The Art of the Political Deal II

A Facebook post:

Second-gen simulation

Politico Playbook offers an example of a discharge petition (Davidson, 238-240):

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT (YOU PROBABLY DID) … AS OF LAST NIGHT, 87 HOUSE DEMOCRATS have signed a discharge petition to try to force a vote on a bill that would “ensure that all individuals who should be prohibited from buying a firearm are listed in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and provide a responsible and consistent background check process.”

-- A DISCHARGE PETITION is really the only way the minority can pressure the majority to bring a bill to the floor. It needs another 129 signatures to make it to the floor -- that means Republicans need to sign on, as well. The signers http://bit.ly/2BU7U8L

The Issue-Attention Cycle

Public Lands Case Study

Most public lands are in the West:

 
Policy Windows

A couple of quotations about Congress and life in general:

• "At some point somebody has to decide, let's do it the old-fashioned way, which is `one thing I hate for one thing I love.'" (Lawrence, p. 39)
• "Here's a list of what we have to have. Here's a list of the ones we really, really hate.  Here's a list of `if you put this language on page 4 we could swallow it.'  And then you work that list." (Lawrence, pp. 40-41).

The vehicle

The writeup  -- summary of provisions (and an illustration of Archive.org)

The 2014 farm bill

The Art of the Political Deal

A reprise of our class anthem:



More on the sources of NRA's political strength.



Conditions for Deliberative Negotiation

• First, participants must agree to acceptable sources of information. In some cases, the various sides rely on their own partisan facts; however, in other cases, the negotiation setting builds in an explicit role for nonpartisan third parties or technical expertise.
• Second, a bargaining situation includes implicit decisions about patterns of interaction among participants; in particular, the decision to incorporate repeated interactions among parties may help to overcome myopia-inducing short-term and zero-sum calculations. The fear of each party that others will not cooperate (e.g., in the prisoner’s-dilemma game) creates incentives for short-term, self-interested choices. Bringing participants together in repeated engagements  facilitates future punishments for uncooperative behavior and, consequently, fosters trust and commitment.
• Adam Smith was clear on the concept: "A dealer is afraid of losing his character and is scrupulous in observing every engagement. When a person makes perhaps twenty contracts in a day, he cannot gain so much by endeavouring to impose on his neighbour, as the very appearance of a cheat would make him lose. When people seldom deal with one another, we find that they are somewhat disposed to cheat, because they can gain more by a smart trick than they can lose by the injury which it does their character.
• Third, decisions must be made about the consequences for nonaction in a negotiation process. Setting penalty defaults may move negotiators toward action, overcome blocking coalitions, and improve the chances for agreement 
• Finally, decisions must be made about the degree of autonomy and privacy accorded to negotiators. In general, privacy boosts negotiators’ capacities to bargain effectively by producing some autonomy from influences that try to shift the focus away from the core objects of negotiation or that insist on hard-line positions opposed to compromise

Integrative Negotiation:  It take a logjam to logroll.

Budget sequestration

Murray-Ryan:  A summary

Crisis and Scandal as a Prod to Action

Sanders and McCain find a deal

Bernie praises McCain

Sim Roles 2018

Armed Services Committee

Democrats

• Jack Reed, RI, chair  Kai O'Neill
• Kirsten Gillibrand, NY Sarah Malott
• Tim Kaine, VA Talha Jilani
• Elizabeth Warren, MA Ellie Wainstein

Republicans

• John McCain, AZ, RMM Chloe Amarilla
• Tom Cotton, AR Mickey McFall
• Joni Ernst, IA Matthew May

Finance Committee

Democrats

• Ron Wyden OR, chair Alec Lopata
• Charles Schumer NY, majority leader* Julia McCarthy
• Debbie Stabenow MI Skyler Addison [from the parties class]
• Maria Cantwell WA Jacob Brady
• Claire McCaskill MO Nick Sage

Republicans

• Orrin Hatch UT, RMM Reid Dickerson
• Mitch McConnell, KY, minority leader* Charlie Harris
• John Cornyn, TX Mica Laber
• Tim Scott, SC Kyleigh Mann

