The latest ideological ratings of Congress

The National Journal uses votes in the 2012 Congress to rank state congressional delegations according to ideology. You can find the entire results for the Senate here. Click here for the results for the House. Perhaps the most important part of the study is the votes on the specific bills used to determine who the liberals and conservatives are. Click here for the list. This takes the abstract ideological positions of "liberal" and "conservative" and makes them more concrete. It gives them some context.

Here's a map showing which state delegations are liberal, centrist, or conservative. Texas has the 13th most conservative state delegation.

Here's proof that the 112th Congress was the most polarized ever

The Washington Post highlights the latst research from Voteview showing that ideological polarization between party members in Congress contines to increase, and is now at its highest levels ever, and that most of the ideological shift has been among congressional Republicans.



For additional detail click on either link above. Here's explanation from the WP:

The Democratic caucus got more liberal this past Congress as a lot of Blue Dogs and conservative Southern Dems lost their seats in the 2010 elections, and in general the party has been getting gradually more liberal since the 1930s. And from the ’30s to the ’70s, the Republican caucus was slowly getting more liberal too. But around 1976, it suddenly shifted and grew rapidly more conservative, and has continued to do so ever since. The Tea Party movement doesn’t appear to have sped that process up much, but then again many of its successes came in primaries to determine challengers for Democratic seats, in which those challengers (like Sharron Angle or Christine O’Donnell) went on to lose. That wouldn’t show up in these figures.

How did the Texas delegation to the US Congress vote on the fiscal cliff?

The Texas Tribune breaks it down. Four Republicans and all Democrats in the House voted for it. Both Senators voted for it as well. Since this vote was taken by the 112th Congress, this was the previous delegation, not the one just sworn in.

Boehner v Cantor

The Hill reports that the two top leaders of the Republican Party in the House voted on either side of the fiscal bill. Its expected that this will set up a fight over leadership of the party in the 113th Session, including who will be elected Speaker later this week.

During the vote, the filling House chamber was subdued. All eyes were on the tally board high above the press gallery in the House, where Republican lawmakers saw a significant division appear in red and green lights among their leadership team.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wasted little time in casting a yes vote for the bipartisan measure. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) waited until the last minute to vote no.

Even though the Speaker doesn’t traditionally cast a vote, Boehner walked onto the floor less than one minute after the vote opened, leaned over a colleague to place his card in an electronic machine and voted “aye.”

Boehner would be joined by 84 other GOP lawmakers in voting for the bill. Many Republicans did not support the legislation, but opted to vote for the bill as a means to stave off the potential calamity of the fiscal cliff's across-the-board tax hikes.

McCarthy and Roskam, who were present on the floor throughout the 15-minute vote, refrained from casting “no” votes until the measure had hit the 218 marker, signaling passage.

They waited until Cantor appeared on the floor, with zero minutes remaining on the vote clock, to cast his own “no” vote — putting him at odds with the Speaker.

So the 3rd and 4th in rank joined #2 in opposition to #1.

If I'm Boehner, I'm watching my back.

The McConnell-Biden Plan passes the House

Coverage in the NYT.

Andrew Sullivan complies reactions to the deal.

Wonkblog outlines the deal and provides good links to studies about it and its consequences.

Here's another link to a summary of the bill's content. I'll highlight these later.

Spending cuts have been postponed for only two months, so we've only stepped back slightly from the cliff.

And commentators seem to have suddenly discovered that by not going over the cliff, nothing has been done substantively to deal with the deficit, and with it the ever increasing debt. The argument made by some economists is that since the economy is still weak - even if it is recovering - we would be better suited in waiting to tackle the deficit after the economy recovers.

The Senate approves fiscal cliff deal 89-9

Story in the NYT:

They provide a graphic of the deal (the McConnell-Biden Plan) which details what it includes and excludes.

