was the only way to get Democrats to rein in runaway spending?

On November 21, 2013, Democrats, frustrated by Republican obstructionism, exercised the nuclear option and thereby eliminated the minority party’s ability to block extreme presidential appointments. In the process, they set a precedent that the Senate majority can overturn any Senate rule they want to advance their agenda. They initially applied the nuclear option only to presidential appointees other than Supreme Court nominees. But once used, what’s to prevent its use on Supreme Court nominees and legislation in the future? What prevents Republicans from using it on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)? The answer is, Nothing. What were the Democrats thinking? Do Democrats believe they will always enjoy a majority in the Senate? Do they think Republicans will respect their distinction between presidential appointments and pending legislation? What were they thinking?

Whatever the thinking, these votes are symptomatic of what is wrong in America today. Our government has fallen into the hands of extreme elements of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Legislators feel like they have a popular mandate from their constituents to advance extreme agendas and to do so with no concessions or compromises. Neither political party has enough votes to pass its own agenda, which leads to the predictable consequence that nothing gets done. The order of the day is gridlock. Constructive solutions to serious national problems now seem beyond our grasp.

If Congress can barely accomplish something as simple as increasing the debt ceiling, then there is little chance that it can address real challenges. How can it stimulate the economy, ensure a stable energy supply, provide affordable health care, balance the budget, resolve immigration issues, reduce taxes, and address climate change? The short answer is that under prevailing circumstances, we won’t be able to successfully address any of our national challenges due to partisan gridlock and obstructionism.

The two major political parties are no longer able to govern. They are able to make accusations, spin the truth, and posture for their constituents but not govern effectively. The reason is simple. Effective government in a democracy requires a degree of consensus. If the political parties take a my-way-or-the-highway approach and take-no-hostages strategy, then no consensus will ever be reached. With no consensus, there is no action. With no action, there is no ability to respond to problems. And where there is no ability to respond to problems, those problems grow and become destructive to the whole nation. This is the nature of gridlock. Gridlock also leads to national decline. Politicians may not talk about America’s decline, but the symptoms are all around us.

A multitude of surveys find that economic prosperity and jobs are the number one priority of American voters. Everyone benefits from a vibrant economy and growing employment. So let’s look at what our government has done for us. In the decade between 2000 and 2010, America lost almost six million jobs in manufacturing and another million in construction.¹ Those are jobs where we actually build something that we can use at home or export overseas. The job loss in the manufacturing segment represents almost one third of all the jobs available! Even worse, economists don’t expect this segment to grow even as the economy improves.

The good news is that employment in the services sector has grown by almost five million jobs in the same time period. It is important to consider the nature of those jobs, however. The major increases in services sector employment have come in health care and social assistance (3.7 million), state and local government (1.6 million), leisure and hospitality (1.2 million), educational services (0.8 million) and offset by losses of information jobs (–0.9 million). The increase in health care and social assistance is unsustainable as our economy staggers under the burden of increasing medical premiums and Medicare and Medicaid spending. The increase in state and local government is similarly unsustainable as taxes drain capital out of our economy.

Education services employment has grown, but let’s look at the results. An international assessment of student learning is conducted every three years by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and administered in the United States by the National Center for Education Statistics. The study reports that the

average scores in mathematics literacy ranged from 613 in Shanghai-China to 368 in Peru. The U.S. average score was 481, which was lower than the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] average of 494. The U.S. average was lower than 29 education systems, higher than 26 education systems, and not measurably different than 9 education systems.

The study goes on to report, The U.S. average mathematics, science, and reading literacy scores in 2012 were not measurably different from average scores in previous PISA assessment years.² So despite increases in education services employment, results are stagnating below the international average.

The information segment has traditionally been a strength for the United States and has provided high-paying jobs in motion pictures, broadcasting, and traditional and software publishing. Like manufacturing, however, information employment actually shrank in the last ten years, losing fully 25 percent of its jobs.

The only major sustainable growth segment of the services sector would therefore appear to be leisure and hospitality. This segment can be expected to grow as foreign tourists come to visit our national parks and pay Americans to change their sheets and cook their meals. I don’t think that this is the kind of progress we are looking for from our elected representatives. If we expect something better, we have to do something about gridlock.

The purpose of this book is to investigate the causes of gridlock—causes that are largely overlooked or misunderstood, causes that discriminate against moderate candidates and disenfranchise moderate voters, causes that empower politically extreme candidates and sustain and enable them, and causes that prevent passage of legislation that is supported by a majority of legislators.

As we investigate these causes, we will find that they fall into five general categories. First are the factors that determine which candidates are nominated and elected. Many would answer that the most popular candidate, the one who gains the most votes, wins. On one level, this is true. On a more fundamental level, however, the rule set that governs an election, what I will call the election apparatus, has a tremendous impact on who wins elections. We will explore in detail how the election apparatus determines not only who wins elections, but even who is running.

A second category of factors are those that influence legislators, once they are elected, to vote in a particular way. Some of these factors are as simple and as benign as a phone call from a constituent. Others, such as massive campaign contributions from special interests, are less benign but easily understood and therefore will not receive much attention in this book. More obscure, however, is what I will call party leverage, by which party members and their leaders are able to influence one another to adopt a particular platform and then vote to sustain it. We will focus on these factors because they contribute to party line voting, which in turn leads to gridlock.

