Bicameral legislative setup may be part of gridlock

After months of debate, the proposed healthcare legislation failed to pass. Why does it take so long to get issues like this resolved and enacted (or not) into law?

Several versions of a health-care reform bill were introduced in both the House and the Senate. The bills were referred to committees. In the Senate, the bill was referred to five committees, including the Finance, Health and Commerce committees. Committees in the Senate have about 25 members each. Each committee has several subcommittees. The subcommittees have research groups that gather data and have hearings, in which they listen to the opinions of different groups and authorities about the bill. The subcommittees then weigh and deliberate the testimony and evidence, vote on the bill, then report back to the full committee. So it is safe to say that maybe 10 or more committees and subcommittees and 150 to 200 people deliberated the bill in the Senate.

The procedure is similar in the House of Representatives. In that case, the Commerce, Education and Labor, and Ways and Means committees each reviewed different versions of the health-care bill. In the House, the committees are much larger — 40 to 60 members each. Can you imagine having a committee of 60 people debating and arriving at a decision on a subject? Each House committee has subcommittees as well. Ergo, we could probably conclude that another five to 10 subcommittees and 200 to 300 people deliberated the health-care proposals.

When the committees are finished with their work, the bill is presented to the Committee of the Whole, which is the Senate or the House membership — 100 and 435 members, respectively. Usually the final Senate and House versions of the bill are different, so a conference committee made up of the senior members of the various committees from both houses meets to resolve the differences. Once committee members have reached a compromise, the legislation returns to the two chambers for their respective approval. When and if that is accomplished, the bill goes on to the president for his signature — that is, of course, unless some senator doesn’t get the floor and read Shakespeare’s plays or The New York Times for days or weeks on end to keep the bill from coming to a vote, also known as a filibuster.

Several of our Founding Fathers — Ben Franklin, William Patterson and James Madison, to name a few — were leery of a large, bicameral legislature. Madison warned that a large legislature would “fall into factions among themselves and impede their very function and effectiveness.” Patterson, in fact, proposed a unicameral legislature (New Jersey Plan). Perhaps it is time to consider that idea again?

A unicameral (one chamber) legislature, with 200 to 300 members (sans filibuster), popularly elected for six-year terms, in proportion to population, would expedite the legislative process, eliminate millions of dollars in election and operational costs, and minimize the impact of interest groups and the “old boy network.” JACK FULLER

Rogers