Judiciary Committee

Democrats

• Dianne Feinstein, CA, chair Anna Green
• Dick Durbin, IL Betzy Perez
• Cory Booker, NJ McKenzie Deutsch
• Kamala Harris, CA Becky Shane

Republicans

• Chuck Grassley IA, RMM Jenna Lewinstein
• Ted Cruz, TX Nicole Larson
• Lindsey Graham, SC Gretta Richardson

Some thoughts of variable relevance

Most relevant: A case for optimism.
In chapter 2 of the Thurber book, I think it would be interesting for Binder to consider the increasing time constraints on elected officials, the increasing complexity of issues facing Congress, and Congressional productivity in terms of an absolute metric. She primarily examines the number of failed measures relative to the total number of issues on the legislative agenda.

I haven't taken the time to calculate the actual values, but from eye-balling figure 2.1b it appears that the number of legislative successes in salient issues decreased in the 1990s and then increased in the 2000s, peaking in the 110th Congress. Given the increasing complexity of issues, the increasing number of salient issues, and the increasing responsibilities of elected officials, I find this result somewhat hopeful. Figure 2.1a shows a modest decline in the overall number of successful pieces of legislation but this may be less meaningful because they are not all "salient" issues and because the increasing complexity of the issues facing Congress would generally lead to a decline in total legislative productivity.

Further- and this may be a bit to abstract- it might be worth considering that there may be a "maximum" productivity for Congress. Due to the time constrains imposed on legislators and the intentionally protracted legislative process, there may be a maximum number of high-quality, well researched, intelligently designed, and well written legislation that a congress can or should pass. Any additional measure over this theoretical maximum would have to either be of lower quality or be passed in some uniquely productive time period.
Just some thoughts.

Still relevant: Fun, or maybe not so fun, fact about the Filibuster.
Given the platitudes about the Senate being the chamber of "infinite debate," it surprised me to learn that the original Senate had a motion "for the previous question", essentially a cloture motion requiring only a simple majority of Senators to end debate. In 1806, it was removed from the Senate rules because it was so infrequently used. The authors of the paper titled the section, "The inadvertent Creation of the Opportunity to Filibuster".
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf pages: 213-216

Tangentially relevant: It's not quite Congress, but it's local politics?
Some testimony that I saw from the L.A. City Council, not quite expert testimony, not celebrity testimony either... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFUKsthR-Ts.

Decisionmaking II

Interest Groups

• Lobbying: official numbers
• Think tanks
• Consultants
• Recognition and awards
• Philanthropy
• Politicians' charities (see the rule, pp. 347-349)
• Rent-a-friend as deep lobbying
• Lobbyist cites letter that he ghost-wrote!
• A summary

Sarah Binder update

Slowing growth and rising debt mean more zero-sum issues

Debt projection before the tax cut:

The GOP and Guns

Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman, and Daniel Lippman at Politico:

MANY REPUBLICANS FEEL LIKE THEY GO HOME to their safely red district and interact with constituents who are gun-toting NRA members -- many of whom show up to barbecues, fundraisers and political events carrying a weapon. Multiple Republicans told us they have held events at high-end shooting ranges. Gabe Debenedetti: “AR-15 auction removed from McMorris Rodgers fundraiser” http://politi.co/2GwJiSp

FORGET THE MONEY that the NRA gives -- it’s relatively inconsequential compared to other industries, and it’s a lazy explanation for the position that many Republicans hold. But many GOP voters exist in a media environment where they read the NRA’s magazines, pay attention to their scorecards come election time and wonder if the long arm of the U.S. government will come get their guns.

MOST REPUBLICANS exist in a climate in which their only political fear is a primary challenger on the right. To these Republicans, national polls mean squat. Getting on the “wrong side” of the gun issue would be going soft on guns -- that’s the way to lose a primary election. Few of these Republicans believe they’ll lose an election by not supporting stringent gun regulations.

