Posted on by rjonakait

Panama Redux

The Republicans almost produced a government shutdown again and may have merely postponed it for a few months. As a result, the Speaker of the House may be out in the cold in several weeks and the GOP may then show its fractures even more clearly. While this brouhaha was going on, Trump was talking about seizing the Panama Canal. This all brings to mind my previous post about the Panama Canal treaties, which I have reproduced below.

Knowledgeable people find the roots of the Republican Party’s current dysfunction in the hyperpartisanship practiced by Newt Gingrich when he became Speaker of the House in 1995. Others find tentacles spreading from the Tea Party movement, which emerged in 2009 and brought conspiracy theories into mainstream politics. But seeds were planted twenty years earlier with the now largely forgotten battle over the Panama Canal treaties. In his book, Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right (2008), Adam Clymer explains how the fight over the Panama Canal Treaties helped fuel the rise of the modern Right.

Both treaties were signed in 1977. One treaty gave the United States the right to use force to assure that the canal would remain open to ships of all nations. The second treaty gave Panama control over the canal starting in 2000.

In order to take effect, the treaties not only had to be signed by the leaders of Panama and the United States. They also had to be ratified by appropriate bodies within those countries. After Panama did so in a plebiscite, a political battle ensued in the United States Senate over their ratifications. According to Clymer, this led to the emergence of Richard Viguerie, a founder of modern conservatism, the use of direct-mail marketing, and the rise of single-issue PACs designed to raise money and defeat moderate Republicans.

Although it was President Jimmy Carter who signed the pacts, the negotiations had started under President Nixon. The treaties were thought desirable because they gave America the right to assure the canal’s neutrality, and they removed a flashpoint for much of Latin America, and Panama in particular, by giving Panama control over the canal. Those supporting the treaties maintained that they would increase the security of the canal by helping to remove the threats of guerrilla attacks, which were almost impossible for America and Panama to prevent. 

The treaties were backed by prominent conservatives, including Henry Kissinger and William Buckley, but they were also attacked by other conservatives in near-hysterical terms. Opponents maintained that this was a surrender of American sovereignty, and furthermore, the military leader of Panama was pro-Communist. Marxists would control the canal and Panama, and the harm to the U.S. as a result would be disastrous.

What is surprising to a modern surveyor of the political scene is that some Senators supported the treaty simply because they thought it was the right thing to do even though they knew that their ratification votes would harm them politically. The single-issue PACs targeted some of these Senators, and, through direct-mail marketing (enter Richard Viguerie), inflamed a cadre of voters. Republicans who supported the treaties were defeated in primaries when they stood for reelection. Their overall record did not matter. Their vote on this one issue doomed their political careers. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan opposed the Treaty, and some, including Bill Buckley, maintained that the treaty controversy helped elect Reagan president.

This issue is now largely forgotten even though its aftermath continues to affect the United States. A lesson from the controversy has been absorbed, even if that lesson’s source is not remembered. Republican politicians now fear that if they don’t toe some single-issue lines, a portion of conservatives will target them and defeat them in the primaries. The result is that the politicians cannot develop nuanced positions; compromises are verboten. Instead, the “wrong” stance on individual issues can result in a primary defeat even if the politician accepts the conservative line on other matters. If I don’t completely accept the NRA’s positions, I may be defeated in the primary. If I adopt a moderate stance on abortion, I may be defeated in the primaries. If I have concerns about tax cuts, I may be, in today’s terms, “primaried.” And so on. The result is a lockstep, hard-right conservatism. Back in 1978, some conservative Senators studied a complex situation and decided that a ratification vote for the Panama Canal treaties was in the best interests of the country. What is remembered is not that their position was right, but that some lost their political careers as a result.

History, of course, has shown the proponents to be correct. The Canal functions just fine. Panama is not a hotbed of anti-American Communism. Those who were wrong, however, did not pay a price for their belief; they continued in office. And most of us have forgotten the debate.

In what now seems impossible, Democrats and Republicans joined together to ratify the treaties. Fifty-two Democrats and sixteen Republicans voted for ratification, while ten Democrats and twenty-two Republicans voted against. We have seen little of such bipartisanship since the Panama Canal treaties. On the other hand, since that 1977 controversy we have seen many conservatives benefit even when proved wrong.

