The Ills of the System

...However, I can hardly overstate its importance, for until the problem of campaign finance is solved it will continue to strengthen the centrifugal tendencies in the political system...

...If the main problem is in the political structures, as I have argued here, then term limits will do no more than change officials while leaving the fragmented order still in place without more effective institutions for integrating diverse interests...

...In one survey, Peters reports, lobbyists "rated congressional staffs as their number-one lobbying target (by contrast, the White House ranked sixth...

...Although an intensification of these enduring characteristics of American politics helps to account for the much of the fragmentation characteristic of the new political order, a much less noticed factor is a substantial rise in the complexity of public matters...

...What is missing, because the framers did not provide for it, is a constitutional process for readily resolving these conflicts...

...The increase in the number and diversity of interest groups has not been accompanied, however, by a corresponding increase in the strength of integrating institutions...

...One important change yet to be achieved, however, is the abolition of the Senate filibuster...

...As Ambassador Gotlieb discovered, the president had become only one more charged particle in the vast field of American political life...

...It is absurd to regard the filibuster as a necessary protection for fundamental rights in a system that includes not only a written Constitution with an extensive Bill of Rights but two separate houses— each of which carefully scrutinizes legislation— an independent president with veto power, and the most powerful Supreme Court in the world, armed with the authority to declare legislation unconstitutional...

...Because feasible changes are all politically difficult and unlikely to come about swiftly, the main burden of overcoming fragmentation will fall on the president, the White House staff (notably the OMB), and congressional leaders...

...Causation probably runs both ways...

...In this case both the diagnosis and prescription were, it seems to me, badly mistaken...

...Whether they can satisfactorily discharge this burden remains a question that only time can answer...

...The new order also makes it more difficult than ever for voters to hold political leaders accountable for public policies...

...Ambassador: The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington (University of Toronto Press, 1991...

...With the exception of Costa Rica, however, in none of the older democratic systems is executive authority constitutionally lodged exclusively in a president chosen (in effect) by popular vote...

...However, if deadlock is to be avoided during periods of divided government, the president, congressional leaders, and majorities in House and Senate must all be willing and able to negotiate mutually acceptable compromises...

...Lest I be misunderstood, let me add that I believe—though I will not undertake to support the view here—that in a large-scale democratic system encompassing great diversities among its citizens, interest-group politics is not merely more feasible, indeed FALL • 1993 • 449 Ills of the System inevitable, but also fundamentally more desirable than the illusory alternative of a republic in which virtuous citizens and virtuous leaders strive only for "the public good...

...Although the ancient notion of civic virtue did not wholly die out in political rhetoric, the pursuit of self and group interests became predominant in both the language and practice of American politics...

...For half a century it enabled Senate minorities to veto civil rights legislation...

...The fragmented system makes it hard to determine just who is responsible...

...These changes appear to have brought Congress close to the limits of its capacities for integrating conflicts...

...If a significant portion of public campaign funds were distributed to the national committees and the House and Senate party campaign committees, members of Congress would soon be more dependent on their party organizations...

...But if they cannot, we shall probably witness a rise in the appeal not only of political nostrums but also of more fundamental constitutional changes, the results of which we cannot, on our present knowledge, adequately foresee...

...Staff members constitute another disparate set of political actors with their own agendas, considerable independence, and substantial influence...

...David Mayhew has shown that from 1947-1990 the number of major laws enacted was no lower on average in periods of divided government than in periods of unified government...

...policy-making level, particularly within the legislature and between legislature and executive...

...On his showing, the difference in legislative output and investigations is a wash...

...We should not be altogether surprised that even unusually well-informed foreigners are baffled by the system...

...They are not...

...Should we be surprised, then, if popular views of Congress are so greatly at odds with the views of scholars who specialize in the study of Congress...

...As Roger Davidson, a political scientist, has commented, Congress is in certain key respects now "more routinized, cohesive, and even hierarchical than portrayed in scholarly and journalistic accounts...

...Among the basic elements of the older system on which the newer has been built, the most obvious is the strong constitutional separation of powers between executive and legislature...

...The enhanced effectiveness of direct mail solicitation made it much easier for organizations to gain members and, even more important, money...