 Under the agreement, tax rates would jump to 39.6 percent from 35 percent for individual incomes over $400,000 and couples over $450,000, while tax deductions and credits would start phasing out on incomes as low as $250,000, a clear victory for President Obama, who ran for re-election vowing to impose taxes on the wealthy.
. . . Democrats also secured a full year’s extension of unemployment insurance without strings attached and without offsetting spending cuts, a $30 billion cost. But the two-percentage point cut to the payroll tax that the president secured in late 2010 lapsed at midnight and will not be renewed.

. . .  In one final piece of the puzzle, negotiators agreed to put off $110 billion in across-the-board cuts to military and domestic programs for two months while broader deficit-reduction talks continue. Those cuts begin to go into force on Wednesday, and that deadline, too, might be missed before Congress approves the legislation.


Now the bill goes to the House.

The House Speaker, John A. Boehner, and the Republican House leadership said the House would “honor its commitment to consider the Senate agreement.” But, they added, “decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members — and the American people — have been able to review the legislation.”

Even with that cautious assessment, Republican House aides said a vote Tuesday was possible.

A Slate writer wonders if this can pass the House.

This applies to our look at budgetting and the bill making process, among many other topics.

The US Senate passes extension of FISA

The House had passed the bill previsously, so its' set for a presidential signature.

FISA stands for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which authorizes warrantless searches of communications with suspected spies and terrorists, but concerns exist that it allows open ended monitoring of anyone the government wants to surveil:

Critics of the bill, including Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, expressed concern that electronic surveillance, though directed at noncitizens, inevitably swept up communications of Americans as well.

“The Fourth Amendment was written in a different time and a different age, but its necessity and its truth are timeless,” Mr. Paul said, referring to the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. “Over the past few decades, our right to privacy has been eroded. We have become lazy and haphazard in our vigilance. Digital records seem to get less protection than paper records.”

But the bill passed by comfortable margins in each chamber:

The bill, which extends the government’s surveillance authority for five years, was approved in the House by a vote of 301 to 118 in September. Mr. Obama is expected to sign the bill in the next few days.

It passed the Senate 73 - 23. Who says government is broken?

Plan B Fails

Commentators are reading a lot into the failure last night of Speaker Boehner to convince the Republican Conference in the House - the group he is alleged to lead - to vote for an alternate tax plan that would avoid the fiscal cliff. The bill contained an allowance for taxes to rise for incomes past $1 million. The conservative and Tea Party wing of the party refuses to let that happen, so no deal.

Congress will adjourn for Christmas and presumably return prior to the New Year to try again.

This is seen as a test of Boehner's speakership.

Some related items:

- The Plum Line. 
- Washington Post.
- Summary of reactions from The Dish

From the Hill: 25 problems facing Obama, Congress

Now that the election is over, Congress gets back to work, and the big question is how it will deal with Obama now that he has been re-elected. Is the president now stronger politically?

The Hill argues that these are the 25 biggest problems facing each.

What is the Fiscal Cliff?

Since we've been covering the legislative branch and the question about whether the current Congress is the worst ever, its past time I posted links to stories about the fiscal cliff. This refers to the automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are scheduled to occur at the end of the year if Congress does not actively work to stop it. They are projected to come back into session after the election is over in order to address it.

On the bright side, going off the cliff would trim the deficit considerable, but at the cost of sending the country back into a recession. Spending cuts and tax increases would tighten the amount of money flowing in the economy. Passing laws preventing this requires a degree of cooperation that seems beyond the capacity of Congress at the moment.

Some useful links:

- What is the fiscal cliff?
- Must avoid fiscal cliff or will slip back into recession.
- Group of Eight Senators Meets to Work on Fiscal Cliff Plan.

Is the 112th Congress the worst Congress ever?

A number of commentators think it is. Here are some links:

- Ezra Klein: 14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever.
- Fox Business: Worst Congress Ever.
- National Journal: Worst Congress Ever? Then We're the Worst Electorate Ever.
- The American Spectator: Worst Congress Ever?
- Foreign Policy: Worst.Congress.Ever.

This is just a handful of the many similar stories out there. Its almost enough to make you wonder if the media has adopted this as a talking point and there might be a contrary take to make, but perhaps not.

Here are two recently published books that argue that increasingly extreme politics driven by ideologically polarized parties have overcome the ability of governing institutions to function.