A third category of factors, which I will call the legislative apparatus, consists of congressional rules that govern how Congress conducts its business. These rules are primarily administrative in nature, governing how legislation moves through Congress. Among other things, they determine how Congress approves or does not approve presidential appointments, which bills are considered in committees, which are brought to the floor, and which are eventually brought to a vote and when. We will discuss those rules that are obstructionist in nature. These include rules that allow a minority to block legislation that has the support of a majority of legislators and rules that prevent legislation from ever coming to a vote if voting nay on the legislation might be unpopular with voters.

Another category of factors is what I will call political spin. Politicians routinely portray issues in the best light possible. This has been and always will be the nature of our political process. There are two aspects of political spin that seem to be getting worse, however. First is public acceptance that two politicians can stand on the same stage and make mutually exclusive statements, and there is no consequence for either. We have come to expect and accept factual falsehoods from our political leaders. Second is the amount of money available to campaigns to publicize their spin. Campaign expenditures by independent organizations—with no accountability for their statements—have skyrocketed in recent years. These organizations can make these claims with no requirement that they disclose the individuals or organizations paying for the ads.

A final category of factors influences the political environment as a whole, including voter views and opinions. I have labeled these factors media influence. They are particularly important at this time because the news media itself has become more polarized. Reading, watching, and listening to political information on a variety of media shapes who we are and how we think. If the media itself is biased, then loyal viewers become biased as well. Once these biases have become well entrenched, they make it more difficult to identify constructive compromises. They also create a mind-set that is extremely hard to change.

When taken together, the polarizing influence of all of these factors is immense. Part 1 of this book will identify major factors in each of the five categories and discuss how they contribute to polarization and gridlock. Part 2 will evaluate what actions can reasonably be taken and within what time period to mitigate or eliminate the effects of these polarizing factors. Some actions may be taken by each of us individually, others may require legislative action, and still others may require a new Congress with a new cast of legislators. These actions will then provide the building blocks for part 3.

In part 3, we will leave our academic discussion behind and move to the operational phase of the book. Part 3 is entitled The Moderate Manifesto. It uses the actions identified in part 2 to build a comprehensive plan to empower moderate voters, candidates, and legislators. In this context, I do not use the term moderate in a political sense. I use it rather as a measure of temperament. A moderate voter is therefore one who is reasonable, constructive, and pragmatic, not ideologically rigid and extreme. By this definition, a moderate may be a conservative Republican, a liberal Democrat, or an Independent. The key to moderation is the ability to stay focused on objectives and not just on the means employed to achieve them. Most important of all, a moderate puts the good of the country ahead of the good of a particular party.

In the past, moderates have been marginalized by the factors outlined above. The Moderate Manifesto, will provide the game plan to energize, engage, and empower these voters, candidates, and legislators. While included as part 3 of this book, it is designed to also stand alone and be read independently. It is a concise how-to guide for anyone who is fed up with politics as usual in Washington. I am convinced that the Moderate Manifesto can be executed successfully if we all play our part. Polarized factions will continue to exist, but I believe gridlock can be eradicated. I believe we can rebuild trust in our government and get it working again. I believe we can reverse the American decline and allow it to reassume its leadership role in the world. It will not be easy and will require mobilizing a large number of people, but it is possible if we understand the problems and work together to fix them. Helping to build that understanding is my goal in authoring this book. Fixing them will require a team effort by all of us who value practical results over ideological purity.

Let the expedition begin.

Part I: Factors That Contribute to Polarization

Election Apparatus: Who Gets Elected and Why

Many Americans assume that the most popular candidate (the one who earns the most votes) wins the election. However, as we saw in the 2000 presidential election, this is not the case. Al Gore won five hundred thousand more votes than George Bush and still lost the election. This resulted because presidents are elected based on the number of electoral votes they receive rather than the popular vote of the people.

The Electoral College is part of what I will call the election apparatus, which includes all the rules around which an election is organized. It has a profound but, in many ways, unrecognized influence on election outcomes. Among other things, our existing election apparatus does the following:

1.   Makes it virtually impossible for moderate candidates to win elections; eliminates moderate candidates in favor of more partisan ones and does so in a manner that is invisible to voters and pundits alike

2.   Disenfranchises some voters and prevents their votes from ever affecting election outcomes

3.   Creates congressional districts where the outcome of a general election is a forgone conclusion

4.   Reduces the responsiveness of elected representatives to their constituents

5.   Makes it possible for some groups to exert influence out of proportion to their numbers

6.   Gives political organizations an inflated sense of their own popularity, thereby causing them to advance radical political agendas

In order to understand just how important the election apparatus really is, let’s look at a simple example. In this example, a small town of fourteen registered voters will elect a new mayor from among four candidates. As you will discover, the outcome of the election depends entirely on how the votes are counted.

Rocky Top

The town of Rocky Top has fourteen registered voters. The last mayor has retired, and it is time to elect the new mayor. There are four candidates for the post. Each of the voters has been interviewed by Rachel Townsend, a reporter for the Rocky Top Herald, in an effort to predict the outcome of the election. She has recorded the preferences of each of the fourteen voters in exhibit A.1, ranking their choices from one, the preferred candidate, to four, the most disliked candidate. With this information, she figures it will be easy to identify the winner. She starts out by tabulating all of the first-place votes. Her results are shown at the bottom.

Exhibit A.1