...In 1840 a Congress of 223 representatives and 52 senators employed a total staff of 57...

...In any case, despite popular myths to the contrary, interest-group politics is as old as the republic itself...

...Along with the underlying structure of separation of powers, another longstanding characteristic of American political life helps to provide a fertile soil for fragmentation...

...He had every reason to assume that if he did not yet understand Washington well enough to follow the rules properly, he soon would...

...As Alan Ehrenhalt has observed, local, state, and national party organizations have dissolved into loosely attached collections of individual political entrepreneurs who have their own organizations, agendas, and finances...

...on the contrary, the American system of government is in the eyes of most citizens the best in the world...

...The reason is not that our constitutional arrangements are demonstrably superior to those of other countries...

...Few aspects of current politics distress Americans more than the dependence of congressional candidates on campaign contributions from individuals and PACs...

...Congress...

...Although reducing dependence on PACs would constitute a notable improvement over the present system, by itself this change would not greatly reduce fragmentation...

...A few even go so far as to suggest that the existing constitutional system should be scrapped, to be replaced perhaps by a parliamentary system...

...Let me now turn to some of the consequences of the new order...

...The dynamics of complexity help to spawn a whole new set of influential actors: the specialists or experts who now occupy powerful positions in political life...

...Gotlieb came to see Washington as a mass of moving charged particles, some more powerful than others but all with power of some kind...

...But whenever these conditions are lacking, fragmentation tends to increase...

...Surely it would make sense for a diplomat to design a grand strategy for promoting his country's interests...

...In fact, probably most "members" of politically influential organizations limit their participation entirely to making financial contributions from time to time...

...If you don't understand that point, you'll understand nothing about Washington...

...I don't know precisely what Strauss had in mind, but surely one of the main features of the new order is that although political fragmentation has increased, capacities for political integration have declined...

...If, on the contrary, the funds were to go directly to the candidates themselves or their own organizations, the political parties would still remain little more than loose bands of political entrepreneurs during electoral campaigns...

...No doubt the size and importance of congressional staff contribute to the difference between Congress now and a generation ago that prompted Strauss's metaphor...

...But how can we arrive at judgments sufficiently well grounded to justify introducing major structural changes, such as replacing presidential with parliamentary government, plurality elections in single-member districts with some form of proportional representation (PR), or (an almost certain result of PR) the two-party system with a multiparty system—or all of these...

...If so, it would be hard to imagine, at this point at least, a more promising remedy than a president with Clinton's energy and political skills working with a Congress of his own party that is likely to support much of what he proposes...

...FALL • 1993 • 451 Ills of the System If unusually well-informed foreigners do not understand how the system works, can we reasonably expect ordinary American citizens to do so...

...The result is precisely what many political activists and entrepreneurs of the last two decades intended: a weakening in the power of party leaders and an increase in their own...

...And what, if anything, can and should be done to reshape it...

...The president...

...Indeed, among the characteristics of Americans that most impressed Tocqueville when he visited the country in 1831 and 1832 were their belief in the virtues of enlightened self-interest and their extraordinary propensity for forming associations to achieve almost almost any purpose, including, of course, political goals...

...Senators, representatives, columnists, congressional staffers, lobbyists, lawyers, even hostesses are all a part of a "system" that seems to lack any well-defined systemic properties...

...What is worse, each of these broad areas is made up of many specific issues, most of which are also very complicated...

...The popular diagnosis, then, is that the ills of government are caused by defects in the personal qualities of the political officials "in charge" of the government, rather than in the structures within which the officials must attempt to govern...

...A few, of which the most obvious is the French Fifth Republic, have created hybrid arrangements, mixtures of parliamentary and presidential systems...

...Back then the American political world was "a regime of establishments...

...Clinton and the Democratic Congress face an unusually heavy challenge for many reasons, but the one I want to describe here is the challenge posed by a new political order that has emerged in the United States over the past thirty years or so...

...With the knowledge now available we cannot predict that the benefits of a major structural change, such as the adoption of a parliamentary system, would clearly outweigh the short-run costs of bringing about the change itself plus the possible long-run costs resulting from the new structure...

...today 435 representatives employ over 12,000 people and 100 Senators more than 7,000...

