An interesting natural experiment in the Senate: The Darryl Levinson thesis revisited

Sandy Levinson

There is an unusually interesting story in today's Washington Post, tellingly titled "For GOP, Discord in Dissent," on the growing tensions in the Senate with regard to expressing disapproval (or support) for Bush's escalation (or whatever you think it is). What I find most interesting are the following paragraphs:

Republican leaders had hoped to divide Senate opinion largely along party lines, to allow Bush to argue that any outright statement opposing his plan was
politically motivated partisanship. ...

Instead, rival measures continue to proliferate.... "Resolutions are flying like snowflakes around here," Specter said.

One group of ruminating Republicans is made up of the 20 GOP
senators who will face voters in 2008.... The Warner measure has attracted at
least three potentially vulnerable Republicans -- Sens. Susan Collins (Maine),
Norm Coleman (Minn.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.). Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), another Republican whose term will expire in two years, said he was speaking for many of his GOP colleagues in asserting, "I'm not persuaded that sending 21,500 troops into a civil war in Baghdad is a good idea, but I haven't found a resolution I can support."

So what we see is a wonderful natural experiment with regard to the two variables that Darryl (no relation) Levinson emphasizes as key to explaining the behavior of legislators of the president's own party (since it isn't any genuine concern for maintaining the institutional prerogatives of Congress, as Madison wrongly asserted): Their strong desire, on the one hand, to be good members of the party team, coupled with an equally strong desire to be re-elected. One can be certain that almost all of the Republicans (who besides Hagel?) would continue to act like sheep if Bush's numbers were substantially higher. What is interesting, of course, is that most Republicans (at least the ones not facing re-election) continue to rally round their guy. And, as I've indicated in earlier posts, it's equally interesting that Democrats, with the exception of Joe Lieberman, seem more united than ever before, presumably in part because that appears to be a good strategy for 2008. If Bush loses the support of enough members of his part to allow one of the "anti" resolutions (including the one supported by John Warner) to go through, then he will be even more miserable in his 720 remaining days in the White House, since the ultimate message of such a vote would be not only that they have lost faith in his policies (who hasn't?), but also that they no longer view him as possessing enough political capital to make life miserable for those who stray. It will also, I predict, doom the McCain campaign.

Were I advising Chuck Hagel, incidentally, I would be studying how to run for the presidency as an independent and looking for a Democrat who would make a good running mate on a "national unity, plain-speaking" ticket. 2008 could be an extraordinarily interesting political year.

Addendum: I also strongly recommend Fred Barbash's column in today's Post, "Why Would Congress Surrender?" It bewails Congress's "lassitude" with regard to seizures of ever-more-power by the Executive with regard to war. But Levinson provides a perfectly good answer to Barbash: Members of Congress just don't care that much about preserving institutional prerogatives, so it should be no surprise, even if it is a cause for lamentation, when members of the president's party acquiesce in claims of executive power or when they (like the opposition party) concentrate entirely on finding pork for their constituents in order to be re-elected. And, after all, the only resolutions with a chance of passage are "debating society" statements that "we wish to express our disapproval of the policy" rather than in fact to suggest that Congress is willing to take concrete action to stop it. Power goes to those who are willing to exercise it, as Dick Cheney knows so well. Few members of Congress actually are interested in exercising Congress's powers with regard to waging war.
Posted 10:43 AM by Sandy Levinson [link]