Note 32. Partisanship and Deliberation
Is There Hope for Meaningful Reform?
During the 2019-2021 period, the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress has held hearings that addressed deliberation in Congress. The select committee made many useful recommendations for the administration of the House and upgrading information technology and office systems. However, a more fundamental and political theme, deliberation, was repeated several times in its hearings and their titles: “Promoting Civility and Building a More Collaborative Congress,” “Fostering a More Deliberative Process in Congress,” “Building a More Civil and Collaborative Culture in Congress,” “Rethinking Congressional Culture: Lessons from the Fields of Organizational Psychology and Conflict Resolution,” and “Practicing Civility, Collaboration, and Leadership can Empower Members of Congress.” The select committee carefully avoided using the word “party” or even “partisanship” in its hearing titles, but most of the discussion in the hearings about congressional culture and deliberation was about party. With few exceptions, the witnesses and commenting committee members have discussed proposals to reduce the sharpness of partisan divisions, encourage discussion across party lines, and, as the committee’s chair asserted, to find “new ideas and fresh approaches” to the “internal mechanisms we have previously relied upon to help us solve institutional problems.”[1] Many of the recommendations of committee witnesses and endorsed by select committee members deserve consideration. I encourage you to read or watch the hearings.[2]
Like some of the witnesses, I was skeptical that most of the proposals would make much difference. They didn’t. Congress is inherently a political body that is sensitive to the larger political environment. Incentives for (good or bad) behavior on the part of legislators are largely driven by actors in that larger environment (see Note 3). In fact, many of the proposals are intended to insulate Congress from that environment. My hunch is that the effects of these reforms will be marginal. The kinds of people elected to Congress and the kinds of political actors to whom they are responsive are fundamental problems that the select committee has not addressed effectively. Remaking their political personalities is unlikely to succeed.
I thought a little perspective could be added by providing a framework for understanding deliberation.
Debate, Deliberation, and the Perception of Interests
Scholars have sometimes distinguished two models of a legislature. The deliberative model emphasizes how discussion among legislators with a variety of experiences and expertise can better define political problems, identify common interests, and find policy solutions. A bargaining model emphasizes the variety of political interests among legislators and the process of resolving those differences through negotiations. Of course, actual legislative behavior often involves both deliberation and bargaining. Discovering or crafting a consensus about legislation and compromising or logrolling to build majorities often go on side-by-side and often are difficult to distinguish.[3]
Because legislatures and parliaments are, at a minimum about talk, it is worth observing that the two models are related to parallel forms of discussion. We might say that debate is a verbal contest between people of opposing views, views that are well-formed and unlikely to change. Debate is what we usually get from legislators and is often structured by standing rules, special rules, and unanimous consent agreements. The views of few legislators are expected to change by virtue of witnessing a debate. Typically, debate is time limited and results in a decision by vote.
Deliberation, in contrast, involves a careful consideration of all alternatives. No premium is placed on crystallized options, well-focused discussion, or rapid decision. Broad participation is valued because it enhances the range of options that are identified, developed, and discussed. Reasoning together about the nature of a problem and possible solutions, which may take considerable time, is valued over argumentation and refutation. A collegial, collaborative process is the means and consensus is the goal.
I introduce these notions to help make the point that different perceptions of interests underlie the two models. Conflicting, incompatible, or zero-sum interests produce an adversarial democracy (Jane Mansfield’s term) in which participants can only debate contending points of view and must, if necessary, bargain to make decisions. Winning occurs by force of having the votes. Compromise might be possible but is perceived to involve sacrifice. Most political science of the legislative politics takes this perspective. Legislators’ ideal points, their policy preferences, are imported with them or adopted in response to political considerations. Legislators’ behavior is strategic—seeking outcomes as close to their ideal points as possible--and the legislative outcomes are merely a product of those ideal points, the rules of the game, and legislators’ strategies.
In contrast, the recognition of common interests, or at least the possibility that common interests exist, produces a more deliberative process. This is a process of discovery and consensus building. Political science certainly has observed the importance of consensus policy making, particularly in the case of responding to crises, but, as a general rule, political scientists see politics as a conflict-resolving process rather than a consensus-discovering one.
Democratic theorists of the 1980s emphasized that process can reshape the perception of interests and insist that, at least at the level of neighborhoods and small towns, this is true. There is some disagreement about that, but it is credible that a change in behavior imposed by social scientists or new decision rules can lead to a change in habits and norms and lead to more deliberation and consensus outcomes.
This kind of thinking leads to obvious questions about Congress. Can changes in procedures and encouraging better interpersonal relations alter perceptions of the partisan interests at stake in policy making in Congress? Can party leaders and rank-and-file members simply choose to be collaborative and deliberative and redirect their energies away from partisan strategies? How do we know legislators will not discover common interests and engage in more meaningful deliberation once they get serious about bipartisan collaboration? Many reform proposals reflect optimistism about the answers to these questions.
Partisanship and Deliberation
Congress differs in a fundamental way from neighborhood or town democracy. Congress is far from an insular community addressing issues affecting only life on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress operate in an environment of broad and deep political interests. That environment (see Note 3) is filled with actors who thrive on partisan conflict—conflict entrepreneurs, they have been called. Indeed, the interests perceived by legislators, and their very identities as partisans, are largely derived from political forces external to Congress and only partly by the common interests of the citizens of Capitol Hill. Select committee members were keenly aware of this, but their hope, expressed over and over again, was that the influence of external forces can be overcome by creating new incentives within the House and by growing a Capitol Hill culture that holds those external forces in check.