...This rather contradictory diagnosis persuaded many voters to adopt a contradictory cure...

...Tocqueville's "associations" were in fact our "interest groups...

...Though the dynamics of complexity are clearest in the executive branch, where its results are most often subject to severe criticism, it operates throughout all parts of government (and, it is worth adding, almost certainly in business as well...

...Further evidence is provided by Paul Peterson and Jay Greene, who, after systematically examining "the degree of conflict displayed in the questioning of executive branch witnesses testifying before congressional committees and subcommittees" from 1947-1990, found "little evidence that divided government, by itself, adds to political controversy...

...In nominating candidates and enacting legislation American parties have always tended to be somewhat less centralized and cohesive than European parties...

...On the other hand, political institutions for encouraging these conflicting interest groups to negotiate not only with one another but also with political actors who are more representative of the general public, in search of mutually beneficial policies, are in some important respects weaker than before...

...Or reflect on what has happened to our national legislature...

...The inability of the parties to be strongly integrative during campaigns and elections evidently makes it more necessary for the president and Congress to be so in adopting laws and other policy measures...

...But when it appears to be working badly, some critics begin to wonder whether its unique characteristics might not be one source of its problems...

...It would certainly do no harm, and might in FALL • 1993 • 453 Ills of the System time be enormously helpful, if more political scientists, constitutional lawyers, and other were to undertake the task—beset with difficulties as it may be—of systematically comparing the performance of our political system with other older democracies...

...One of the most striking is its sheer incomprehensibility...

...If by 1996 the president and Congress can show enough positive results to demonstrate that our political system really can be made to work effectively, much of the current discontent with American political life will dissipate...

...Nostrums...

...In recent decades, however, both the number and variety of interest groups with significant influence over policy-making in Washington have greatly increased...

...From 1960 onward "citizen groups" like these (as distinguished from the older "occupational groups") underwent a period of rapid growth...

...Because experts are difficult to control without expertise, like lawyers, experts create a demand for the services of other experts...

...The election of 1992 may well provide the country with a substantially greater capacity for integrative leadership than it has known for some years because it placed in the White House a president who is not only of the same party as the majorities in the Congress but also extraordinarily energetic, policy oriented, politically skillful, and integrative in outlook, strategy, and tactics...

...When Gotlieb arrived in Washington in 1981 as Canada's ambassador, he was familiar with all the standard rules of proper ambassadorial behavior...

...One would be hard put to suggest a better quasi-experimental test for determining how much the new order is simply a product of presidential leadership and divided government in a system of constitutional separation of powers and how much it results from the other factors I have mentioned...

...The political scientist Hugh Heclo emphasizes the difference between the political world Americans live in today and that of thirty years ago...

...Consider how American citizens tend to look at the faults of their system...

...Even an astute, experienced, and well-connected observer like Ambassador Gotlieb was driven to the conclusion that "the particular process by which a decision is reached in Washington is often so complex and mysterious that it defies comprehension...

...If in due time citizens discover that their cure for the ills of government is an ineffective nostrum, they may turn to other possible solutions, including fundamental changes in the structures...

...No other country that has been steadily democratic since 1950 or earlier has our special combination of political institutions...

...Not so in Washington...

...Because the way the government works is largely incomprehensible to ordinary citizens, when they look for remedies for what they see as the defects of government their diagnoses and prescriptions are likely to be inappropriate...

...At one time, these were mainly the members of congressional committees, subcommittees, and special committees, that is, the elected members of the House and Senate...

...Because Congress is now composed largely of political entrepreneurs, each of whom would be threatened by increased dependence on their national party organizations, the most likely solution will probably provide public financing for the campaigns of individual candidates...

...What then are the causes of this new system...

...After all, like many well-informed Canadians he was probably about as familiar with American political life as are most Americans...

...Most voters had little confidence in "the people running Congress...

...To begin with, they remain overwhelmingly convinced that nothing is fundamentally wrong with it...

...Whatever they may claim, however, specialists are not neutral, purely apolitical purveyors of knowledge...

...Their own members of Congress...

...But during the last several decades, at the electoral level they have become more fragmented than ever before...

...Interest-group politics is not new: it is the standard mode of American politics...

