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"The equality of representation in the senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and small states, does not call for much discussion." The Federalist No. 62: James Madison
James Madison's half-hearted words about equal representation in the senate are those of a man who chose not to risk the whole for the sake of one part of the new constitution (ditto, slavery and legal protection for indigenous Indians).
Madison, you see, passionately disagreed with equal representation (i.e. each state receiving two senators). The Virginia Plan, which set the agenda for the constitutional convention, and whose form originated in Madison's brilliant mind, recommended population-based representation for both houses of congress. But there could be a constitution only with equal representation, a coalition of small states wouldn't allow otherwise, so Madison relented.
Back in Madison's day the population ratio between the most populous state, Virginia, and the least populated, Delaware, was 12:1. In 2004, the difference between California and Wyoming is a staggering 70:1. This exponential skewing of small state power means that in theory the 26 smallest states, comprising only 17% of the US population, can control the senate.
Wildly exacerbating this problem are the arcane rules of that august body, none more so than the threat of filibuster, where endless debate can thwart the majority's legislative designs unless 60 votes can be mustered to propose a cloture motion, a motion to end debate and force a vote, where a simple majority then prevails.
Thus 21 states, representing a miserly 11.2% of the population, can in theory stymie all legislative efforts. This absurd situation is precisely why Madison grew to despise the constitutional compromise but even he could not have foreseen just how distorted the legislative process would become over time.
The reason why I raise this depressing state of affairs is that Obama's centre-piece Health Care Bill is now in the maw of the senate and the surrealistic situation is unfolding where on day six of the floor debate one geriatric Republican senator after another is holding forth about the evils of the bill, while behind closed doors Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is dealing like he's never dealt before, trying to muster the 60 votes he needs to invoke cloture and bring the bill to a vote.
Optimists are predicting that he will get the magic 60 votes he needs by the end of next week. Guarded optimists believe it will happen around Christmas Eve, while pessimists think the Republicans will grind the bill into the dust, that it will never come to a vote.
I've never wavered from what I think is the irreducible logic that the Democrats cannot afford their president, and through him themselves, to fail on health care. To do so would be to risk a significant routing at the 2010 mid-term elections. And the Democrats already have a strong political head wind as it is; the economy, with 10% unemployment the most evil portent of economic malaise, allied to a runaway deficit and a majority of Americans being opposed to prolonging the war in Afghanistan, means that defeat over health care would consign Obama's first year in office to abject failure.
Despite the strong repudiation of George W Bush at the 2008 election; despite Obama inheriting a massively complex and problematic inheritance from his predecessor, and; despite the Republican Party being both at war with itself and totally lacking in purposeful leadership, ideas, and even a modicum of talent, the American public are beginning to hold Obama responsible for their current woes.
They may still be hugely skeptical about the Republicans, and they may have unrealistic expectations of what any president can achieve in their arch-change-resistant politics, but the powerful driving reality is that the incumbent president and the ruling Democrats are increasingly being held to account by the public.
It is clear, depressingly for Obama, that the Health Care Bill will not be signed before Christmas, which has been his year-long challenge to Congress. If and when cloture is achieved, and my bet is closer to Christmas than next Friday, the senate bill and the house bill then needs to be merged between the respective Democratic leaderships, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
This will involve yet another unedifying round of gruesome compromises, grubby deals, and fraught voting coalitions being constructed to win the votes it will need to pass both houses (yet again) before it can go to the Oval Office for Obama's historic signature.
If Obama can pass health care before his State of the Union address in January his presidency will be transformed. Obama will have succeeded where eight of his predecessors have failed. Passing major health care reform is therefore historic, for not only will it provide greater security for tens of millions of Americans who currently fret about their jobs and, therefore, the security of their coverage, but it will also give some 30 million currently uninsured Americans (out of 45 million uninsured) a powerful incentive to vote for the Democrats at the mid-term elections.
At that point Obama can focus solely on jobs, because the number of out of work Americans has a direct bearing on the extent to which his political dynamic will deteriorate at the mid-terms, because even in the best of times every sitting president, except on the rarest of occasions, loses congressional seats. An average loss of seats is acceptable, but an avalanche would complicate his re-election bid in 2012.
Signing health care into law is therefore crucial to the Obama presidency yet the bill's future lies in the vortex of most dysfunctional part of the constitutional order, the senate.
In a body where a minority, representing entrenched vested interests, can destroy the adaptive purpose of the majority, a purpose endorsed by the country in 2008, it's an understatement to describe matters as fraught.
Whether health care passes or not, the more chronic problem that its grinding progress is highlighting, is that senate is irretrievably broken, yet can't be fixed. RIP James Madison; the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
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