The Republican party has been on a forty-year path to its present dysfunction.

Posted on by rjonakait

Remember the Panama Canal Treaties

Knowledgeable people find the roots of the Republican Party’s dysfunction in the hyperpartisanship practiced by Newt Gingrich when he became Speaker of the House in 1995. Others find tentacles spreading from the Tea Party movement which emerged in 2009 and brought conspiracy theories into mainstream politics. But seeds were planted twenty years earlier with the now largely forgotten battle over the Panama Canal treaties, which I learned about when I read Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right (2008) by Adam Clymer.

Clymer explains how the fight over the Panama Canal Treaties helped fuel the rise of the modern Right. Both treaties were signed in 1977. One treaty gave the United States the right to use force to assure that the canal would remain open to ships of all nations. The second treaty gave Panama control over the canal starting in 2000.

In order to take effect, the treaties not only had to be signed by the leaders of Panama and the United States, they also had to be ratified by appropriate bodies within those countries. After Panama did so in a plebiscite, a political battle ensued in the United States Senate over their ratifications. According to Clymer, this led to the emergence of Richard Viguerie, a founder of modern conservatism, the use of direct-mail marketing, and the rise of single-issue PACs designed to raise money and defeat moderate Republicans.

Although it was President Jimmy Carter who signed the pacts, the negotiations had started under President Nixon. The treaties were thought desirable because they gave America the right to assure the canal’s neutrality, and they removed a flashpoint for much of Latin America, and Panama in particular, by giving Panama control over the canal. Those supporting the treaties maintained that they would increase the security of the canal by helping to remove the threats of guerrilla attacks, which were almost impossible for America and Panama to defend against. 

The treaties were backed by some prominent conservatives, including Henry Kissinger and William Buckley, but they were also attacked by other conservatives in near-hysterical terms. Opponents maintained that this was a surrender of American sovereignty, and furthermore, the military leader of Panama was pro-Communist. Marxists would control the canal and Panama, and the harm to the U.S. as a result would be tremendous.

What is surprising to a modern surveyor of the political scene is that some Senators supported the treaty simply because they thought it was the right thing to do even though they knew that their ratification votes would harm them politically. The single-issue PACs targeted some of these Senators and through direct-mail marketing, inflamed a cadre of voters. Republicans who supported the treaties were defeated in primaries when they stood for reelection. Their overall record did not matter. Their vote on this one issue doomed their political careers. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan opposed the Treaty, and some, including Bill Buckley, maintained that the treaty controversy helped elect Reagan president.

 This is an issue that is now largely forgotten even though its aftermath still affects the United States. A lesson from the controversy has been absorbed, even if that lesson’s source is not remembered. Republican politicians are in fear that if they don’t toe some single-issue lines, a portion of conservatives will target them and defeat them in the primaries. The result is that the politicians cannot develop nuanced positions; compromises are verboten. Instead, the “wrong” stance on individual issues can result in a primary defeat even if the politician accepts the conservative line on other matters. If I don’t completely accept the NRA’s positions, I may be defeated in the primary. If I adopt a moderate stance on abortion, I may be defeated in the primaries. If I have concerns about tax cuts, I may be defeated in the primaries. And so on. The result is a lockstep, hard-right conservatism. Back in 1978, some conservative Senators studied a complex situation and decided that a ratification vote for the Panama Canal treaties was in the best interests of the country. What is remembered is not that their position was right, but that some lost their political careers as a result.

History, of course, has shown them to be right. The Canal functions just fine. Panama is not a hotbed of anti-American Communism. Those who were wrong, however, did not pay a price for their belief. They continued in office. And most of us have forgotten the debate.

In what now seems impossible, Democrats and Republicans joined together to ratify the treaties. Fifty-two Democrats and sixteen Republicans voted for ratification, while ten Democrats and twenty-two Republicans voted against. We have seen little of such bipartisanship since the Panama Canal treaties. On the other hand, since that 1977 controversy we have seen many conservatives benefit even when proved wrong.

The Republican party has been on a forty-year path to its present dysfunction.

