Bill Galson and Elaine Kamarck team up to offer a strange critique of the American political system: It doesn't do enough to privilege moderate voters:
In 2006, 2008, and 2010, America experienced a series of wave elections that resulted in shifts of political control. At the same time, the country continues to grapple with serious, potentially existential threats: a weak economy, massive structural deficits and growing global competition. Both problems— political polarization and the failure of governance—share the same root cause: the failure to give moderates adequate voice in the nation's electoral and policy processes. This report argues for a new moderate politics that can solve these twin challenges. For Democrats, a politics of the center presents a critical opportunity—to both rebuild a lasting governing coalition and to champion a new reform agenda that can heal a political process now fractured by polarization.
This ignores the actual content of legislation passed over the last two years. The signature efforts of the Obama administration -- the stimulus package and health-care reform -- were aimed squarely at the center of American politics. The stimulus contained then-popular spending on infrastructure and tax cuts, and health care reform was based largely on the health care plan crafted by Massachusetts' Republican governor, Mitt Romney. And indeed, both efforts became more moderate as they went through the legislative process. The Affordable Care Act of August 2009 was far less liberal than the Affordable Care Act that passed in March 2010.
Which is to say this: You could take Galson and Kamarck's data and emerge with the opposite conclusion. It's not that moderates need more influence but that partisans are disadvantaged in the governing process. In other words, large swaths of the American public differ on several fundamental issues, and their electoral choices reflect that difference. Insofar that there's a failure of governance, it's because our political institutions fail to funnel this partisanship into governing.
The latter explanation sounds a lot more plausible. A "politics of the center" might result in bipartisan legislation but doesn't actually change the underlying dynamic: The public has become more partisan and more polarized, even as "moderates" have grown as a share of the population. This isn't a bad thing; a polarized public is often a more engaged public, and polarized parties are more likely to offer clear and well-defined choices to voters.
Reconfiguring our institutions to ignore partisans and privilege moderates is a surefire recipe for muddling voter choice. And indeed, there is a real anti-democratic tinge to the Galston/Kamarck proposal for privileging moderates. For instance, they propose reforms that would require a supermajority to elect the speaker of the House. The stated reason? "To force the Congressional leadership to reach across the aisle and be more likely to produce bipartisan legislation."
This is nonsense. For starters, Republicans and Democrats still represent different interests and priorities and still respond to different incentives. A bipartisan speaker couldn't convince Democrats to support sharp cuts in Social Security or convince Republicans to restore funding for reproductive health services. What's more, this speaker would have a hard time setting an agenda; congressional leaders build agendas from intra-party interests and priorities. Which interests does a bipartisan speaker prioritize? And is there anyway to prioritize favored issues without wrecking the whole project of "bipartisanship"? Finally, this scheme would make voter choice irrelevant. What's the point in voting if your representatives will turn around and elect someone from the opposite party? Put another way, could you imagine the outcry if Republicans were forced to elect Steny Hoyer as speaker because they couldn't find a supermajority for John Boehner?
The same goes for the report's plan to block the influence of strong partisans in primary elections. It reeks of contempt for the views of motivated partisans, as if they somehow don't deserve representation in Congress because their views lie outside of the mainstream, as defined by Galston and Kamarck.
One last point: In its enthusiasm for bipartisanship qua bipartisanship -- and its contempt for democratic representation -- this report reflects the views of the Beltway elite: a disdain for alternative ideologies and a profound discomfort with politics as practiced.
