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Deliberative Democracy Headed for the 'Dark Side?' This renowned political observer believes there are
perils ahead for Congress --
By Norman Ornstein 1999 has not been a very good year for Congress. The 106th House was sworn in on Jan. 3 with a new and accidental speaker, the smallest party majority since 1954, a majority party reeling from an election in which it defied history and lost seats, and a higher level of partisan tension than at any time in modern memory. The 106th Senate started with an acrimonious impeachment trial. The policy process hit the ground stumbling, and largely drifted through the first 10 months, before members enacted their first major piece of legislation, banking reform. Despite the firm pledges of congressional leaders that they would make sure the 13 appropriations bills were enacted on time, no major spending bill was close to enactment when the new fiscal year began on Oct. 1, and the budget negotiations dragged on until nearly Thanksgiving. The top policy priority of the Republican Congress, a $792 billion tax cut, was abandoned entirely. The leaders of the majority in both houses had extraordinary difficulty maintaining enough party unity to enact legislation or dominate the agenda on their own and were unwilling or unable to attract enough Democrats to create frequent bipartisan coalitions. In the Senate, even when Republicans stuck together, the 60-vote threshold required by the filibuster often stymied Majority Leader Trent Lott. In mid-November, surveys showed barely 40 percent of Americans approving of the conduct of Congress, not exactly a ringing affirmation. But Congress has been through far worse news than this. A decade ago in the late 1980s, the era of pay raises and the House bank, approval ratings in the 20s were the norm. If this Congress does not have a long laundry list of major policy accomplishments, it has not collapsed into gridlock. After embarrassing delays and reversals, and an astonishing display of statistical chicanery and budgetary legerdemain, Congress still managed to work with the White House and emerge with a budget that will build down the national debt. This Congress continues the actions of the last several, which, together with the president, turned deficits as far as the eye can see into budget surpluses as far as the eye can see. Much of the credit for the budget turnaround goes to the overall economy. But much of the credit for the remarkable economy goes to Congress and the president-partly because they did not muck around so much in the private sector and let the natural strengths of the American market economy react and adjust to globalization and the information revolution. If things are indeed better than they look on the surface, they are not exactly hunky-dory. There are big problems in Congress manifested in this past year, some of them endemic. Are these problems, or is Congress's bottom line performance unusual or unique? What do they tell us about Congress in the years to come or, put another way, about Congress in the new millennium? A congress, of course, is a two-year phenomenon, and it is not always or often adequate to judge one on the basis of its first year alone. But the last Congress of this millennium and the first of the next millennium left for the holidays with its work cut out for it in its final year. Some of the difficulties the 106th Congress had were the product of larger dynamics. Democrats had kept majorities in the House of Representatives for 40 consecutive years from 1954 to 1994. When the Republicans captured the institution, not one Republican elected as such had ever been in the majority before; only one Democrat (Sidney Yates of Illinois) had ever been in the minority. The flip-flop in roles was difficult for both sides. Republicans had had four decades of frustration; Democrats, four decades of complacency. Frustration bred shrillness and irresponsibility; complacency bred arrogance and insensitivity. Partisan tensions were very high when the Republicans took over. The commitment to bipartisanship expressed in his inaugural speech by incoming Speaker Newt Gingrich did not last long on either side. Five years later, Republicans are still uneasy in the majority. Democrats learned quickly how to stymie the majority, but also developed even more quickly a smoldering resentment of the majority Republicans. One result has been an increase in partisan hostility and tension. Another significant change has been in the nature of the membership of Congress. More than 67 percent of the members of the106th Congress are new since the 1990s began. In attitude if not age, most of the newer members are Generation Xers-self-absorbed and individualistic, not identifying with the larger institution or naturally responsive to any institutional leadership. A lack of followers has combined with changes in leadership ranks to create a generation of weak leaders. At the same time, Congress has seen substantial ideological change, going from an institution with a plurality or majority of its members somewhere near the middle of the spectrum to one where most members have gravitated toward either end-from a normal distribution in statistical terms to a bipolar one. The typical post-World War II Congress had some considerable ideological overlap among the partisans; now there is very little. The 2000 election may result in a change in party majorities, but it will not alter many of these broad dynamics. Congress in the new millennium, at least for the first several years of it, is likely to see continuing partisan tension exacerbated by close party majorities and a sense in most election cycles that the House, at least, is in play (and often the Senate, as well). It will have continuing ideological polarization, at senior as well as junior levels, making the stakes of a shift in party majorities that much greater. It will have a preponderance of members who are less concerned with institution-building and more concerned with their individual roles and standing. Leaders will tend to come from the ideological wings of their parties and have difficulty building majority coalitions. Much of this will sound familiar to students of state legislatures. A few caveats: Strong presidential leadership can overcome many congressional institutional impediments. Crisis, economic or international, can concentrate the minds of lawmakers quickly, transcending ideology and partisanship when voters demand action. An unanticipated blockbuster election could change some of these dynamics. And finally, weak leaders, lots of partisanship, difficulty building coalitions, a constipated