Building a Divided House – The Structural Causes of our Partisan Politics (Part 1)

Bloviating talking heads are quick to mention the divided nature of our country’s politics. However, since more than a skin-deep mention of this is given it is rare that we consider why this is or if it is even true. For this first post on this topic I’m merely looking at function of the the Senate in modern times.

I start from the assumption that our politics is very divided for modern history based on the record use of the filibuster in the Senate. Since the filibuster is used by the Senators to prevent any action in the Senate, it is a useful tool of how often someone is willing to sabotage the lawmaking process.

The increased use of the filibuster is well documented in Senate records. Seen in the graph below we can see the number of times a cloture motion was filed, votes for cloture were held, and cloture was invoked. Cloture is only method of ending a filibuster. So the increase in cloture activities is directly related to the increase in filibuster activities.

Beginning with the 65th Congress in 1917 cloture motions remain low until 1970 at which point they begin to inch up slowly.

Senate Action on Cloture Motions
Decade	Motions Filed	Votes on Cloture	Cloture Invoked
1920s	2.0	1.4	0.6
1930s	0.8	0.6	0.0
1940s	2.0	1.6	0.0
1950s	0.6	0.6	0.0
1960s	4.4	4.2	0.8
1970s	27.4	19.4	6.6
1980s	39.4	26.6	10.8
1990s	65.8	44.2	15.0
2000s	94.0	70.7	38.6

The table above shows mean values of the same values as the graph for decades beginning with the 1910s and 1920s. As you can see the numbers jump off the charts in the last 12 years. What had once been a rarely used device to stop progress in the Senate dead in its tracks is now commonplace.

Rather than engaging in debate either one party is railroading the other – forcing the minority to use the filibuster OR one party is obstinately blocking progress on nearly every bill.

This of course leads to obvious of question of why. Which I’ll cover in my next post.

For more, visit my source: http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/cloture_motions/clotureCounts.htm

View the next installment in this series here.  It’s Not What You Think – The Structural Causes of our Partisan Politics (Part 2)