CONSIDER THIS: In the House -- the more conservative of the two bodies -- 36 lawmakers sit in seats that elect Republicans by an average of 20 points or more. If you start looking wobbly there on any core issue -- which lawmakers say is immigration, abortion and gun rights -- you could be looking for a new job.

THEN THERE’S THEIR ARGUMENT that new gun laws wouldn’t do much. Ban assault weapons? Well there are plenty on the streets now. And if you ban assault weapons and someone shoots up a school with a pistol, then what’s next? Will the government move to make pistols illegal. How about tightening background checks? Many Republicans will tell you the laws in place now aren’t being enforced as they should be. Why add new regulations?

THERE IS A CLEAR SPLIT AMONG TOP REPUBLICANS WE TALK TO.Many believe this shooting is a tipping point. Others say, “eh.” Remember, Republicans didn’t do anything after one of their own — House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — was shot. And in 2011, they did nothing when Gabby Giffords -- then a member of the House -- was shot in the head meeting constituents outside a supermarket.

Decisionmaking in Congress

Switching sides on the filibuster and rules changes
 PFAW (at 17 minutes)
Reid 2005 and Reid 2013 and McConnell 2017
(See Davidson 255-56 and this post)

• Senate Procedure and Rule XIV
• Reconciliation and the filibuster
• Motion to table
• Vote-a-Rama 
• Hotlining
• Phonemarking
• BTU'd
• Ping-ponging

Polarization in the Public

Congressional Mitosis:

"CQ Vote Studies: Party Unity." CQ Magazine (February 12, 2018). http://library.cqpress.com.ccl.idm.oclc.org/cqweekly/weeklyreport115-000005263236 .

TO ANALYZE A ROLL-CALL VOTE, LOOK AT THE EXCEPTIONS

Interest group ratings

• WHY IS THE NRA POWERFUL? IT IS NOT THE MONEY
• Of US households, 42% have a gun.
• Intensity
• The "Daschle Loophole" -- his ill-fated HHS nomination
• A graphic
• Deregistration
• Soft lobbying 
• Think tanks
• Consultants
• Recognition and awards
• Philanthropy
• Politicians' charities (see the rule, pp. 347-349)
• Rent-a-friend as deep lobbying
• Lobbyist cites letter that he ghost-wrote!
• A summary

The Legislative Process II

The State of Deliberation in Congress.  Will the immigration debate be different?

Hearings and celebrity testimony

Markup

Reporting the HEAR Act

A committee report

The end of open rules in the House (UPDATE TO GRAPH, CONNELLY, P.95)

Motion to proceed  -- health care example

Filling the tree -- Cruz gets personal

Senate floor debate can get ... testy

Now you can get this joke.

TENTATIVE List of Simulation Roles

Here is a tentative list of roles.  For simulation purposes, we are assuming a D majority and add Schumer and McConnell to Finance.*

Armed Services Committee

Democrats

• Jack Reed, RI, chair
• Kirsten Gillibrand, NY
• Tim Kaine, VA
• Elizabeth Warren, MA

Republicans

• John McCain, AZ, RMM
• Tom Cotton, AR
• Joni Ernst, IA

Finance Committee

Democrats

• Ron Wyden OR, chair
• Charles Schumer NY, majority leader*
• Debbie Stabenow MI
• Maria Cantwell WA
• Claire McCaskill MO

Republicans

• Orrin Hatch UT, RMM
• Mitch McConnell, KY, minority leader*
• John Cornyn, TX
• Tim Scott, SC

Judiciary Committee

Democrats

• Dianne Feinstein, CA, chair
• Dick Durbin, IL
• Cory Booker, NJ
• Kamala Harris, CA

Republicans

• Chuck Grassley IA, RMM
• Ted Cruz, TX
• Lindsey Graham, SC

Leadership and Elections

Yesterday, the New York Times wrote a lengthy piece on the current ideological divide within the Democratic Party. The division highlighted is age, and the article quotes Tim Ryan, who ran for the Minority Leader against Pelosi in 2016. If the Democrats take back the House, the fight for Speaker of The House might be more contentious than previously thought. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/11/us/politics/nancy-pelosi-democrats-immigration.html

