Politics to the Extreme

American Political Institutions in the Twenty-First Century

S. Frisch, S. Kelly, S. Frisch, S. Kelly

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137312761
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

To overcome the political deadlock that overshadows the pressing problems facing the United States, the academies top scholars address the causes and consequences of polarization in American politics, and suggest solutions for bridging the partisan divide.

Part I

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF PARTISAN POLARIZATION

1

APPROPRIATIONS TO THE EXTREME: PARTISANSHIP AND THE POWER OF THE PURSE

Geoffrey W. Buhl, Scott A. Frisch, and Sean Q Kelly

On July 15, 2010, senators filed into the Appropriations Committee meeting room. They were there to vote on 302(b) spending levels, which dictate the amount that each subcommittee has to spend on programs within their subcommittee’s jurisdiction. Then chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) laid his proposal before the committee. Historically, votes on such allocations were not controversial, having been worked out by the chair and ranking member prior to the meeting. However, things were different this time. Senate Republican leader and Appropriations Committee member Mitch McConnell (KY) who typically does not attend such meetings responded with lower allocation spending numbers, claiming that in the absence of a Budget Resolution, it was up to the Appropriations Committee to show leadership on reducing spending. Inouye suggested spending levels that fell between their two proposals. It appeared that the two sides were moving toward a compromise. Typically, 302(b) allocations are made on a bipartisan basis. What happened next shocked a senior Senate Appropriations Committee staffer: “[Ranking Republican member] Senator Cochran said ‘well that seems like a good deal to me.’ He said that, and he stared daggers at McConnell; and McConnell just threw him under the bus and said ‘No.’ [Republican] members all fell into line behind Senator McConnell . . . a lot of them didn’t like it . . . but they felt they had to support the leadership.”¹ Thirty-eight billion dollars separated the two sides: “In the broader scheme of things it’s irrelevant . . . but those are ideological issues that are creeping into the debate,” said a former Senate Appropriations staffer. Inouye ended up passing the allocation on a straight party line vote. That year none of the 12 spending bills needed to fund the government’s operations passed the Senate by the start of the fiscal year.

House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey (D-WI) gaveled his committee to order on June 26, 2008. The order of the day was consideration of the Labor, Health, and Human Services (Labor-H) Appropriations bill. Republicans on the committee had a surprise up their sleeves. Obey was under pressure from the Democratic leadership to prevent the Interior Appropriations bill from coming up for consideration. Democrats felt vulnerable. With gas prices on the rise, support for an amendment aimed at increasing offshore drilling was gaining steam. Sensing a political advantage, Republicans had schemed to use initial consideration of the Labor-H bill to press the issue. According to Ranking Republican Jerry Lewis (R-CA), “We had one of our members present an amendment that was a substitute for his entire [Labor-H] bill . . . that would allow for drilling on the continental shelf.” According to a staffer who attended the hearing, “Obey went through the flippin’ roof” because he realized that there was bipartisan support for the drilling provisions and he would lose any vote in the subcommittee.² Obey “exploded,” said Lewis. He “slammed the gavel down and turned to me and said, ‘Well I’ll see you at the end of the year.’ That was the second committee hearing of the year . . . We never had another committee hearing.”³

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have typically been considered the most bipartisan committees in Congress. Their power and prestige emanate from the necessity of passing Appropriations bills, which fund much of the federal government, and the committees’ ability to “move” their legislation in a bipartisan manner drawing broad bipartisan support for their bills. Today’s Appropriations process can be described in a single word; “Dysfunctional” says an Appropriations Committee staffer. Members of the committee, he continued, have “lost the desire to work together.”⁴ In the words of another staffer, “This place has become incredibly partisan, dysfunctional and demoralizing . . . the institution has an inability to deal with the challenges facing the country; there is a breakdown in fundamentals . . . it feels like a revolutionary time.”⁵

Using interviews and House and Senate roll call data, we explore the rise of partisanship in the Appropriations process between the ninety-first and the one hundred and eleventh Congress (1969–2011). We conclude that the textbook Appropriations process is, if not dead, on life support. Ideological extremity and partisanship are largely to blame for the inability of Congress to exercise its power of the purse. Congressional gridlock is causing Congress to cede power to the executive branch to make funding decisions in a manner inconsistent with constitutional design. Furthermore, reliance on Continuing Resolutions and omnibus spending bills as mechanisms to fund many federal programs means Congress is abdicating its responsibility to adapt spending to existing policy realities.

TEXTBOOK APPROPRIATIONS

Richard Fenno’s (1966) account of the Appropriations Committees remains the definitive work with regard to the operation of the committees.⁶ He stresses the mission-driven organization of the committee toward what he calls their “single, paramount task—to guard the Federal Treasury” (1962, 311). As a result, members of Appropriations conceive of their legislative task as making decisions about money rather than policy: “They deal immediately with dollars and cents . . . theirs is a ‘business’ rather than a ‘policy’ committee” (Fenno 1962, 312). Members of Congress are drawn to Appropriations because of its power—the “power of the purse”—but are chosen for their skills and abilities as legislators, that is, their ability to adhere to the norms of the institution acting as “responsible legislators.”

