From GovTrack: A review of the 2015–2016 Congress, the last Congress of the Obama Administration

A summary of the 114th Congress

- Click here for the article.

The 114th Congress, the session that ran from January 3, 2015 through January 3, 2017, was historic. Republicans regained control of the Senate for the first time in eight years. After four years in which Republicans controlled the House, President Obama for the first time faced a Congress where both chambers were run by the Republicans. Yet some pieces of meaningful legislation were still enacted, and there were many others which didn’t quite cross the finish line due to election-year caution or presidential vetoes, but should be viewed as trial runs for successful versions to come in 2017–18 under President Trump.

From the NYT: How Long Does It Take to Confirm a Supreme Court Nominee?

The NYT has a graphic showing how long the confirmation process took for all justices going back to day one. It's worth a quick look. Like most things involving the national government, the whole process takes longer.

- Click here for it.

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has set off a partisan battle over whether the Senate will confirm a successor nominated by President Obama, whose term expires in 342 days. The Senate has never taken more than 125 days to vote on a successor from the time of nomination; on average, a nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn in 25 days. But few presidents have successfully filled vacancies announced in their final full year.

For more, click here for Supreme Court nominations present-1789 from the Senate's website.

Separation of Parties, Not Powers

Through Balikinization I found a link to a research paper which argues - plausibly - that the concept of separated powers is best understood today to operate between political parties not governing institutions, as Madison had intended it to. This actually blows apart the argument we make in 2301, based on Federalist #51, that the most important division in American government is between the branches and that the factor that keeps them separated is ambition. The authors suggest instead that:

. . . we live under a legal regime of separation of powers, overlaid on a political regime in which the real separation is of parties. Usually, one major implication of this gap is that legislatures are more inclined to constrain executive power when government is divided, and more inclined to cede power to an executive of the same party.

Checks and balances only work, as the founders intended, during periods of divided government and not during periods of unified government.

Poll: 40% say worst gridlock ever

Not a big surprise given the results of the 2010 election.

Washington is locked in the worst gridlock they’ve seen in their lifetimes, four in 10 Americans say as they voice dissatisfaction with how President Barack Obama and members of Congress are handling the country’s problems.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed for a USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday say that members of Congress of both parties are putting their own interests ahead of the country’s, while they’re evenly divided on whether the president is more driven by his own interests or the country’s.
Both 2301 and 2302 should read up on the phenomena of divided and unified government to put this in perspective.

- United States Presidents and control of Congress.
- Gridlock.

What is Triangulation?

Nothing really, other than political bargaining. In his takedown of the phrase Jonathan Bernstein has some succinct things to say about the bill making process:

With unified government, the best course for a president is usually to pass legislation by mobilizing his party. That's pretty much what Barack Obama did during the 111th Congress. The trick is going to be, always, to keep the handful at the extreme left (for a Democrat) happy while also appealing to the 218th most liberal Member of the House and the 60th most liberal Senator. Barack Obama may have, in some sense, wanted to be bipartisan or postpartisan or whatever, but the easiest coalition for almost everything he wanted to get done was going to be highly partisan.

When there's divided government, the calculus changes. While it's still possible that there will be issues in which the easiest winning coalition is constructed beginning with the left and moving to the center, there are other potential available coalitions that involve finding things that both sides really want that the other side doesn't mind that much. That's obviously the case with the tax cut deal: liberals don't care nearly as much about tax rates for the rich as do conservatives (yes, they care a lot -- but not nearly as much). Conservatives do not, it seems likely, oppose UI extension nearly as much as liberals favor it. What this all boils down to is that in the next Congress, there are going to be things that pass with the support of both John Boehner and Barack Obama, and perhaps without the support of some Democrats. Or else, nothing is going to pass at all.

Now, what's "triangulation" in that context? Nothing. Triangulation is an advertising slogan coined by Dick Morris to advertise himself -- to give him as large a share of the credit for Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election as possible. That's all.

Posner Wants More Stimulus

From the New Republic:

The bursting of the housing bubble, which brought down the banking industry because banks were so heavily invested in financing residential real estate, had three effects that relate to the paradox of thrift, each amplified by the accompanying implosion of the stock market bubble. First, the decline in house and stock values reduced household wealth without reducing people’s debt burdens, because debt is a fixed expense rather than a percentage of the value of the assets that secure it. (That’s why so many mortgages are “under water”: the unpaid balance of the mortgage exceeds the market value of the property that secures it because the value has fallen but not the debt.) So people felt poorer and therefore more vulnerable to economic adversity, and they reacted by reducing their consumption, thus saving more.


Back and forth from the Becker - Posner Blog
What is the Paradox of Thrift?

Is Congress Broken? Part 2: Is Unified Party Government Ineffective?

Jonathan Rauch thinks so.

The most important accomplishments of the past 25 years have occured during divided, not unified government.

People Prefer Divided Government

So says the Gallup Poll.


At the moment, indications suggest that Democrats will have unified control of the legislative and executive branches, but respondents prefer that if Obama is elected, Republicans control Congress, and the Democrats control it if McCain is elected.

The case on divided government is mixed.

- The Cato Institute likes it.
- John Judis does not.

Defining Government

It claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in society.

Example #1

Good Cop Bad Cop

Interesting consequence of divided government:

Apparently both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have taken to warning Pakistan, the Iraq government and others that if they don't shape up, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress will cut their funding.

Just wait until your mother gets home and you'll be in real trouble!