Posted on by rjonakait

Post-Pandemic Dispositions (continued)

 Our politics, of course, have always brought divisions. We did, after all, have a civil war, and we had adamant opposition to FDR, Kennedy, Reagan, and many other political leaders. Even so, it feels as if our politics are more divided than ever. In one sense it is because the dividing lines are more partisan than ever. For a long stretch, the two major parties were more ideologically diverse within their own ranks than they are now. When each party encompassed conservatives, moderates, and liberals, party discipline was impossible, and coalitions were common across party lines. For example, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with both Democratic and Republican votes. Robert G. Kaiser in Act of Congress: How America’s Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn’t, a fascinating study of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in the wake of the financial crisis, states that this cooperating dynamic changed when Newt Gingrich and his team in 1995 put a premium on party discipline.

 This bipartisan divide can be seen starkly in the demise of the conference committee.  Almost always when one House of Congress passes a bill and then the other does, there are differences between the two bills. For a hundred years or more, a conference committee then sought to reconcile the varying provisions which would then become the law. That committee consisted of representatives from each chamber and would include members from each party roughly in proportion to each party’s membership in each House. Gingrich did not support this traditional conference committee because it gave a role to minority Democrats, whom he had demonized to get a Republican majority. He insisted instead that the Senate negotiate differences in passed bills with him and the rest of House leadership. When the Democrats regained the House in 2006, they followed Gingrich’s methods. In 2007-08, only 2% of bills that became law went through a conference committee.

Gerrymandering has also intensified the partisan divide. Gerrymandering has been with us since the opening days of the Republic. For example, Patrick Henry disdained James Madison and had Virginia gerrymandered seeking to deprive Madison a seat in the first Congress. (Madison still won.)

Originally gerrymandering was about individuals. Legislative districts were manipulated in order to have a particular person elected or defeated, but that changed over time to ensure that the member of a particular party, no matter who the individual candidate was, would win the seat. Kaiser sees that change starting in California in 1982. By 2000, 300 of 435 House seats were safe for one party or the other. In a safe district, a candidate does not have to appeal to the other side or even to the center to get elected. The candidate merely must win the party’s primary. When elected, members can indulge their ideology without political retribution. Partisan divides increase.

The political divide has hardened not only because of increased partisanship and gerrymandering but also because of the philosophy of modern Republicans. As Kaiser states, since President Reagan, the Republican party has not believed in governance and has sought to diminish the role of government as an end in itself. Conservatism no longer means seeking legislation based on conservative principles; it means diminishing government. Period. Obamacare is an example. Trump and other conservatives ran on repealing Obamacare and replacing it with something “better.” Obamacare certainly has flaws, and health insurance certainly could use improvements, but the Republicans never dug into conservative principles to propose a better system. The Republicans just wanted to end Obamacare seeing it simply as more government.

We can also see the Republican modern principles in the cry against regulations. Republicans do not propose regulations, which after all have the goal of protecting the general welfare, based on conservative principles. The goal is just to wipe out regulations and to get rid of government oversight of…well, just about anything. The recent Republican party has primarily stood for lower taxes, a strategy aimed at “starving the beast,” and the appointment of “conservative” judges with a goal that the courts will strike down various regulations and legislation to lessen government involvement.

When one party has the primary goal of not governing, the two parties are simply not involved in the same governing game. Filibusters illustrate. The filibuster is a device to prevent government from operating. It has long existed, but until recently it was rarely employed. There were fifteen Senate cloture motions, or a filibuster, in 1970, and in the1980s, for a two-year Congress, there were no more than eighty. But after the Democrats regained the Senate, cloture motions leapt to 139 in 2007-08 and to 137 in 2009-10. As Kaiser states, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, “adopted the threat of a filibuster as a basic tactic.” “Let’s not govern” really should have been the motto.

          Might the pandemic, however, change or break some of our political, social, and cultural divides? The coronavirus outbreak is a communal event in that it affects nearly all Americans in their regular behavior and will for a significant period. Yes, the pandemic’s epicenter is now New York. Yes, it has affected black and poor communities harder than others. Yes, the rich have more opportunities to mitigate the effects. Yes, there are orchestrated demonstrations against stay-at-home directives. But the attempts to control the spread of Covid-19 has affected and will continue to affect a vast majority of the country. Although the effects may vary, it touches the rich and the poor; the highly and less educated; the young and old; the Catholic, the Baptist, and the areligious; the immigrant and the native born; those with children and those without; the conservative, the liberal, and the apolitical.