...The new regime is everywhere...

...Can we reasonably expect ordinary citizens to be sufficiently familiar with the "wiring diagram" of Congress to appraise sensibly how well the institution is working...

...448 • DISSENT Ills of the System What are its consequences...

...What he learned was that none of the rules formulated over several centuries of diplomatic conduct in capitals around the world applied to FALL • 1993 • 447 Ms of the System Washington...

...Most possess parliamentary systems of one kind or another...

...In March 1992, a CBS News/New York Times 452 • DISSENT Ills of the System survey found that only 17 percent said they approved of the way Congress was handling its job...

...Among the older and stable democracies, the American constitutional and political system is unique...

...Its main features "have been increasingly true of Congress internally, of presidential relations with Congress, of interest groups and their coalitions, of parties, political campaigns, and of voters' reactions to this passing parade...

...Indeed, a 1991 ABC News poll found that only three out of ten agree that "the current system of government needs drastic changes," and a 1992 Louis Harris poll found that seven out of ten believe that "the system is good but the people in government are not doing their jobs well enough...

...Strong and astute presidential leadership, relatively unified political parties, a president and congressional majorities drawn from the same party, or, if not, willing to negotiate compromises, their advocacy of policies supported by majority opinion—all these have served at times to strengthen the integrative capacities of president and Congress...

...Although the new order retains a seamless continuity with the one it displaced, in its present form it constitutes something so new that journalists, commentators, scholars, and ordinary citizens are still struggling to understand it...

...The regime that has replaced the old world of establishments is "much more open, fragmented, self-critical, nondeferential, and fluid in its attachments...

...At the same time, however, in districts where incumbents were running for re-election voters chose to re-elect the incumbents without regard to how many terms they had already served...

...Americans must now cope with a political system that works in opaque and mysterious ways that probably no one adequately understands...

...Parties can help to compose differences in demands at two levels: in nominations and elections (an unusually lengthy process in the United States) and at the * I'll be with you in a minute, Mr...

...Like citizens in other democratic countries, Americans are predisposed to judge their government by its effectiveness in achieving results of which they approve...

...The reason is that judgments about alternatives still rest too heavily on speculation to justify major constitutional revamping...

...Other Changes...

...Given favorable circumstances, however, it is sometimes possible for the centrifugal forces at the system's center not only to be contained but even well focused...

...The growth of staffs has been particularly great in recent years...

...The words sound the same, but that's about all they do...

...Congressional staffs...

...Coherent Policies...

...The limited possibilities for change in the parties and the Congress means that the main integrative task lies with the president...

...Why, indeed, should we expect them to...

...Given the state of theory and evidence, it seems premature to seek truly fundamental changes in the constitutional structure in the near future...

...In addition, broad changes in attitudes and concerns among sizable groups of citizens— those concerned with women, the environment, education, and the elderly, for example— enabled older organizations to expand and new ones to form...

...they are political actors with their own views and agendas...

...Given this diagnosis, the obvious prescription in 1992 was to replace the incumbents with better people...

...Authorities on political parties have long observed that the stronger the party organizations are in elections and legislatures, the weaker is the influence of interest groups, and conversely...

...Instead, as he tells us in his account of his stay here, a diplomat "must grasp the fact that every issue involves its own microstrategy and that every microstrategy is unique...

...In that year of discontent, the hopes and expectations of many voters, it seems, came to rest on what a different president could do to bring about changes in conditions that were widely seen as unsatisfactory...

...This makes them less dependent on their party organizations and more on making themselves attractive to individuals and PACs (Political Action Committees) with highly particularistic interests...

...On the one hand, government policies are made in response to a greater number and variety of conflicting and substantially independent interest groups...

...Nor have major congressional investigations been fewer during periods of unified government...

...One staff member who was elected to the House after eight years as a Senatorial aide commented that when people asked him how he felt about being elected to Congress, "I told them I never thought I'd give up that much power voluntarily...

...q 454 • DISSENT...

...The Congress is a completely different world from what it was fifteen years ago...

...More recently, it has allowed a Republican minority to veto policies with which they strenuously disagree...

...Nor has the Senate rule denying a majority the power to cut off debate— first adopted in 1917 and last modified in 1975 — actually served to protect fundamental rights...

