Imagine what would happen to a dithering figure like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if he was required to show up every week to answer questions from members of the Senate.
The long shutdown of portions of the American government shares some features with the Brexit impasse that has left the U.K. in a catastrophic stalemate. As this is written, neither system seems capable of building coalitions to execute needed changes. But one system has the better odds: a better structure for moving forward.
From a political and communications perspective, the standoff in the United States is much more predictable than the impasse in the United Kingdom. Here’s why. A communications starting point typically emphasizes direct discussion and negotiation as basic tools for moving a lumbering government off dead center. A parliamentary model has the kind of deliberative infrastructure that requires direct communication. Debate in the House of Commons will not allow members to exist only in their own informational bubbles. The system requires public and frequent contact between key ministers and their shadow counterparts literally just a few feet away. Since the key business of the House is debate, members must be prepared to be effective advocates and better listeners.
British parliamentary debate is often riveting, and it is also public. Granted, positions tend to solidify when spoken in public. Any system emphasizing public discussion can turn intellectual fluidity into hardened cement. But debate in the commons is still better than our ‘no debate’ Congress, which emphasizes “statements” issued mostly for the record rather than the ears of other members.
All of this leads one to expect that Brexit would be closer to resolution than it is. Alas, the problem in London is really not structural, but one of basic leadership. The nation has weak leaders in the form of Prime Minister Theresa May and the Labor Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. May is especially risk-averse and inflexible: precisely the opposite of what seems necessary.
What a comparison of the two systems makes clear is how American divided government lacks any systemic requirement for a public airing of competing political claims.
If it’s possible, the American system right now is even more anemic, having just come off a two-year period with a mostly comatose Congress that had been thoroughly rolled by the President. As is obvious, the checks and balances that are ostensibly part of the system have been absent. Compliant Senate and House majorities have shown little interest in challenging a rogue executive.
More misery in the country was only avoided when enough Americans voted last November, resulting in split party majorities in the two houses of Congress. The House of Representatives will now fulfill the oversight function the founders envisioned. But the GOP-dominated Senate and White House are still sufficiently entrenched to make it difficult to build coalitions to solve problems.
What a comparison of the two systems makes clear is how American divided government lacks any systemic requirement for a public airing of competing political claims. Remember that C-SPAN cameras controlled by both bodies of Congress routinely conceal the truth that few are present when the House and Senate are in session. Elected deciders are usually not in the room to hear the comments of those on the other side. The cameras are never allowed to show empty seats. Instead, we depend mostly on journalists to summarize and sometimes create proxy debates on some core issues. And that’s not journalism’s job.
Journalism is not structured to foster direct one-on-one debate. It is almost never in the interests of news organizations to turn over control of a venue to opposing political figures. To be sure, we have many fine journalists working these days. But routine journalistic practices require the interruption of direct debate. Journalistic norms range from the need for heavy editing in the interests of time or space to a compulsion to introject new issues for discussion before old ones have been fleshed out. Television and ‘short-read’ articles make discursive political discussion problematic.
So it seems clear that the Parliamentary system has the edge in resolving a political impasse. If that judgment is not apparent, try to imagine what would happen to a dithering figure like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if—as in a parliamentary system–he was required to show up every week and answer questions from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. There’s a big difference between being a party leader in Congress and being an authentic champion of democratic discourse.
Eventually we will hear of a privately negotiated deal to end the shutdown. That’s our de-facto system, put in place not because of any constitutional requirement, but because we have mostly ignored the collective action of a body of legislators working out their differences in public debate.
As the fates would have it, a Politburo-style maneuver failed.
There’s a rude old joke about the disgruntled office worker complaining that he feels like a mushroom. “My bosses usually leave me in the dark, and then they feed me a bunch of sh-t.”
No one likes to be kept out of the loop while consequential decisions that will affect everyone are being made. The rueful remark is a reminder of why the attempt by the Senate leadership to draft health care legislation in secret was so troubling and—in a basic sense—un-American. Healthcare is approaching 20% of the entire American economy. Just thirteen Republican Senators—incredibly, without even one woman among them—drafted the legislation (the misnamed “Better Care Reconciliation Act”) and then sprang it on the rest of us in what was supposed to be an early vote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was clearly hoping that the secrecy that shut out the media and most members of his own conference would make passage easier. The press would be blindsided. There would be little time for anyone to read the bill or debate it. There would be no committee mark-ups or hearings, no expert or stakeholder testimony. He knew that some legislators will put party first and sometimes vote on bills they do not understand. As the fates would have it, a Politburo-style maneuver failed.
Some members of the Senate GOP complained of being blindsided. A few others didn’t like the short timetable. So McConnell had no choice but to postpone the vote until after the July 4 break.
There is reason to take heart in the old and honorable American expectation that representatives at all levels of government should do their work with the lights on and the doors open.
So the bill has been dragged into the light where it belongs. Legislating is meant to luxuriate in communication, doubly so in an open society. Now the press is reporting and assessing. The public is weighing in. And interested Americans can consider the consequences of the planned rollbacks and tax breaks that made the proposed legislation so regressive. For the moment, the legislative process has defaulted to a norm of openness and public discussion. We get to actually see the car before we buy it.
There is reason to take heart in the old and honorable American expectation that representatives at all levels of government should do their work with the lights on and the doors open. States have “sunshine laws” that require agencies to publicize their decision-making processes. We have a Freedom of Information Act that sometimes allows close inspection of bureaucratic paper trails. We have a non-partisan Congressional Budget Office that will provide an effects-oriented report. And, of course, we rightly celebrate a First Amendment that gives reporters and citizens the right to ask tough questions to their representatives and register complaints.
It is true that most legislation in the United States is written by small committees of legislators, often with lobbyists submitting drafts as well. And it is equally true that most Americans are not interested or too distracted to notice consequential law-making that will change their lives. But the process is grievously sabotaged if legislators who have pledged to uphold the Constitution usurp its intent by working in secret. Hearings are usually the open window in the process. When even those are curtailed we have good reason to question the honor of the leaders involved.