The effects have not been a mere minor disruption of lives. Businesses, schools, and churches are closed. Unemployment has skyrocketed; education has had to take new forms; travel for many has ceased; social distancing and lockdowns prevent gatherings of families and friends and the suspension of movies, concerts, and sports. While we can hope that conditions will improve so that some restrictions can be eased, the pandemic will continue to affect us until a vaccine is developed and the vast majority of Americans are vaccinated, which seems likely to be more than a year away.

Already there is much speculation about the lasting changes this will bring, and which businesses, nonprofits, and colleges will not survive and which will come out stronger and whether the work-at-home phenomenon and online learning will transform future work and education patterns.

(concluded May 1)

Posted on by rjonakait

Principles and Partisanship (continued)

Following Ronald Reagan’s footsteps, Newt Gingrich also did much damage to an effective government. The House changed fundamentally after the 1994 election when Gingrich became Speaker. He believed in and practiced all-out political warfare. While he demonized the Democratic party as much as possible, his important battles were often against Republicans. Gingrich put a premium on party loyalty and purity as he and his cohort defined it. A Republican who cooperated with Democrats, who even socialized with them, was an anathema to be driven from the party. A compromise with the Democrats, even if it might advance important legislation, was to be prevented or punished as consorting with the devil. Coalitions across party lines increasingly became an act of tremendous political courage.

Newt Gingrich not only increased partisan rhetoric and imposed strict party discipline, he, in effect, abolished what had always been an important congressional device, the conference committee. Seldom do the House and Senate pass precisely the same version of a bill. If they don’t, those differences need to be ironed out and the uniform bills returned for a vote in each house. The conference committee served that function for two hundred years, but the traditional conference committee was composed of members of both parties from each house. Gingrich was not going to have that because it gave minority Democrats, whom he had demonized to get a Republican majority, a role in the process. Instead, Gingrich insisted that the Senate negotiate differences in any bills not in a conference committee but with him and the House leadership. And in the tit-for-tat world of the modern Congress, when Democrats regained control of Congress, they continued Gingrich’s practices that threw out the conference-committee tradition. Now only a few bills that become law are vetted in a conference committee.

Thee disappearance of conference committees means more party discipline, less outreach across the aisle, and more partisanship. If Senators or Representatives no longer negotiate with members of the other party but only with the leadership of their own party, members of Congress become more and more trained to follow what the leadership wants. Political independence wanes. The legislation that is enacted becomes more political and less the product of thoughtfulness and expertise.

Few in Congress today leave their imprint on any important legislation. Their chief goal is to get reelected, and they have been taught by political consultants that substantive achievements are not the path to another term. Think back to the last congressional election in your state and district. How often did incumbents tout legislative successes? If anything, the connection to important legislation can often be detrimental, for the passage of a bill almost always requires compromise. In safe districts and states, the main obstacle to a return to Washington is a primary challenge where a compromised ideological purity can be a detriment. It’s better to remain “pure” than have produced imperfect but still valuable legislation.

As a result of these many reasons and trends, Kaiser notes that in today’s Congress, “Legislating is no longer the principal preoccupation of our legislators. Most commonly, it is politics by sound bite.” And snippets for the media seldom require any deep understanding of the issues. There is little incentive to do the hard work of mastering substance. Congress has become dominated by people with political skills but limited expertise, and this makes thoughtful legislation unlikely. Conference committees used to bring some expertise to bear on the final legislation. Conference committee members participated in hearings, and their staffs developed knowledge about the issues. Conference committee negotiations did have a concern with the legislation’s substance. Now, however, the negotiations are with the leaders of the Senate and House, and they and their staffs have not developed expertise about the substance of the proposed law. Instead, the overriding goal of the leaders of the Senate and House is to keep their party’s majority. They will be primarily care about the political impact of the legislation. When the leaders supplant conference committees, the quality of legislation suffers.

(concluded March 29)