2008: The Broken Branch
2012: It's even worse than it looks.

From the NYT: Fed Chairman Makes Case, in Strong Terms, for New Action

For a future discussion of monetary policy, mostly in Govt 2305 and 2302. While the Congress has stalemated, the Federal Reserve still has the ability to impact the economy:

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, delivered a detailed and forceful argument on Friday for new steps to stimulate the economy, reinforcing earlier indications that the Fed is on the verge of action.

Calling the persistently high rate of unemployment a “grave concern,” language that several experts described as unusually strong, Mr. Bernanke made clear that a recent run of tepid rather than terrible economic data had not altered the Fed’s will to act, because the pace of growth remained too slow to reduce the number of people who lack jobs.

Bernacke did so despite opposition from Congressional Republicans:

. . . Mr. Bernanke appeared to defy political pressure from Republicans to refrain from new measures. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, has said such action would be counterproductive, and has pledged to replace Mr. Bernanke at the earliest opportunity.

“Policies from Congress, not more short-term stimulus from the Fed, are the ingredients necessary for restoring growth in the American economy,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said in a statement after Mr. Bernanke’s speech.

On the other hand, Democrats welcomed Mr. Bernanke’s remarks. There is little prospect that Fed action will lift the economy before the election, but party officials fear the opposite possibility — that inaction could undermine economic confidence — and so they greeted the speech with relief.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Mr. Bernanke “should not let any political backlash deter him from following through and doing the right thing.”

We will spend time in upcoming classes looking at the specific steps he proposes, but for now its useful to note the differences in these two branches. The legislative branch is geared towards inaction, while the executive branch is designed to act.

Is the oversight function being corrupted?

Jonathan Bernstein thinks scandal mongering has replaced traditional oversight:

By focusing exclusively on scandals, the House inevitably does less of the real, tough oversight that they should be doing.

As many have noted (see for example Mann and Ornstein’s The Broken Branch), Congressional oversight slumped in the 1990s and then collapsed during the stretch of unified Republican control during the George W. Bush years. The problem is that instead of the traditional oversight, two types of partisanship have emerged: Members of Congress stopped taking their institutional role seriously when the White House was in their party’s hands, and when it’s not they focused on discovering huge scandals instead of just making sure that executive branch departments and agencies were doing what they’re supposed to do.

Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012

The US Senate passed its version of this bill last week, the House will follow at some point.

Let's walk through the bill making process in class. You can find the steps detailed on Govtrack and Thomas.

We'll walk through the commentary about the bill soon enough, but this was one of those large omnibus bills that dealt with multiple issues that are being unpacked by the media. All of this can be negated by the House. Over a dozen Republicans voted for the bill - that may be les likely to happen in the more partisan House.

Fast and Furious for Dummies

Here's a quick look at the program at the heart of this particular conflict between Congress - or at least the House Oversight Committee's chair Darryl Issa - and the Obama Administration - or at least the Attorney General Eric Holder.

Gunrunning programs have been around for a while apparently.

And here's an analysis of the current conflict (the checking and the balancing and the ambition counteracting ambition) in light of past conflicts between Congress and the executive over similar matters. This ain't this first time and it ain't the last. tha author suggests that if the House wants to get at Holder, it should impeach him. That's what its for. A contempt citation is cheap talk.

Executive Privilege exerted by Obama over Fast and Furious program

Just in time for our discussion about executive power.

Story in the Washington Post, and the NYT.

The House Oversight Committee is set to vote on contempt citation.

From the Fiscal Times: How Sugar Daddy Lobbyists Killed the War on Obesity

A depressing story I suppose, but it shows how legislation aimed at the public good is easily undermined when doing so cuts into profits:

After aggressive lobbying, Congress declared pizza a vegetable to protect it from a nutritional overhaul of the school lunch program this year. The White House kept silent last year as Congress killed a plan by four federal agencies to reduce sugar, salt and fat in food marketed to children. And during the past two years, each of the 24 states and five cities that considered "soda taxes" to discourage consumption of sugary drinks has seen the efforts dropped or defeated.

