Why they went "nuclear"

I have been watching the Senate floor with more attention than I paid since I worked there, but haven't really had much to comment that I haven't said already.  But Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon (one of our old favoriteshere at The Decembrist) said something interesting:

"I estimate that half of what we do here cannot be filibustered," he said, referring to the vast quantity of legislative work that is driven through the budget reconciliation process, where debate is strictly limited.

That's not a particularly persuasive argument for the raw exercise of power that is the nuclear option, but it does raise an important point that I touched on once before. I believe that one reason -- not the only reason, but an important one -- that this particular fight has become so bitter and so polarizing is exactly that fact, that so much of the Senate's business is now run through the rubber-stamp, party-line process of budget reconciliation. (Including pure policy decisions whose budget impact is incidental, such as opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.) Much of the rest is pushed through using the bizarre technique of rewriting legislation from scratch in small, tightly controlled conference committees, and then forcing the Senate to pass it or not, without amendment.

The result of this trend under which half of the Senate's business is pushed into these rubber-stamp categories is that the small amount of business that remains open to the debate, amendment, and the filibuster -- nominations and a few policy issues -- become more and more bitter. They become the outlet for all the frustrations and resentments of the minority on the other issues. And because most of the business of the Senate is pushed through on party lines, Senators don't develop the habits of forming long-term, cross-party alliances, compromises, friendships, and mutual respect.

And nominations are a terrible platform for developing those alliances because they offer so little room for compromise. You can't amend them or modify them. The only compromise is to take a large number of nominations and agree to some and not others, which is a very limited option and doesn't give much play for creativity.

Steve Clemons recently made a similar point: "If the Republicans actually win the battle on judges, Democrats will never yield on Bolton. They will filibuster forever on his nomination -- and time buys even more potential Republican defectors who are uncomfortable with the high-handed tactics of the White House."

Indeed -- the more subjects are takes off the table of open debate, the greater the pressure and the displaced resentments that come to bear on the few things that remain on the table.

If someday the Senate wants to defuse the nuclear attitude -- the Cold War brinksmanship -- of the institution, one way to do it would be to take Smith's point very seriously. Stop using the budget process for "half of the work we do here," reform it and require it to be used only for the very narrow purposes for which it was intended. When people have to work together and find new alliances, the Senate will become the Senate again.