In 1963 scholar and political insider James MacGregor Burns published Deadlock of Democracy: Four-Party Politics in America. It was a scathing critique of the Madisonian tradition of checks and balances and fragmentation of power. C. Vann Woodward, in a review that year in Commentary magazine, wrote that “[n]ot since Charles Beard published his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution … have the framers of the Constitution had so rough a time.”
Burns argued that each party had a “congressional” wing that came together to stop progressive efforts by presidents on a range of national issues. Each party, too, had a “presidential” wing which supported vigorous presidential leadership and responsible party government. The congressional wings normally carried the day.
Political scientist Merle Black described this as a bipartisan “conservative coalition” that controlled key committees in Congress with the aim of thwarting federal intervention in civil rights, education, health, and other areas.
The persistence of ideological overlap between the parties
Even as recently as 1982, most of Congress landed somewhere between the most liberal Republican and the most conservative Democrat on an ideological spectrum. As Alex Roarty laid out in an Atlantic article, 344 House members and 58 senators fell into this area of rough agreement.
But as the century progressed, Roarty went on, liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats disappeared from Congress. By 2002 the overlap had shrunk to 137 in the House and only 7 in the Senate. By 2012 the parties had become ideologically distinct — which remains true today.
Bipartisanship continues. Why?
But miraculously, some would say, bipartisanship persists. As we noted in the last post, Congress continues to find common ground on major spending bills, annual legislation on defense policy, infrastructure bills, responses to crises (during the Great Recession and the coronavirus epidemic), and some other legislation.
Large numbers, often majorities in both parties, vote for these bills, even though there is little ideological agreement between the parties. So what is going on?
The New York Times’ David Leonhardt suggests that a new bipartisan neopopulist consensus is developing, critical of unfettered free enterprise, free trade, and the concentration of corporate power. “Developing” is the key word here; other than in trade policy, any neopopulist consensus is in the nascent stage. It is minimal at best on immigration and non-existent on other cultural issues, and can’t explain the day-to-day workings of Congress.
The big news is what was noted above: the essential bills continue to be passed on a bipartisan basis. Political scientist Frances Lee shared in an email that there’s no “‘new normal of bipartisanship’ … [i]t’s just how Congress works. And Congress has not stopped working, partisan rhetoric notwithstanding.”
The overlooked insight into congressional behavior writ large, according to Jim Curry of the University of Utah, is that “most members of Congress are interested in achieving policy outcomes, and the only way to do that … is through broad, bipartisan deals that get broad, bipartisan support. The members who are animated by achieving something (most of them) are willing to accept compromises, logrolls, and so on, to get it done. The ones that aren’t vote no.”
Congress mid-20th century, and Congress today
The dominant “congressional” wings in mid-20th century America enjoyed broad agreement on preserving a limited role for the federal government in Americans’ lives. The so-called presidential wings of both parties were progressive, advocating federal action on health, education, and civil rights.
Things look different now. Today the parties do not have ideological overlap — Republicans are conservative across the board, Democrats liberal. But most members do want the government to work and do want to be able to point to at least some policy outcomes — federal grants, infrastructure projects, military bases, etc. This is true even for many strongly conservative and strongly liberal members.
“Governing” and “Grandstanding” wings
What we have in Congress is an unstated consensus that, if you can’t get everything you want, it’s better to get something than nothing … even if it means ratifying a status quo you don’t particularly like. The members with this view constitute the “governing” wings of the parties.
But there are members in both parties who won’t ratify that status quo, who won’t take a half or a quarter of a loaf. The “grandstanding” wings of the parties make up a small minority — albeit a bigger minority on the GOP side if recent votes are any indication.
The grandstanders diverge from the “presidential” wings that Burns wrote about. Today’s Democratic and Republican grandstanders are polar opposites, rarely finding common ground. Republican grandstanders don’t want to be the “tax collector[s] for the welfare state,” to borrow a phrase from Newt Gingrich, and the Democratic ones want dramatic government intervention on climate and inequality.
At the end of the day, we have a Congress that gets the basic work done, however ugly it looks and however bitter the vitriol gets. This is true with presidents of either party, and irrespective of party control in Congress. For better or worse the governing consensus is a conservative one, in the sense of being disposed to preserve existing conditions.