www.prospect.org/print/V15/2/kuttner-r.html
Politics: Check, Please: At a Beverly Hills fundraiser, John meets Barbra, Angelica, Jason, and Leo. By Jon Wiener Bedside Mannered: Bill Frist has tried to take Richard Clarke to task. By Terence Samuel Global Mess: Republicans are utopian thinkers when it come to geopolitics, and theyve turned much of the world against us. By Robert Kuttner Unsung Heroine: A force behind modern feminism, Millie Jeffrey died last week. By Harold Meyerson Office Space: Sure, the working class has been hit hard by the economic downturn. By Lawrence Mishel Franken File: The Prospect talks with Al Franken, star of the new Air America Radio. By David Kelly Face Lift: The Prospect unveils its redesigned Web site this week. By The Editors Credibility Gap: The Bush administration practices the art of being dishonest without lying. By Matthew Yglesias Chamber Potshots: The Republican-controlled Senate could spend its time debating pressing legislation. Jones Attack Mode: Bush officials are reaching into their bag of tricks to try to discredit Richard Clarke. By Michael Tomasky Osamas Endorsement: Pakistani security forces find a startling letter during their raid on a hard-line Islamic religious school. By Tony Hendra Targeting Cheats : Reducing the budget is easy: Just go after the big-time criminals who evade their taxes. By Robert Kuttner House Hold: For Democrats who go their own way on key votes, beware: Nancy Pelosi is keeping score. By Terence Samuel Family Affair: After a charged hearing, 9-11 families praised Richard Clarke, protested Condoleezza Rice, and demanded the resignation of the commissions director. By Garance Franke-Ruta Professional Revolt: Many conscientious civil servants, including Richard Clarke, relied on empirical data while working for Bush. Books & Culture: Immigrant Song: A new documentary largely succeeds at presenting its subjects in a fresh light - and refuting conservative dogma in the process. By Noy Thrupkaew Divine Words: A missive from the main character of The Passion to director Mel Gibson. By Devin McKinney Last Tango: Sex and the City s women found happy endings. By Noy Thrupkaew Getting Naked: The latest spate of memoirs is from talented, highbrow writers. By Elizabeth Benedict Gentle Jihadist: Tariq Ramadan comes to Notre Dame. By Lee Smith Directors Cut: Robert Altmans miniseries, Tanner 88 , is smart, entertaining, and timely, writes Noy Thrupkaew. Abject Apology: A heartfelt - no - abject - no - craven apology to the right from the left for our campaign of hate, anger and malice against Gods own president. Rubins Legacy: Compared to what we have now, wed be happy to have Robert Rubin back. Still, as Jeff Faux says, itd be better if he could acknowledge past mistakes. First Lieutenant Robert Rubin executed the only feasible progressive strategy open to Clinton, writes Bradford Delong. Money Talks: A socially conscious, union-friendly theater company and a renowned playwright take on the almighty dollar.
It happened under FDRs New Deal, in the Republican 1920s and in the early 19th-century Era of Good Feeling. But if President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself. The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. In past single-party eras, the majority party earned its preeminence with broad popular support. Today the electorate remains closely divided, and actually prefers more Democratic policy positions than Republican ones. Yet the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives the Senate has other problems. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing, rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade dominance of the PRI. Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split. After two decades of bipartisan collusion in the creation of safe House seats, there are now perhaps just 25 truly contestable House seats in any given election year and thats before the recent Republican super gerrymandering. What once was a slender and precarious majority - 229 Republicans to 205 Democrats including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who votes with Democrats - now looks like a Republican lock. In the Senate, the dynamics are different but equally daunting for Democrats. As the Florida debacle of 2000 showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002 Help America Vote Act HAVA, may actually facilitate Republican intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right more of a financial advantage than ever. Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election. Taken together, these several forces could well enable the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for at least a generation.
Back-benchers and committee chairs alike often defied both the leadership and the party caucus. Party loyalty was guaranteed only in the biennial election of the speaker, to give the dominant party formal majority status and perquisites. Only at rare moments, such as the New Deals first six years and Lyndon Johnsons storied 89th Congress of 1965-67 295 Democrats, 140 Republicans, were majorities so large that one party had effective parliamentary discipline. Infrequently, there were other moments of centralized leadership and relative party unity, among them the 100th Congress 1987-89 under Democratic Speaker Jim Wright and the tenures of two autocratic Republican speakers, Thomas Reed and Joe Cannon, back in the Gilded Age. But the usual complaint, dating from political scientist Woodrow Wilsons 1885 text on Congress, was that the congressional party system was an unaccountable stew of freelancers. A famous 1950 report by the American Political Science Association argued that more responsible parties would make for more effective democracy. Along with shifting coalitions and weak party discipline, there was usually reasonable comity between majority and minority party. On most bills except tax legislation in the House there could be floor amendments, with extensive debate. Recorded floor amendments allowed members to be held accountable by constituents. House-Senate conference committees included majority and minority party conferees, and their final product was a compromise between the House and Senate bills. Go to the official congressional Web site and you will learn that this is supposedly how a bill becomes a law. Seeds of the change began appearing during the speakerships of both Democrat Jim Wright 1987-89 and Republican Newt Gingrich 1995-99, which produced more centralized leadership and party discipline. But the more radical changes, at the expense of democracy itself, have occurred since 2002 under Tom DeLay. Here are the key mechanisms of DeLays dictatorship: Extreme Centralization. The power to write legislation has been centralized in the House Republican leadership. Concretely, that means DeLay and House Speaker Dennis Hasterts chief of staff, Scott Palmer, working with the House Committee on Rules. Hastert is seen in some quarters as a figurehead, but his man Palmer is as powerful as DeLay. Drastic revisions to bills approved by committee are characteristically added by the leadership, often late in the evening. Under the House rules, 48 hours are supposed to elapse before floor action. But in...
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