Topic: Government and Politics

Voters ♥ Gridlock

By
Stephen Slivinski

An interesting poll from Rasmussen Reports:  A majority of voters (52%) like divided government.  Only thirty percent think single-party control is preferable.

Apparently partisan affiliation had something to do with the result.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Democrats favored divided government by sixty percent.  However, it’s worth noting that not even half (47%) of Republican respondents favored one-party control.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics

Did Voters Throw the Bums Out?

By
Brandon Arnold

As we all know by now, Democrats have taken control of the House and (almost certainly) the Senate.  So was this a watershed election? 

Sure, it’s extremely rare for both houses of Congress to change hands in a single election and there’s quite a bit of buzz about a few high-profile incumbents who lost their jobs.

But now that the dust is almost settled, it looks like we will welcome only about 60 new faces to Capitol Hill.  And while there are a few races still too close to call, incumbents have been extremely successful in winning reelection. 

Consider that there were 435 races in the House and Senate with an incumbent trying to retain his or her seat.  Only 26 – 6% – of challengers in these races have won.  That’s pretty low for a “throw the bums out” election.  Pending the outcome of three or four yet-to-be-determined races, this year’s 94% incumbent reelection rate appears to be slightly higher than the 90% rate of 1994.

I should note that this figure doesn’t include the three incumbents who were defeated earlier this year in a primary election.  But even one casualty of his primary switched his party registration and managed to hold onto his seat.

The moral of the story: if you’re an incumbent member of Congress and you want to stay in office, there’s a pretty good chance you will be successful.  Just don’t forget to send ‘thank you’ cards to Senators McCain, Feingold, and all the gerrymandering folks who helped make your reelection possible.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics

Nurse Ratched at the Polls

By
Gene Healy

Former Catoite Amy Phillips has a neat rundown of “Nanny-State” ballot initiatives in the several states.  The war on smoking remains popular, with smoking bans passing in Arizona, Nevada, and Ohio–but, happily, there’s some support for “cut and run” in the war on marijuana, with liberalization measures apparently passing in Arkansas, several California cities, Massachusetts, and one Montana county–though failing in Colorado, Nevada, and South Dakota.

In Massachusetts, “56 percent of voters rejected a measure to allow grocery stores to sell wine,” due to the efforts of a “Bootlegger/Baptist” coalition in which liquor store owners funded a campaign designed to stoke fears of increased teen drinking.  But in Oklahoma, 53 percent of voters, recognizing that there’s no better day of the year for heavy drinking, voted ”to repeal a ban on the sale of alcohol on Election Day.”    

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics

This Incumbent Was Protected from the Wave

By
John Samples

Last week I wrote about the ways the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 made Christopher Shays’ re-election bid more likely.

Yesterday, Chris Shays bucked the national trend and won re-election despite having trailed in the polls for some time. He won by 3 percentage points of the vote. In 2004, a better year for Republicans, Shays won by 4 points.

Perhaps he should send a thank you note to the sponsors of the law, Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold as well as Rep. Martin Meehan and … Rep. Christopher Shays.

Topics: 
Cato Publications, General, Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties, Political Philosophy

Bipartisan Baloney

By
Chris Edwards

Pundits and politicians are calling for bipartisan hugs and kisses between the red and blue teams with the new closely divided Congress. The parties will need to work together and stop the bomb-throwing we are told. The Washington Post today says that the Democrats should resist the temptation to act “highhandedly and unilaterally.”

That’s nonsense. In a closely divided legislature, partisanship and attacks on the other team are the logical course for both parties. Because both parties know that either House or Senate could easily switch back over in 2008, they will do their best to deny the other side any legislative victories. The GOP’s strategy now will be to show that the Dems can’t get anything done, so they block, filibuster, and veto. They are the opposition in the House, so their job is to oppose.

The Dems will use their chairmanships and control of the House floor to schedule partisan hearings and votes to try and make the Republicans look bad any way that they can. The most important thing for Nancy Pelosi will be to hold onto the majority and line up some divisive issues to hammer on to help the party’s 2008 presidential nominee. Note that she won’t be scheduling votes on tax hikes anytime soon, because that would immediately revive the GOP and jeopardize 2008.

You can get “bipartisanship” if the legislature is lopsided and the minority thinks that they will be the underdog for a long time to come. In that case, the minority knows that they will have to be nice to the majority to get any of their own priorities accomplished.

Whether any of this is good or bad for the country is another issue. I like a divided and gridlocked legislature, and I like ideologically polarized parties because it gives voters cleaner choices and helps strengthen party brand names.

Topics: 
Government and Politics

Where There Is Too Much Vision, The People Perish

By
Gene Healy

As the country heads to the polls, that old debate about whether it’s rational to vote is getting rehashed at Reason and the Volokh site.  I intend to regularly exercise my right to complain, but as a disenfranchised DC’er, I’m rather less tempted to pull the lever (touch the touchscreen?) than I’d ordinarily be.  I always find it disturbing when you exit the booth and they give you a little “I Voted!” sticker, like they do when you’re seven years old and they want you to show the world that you didn’t have any cavities.  If this is a civic duty, let’s at least try to make it dignified for the grown-ups.  Either that, or bring back Tammany and the kegs of rum. 

On the Cato homepage, we have a number of useful links on the merits of divided government.  Meanwhile, on today’s Washington Post op-ed page there are dueling columns over which party should be condemned as the party of “no ideas.”  E.J. Dionne says it’s the GOP.  Michael Kinsley wades through the pablum of “A New Direction for America,” the Democrats’ campaign manifesto, and suggests it’s the Ds. 

Ideas can be overrated, though.  I’d certainly like to see either or both parties run on libertarian ideas, but failing that, a nice mix of gridlock, investigations, and scandals is preferable to a robust “vision thing” based on either perpetual war or muscular redistribution, which is what the “idea-heavy” wing of each party offers.  Mencken marked the end of the Coolidge administration by saying, “There were no thrills while he reigned, but neither were there any headaches. He had no ideas, and he was not a nuisance.”  For Mencken, this was praise.  He was on to something. 

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics

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