Overcoming Gridlock in Washington

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There's a big, flashing sign hovering over Washington, and in bold letters it reads, "Congestion Ahead."

It is well worn.

For two decades, the parties and institutions of the federal government have essentially been deadlocked by what former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., labels "rampant partisanship that has paralyzed Washington."

The consequences compound geometrically:

*The number of Americans without health insurance is 47 million and climbing.
*The cost of fixing the ill-directed alternative minimum tax is $40 billion and growing.
*The price tag for repairing crumbling bridges and highways has reached $1.6 trillion.
*Social Security and Medicare finances, already shaky, face red ink within a decade.
*Failure to confirm appointees has crippled several federal agencies, including the Federal Election Commission, which can’t muster a quorum in the midst of the costliest campaign in history.

The public overwhelmingly favors addressing each of these problems, but effectively nothing has happened.

Last year's immigration debate offered a case study. Nearly two-thirds of the country supported major provisions in a bill co-authored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, the Democratic icon, and John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate. It failed despite a Democratic takeover of Congress with pledges to make Congress work and a Republican president who put immigration near the top of his to-do list. But opponents on both the left and the right conspired to doom the effort.

Not even the $168 billion economic stimulus package approved hastily in the face of a dramatic economic slowdown is regarded as more than an aberration; both Republicans and Democrats calculated that inaction in a near-recession in an election year was too risky.

"If the stakes are high enough, there's a need for them to show they can tie their shoelaces," says David Mayhew, a political science professor at Yale University. "Some very public shoelace tying might be in order."

So how did Washington get into this mess?

"All the things that lead to gridlock are in place," says Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. That includes an increasingly partisan pattern of campaign contributions, gerrymandered congressional districts that protect incumbents, ever-narrower margins between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, party strategy that heightens the differences and plays to respective political bases, and the political echo chamber produced by instant communication.

Perhaps most important, "the parties are pretty polarized. Even if you do have a member who has a desire to build bipartisan coalitions, it's very hard to do if there's no one in the middle," Binder says.

Many political analysts trace the polarization to the 1980s presidency of Ronald Reagan and his bitter tug of war with a Democratic Congress. Reagan moved the Republican Party to the right, shunning liberal or even moderate Republicans. (Remember liberal Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller of New York, or Charles Mathias of Maryland?) Democrats, moving in the opposite direction, became more liberal and squeezed out moderates and conservatives. (Southern Sens. Phil Gramm and Richard Shelby switched parties, for example.)

Consolidated around conservatives, the GOP grew stronger and, in the 1994 elections during President Clinton's first term, took control of both the House and Senate, though by margins too slim to exert unrivaled power. In the House, leaders such as Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who were very conservative, gave no quarter to those who disagreed with them, even in their own party. They took hard-line positions and refused to compromise. Their power reduced Clinton's until he felt obligated to publicly assert that he was "relevant." That changed when he forced a government shutdown in 1995 and triggered laws revamping welfare and balancing the federal budget for the first time in three decades.

Democrats, crushed under Republican power, moved left and in 2006 returned to power in the House under liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. But they, too, found their majority too slim to govern efficiently. Neither party has the numbers to impose its will nor the inclination to make the kinds of compromises that lead to landmark legislation.

"There is now a ferocious power struggle between very conservative Republicans and very liberal Democrats," says Emory University professor Merle Black, an expert on politics and elections. "You don't get any points for compromising or splitting the difference."

This polarization has found a way to guarantee stalemate through the Constitution. A government system that includes two equal branches, the executive and legislative, and a bicameral legislature, the House and Senate, was never designed to be an efficient machine. The Senate in particular, with fewer members serving longer terms, was designed as a more deliberative body.

But it wasn't intended to be the constant roadblock that it has become.

Senate rules provide for filibuster, a procedure that can prolong debate and requires 60 votes to stop. Historically it was rarely used—fewer than seven times a session in the 1960s. Now virtually any vote of consequence requires a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority to close off debate. Last year, minority Republicans used filibusters a record 78 times, nearly 50 percent more than the previous high of 42 in 2002, when Democrats were in the minority.

Another problem is the diminished time that members of Congress spend together conducting the people's business. Congressional elections, even in the most rural districts, can cost millions of dollars, meaning that members are caught in endless fundraising that leaves little time for socializing across the aisle. Gone are the days when House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Minority Leader Bob Michel would swap stories on the 19th hole after a round of golf together. Today's legislators are more likely to spend their weekends fundraising or flying home alone rather than with colleagues from the other party.

"There is a tangible cost," said Ronald Brownstein, author of The Second Civil War, on PBS' Newshour late last year. "As you look across the board at the challenges we face—whether it's health care, energy, entitlements, immigration, spending, developing a sustainable strategy in the war on terror—we are unable to move forward in this society on a 51-49 division"—the current Senate party balance.

So how will Washington get out of this mess?

Even the most inspirational presidential vision, oratory and leadership are unlikely to move major legislation. Black says it takes one party or the other accumulating enough seats in both houses of Congress to ram bills through on its own. Gridlock in the early 20th century ended in 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt and Democrats seized lopsided control of Congress (a 60-35 margin in the Senate and a 310-117 margin in the House).

"It's not the parties coming together, it's one party moving into the position of being a governing majority," Black says.

But Graham, the former Florida senator, raised another option in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post. "History tells us that bipartisanship is possible," he wrote.

"In the 40 years after World War II, nine presidents—four Democrats and five Republicans—worked side by side with Congresses of both parties to contain the Soviet Union and strengthen the free world. We can resurrect that healthy condition, but it starts with cutting out the cancer of hostile partisanship. It's time to use the knife not to injure, but to cure."

Elaine Povich is a freelance writer who covers congressional politics.