Lately I've been thinking about the Vanity Fair article called "Washington, We Have a Problem" that Daniel Schanzer mentioned briefly to us during orientation. (He said it helped inspire his "Is Government Dysfunctional?" speaker series.)

While I think there has been a longstanding public perception that Congress has always been paralyzed, dysfunctional, gridlocked, etc, this article makes the point that obstructionist politics have truly risen to new heights during the current administration. Bolstering this claim with the evidence of the legislative record, the article says, "Democrats and Republicans in Congress now vote against one another more regularly than at any time since Reconstruction."

I saw a clip earlier in the summer where Harry Reid shrugged off his inability to push a bill through the Senate by saying, "60 is the new 50," effectively suggesting that the Constitutionally-mandated simple majority (51 votes) would no longer be sufficient for passing most (or any) significant legislation. Instead, Democrats must now assemble a supermajority to invoke cloture just to bring bills to the floor for debate.

It seems to me that obstructionism as a deliberate partisan strategy must play at least some role in explaining legislators' policy votes today -- it certainly gives the minority party a strong incentive to ensure the majority party has its hands tied when it comes to delivering on major platform promises. And in a roundabout way, I think this fits with Arnold's notion that politicians calculate their votes with an ever-watchful eye on the next election cycle.

Liz S.