OK. Granted that the House Republicans are less-than-competent at running a legislative railroad, and that their attempted parliamentary manoeuvres do look a lot like Wile E. Coyote's Acme-equipped attempts to catch the Roadrunner...
But if we're so smart, why do they have the majority of House seats?
House Republicans and the Wile E. Coyote SyndromeHouse Republicans and the Wile E. Coyote Syndrome (printable version)
There's something about House Republicans that is reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote, the famous cartoon predator who employs ever-more-complicated and invariably counterproductive strategies in his efforts to snare the Roadrunner. Just as Wile E. exhibits a fatal fondness for elaborate plans involving anvils, rocket-powered backpacks and giant rubber bands, the House GOP repeatedly chooses too-clever-by-half schemes like government shutdowns, threats to default on the public debt, and ham-handed partisan tactics to get its way. Inevitably, these end in disaster, but like Wile E. Coyote, House Republicans never seem to learn...
There's something about House Republicans that is reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote, the famous cartoon predator who employs ever-more-complicated and invariably counterproductive strategies in his efforts to snare the Roadrunner. Just as Wile E. exhibits a fatal fondness for elaborate plans involving anvils, rocket-powered backpacks and giant rubber bands, the House GOP repeatedly chooses too-clever-by-half schemes like government shutdowns, threats to default on the public debt, and ham-handed partisan tactics to get its way. Inevitably, these end in disaster, but like Wile E. Coyote, House Republicans never seem to learn.
The latest example of the House GOP's Wile E. Coyote Syndrome occurred last week on the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill. Since the House and Senate have passed different versions of the bill, the next step was a routine, non-controversial motion to proceed to a House-Senate conference committee. But the House manager of the legislation, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) apparently decided to order up a bag of tricks from the Acme Company. Instead of a simple motion to proceed to conference, Thomas offered a motion that included a new version of the bill itself, including provisions on trade adjustment assistance (TAA) and health insurance that differed from both the House and Senate-passed legislation. According to an editorial in today's Washington Post, Thomas' motivation was to get the House on record supporting his much skimpier approach to TAA.
The stratagem immediately backfired like one of Wile E. Coyote's rocket-packs. Some of the protection-minded House Republicans who only voted for the original House bill (which passed by one vote) after being offered a wide assortment of side-deals and partisan blandishments cried foul. Many House Democrats rightly objected to a completely unprecedented parliamentary maneuver that might be used in the future by the House GOP leadership to short-circuit normal legislative procedures on other issues. After realizing the motion was almost certain to go down to defeat, Thomas yanked it, and now, the TPA bill hangs suspended over a chasm, arms flapping and legs spinning, much like Wile E. Coyote when one of his self-destructive schemes goes awry.
It would be funny if the consequences were not so serious. U.S. trade policy badly needs to regain some forward momentum. Last year, for the first time since 1982, U.S. exports and imports both fell. Even more ominous, both are down again this year; not since 1929-1932 have there been two consecutive years of decline. President Bush's new tariffs and subsidies are likely to accelerate the trend. And trade negotiations have slowed -- the last major U.S. trade agreements (those with Jordan and Vietnam) date to the final months of the Clinton Administration.
Passage of Trade Promotion Authority would be a first step back toward the healthier path of the 1990s, and until Thomas' Wile E. Coyote pratfall, a deal for final passage was within relatively easy reach. The House's TPA bill set a strong negotiating agenda based on a Free Trade Area of the Americas and a new WTO negotiating round. The Senate's more bipartisan bill preserved this agenda and added two critical items, designed by Majority Leader Tom Daschle along with Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA): reform and expansion of the outdated Trade Adjustment Assistance program, and a health insurance program for workers dislocated by import competition. The Administration hailed the Senate package as a breakthrough, which should have made House Republican acceptance of it inevitable, while attracting more than enough new House Democratic votes to counteract the odd Republican protectionist defection.