It is worth noting that some commentators argue there is much more deliberation on Capitol Hill than we witness in floor sessions and committee markups. Informal discussion, even across the two parties, is common among legislators, among staff, within special caucuses,and between legislators and lobbyists, it is claimed. Bipartisan work is buried in omnibus appropriations and reconciliation bills. In fact, some argue, deliberation is quietly pervasive on Capitol Hill and only needs to be recognized and rewarded.
If deliberation is pervasive, it must be living side-by-side with intensifying partisanship. The truth is that the extent deliberation, now or over the decades, is not easy to measure and certainly not in all of the potential richness that defenders of Congress imply. Even for floor action no one has measured deliberation in a way that allows us to make credible inferences about change over time. But readers of these Notes realize that there are several reasons to think the deliberation has suffered with the rise of more partisan policy-making processes (see Notes 2, 7, 10, 14, 15, 20, 22, and 31):
Deliberation in committee venues has declined: The number of House subcommittees was cut in the 1990s and has not risen to pre-1995levels, and the number of committee meetings and conference committees has plummeted.
The number of important policy choices made in party venues, as opposed to committee or other bipartisan venues, has increased.
The number of committee, personal, and support agency staff engaged in policy analysis and legislating has declined. More important policy choices are made within majority party.
The opportunities to debate and amend policy proposals in committee and on the floor have withered.
Partisan rhetoric, without question, has intensified and personal relations between leaders of the two parties have deteriorated.
In the Senate, minority party obstructionism has increased.
And a great deal of policy making has shifted to unilateral action by presidents and executive agencies.
As select committee members testified repeatedly, it is impossible to avoid the inference that open-minded search for information and a discussion on the merits has declined substantially over the last quarter century. Over several decades, the forces that generated, reinforced, and perpetuated deep partisanship have become overwhelming (see Note 3). Partisanship certainly was fueled by the actions of members of Congress, but the partisanship now rests more deeply in American society and in Congress.
Can Congress Reform Itself as a Way to More Deliberation?
Even before the new century arrived, legislators and close observers of Congress claimed that Congress should engage in more deliberation. In fact, many of the select committee’s hearings sound remarkably similar to those held by the the 1993 Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, co-chaired by Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) and Senator David Boren (D-OK). Reform proposals geared to creating more places and time for deliberation proliferated in the 1980s and early 1990s and the 1993 committee collected them in its hearings. A sample:
cutting the number of committee assignments for a legislator to permit greater focus on the work of one or two committees;
keeping legislators in Washington for longer work periods;
holding more bipartisan retreats, orientations, and training sessions out of the view of the media and public to cultivate stronger inter-personal relations and informal discussion;
structuring floor sessions devoted to major issues, perhaps in weekly Oxford-style debates;
rewarding the activity of “civility” or “problem solvers” caucuses with party leadership positions;
modifying open-meeting rules to allow committees to engage in more discussion out of the spotlight;
restoring the power of committees to get floor action on legislation, perhaps if there is some minimal level of bipartisan support for a measure;
using formats and seating arrangements in committees that are more conducive to collaboration and learning from experts;
restoring the minority right offer policy alternatives in committee and on the floor; and
creating subsidies to encourage members to move their families to Washington in order the facilitate more informal and personal contact among legislators.
In recent decades, another class of reforms has received more attention: Avoiding the issues that generate debilitating partisanship. The Senate did this in a very marginal way a decade ago by reducing the number of executive branch positions subject to Senate confirmation, which reduced the number of targets for filibusters. Eliminating the federal debt ceiling is a proposal now offered for the same reason. A long-popular proposal is to move from an annual to a biennial budget process. Another is to combine authorizations and appropriations. Of course, majority parties are trimming the number of targets for partisan battles anyway by using reconciliation, omnibus appropriations, and other measures and avoiding committee meetings and conference committees where inter-party confrontations are often bitter and attract media coverage.
Legislators recognize the downside of many of these proposals to avoid opportunities for partisan divisions to surface. Some of the proposals limit congressional control of the executive branch. Others reduce the involvement rank-and-file members and the minority party in determining the details of legislation. In fact, most meaningful efforts to suppress or circumvent partisan divisions alter the distribution of power within Congress or across the branches.
Signs of Hope?
With minor exceptions, the wide variety of proposals went nowhere in the 1990s. Some have been reinvented in recent years by witnesses before the recent select committee. The select committee proved an ability to propose useful reforms on a bipartisan basis, but little to address the partisan polarization and exploitation of parliamentary rules for partisan purposes was accomplished.
Most observers are sympathetic with the handwringing about partisan and the demise of deliberation that is evident in the House of recent Congresses. For the most part, select committee members recognized that congressional parties are behaving as their members want them to behave. Partisanship is a strategy—a choice made in anticipation of the actions of others, in this case the others are the other party, the president, fundraisers, the media, voters. Members of the House have, at best, a marginal effect on those powerful political forces.
Breaking the cycle of partisan move and countermove is a deserving goal. I hope to be surprised by future House majorities.
Then there is the Senate.
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[1] The two quotes can be found in the Select Committee’s June 24, 2021, hearing, available at https://modernizecongress.house.gov/imo/media/doc/HMH175.000.pdf.
[2] https://modernizecongress.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings. In the 118th Congress (2023-2024), the select committee was not reauthorized, but its work was formally assigned to a House Administration Committee subcommittee—previously named “House Operations,” it became “Modernizaton.”
[3] For background, see Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversarial Democracy (Chicago, 1981). With application to Congress, see my Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate (Brookings, 1989).