Committees and Parties

Getting away from the discussion of democracy, I have two observations about the US government. The first is that as I understand the British government, their use of committees is quite different from what is done in the US congress. The difference is that they do not use committees to formulate legislation—at least not committees in parliament. Their legislation is formulated within the party, with input from the executive departments. There are of course disagreements and compromises within the party, but these are worked out within an overall agreed on context, and the leader of the party has the final say. By the time the legislation reaches parliament, it is subject only to minor changes in detail, under strict rules of relevance to the issue involved. The opposition party is not able to make any significant changes in the legislation, and thus the majority party’s program is enacted or defeated as is.

Committees in the US congress, in contrast, function to formulate from the beginning the legislation, and input from both parties is allowed in the process of formulation. Although the majority party may have initially written a bill that reflects the party program, in the committee process changes and compromises are made that corrupt and distort the original intent of the bill, and the result of this process is a bill that often does not reflect the majority party program. All of this is done in the name of compromise and cooperation, but the result is to subvert the intent of the majority party, and thereby deprive the majority of its ability to respond clearly to the will of the majority. The recent ACA bill is a good example of this corruption.

I have said all of this before. The point is that the way committees operate in congress is completely up to each house of congress. There is no constitutional mandate that says the committees have to operate in this way. They could operate more like the British committees. Legislation could be more of a party controlled process.

This leads me to the second issue: Political parties in the US are weak and ineffective. Much of this has to do with the presumption that parties are bad, and their influence should be curtailed. The mantra is that we should get money out of politics, and politics out of government. Such a view is ludicrous, but it is promoted by “serious” people, such as Lessig and Ackerman. I do not understand the reasoning behind their arguments. They say that money serves as a way to influence candidates, and such influence is bad. Somehow candidates are supposed to be immune to influence and make decisions only on the basis of objective debate over the issues. There are no such candidates. Every candidate, just as every person, is inevitably influenced by others, and we would not want it to be otherwise.

If there is a problem with money, as opposed to influence, it is that it is allowed to be given to individual candidates. In any other area, such as the stock market or business, such use of money would be clearly illegal, a form of bribery or blackmail. It is clear to me that the problem is one of giving money to individual candidates. This is what should be made illegal. Money is of course necessary for campaigns and party activities, and it has to come from somewhere. This is where the bias against parties has warped the thinking of so many people. They are unable to get their minds around the idea that the parties, as independent organizations, might just be able to eliminate the improper use of money to bribe individuals. If the parties were strong enough to control the allocation of money, and if only the parties were able to give money to candidates, they would serve as a buffer between the sources of money and the candidates who need the money. But no one seems to want to hear this point.