At every level of government, the food and beverage industries won fight after fight in the last decade. They've never lost a significant political battle in the U.S. despite mounting scientific evidence of the role of unhealthy food and children's marketing in obesity. Lobbying records analyzed by Reuters reveal that the industries more than doubled their spending in Washington during the past three years. In the process, they largely dominated policymaking: pledging voluntary action while defeating government proposals aimed at changing the nation's diet, dozens of interviews show.

In contrast, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, widely regarded as the lead lobbying force for healthier food, spent about $70,000 lobbying last year, roughly what those opposing the stricter guidelines spent every 13 hours, the Reuters analysis showed.

Two Senators introduce legislation to overturn Supreme Court case

File this under checks and balances as well as civil rights.

The NYT points out that Senators Harkin and Grassley have introduced the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act which internded to overrule Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. This was a 2008 Supreme Court case which ruled against a man's claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) that he had been demoted due to his age. The Supreme Court ruled that those claiming age discrimination must prove by a "preponderance of the evidence" that age was the principle factor leading to the demotion.

The Senators intend to overrule that standard. They state the following about the bill: 

• The Act reverses the Gross decision and restores the law to what it was for decades before the Court rewrote the rule. The Act makes clear that when a victim shows discrimination was a “motivating factor” behind a decision, the burden is properly on the employer to show it complied with the law.

• The Act is modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis 93-5. Among other things, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 codified the “motivating factor” framework for race, sex, national origin and religion discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.• The Act makes clear that this “motivating factor” framework applies to all anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation laws involving race, sex, national origin, religion, age and disability – treating all workers, and all forms of discrimination, equally.

While we've spent time looking at last week's attempt to use the Supreme Court to overturn a law passed by Congress, its worth noting that the reverse can happen as well. Congress can modify legislation to negate the consequences of a Supreme Court decision.

Conservatives v Business

Apparently business interests do not always line up with conservative goals.

From the NYT, a report that some government programs favored by business groups may be terminated or delayed by conservatives in the House:

Business groups that worked hard to install a Republican majority in the House equated Republican control with a business-friendly environment. But the majority is first and foremost a conservative political force, and on key issues, its ideology is not always aligned with commercial interests that helped finance election victories.

“Free market is not always the same as pro-business,” said Barney Keller, spokesman for the conservative political action committee Club for Growth.

There could be real-world consequences to the conservative rebellion. The 90-day extension of the highway trust fund that House Republican leaders say they will pass this week in lieu of a broad highway bill would keep existing projects moving for now. But business groups say few new government-funded infrastructure projects can get under way without longer-range certainty about federal backing.

The House considers a variety of budget proposals

And most have been voted down.

Ezra Klein discusses attempts to resurrect the Simpson - Bowles debt reduction plan and why it was doomed to fail:

On Wednesday, Reps. Jim Cooper and Steve LaTourette managed to put Simpson-Bowles to a vote before the House of Representatives. It didn't just fail. It got crushed. The final tally was 382-38. Twenty-two of the supporters were Democrats, while 16 were Republicans. But overall, the rejection was overwhelming, and overwhelmingly bipartisan.

This was, of course, what the White House always complained would happen if they had listened to the pundits and brought Simpson-Bowles to a vote. Republicans would reject it because it included $2 trillion in new taxes and $800 billion in defense cuts. Democrats would reject it because they weren't going to vote for a doomed proposal that included deep Medicare and Social Security cuts in addition to a large tax increase just to show how much they cared about deficits. Perhaps, with presidential leadership, the vote would have been less lopsided.

But Wednesday's vote — which considered a version of SImpson-Bowles with somewhat less in tax increases -- is at least suggestive evidence that the White House was right and the proposal would never have passed because, in the end, the problem with Simpson-Bowles wasn't that the president didn't say enough nice things about it, but that members of Congress didn't want to vote for it. 
The Hill reports that the House will likely pass - on a party line vote - Paul Ryan's budget proposal a day after unanimously voting down a version based on the president's proposal.