...If at the same time the workings of the political system have become inscrutable, should we be surprised if a great many voters feel that they are powerless to determine what goes on in their government...

...An outsider's experience may help us to grasp the nature and extent of fragmentation in the American political system...

...To be sure, the classical republican tradition that was still dominant among revolutionary leaders had insisted that citizens and leaders alike should be animated by a desire to achieve not simply their own interests but the public good...

...There was a congressional establishment, a foreign policy establishment, a labor establishment, a black establishment, a Social Security establishment, a Democratic party establishment, and so on...

...And so it goes...

...Congress...

...On the one hand, in surveys and in state referendums, voters expressed their overwhelming support for term limits...

...The Republican party...

...If a majority of voters conclude that existing policies have failed, whom are they to blame...

...Along with many other well-established conceptions of good government, however, older ideas about civic virtue and the danger of "factions" fell victim to the sweeping changes in outlook among Americans that followed upon the revolution...

...Whatever the immediate outcome of the experiment that lies ahead, however, fragmentation is unlikely to be reduced in the longer run unless the occupants of the White House conceive of presidential leadership in periods of divided government as the art of forming and maintaining what in multiparty countries would be seen as coalition governments...

...The weakening of integrating forces in the political system was further amplified during the Bush administration by the failure of the White House, whether from ineptitude, indifference, or intent, to provide leadership capable of offsetting the fragmenting thrust of interest-group politics...

...How many Americans know anything at all about the wiring diagram of Congress...

...Complexity...

...In 1840 the federal judiciary employed a total of about a hundred and fifty persons, including judges...

...If during the years to come the outcome of the quasi-experiment shows that the main features of the new order are enduring, should we begin a serious consideration of constitutional alternatives...

...Accountability...

...The executive bureaucracy...

...Yet he might manage to overcome the centrifugal thrust of the political system sufficiently to achieve some of his major goals—health care, for example, and the essentials of his budget, even if shorn of the stimulus package...

...Consider, for example, the prospects for an "industrial policy" intended to foster the growth of particular industries...

...Confronted by complexity and a formidable array of expertise in the executive branch, Congress responded by creating its own groups of specialists...

...To pursue their agendas, they need and usually acquire some measure of autonomy and authority...

...When the American political system seems to be working well, its uniqueness is often seen as a cause for self-congratulation...

...Charles Peters attributes the recent increase to the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate, and the Iran-contra affair, as a result of which "Congress no longer trusted the executive branch to provide it with accurate information...

...In fact, the number of Senate employees per Senator now exceeds what was once the total membership of the entire U.S...

...Change the Constitutional System...

...Since World War II, divided government has been the norm, not the exception: during that period of almost half a century, the president and both houses of Congress have been of the same party only about one-third of the time...

...On the contrary, as we have seen, the integrating capacity of American parties during campaigns and elections has drastically declined, placing a still heavier burden on the White House and Congress...

...President Clinton has advanced an ambitious program, surely more than he will be allowed to accomplish in four years...

...The only feasible solution appears to be public financing...

...Meanwhile, the capacity of our political parties to integrate diverse interests has dramatically declined...

...Although popular and journalistic rhetoric inveighed against the rising influence of "narrow-interest lobbies" and "single-issue interest groups," the new organizations are no narrower than many of the older ones and greatly broaden the spectrum of interests that exercise influence on public policy...

...In this respect, American policy makers may be denied the capacity to achieve as much coordination and consistency in programs as exists in some other countries...

...Consider what the late Alexander Bickel called "the least dangerous branch...

...Distributions of members on committees and subcommittees by age, by ideology, and by constituency, whether homogeneous or diverse in each dimension, will yield up different patterns of policy-making and indeed different substantive policies from subcommittee to subcommittee and from year to year as these features of the membership evolve and change...

...Complexity makes specialization advantageous, even inevitable...

...At the same time, however, more than a majority approved of the way their own representative was handling his or her job...

...The main drawback of divided government is not, as conventional wisdom holds, that it necessarily produces deadlock...

...With the knowledge specialists create or transmit, they in turn generate complexity450 • DISSENT Ms of the System which requires more experts...