To be sure, the House-Senate conference committee would have to do some hard and deft work on potentially volatile technical issues: the Senate's effort to deny "fast-track" treatment to changes in dumping laws negotiated in trade agreements; the House's attempt to mollify protectionist Republicans by imposing new tariffs on clothes from Central America; a Senate clause largely excluding shoes from Andean Trade Preference Act benefits; and differences on Congressional oversight of trade agreements.
But a conference committee cannot get to work on these issues until it is appointed, and that won't happen until House Republicans walk their way back to a simple motion to proceed to conference.
The situation calls for simplicity, straightforwardness and quick action, not another round of "Wile E." maneuvering. The sooner House Republicans accept this and get on with the program, the better -- for the TPA bill, and for the country.
Yup, not so long ago we smart ones had the Presidency, Senate, House, and 3-2 control over state governorships and legislatures.
Now them dummies have the Presidency, House (did anyone imagine that would ever happen again, before it did?) 3-2 control over state governorships and legislatures, and we have the Senate by a single defector we lured over with the promise of supporting price floors for milk that will raise its cost to children, which is very important to him.
It seems like intelligence is a handicap in politics. ;-)
Seriously, as a registered Independent I wonder why it seems so important to Democrats to imagine that they are smarter than Republicans.
I remember back when President Clinton was having so much trouble with getting an attorney general appointed, Lani Guinier, the btu tax, etc, in spite of an all Democrat controlled Congress. On Charlie Rose his fans repeatedly explained it by shaking their heads and observing "He's so much smarter than everyone else in Washington he hasn't been able to work down at their level". It was very amusing.
More recently on "Politically Incorrect" I saw some comedians explain that with Republicans first you call them stupid, then if that doesn't stick you describe them as pawns of big business or the religious right. But of course they were only kidding.
However, is if someone is seriously claiming that Democrats are smarter than Republicans, this would be a great research topic for a grad student. What's the data showing it? And what's the process that explains systemically how one party's politicians would come to have higher IQs than the other's?
On the tactical issue of why Republicans have control, I'd suggest that you merely look at Henry Hyde's margin of victory in his last few races. Um, and also Nader. Since about 1998, it's been purely tactical, one-off things; the 2002 race is only in play because of the war (granted, that's a pretty big "only"); otherwise, the Republicans would be looking at a severe defeat in the Congress.
But look at the bright side: With Gramm, Thurmond, and Helms gone, the forces of light in the Republican party will prevail.
Posted by: Paul on June 28, 2002 10:43 PMIf we're so smart, why don't we have a majority?
Because we gerrymandered ourselves out of one, that's why! In setting up voting districts, the smart strategy is to cluster your opponents into a few districts that you give up at lost, but give yourself a reasonable majority in more districts. However, after the last two censuses (censi?) the Democrats, in their effort to create "majority minority" districts for the House, have done exactly the opposite. The Republicans even provided computers and software to help out in this effort. So now we have more black representatives and less black political power.
It's pretty clear that if the Democrats had not done this, they would have at least parity in the House now.
So who is really the smart party?
Posted by: Curt on June 29, 2002 10:05 AMif someone is seriously claiming that Democrats are smarter than Republicans, this would be a great research topic for a grad student.
I suppose a literature search would have to include at least a passing reference to the oft-maligned The Bell Curve, and also analysis of the income patterns of internal US migrants from one tax/political jurisdiction to another.
Or one could just post the cartoon from newly-deCommunized Russia, showing Marx, Engels and Lenin sitting in the gutter, heads in hands, with the caption "But we had THE THEORY right...."
Posted by: George Zachar on June 30, 2002 04:37 AMI should think that the party of Dukakis, Carter and Gore has a fine claim to be the party of intelligence -- and to the perils thereof (I am tempted to include Wilson in my sarcasm, but some people think he really was intelligent). I have friends who will still tell you that Carter was "a very good president, just not a good leader." But this proposition almost cries out its own contradiction: the presidency is leadership. The example of Clinton is not to the contrary: what the people saw in him was not what he had learned at Oxford, but what he had learned mediating domestic brawls for his mother.
Posted by: jda on July 1, 2002 09:11 PM