legislative process-all are characteristic of Congress through much of its history; a smoothly running institution regularly cranking out major legislation via bipartisan agreement is rare indeed. An Obsolete System? But other, external characteristics of our political system create a different environment for Congress in the new millennium, much as they create a new set of challenges for all our political institutions, including state legislatures. For at least the last 50 years, and probably for the last 100, America has had an ongoing debate about whether our governing institutions, created in a slow-paced agrarian era to discourage major and swift policy action, are adequate to the task of governing in modern, fast-paced industrial times. The Framers designed a deliberative democracy, with deliberation having multiple meanings-policymaking through vigorous give-and-take debate and policymaking done slowly with all deliberate speed. The atomic age raised the prospect of a nuclear war that would be started and finished in a matter of minutes. It underscored the dilemma of a system designed to take time to make important decisions and led to a concentration of power in the hands of the president. The remote control age, reducing attention spans and demanding continuous movement and action and immediate gratification, made old-fashioned congressional deliberations seem anachronistic. The Framers also designed a system that worked through elected representatives-a republican form of democracy as distinct from a direct form of democracy, and one that put substantial power in the hands of a national legislature and its representatives rather than the people directly. From the beginning, that focus also created a tension, some of which was played out in the debates between Federalists and anti-Federalists. Those debates continue in varied form today, as the anti-Federalist sentiments are carried forward by latter-day populists on the left, center and right of the political spectrum. Now Comes the Net Now comes the medium of the new millennium-the Internet. In the past five years, the Internet has begun to transform much of society, from commerce to communications. It is a remarkable phenomenon, paralleled only by the emergence of the telegraph in the 19th century. As it changes all communications, it will change all institutions. Political institutions are now beginning to adapt to the new communications age, creating their own Internet sites and learning how to use the Net both for their duties and their politics. The Net has the potential to bring about a golden age of representation, making it far easier for constituents to keep tabs on what their representatives are doing and to communicate with them interactively. But it also poses a direct challenge to deliberative democracy and Congress as the Framers designed them and as we know them. Among other things, the advent of the Internet has thrilled and excited a core of populist and direct democracy advocates, who have become the leading proponents of "cyberdemocracy." The Net, they say, is the key to freeing citizens from the bonds of so-called representative democracy, to make the old model of town hall democracy work across 3,000 miles and 270 million people. It can take the existing initiative and referendum process, now allowed in half the states, and make it universal to enable citizens to make decisions now made by their legislatures and legislators. It can take the nascent movement toward voting by mail, which made its first state-wide appearance in Oregon's Senate election in 1995, and eliminate the stamps and delays, letting people vote from their dens with one keystroke. This theme first resonated with the general public in 1992, when H. Ross Perot pledged during his presidential campaign that if elected president he would use "electronic town meetings" as a central forum to guide national policy decisions. Perot did not spell out what he meant by electronic town meetings-he seemed to suggest it would involve call-in television, after which he would make the decisions-and he did not get elected to implement his plan. But the idea of using technology to enhance democracy-to implement cyberdemocracy-gathered credence and momentum, especially as the technology advanced. Virtually all members of Congress now have individual Web pages; so do all significant presidential candidates, all think tanks, most daily newspapers and weekly magazines, nearly all federal agencies, the White House, the Congress (its THOMAS Web page was an innovator in providing government information on demand) and most states, counties, cities, state agencies and other governmental units. Some of the governmental units are emulating Colorado Springs' Citylink, which allows citizens to communicate with city managers and city council members. Other sites put on on-line debates with candidates for office. The Democracy Network, started in California and expanding to other states, conducts debates, dialogues with candidates and other election-related news in an interactive format. The new Freedom Channel has uncensored communications from a wide range of candidates and interest groups. Former network official Lawrence Grossman has looked at these developments and imagined Congress becoming merely a discussion chamber that waits for public instructions before making any decisions. Futurist Christine Slaton has suggested that we can scrap the concept of elected legislators, moving to a technology-driven participatory democracy where lawmakers are chosen by lot and rotated regularly. Heidi and Alvin Toffler, extrapolating from their "Third Wave," predict that today's political parties will disappear and that we will develop a new representative model. They suggest it may be one in which Americans choose representatives by lot, or at least go halfway, dividing representation into half regularly elected officials, with the other half coming from a random sample of the public. Almost all of these scenarios envision frequent national referendums over the Net, along with elections shifting from polling stations to home computer terminals or digital TVs with Web connections. People will shed the inconvenience of leaving their homes, waiting in lines, speaking to others, much less having policy choices made by a small group of Washington-based political elites. To legislators, political professionals or others immersed in the legislative process, this speculation may seem ridiculous, just the usual pie-in-the-sky bloviating that accompanies any innovation. But the idea of direct democracy has widespread appeal, and is reinforced by a regular message coming from Washington that