Today Nate Cohen, the New York Times election specialist, wrote that multiple factors are working against the Republican's bid to maintain the House. The overturning of gerrymandering, incumbents retiring, and Democratic recruiting, are all reasons why Cohen predicts that Dems will take back the House in 2018.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/upshot/big-republican-advantages-are-eroding-in-the-race-for-house-control.html?rref=collection%2Fissuecollection%2Ftodays-new-york-times&action=click&contentCollection=todayspaper&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection   

The Legislative Process I

\

  Bill Drafting (Davidson,  220-226)

• Types of measures
• Drafting manual
• An example of legislative language:IDEA full funding
• Senate Legislative Counsel
• House Legislative Counsel

The Name Game



Rules

• House Rules
• Senate Rules

Do They Read The Bills? No.  

A recent example

John Conyers:



The fiscal cliff -- search for "algae"
The committee system

Second Paper, Spring 2018

1.   Pick any bill from the 114th (2015-2017) or 115th (2017-present) Congresses.  Explain its fate. Instead of giving a mere chronology, tell why the measure moved or stalled. What happened to previous versions? Which groups or blocs backed and fought it? Which strategies and tactics did its friends and foes use? Even if it failed or stalled, did it prompt the passage of a similar measure in a different form? Look at parliamentary strategies, major amendments, and roll calls.  Again, you should explain the outcome, not just describe the process.  For possible topics, click here.

2.  Analyze a proposed reform of congressional procedure (e.g., Rand Paul's Read the Bills Act).  Carefully explain arguments for and against the reform.  Would it achieve its goal?  Would it improve the operation of Congress? (The two questions are not necessarily the same.)

3.  Pick pending legislation that has not yet passed either house.  Write a memo to its prime sponsor detailing a plausible strategy for securing its passage at least in one chamber.  In your answer, consider all phases of the legislative process and take account of the influence of interest groups and the administration.

Get background from a source such as Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, where you may find the partisan breakdown of roll-call votes. (Use the hardcopy, or the online version at http://library.cqpress.com). 

Other possible sources include:

• Congress.gov (http://www.congress.gov/) -- official site for bill summary and status 
• GovTrack (http://www.govtrack.us/) – unofficial site for congressional information 
• ProQuest Congressional (http://congressional.proquest.com/profiles/gis/search/basic/basicsearch ). -- many congressional documents including searchable Congressional Record. If your computer will not accept this URL, go through the library web page (http://libraries.claremont.edu). Click “databases,” then the letter “P,” then “ProQuest Congressional.”) 
• Committee web pages, which usually contain testimony and text of reports. See http://www.house.gov/committees/ or http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/committees/d_three_sections_with_teasers/committees_home.htm
• ProPublica tools and websites at https://projects.propublica.org/represent/   (BTW, app developer Jeremy Merrill is a CMC alum.)

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• Essays should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than five pages long. I will not read past the fifth page. 
• Cite your sources with endnotes in standard Turabian format. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. Return essays (as Word documents, not pdfs) to the Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday, March 2. Papers will drop one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

A Claremont Moment

At the University of Minnesota, Professor Kathryn Pearson (CMC 1993) -- author of chapter 8 of Is Congress Broken? -- puts the Ph.D. hood on Paul Snell (CMC 2008). Dr. Snell is now a professor at Pacific University in Oregon.  In the Congress simulation, Prof. Pearson played Secretary of the Treasury Nick Brady -- and Barbara Bush.

The Candy Desk

The current keeper of the Senate's candy desk is Pat Toomey (R-PA).  A 2017 release from his office:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) will once again have the sweetest seat in the Senate. In the 115th Congress, Toomey has been assigned and has the responsibility of stocking the Senate's coveted "Candy Desk."

According to the Secretary of the Senate, in every Congress since 1965, the Candy Desk has been located in the back row of the Republican side, on the aisle and adjacent to the Chamber's most heavily used entrance.

