No one in their right mind would design a government that works like ours
As Democrats race to finish their marquee Build Back Better legislation, it’s worth noting just how much their political ambitions have narrowed in this past year. Democratic lawmakers have nearly abandoned trying to solve many of the major social problems that their constituents want them to address.
That’s not entirely by choice. It’s because of complicated Senate rules – rules that befuddled, frustrated voters might ultimately punish Democrats for abiding by.
In our system, a party can have unified control of government, and an agenda supported by most voters. But unless it holds a supermajority of Senate seats, this supposedly powerful party still may not be able to pass its own priorities unless it pretends every single proposal is primarily about the “budget,” rather than whatever the proposal’s actual purpose is.
Why? For most bills, Senate rules require 60 votes to cut off debate and then bring the bill to a final up-or-down vote. That means having simple majority support for any given piece of legislation is often not sufficient; at least 60 votes might be necessary. So if the ruling party holds fewer than 60 Senate seats, as is the case today, a well-organized minority party can block most legislation from ever making it to the floor.
There are some paths out of this logjam, though. One that’s often attractive is a special process called “budget reconciliation.”
This process was originally established in 1974, and was intended to fast-track high-priority budget bills and (at least theoretically) make it easier to reduce deficits. Under reconciliation, a simple majority of senators can pass certain bills – but only if those bills pertain to outlays, revenue or the debt limit. There are, as well, some other complicated criteria restricting when reconciliation can be used.
The result, as you might imagine, is that lawmakers work to make sure any measure they hope to pass produces a significant, not-merely-“incidental” budgetary change.
So the ability of a simple majority of elected officials to address societal problems is contingent on understanding (and, perhaps more cynically, gaming) these convoluted procedural rules.
What about pressing issues that can’t be disguised as budgetary in nature, such as ballot access, police brutality, reproductive rights? Oops, sorry, those things can’t be addressed at all.
Needless to say: This entire process is super confusing. It’s challenging for even journalists to follow along, and we’re paid to understand this stuff.
So imagine how difficult it is for regular voters to understand what’s going on. All they know is that Democrats have promised to do lots of big, ambitious things – and then, for opaque reasons, simply aren’t getting them done.
Contact Catherine Rampell at crampell@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @crampell.