IS BIPARTISANSHIP DEAD?
A REPORT FROM THE SENATE
IS BIPARTISANSHIP DEAD?
A REPORT FROM THE SENATE
ROSS K. BAKER
First published 2015 by Paradigm Publishers
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baker, Ross K.
Is bipartisanship dead? : a report from the Senate / Ross K. Baker.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61205-421-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-315-63387-9 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-61205-422-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. United States. Congress. Senate. 2. United States. Congress. SenateLeadership. 3. United States. Congress. SenateCommittees. 4. Political cultureUnited States. 5. Political partiesUnited States. 6. Political leadershipUnited States. 7. Legislative powerUnited States. I. Title.
JK1161.B345 2015
328.73071dc23
2014026635
Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers.
ISBN 13: 978-1-61205-421-6 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-61205-422-3 (pbk)
To my dear Millennials, who, in time, will sort things out.
Molly, Ben, and Elizabeth
Jack and Maddie
In 2008 and 2012, while on sabbatical leave from Rutgers University, I was hosted in Washington by the majority leader of the United States Senate. My residency on his staff gave me an unparalleled perspective that I could not have gained in the offices of any of the ninety-nine other senators. The view from room S-221 of the Capitol looked out on not only the grandeur of the National Mall, but on the entirety of what has been characterized, perhaps too generously, as the worlds greatest deliberative body.
My first landing on Planet Reid was a lunch at a restaurant in Washingtons Union Station to discuss the terms of my residency. It was there that I met for the first time the man who would ease my way into the leaders office, but also serve as my guide and support through my two sabbaticals: deputy chief of staff David McCallum.
David may have been the first, but was certainly not the only member of the Reid staff to make me feel at home and to interpret for me the mysterious folkways of the Senatearcane rituals that I though I knew all about as a scholar specializing in the institution.
Let me acknowledge some of themwith apologies, in advance, for those I might have overlooked. At the top of the list is the legendary Bill Dauster, Senator Reids other deputy chief of staff, whose broad intellectual reach would grace the faculty of any great university. Kindly in manner and accessible even at the busiest of times, his learned perspective belies the common perception of Hill staffers as dreary policy wonks.
My roommate in my Capitol offices on both Senate sojourns was Carolyn Gluck, Senator Reids senior expert on womens issues. The title senior doesnt sit very well on Carolyn, whose youthful enthusiasm and boundless energy, which enable her to do her job so effectively and raise two children, make an admirable example of the working mom.
The top staff guy in Reids office is David Krone, who assumed the post just before I arrived in 2012. He gave me access that I had no reason to expect from someone so deeply engaged in the strategizing and maneuvering associated with the politics of the Senate. He never exhibited the slightest irritation at questions I posed to him that he can only have thought were quite naive.
The senior policy experts in the leadership office are the leaders emissaries to the committees of the Senate. They bring the leader up to date on what is going on in the committees for which they are responsible, and they are his intelligence network. Those most helpful to me were Bruce King, whose specialty is the metaphysical world of the federal budget; Jessica Lewis, who is the resident foreign-policy expert; Serena Hoy, who is the leaders liaison to the Judiciary Committee; Bob Greenawalt, who covers the Finance Committee; Kasey Gillette on Agriculture; Tommy Ross, the senators expert on national security; and Gavin Parke, who works with the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
I want to thank my old friend and mentor (although he is younger than I am) Bert Carp, who adds integrity to the much-maligned profession of lobbying and who provided the title for this book. I am also grateful to the historian of the US Senate, Don Ritchie, whose knowledge of the institution is incomparable; and to Nancy Kervin, of the Senate Library, who knows everything thats ever been written about the Senate and is happy to track it down.
In the final stages of the book, Candace Cunningham, my editor, rode out of the West to flag my gaffes and errors and to make the book as technically accurate as possible. Her good humor and willingness to track down missing URLs and repair botched endnotes made her indispensable at a critical time.
Finally, but by no means last in my thoughts, is my wife Ellen Hulmewho suffered through my absences in the two periods I was in Washington. Im happy I fell in love with a woman who could tolerate long deployments.
In the United States Senate, sorting out what is partisan and what is bipartisan is no simple task. For example, bills and amendments that are introduced by a Democrat and a Republicana very common event in the Senatecan, as they pass through the legislative process, increasingly bear the imprint of only one party. The legislative process is one in which there are many veto points and in which its regular order is preempted by the intervention of party leaders. Such measures may produce, in their ultimate stages, a starkly polarized vote despite the fact that they were encoded with bipartisan DNA earlier in the process.
Lets cite a recent examplethe 2009 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which came to be known as Obamacare, first by its detractors and subsequently by President Obama himself. Throughout this book, reference will be made to Obamacare and to the final vote in both houses, in which not a single Republican vote was recorded in its favor. Yet, when we examine what the bill contained and what it did not contain, it is clear that important concessions were made, early in the process, in the hope that bipartisan support could be secured.