"Pennsylvania is home to more than 200 confectioners employing 10,000 people," said Sen. Toomey. "I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are delighted the Candy Desk will be filled with the Keystone State's best treats. In fact, I am told that Senators implored cloak room and floor staff to make sure Pennsylvania maintained the desk, because -- as we all know -- our candy is the best.

"My fellow Senators are going to need Pennsylvania's finest chocolates to make it through the many, many votes in the coming weeks. I hope they will set partisanship aside and join me at my desk for some candy.

"Our state is home to the best confectioners in the world. Hershey's, of course, is headquartered in Central Pennsylvania. Mars makes Three Musketeers in Elizabethtown. Asher's is based in Kulpsville. Just Born creates Peeps in Bethlehem. One senior Republican senator, who shall remain nameless, makes a special request for Gertrude Hawk candies from Dunmore. And there are so many more. I am proud to spotlight the best of Pennsylvania in the Candy Desk."

Congressional Parties and Leadership II

Speakership Elections

Factions and Member Organizations




Newt on Governing Team Day, Congressional Record, September 8, 1980, 24683

A wide range of political scientists including James McGregor Burns, Frederick Sonntag, Manning Dauer, Jack Saloma and others, have urged steps to strengthen the party system. There is a growing consensus that a weak party system leads to irresponsibility, to single issue politics and to domination by special interests. Furthermore, there is a growing belief that personality politics focused on individual candidates heightens irresponsibility and the lack of accountability

Rep. Dan Lungren (next page):

Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman has pointed out to us the significance that we hope to establish with respect to our activities on September 15. Whatever the failings that the parliamentary systems of European democracies may have, they are superior to our more loosely knit representative system in one respect: That respect the gentleman has referred to as accountability.

When a British worker goes to cast his vote for his representatives in the House of Commons, there is little doubt in his mind as to which party to hold accountable for the current state of affairs in his country. But here in our country, where legislators are responsible for myriad constituent services; where regional, State, and ethnic identities are strong; where members of the legislative branch are not structurally tied to the Chief Executive of their own party, the accountability for the current state of affairs tends to be blurred in the minds of the citizenry.

1984: The moment that made Newt

1994:  The Contract with America

Gingrich on the difference between majority and minority:

In short, overnight I found myself in a job far bigger than most people, even Washingtonians, understand to this day. The Speaker is the third-ranking constitutional officer. That in itself might seem weighty enough. In addition, the day-to-day job requires him not only to preside over, but to attempt to lead, 435 strong-willed, competitive, and independent-minded people. (Some wag has likened this to an attempt to herd cats.) After all, if these people had not in the first place been heavily endowed with all three of these characteristics—will, competitiveness, and independence of mind—they would never have been able to get through the process of winning a primary, followed by a general election, followed by the requirement that they represent 600,000 of their fellow Americans in the nation's capital. So if they sometimes made difficulties for one another, and for me, that was one of the great strengths of the system.

All of this added up to the fact that, politically experienced as I was, everything seemed a little unfamiliar to me. I hadn't shifted from my old job to my new job fast enough. I hadn't shaken off some of the habits I had acquired being the minority whip. I'll give you an example. As the minority party, we were in the position of having to fight every day just to get some media attention. We tended to say and do things that were far more strident and dramatic than are prudent to do and say as the leaders of the majority who find themselves in front of the microphone every day. If you are seldom covered by the press, which was the case with House Republicans for forty years, you have a lot of leeway to make mistakes. But when you are in people's living rooms every evening, your mistakes are magnified.

"The Hastert Rule" 

Congressional Parties and Leadership I

Start at approx. 38:00

Committees and the Simulation

Hill leadership

• House
• Senate

Edmund Burke:

 In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the taste, talent, and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct: therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will prevent the men of talent disseminated through it from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects!

Speakership Elections

Factions and Member Organizations

Note:  even majorities of the president's party may split with the administration agenda.  See Democrats on trade in 1993 and 2014.

LBJ in Frank Underwood's office