...Complexity helps to generate new interest groups with influence over public policy and yet fails to strengthen the integrative capacities of political institutions...

...Whether or not such a policy would be desirable if it could be properly carried out, coordinating the diverse and conflicting aims of all the relatively independent players who would insist in participating in the game is a formidable and perhaps impossible task...

...The expansion in the size and importance of staff means that influence in Congress is no longer lodged only in its members...

...The Democratic party...

...Whom can they hold accountable...

...But to assist them in coping with the growing complexity of public policies (as well as the demands of their constituents, it should be said) the elected members increased their staffs in their own offices and in the committees...

...If the American government is the best in the world, it follows that its failures must lie with the people who run things...

...Despite the disintegration of parties at the electoral level, little-noticed changes in the overly maligned Congress during the 1980s have actually strengthened the effectiveness of the party organizations in the legislative process...

...In four years, then, we ought to know whether this combination is enough, or whether our difficulties in governing have causes too deep even for President Clinton and a supportive Congress to overcome...

...Measured by its employees, the Congress is larger than 99 percent of all business firms in this country...

...Nelson Polsby recounts how a question put to him by a foreign "political leader who was—and is—well educated, well informed about American politics in general, indeed a frequent and a welcome visitor to America, and favorably disposed to the United States . . . left no doubt that there were structural features of the American political system that either had not come to his attention or that he had misunderstood...

...Are the inadequacies in governing that have given rise to so much discontent mainly a product, as many people think, of divided government combined with divisive and inept presidential leadership...

...He quotes his British counterpart, Sir Nicholas Henderson, as saying that "anyone who tells you that he understands how a particular decision was made in Washington is either a fool or a liar...

...When a president's ambitions induce him to follow a strategy of vetoing major legislation backed by the other party in Congress, then the most likely result is indeed a deadlock, as the last two years of the Bush administration vividly demonstrated...

...Only detailed knowledge of the wiring diagram of the American national legislature," Nelson Polsby writes, "can possibly resolve uncertainty about how to weigh any particular Congressional manifestation of opinion...

...As to Congress, however, popular diagnoses, prescriptions, and decisions indicated a certain confusion...

...Perhaps Robert Strauss, the very epitome of the informed Washington insider, said it best in a comment to Alan Gotlieb, the Canadian ambassador, in the early 1980s: "The difference between Congress now and fifteen years ago is the difference between chicken-salad and chickenshit...

...This development has been so fully discussed that it is unnecessary for me to expand on it further...

...This increase can be accounted for, in part at least, by two new factors...

...What constitutional separation of powers builds into the very center of government are pluralism, rivalry, competition, the representation in the executive and legislative branches of differing and possibly divergent interests, and, as a consequence, the strong likelihood that president and Congress will press for conflicting policies...

...Consider one particularly illuminating example...

...The new order also makes it even more difficult than before for the president and Congress to adopt a reasonably consistent set of policies...

...Separation of Powers...

...Incomprehensibility...

...Today the number is around twenty-four thousand...

...Interest-Group Politics...

...Even the president is just another particle, though one with a charge that changes in magnitude from time to time...

...And almost every issue area, whether foreign affairs, agriculture, health care, poverty, economic growth and stability, taxation, immigration, or the environment, is large and complicated enough by itself to daunt even the best informed...

...One cause for the dissolution of parties and for an increase in fragmentation and political entrepreneurship is the need for elected officials to raise money to cover the staggering rise in the costs of their campaigns...

...One obvious cause of complexity is the expanded role of government, which has increased the sheer number of issues on which a well-informed citizen needs some understanding...

...Gotlieb is not the only observer to remark on the peculiarly fragmented character of the present-day American political order—or should we say disorder...

...The filibuster is best understood not as a bulwark for fundamental rights but as a convenient means for political obstruction and bargaining...

...The chances that these conditions may be lacking are considerably increased by one direct result of the constitutional separation of powers: the possibility of divided government, when the president is of one party while one or both houses of congress have majorities from the other party...

...Meanwhile, less far-reaching changes would help...

...He was also a sharp observer and a quick learner...

...The other English-speaking democracies, all the European democracies, and Japan have rejected this distinctively American solution...