Who is to blame for gridlock in Washington?
A lot of people blame fickle voters but I blame two Virginians;
James Madison and Eric Cantor.
The debate about taxes on the wealthy is illustrative.
On the campaign trail Barack Obama repeatedly pledged to raise
taxes on the wealthy if re-elected, which he was; with a narrow, but clear,
majority of the popular vote. Not surprisingly, Obama wants to follow through
on that pledge.
In an interview with ABC News Paul Ryan was asked if he thought
the nation’s voters had given Obama a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy.
“I don’t think so, because they also re-elected the House
Republicans,” Ryan said. “So whether people intended or not, we’ve got divided
government.”
I doubt that’s what most voters want and it may or may not be the
type of impasse that Madison and the other framers of the Constitution
intended; but it most certainly is a circumstance that the Constitution
facilitates.
It’s important to remember that no Federal politician,
including the president, is elected by the popular vote of the nation as a
whole. That fact alone makes it difficult for a president or either party to
claim a true mandate from a single election.
Madison and the Federalists who prevailed in the battle over
the U.S. Constitution were clearly hesitant to give too much power directly to
voters, fearing a “tyranny of the majority.”
Thus, the president and the 100 senators (thanks to the 17th
amendment)[i] are
elected by voters that are segregated into states (and, for the president, the
District of Columbia). Members of the House of Representatives are elected by
voters that are segregated into 435 districts – which are further segregated by
apportionment among the 50 states. Importantly, these state-apportioned
districts are drawn by state legislatures. Because both the house and senate are
controlled by Republicans in 26 state legislatures (the same number that Republicans
controlled in 2011 when the congressional districts were drawn)[ii] it
is not a surprise that the House districts were drawn to favor Republicans.
When reflecting on the recent election and contemplating a
future budget deal it is important to understand that the substantial
Republican majority in the House of Representatives is the result of this
structural advantage which the Founders intentionally created; and not the
result of a fickle electorate that voted one way for the president and the U.S.
Senate and a very different way for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Democratic House candidates received slightly more votes than
Republican candidates in the Nov. 6 election but the Republicans ended up with a
35-seat majority in the House.
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are prime examples of this
disconnect. President Obama received the majority of the popular vote in all
three states, Democrats won the Senate contests in Michigan and Wisconsin and Democratic
candidates for the House received, collectively, more votes than their
Republican opponents in all three states.
Yet all three of these “blue” states will be sending more
Republicans than Democrats to the U.S. House next year. In Pennsylvania the count is 13 Republicans to
five Democrats. In Michigan the count is nine Republicans to five Democrats and
in Wisconsin it is five Republicans to three Democrats. Collectively, that’s a
27 to 13 edge for Republicans in three states were voters clearly favored
Democrats.
There are no states where it worked the other way, where the
Republican candidates received more collective votes but the Democrats got more
congressmen.
There are 12 states where Democrats elected more U.S. House
members than they would receive if the votes were applied proportionately – but
there are 21 states where that is the case for Republicans.
A clear majority of Americans say they want the president and
the Congress to compromise and work together but the district-by-district
structure of the House does not facilitate that desire.
At least 190 House Republicans represent districts where
Democrats have no plausible chance of winning. To put that in perspective, those
190 House members from “safe” Republican districts constitute 88 percent of the
votes that Republicans need to elect the Speaker of the House and each of them
is far more likely to be defeated in the next election by someone from their own
party, running against them in the Republican primary, than by a Democrat
running against them in the general election.
Republican Representative James Lankford of Oklahoma described
this reality succinctly when he told the New York Times recently that: “I was
elected by my district to represent their values. I really don’t approach this
and say, now I’ve got to cave to what the Senate or president want.”
It is hard to argue with the righteousness or – perhaps more
importantly – the logic of Lankford’s assessment.
Even though Lankford’s position is clearly not what the majority
of Americans want the position he describes is clearly a circumstance that the
framers of the Constitution purposefully chose to facilitate.
As the Speaker of the House and now – post-election – the most
visible national face of the Republican Party, John Boehner is caught in the
middle of these cross currents.
For Boehner to meet Obama halfway and also retain the
Speakership he needs to be allowed the flexibility to cut a deal from House
Republicans that have ample reason to be inflexible.
Thus, the key to a bipartisan budget deal is most likely held
by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor; the congressman that will likely replace
Boehner as Speaker of the House if Boehner decides to fall on his sword and cut
a bipartisan deal with Obama.
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