Congress is just a circus, a group of clowns posturing among themselves with no larger interest in serving the country as a whole. There is a serious lobbying effort in the wings to promote voting on the Internet, and the seductive siren song of regular, instantaneous national referendums is not far away. Creating a 'Digital Divide' This scenario may not take root, but it is a real possibility for Congress in the new millennium. And it would be a disaster. First, it would not create more democracy. Indeed, it would likely exacerbate inequality. Starting with C-SPAN and punctuated by the World Wide Web, the explosion of public affairs information has created a two-tiered system. It has provided more access to more information and political activity than anyone has had in the history of the world to a sliver of the populace, junkies like me. But most others have been largely oblivious to the information cyberrevolution. This Digital Divide is certainly related to education, gender, race and income; surveys show gaps in regular Internet use between college graduates and high school graduates, men and women, whites and Latinos and blacks, and those with incomes of $50,000 and more and those at $20,000 or less. Although these gaps will undoubtedly narrow, a skew toward the well-to-do and highly educated, and probably toward the more ideologically driven, is inevitable. To be sure, the president's initiative to wire the nation's schools and classrooms could eventually make the technology available to everybody (although not necessarily in their homes.) But there is reason to believe that even if there were universal service, there would not be universal interest. Lloyd Morrisett, the retired president of the Markle Foundation, studied California's experience with referendums and projected his findings to the era of cyber-democracy. Morrisett found that as the California ballot became overloaded with complex and lengthy initiatives, it discouraged people from going to the polls rather than motivating them to offer their judgment. He suggested that voting on the Net would fall into the same pattern, replicating what has happened with voting at the polls. Even if we could be assured that all would participate, there is a greater danger in the expansion of cyberdemocracy-its challenge to deliberation. The idea of the Framers was not to have government decisions reflect public opinion, but to produce a public judgment, reached after extensive discussion, disagreement and debate that would enlarge upon and refine public views. Reaching a judgment requires time and effort. The slow and deliberate process of debate and give-and-take, done face to face by representatives from different areas and disparate constituencies, allows all perspectives and interests to be weighed. The process of persuasion and building laborious coalitions, the Framers thought, would result in decisions more just and more likely to stand the tests of time and legitimacy with citizens. No Deliberation in a Cyberdemocracy Deliberation and cyberdemocracy are not easily compatible. Consider the difference between laws passed by referendums and laws passed in legislatures. Legislative deliberation does not always work as intended, but the process encourages informed debate among informed and semi-informed individuals with different partisan, regional and philosophical differences, who go through a gauntlet of subcommittee and committee hearings, bill markups, and floor debate, with amendments usually allowed and occurring at all levels, in each of two houses of Congress. Few if any bills emerge at the end as they were drafted at the beginning or emerge in identical form from the House and the Senate. There is debate in some state referendum campaigns, but usually through major media campaigns arranged by proponents and opponents. The debate, such as it is, involves two sides, pro and con, and is usually played out via 30-second commercials in black-and-white terms. There is no face-to-face debate, much less the perspectives of dozens or hundreds of interests reflected in representatives from various constituencies. There is no amendment process-just a final up-or-down vote. In California, the initiatives to be voted on can run to hundreds of pages for voters to digest before they cast their "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" votes. Few if any voters spend much time studying the issues, much less actually reading the provisions and language of the referendums. The process would only deteriorate and the deliberative quality decline if the referendums were moved to the electronic venue and expanded dramatically in number. Of course, there is the related question of who writes the referendums or gets them on the ballot for consideration. The process is anything but a democratic one; small groups of elites, often ideological ones, dominate the process of getting initiatives on the ballot, relying on a new breed of high-paid political consultants specializing in initiatives, including how best to frame a complex issue into a simple yes or no vote. In reality, most referendums become more a high-priced clash among special interests and less a reflection of any real form of democracy. The Internet Age is like The Force in Star Wars. It has remarkable potential for good, enhancing the links between citizens and their representatives, enhancing the responsiveness of the legislative institutions, enhancing the information available to all about policy decisions. But there is a Dark Side, represented by a combustible combination of cynical distrust of institutions, populistic glorification of "pure" democracy and the accelerating advance of information technology. Consider what Newt Gingrich, who rode a wave of voter cynicism and populism to the speakership of the House of Representatives in 1994, said to one of his college classes: "Direct democracy says, OK, how do we feel this week? We all raise our hand. Let's rush off and do it. The concept of republican representation, which is very clear in the Founding Fathers, is you hire somebody who you send to a central place. . . . they, by definition, learn things you don't learn, because you don't want to-you want to live your life. They are supposed to use their judgment to represent you. . . . [The Founders] feared the passion of the moment." Starting with what remains of the 106th Congress, we need a major attempt to rebuild institutional credibility by defusing corrosive partisan tension, recreating a vital center and showing that the legislature still has the capacity to focus on what matters for Americans in the 21st century. Otherwise, brace yourselves for the Dark Side.
Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C. State Legislatures, January 2000. Copyright 2000 by National Conference of State Legislatures. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Eavesdropping on Public Policy What's going on in America's first branch of government?
By Gene Rose On March 8, state legislators across the country debated and passed legislation on gun control, HMOs, college savings accounts, school violence, state budgets, charter schools and the Green Bay Packers. I didn't have to wait until the following day to read it in the official records or through newspaper accounts. I know because I was there. And I didn't have to leave my desk. While the national media focused on the presidential race following the Super Tuesday primary, I set my attention on public policy debates that were taking place in more than 20 state legislative chambers or hearing rooms. With nothing more than a list of links and a sound system on my computer, I spent most of the day eavesdropping on legislators from Maryland to California. When I wrote an article on legislatures broadcasting their proceedings on the Internet two years ago, only seven states were providing full access to their proceedings. This year, 22 states allow anyone with access to a computer and sound card to listen in live. Several also provide a video signal, and more and more states are extending their offerings to committee hearings. States continue to show great innovations in broadcasting their proceedings. The South Carolina Senate provides closed captioning for its feeds. Nebraska produces a daily video clip of the day's activities, and more states keep archival records online. States with video broadcasting are beginning to use graphics to identify speakers. Listening to the legislature is further enhanced since states also offer unprecedented online access to bills, schedules, member information and even online activities for students. I was not able to visit every state that had Internet access. Among those not included because legislatures were not in session or simply bad timing on my part are: the California Assembly, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan House, Minnesota House, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas Senate and Wisconsin Senate. Here are some highlights of my national state legislative tour on March 8. Maryland Senate, 9:15 a.m. (Audio)
Maryland House, 9:26 a.m. (Audio)
Georgia Senate, 9:36 a.m. (Video)
Georgia House, 9:44 a.m. (Video)
Texas House committee, 10:03 a.m. (audio)
Missouri Senate, 10:10 a.m. (audio)
Missouri House, 10:19 a.m. (audio)
Kansas House, 10:26 a.m. (audio)
Minnesota Senate committee, 10:37 a.m. (video)
Nebraska Unicameral, 10:45 a.m. (video)
Wisconsin Assembly, 11:02 a.m. (audio)
Washington House, 11:11 a.m. (video)
Idaho House, 11:29 a.m. (audio)
Idaho Senate, 11:43 a.m. (audio)
Kentucky Senate, 1 p.m. (video)
Kentucky House, 2:35 p.m. (audio)
Kansas Senate, 2:35 p.m. (audio)
Arizona House committee, 2:47 p.m. (video)
Arizona Senate committee, 3:11 p.m. (video)
Nevada task force, 3:27 p.m. (audio)
California Senate committee, 3:37 p.m. (audio)
Overall, my national tour accurately reflects how state legislatures operate. The day illustrates that debate and issues discussed can range from fascinating to tedious. Issues can be very subjective or highly personal. But mostly it demonstrates that access to legislative proceedings is more available to citizens than at any time in our nation's history. As technology advances, users in the future undoubtedly will be given access to more live information, such as bill text, summaries and copies of amendments. Just as this experiment demonstrates significant improvements in just two years, it also means that today's access will seem downright primitive in a short amount of time. Regardless of the technology they use, legislatures still are the branch of government closest to the people. Legislators' commitment to their responsibilities and their willingness to provide increased avenues for the public to be involved in the process demonstrates a continued commitment to the citizens they represent. Editor's note: For the most up-to-date list of state broadcasting over the Internet, go to www.ncsl.org/programs/press/leglive99.htm
State Legislatures, May 2000. Copyright 2000 by State Legislatures. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. |