Fenno highlights the ability of the committee to maintain internal norms that promote unity within the subcommittees and across the Full Committee. The bulk of the legislative work in the committee occurs at the subcommittee level. A hallmark of the committee is the autonomy of the subcommittees: the degree to which subcommittees defer to one another’s decisions, and subcommittee “unity”—the obligation of subcommittee members to support internal decisions. This unity norm is supported by selecting members who are responsible legislators. Unity at the subcommittee extends to the Full Committee. According to an appropriator, “I tell them (the Full Committee) we should have a united front. If there are any objections or changes, we ought to hear it now, and not wash our dirty laundry out on the floor” (Fenno 1962, 317).

The power and prestige of the Appropriations Committee, Fenno argues, depends upon indispensability of its work, and its ability to gain passage of their bills on the floor; the unity norm is critical to the legislative mission, and supporting the power and prestige of the committee:

The committee’s own conviction is that its floor success depends on its ability to present a united front in its confrontations with the House. And floor success . . . is important to the Committee members because it enhances Committee influence and individual prestige. Unity is the one key variable over which Committee members can exercise some control, and they bend every effort to do so. (Fenno 1966, 460)

Fenno depicts the Appropriations Committee as largely impervious to external influences: a closed club of sorts. The exclusive club is even off-limits to party leaders: “Party leaders do not normally exercise much influence during Committee decision-making . . . Committee-based norms far more than party-based norms govern the behavior of members inside the committee” (Fenno 1966, 415).

Joseph White (1989) revisited the House Appropriations Committee in the 1980s and discovered a committee similar to that described by Fenno, if a bit worn by the political winds. The relative budgetary stability of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to the fiscal pressures of mounting deficits. Concerns about deficits shifted the ethos of committee decision-making from “guardianship”—looking for places to cut expenditures—to stretching available resources in a manner that serves the interests of their colleagues. Likewise, the political stability of Fenno’s committee gave way to a new political environment. Congressional reforms shifted power away from the “old bull” committee chairs, enhancing the power of rank-and-file members of Congress and party leaders. Despite the erosion of the budgetary and political environment that supported Fenno’s Appropriations Committee, White argued that

the [Appropriations] Committee remained one of the most non-partisan on the Hill. Chairmen still dominated subcommittees, though through command of staff more than norms of deference. New members were trained, though more through inducements than sanctions. The staff became more clearly the home of budgetary values, but those still shaped many of the committee’s questions and answers. (White 1989, 15)

According to White the authority of the Appropriations Committee relies less on the norms described by Fenno than on two broad factors: maintaining a wall between appropriating and policy making, that is, steering clear of the work of the authorizing committees, and maintaining control over executive activities “while satisfying member demands for a rough fairness in the distribution of district benefits” (White 1989, 17).

Consistent with Fenno, White finds that the success of the Appropriations Committee depends on the bipartisan nature of their internal functioning. The power and prestige of the committee depends on their ability to “move” their bills and serve the interests of their colleagues:

Appropriations [Committee] members . . . see the need for internal nonpartisanship. In other committees, one may become powerful by stopping action. For those purposes one needs only a majority within the committee. [The Appropriations Committee] is powerful only if it passes bills. To do that it must reach out to the House floor, and that is much easier if the committee coalition is as wide as possible. Their party colleagues’ interest in a broad distribution of the available benefits further disposes members to cooperate within the committee . . . they share a disposition to cooperate, that is favored by outsiders, is powerfully in their self-interest, and is reinforced by shared experience (White 1989, 242; emphasis added).

Joshua Gordon (2002) offers a peek at a possible sea-change in the House Appropriations Committee. An increasing number of Republicans—dissatisfied with their role as a “permanent minority” and led by Newt Gingrich—engaged in a sustained attack on “those norms in the House that served to keep them in the minority. They severed bridging social ties with Democrats, preferring instead ideological and partisan ties bonding Republicans together” (Gordon 2002, 241). Gordon suggests that the success of the “Republican Revolution” ushered in a new period of partisan control over the Appropriations Committee that obliterated the internal norms of the committee. More junior and ideologically extreme members were appointed to the committee, members who were less likely to respect committee norms. The historic autonomy of the committee “was challenged by the [Republican] party leadership,” resulting in a committee that is “more partisan and less integrated around consensual norms” (Gordon 2002, 243). Gordon provides evidence of changing dynamics in the committee; Aldrich and Rohde’s (2000) findings support the conjecture that the Republican leadership exercised increasing influence over the Appropriations process. Consistent with Gordon, they demonstrate that votes on Appropriations legislation between the 1970s and the 1990s are marked by increasing levels of partisanship.

The literature over the last five decades suggests a changing “textbook” Appropriations Committee. Fenno’s committee was possessed of a strong internal structure, committee unity, and a nonpartisan approach that generated widespread support within the institution. White’s committee operated in a different budgetary and political context. Despite eroding norms, the bipartisan ethic of the committee, and a combined interest in maintaining the power and prestige of the committee led members into a common search for legislation that would attract bipartisan support throughout the institution. As White finished his dissertation, however, confrontational, conservative Republicans were fighting an increasingly open war to u...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Part I    Causes and Consequences of Partisan Polarization
• Part II    Bridging the Partisan Divide
• About the Authors
• Index