It is recorded, whether truthful or apocryphal, that it was the Prussian leader Prince Otto von Bismarck who in a most cynical observation about how a legislature functions, remarked: “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.” Leaving aside Bismarck’s respect for sausage, it was just like a good Prussians to analogize the ingredients in sausage to those in laws.
At this time, the American people are watching one the of the oldest contemporary sausage makers in the country, President Joe Biden, trying to coax the Congress into legislating. The President is mixing in as many ingredients as he can—many of which he knows are not the healthiest—while at the same time leaving out many other components that he wished he could fit into the sausage casing.
The bi-partisan $1.0 trillion infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate by more than a two-thirds vote in August has already received a rule from the House Rules Committee sending the bill to the Floor. It is awaiting debate and presumably passage. This bill continues to be held up while Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema persist in their negotiations with the President, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and the more progressive Democrats about the eventual size and components of the $1.5-2.2 trillion Build Back Better bill--reconciliation package.
Both bills eventually will pass. What remains is for the players to finalize on the components and for the political jockeying and gamesmanship to be end. There is a different aspect to these negotiations than were present historically during most legislative sausage making sessions. They are connected to and reflect a serious change in American politics over the past few decades.
The legislative negotiations are taking place only within of the majority party. In this instance, various actors are remaining in place to gain or maintain dominance within the Party. Whatever compromise emerges, however, the Democratic will have debated the policy questions but only among themselves. Republicans in Congress have stonewalled any negotiating with them. Their assumption is that they will win more public support in the November 2022 congressional elections by disassociating themselves from the Build Back Better bill and remaining in the opposition. This will enable them to demonstrate that they are being more fiscally responsible.
What has occurred in the Congress for some time now has been the gradual movement of the Legislature towards a parliamentary system where the Party in powers rules and the opposition opposes. There no longer are Republican moderates who vote differently than other Republicans on social or economic issues, Few Democrats break with their Party on labor, economic, or civil liberties positions. A legislative system where two parties engage in conflict resolution and compromise is now a matter of history. All the legislating is done now within the majority party. Opposition Members have no interest in actually debating the nuts and bolts of policymaking, they only want to crush the other party.
Almost no Republicans will join Democrats on key issues even when they believe in them. Republicans also hear the “Fear of Trump” voice whistling in the background. It remains to be seen whether after Donald Trump is no longer a political force, if the Republican Party will return to being a contributing opposition or whether both parties have settled into this new model of law making. (In the name of historical accuracy, Bismarck also was operating in a parliamentary system.)
When the legislation finally emerges Biden will have squeezed in as many of the items on his wish list while accepting some elements he wanted to leave out. He hopes that the American people will like the results. Even if the sausage is not the best, it will reflect a near Herculean effort to bail the nation out of many of its major problems. It will set the country back on the road to addressing the crises ahead with the ultimate verdict to these maneuvers to be decided by the voters in the off-year election.
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