Tag Archives: Legislative Politics

Congress, parliamentary procedure, filibusters, discharge petitions, continuing resolutions, debt ceilings, party discipline, and the many ways formal rules shape — and are shaped by — strategic behavior.

Have Gun, Will Vote

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Yesterday, the Senate—in line with expectations—rejected the most basic of gun control proposals.  In light of the Newtown massacre—an event that shook all of us—this might seem shocking.  For example, even leaving aside the emotional pull that perhaps we can as a nation call that horrible day back and make it right, the proposal arguably had/has 90% support among the public.

Does this demonstrate a problem with the Senate or, perhaps, democracy itself? Simply put, no.

Let me be clear: I have many family and friends who own and use guns for hunting and sport, and I do not believe that the debate about “taking away guns” is worth the breath or typing it takes to describe such a practically ludicrous concept. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I do not own a gun, and do not think that a gun is appropriate to keep in my house. Okay…that said…now I’m going to blow your mind. WITH SOCIAL SCIENCE.

First, the Senate ain’t done.  I’ll just note that and then spare you (for now) yet another installment of my “votes matter for signaling to constituents” argument (which would imply we might see the background checks come in through another, presumably bundled, amendment).

Second, and the “math of politics” part of this post, this vote demonstrates the not-so-gentle implications of the subtle interaction of psychology, indirect democracy, and multi-issue politics.

Before I continue, let me apologize for my shortcuts, I am about to unfairly but succinctly imply that gun rights advocates are all gun owners.  This supposition is demonstrably false in the general context, of course, because plenty of people cheer for teams representing colleges that they not only didn’t attend, but couldn’t have if they wanted to.  (You know who I’m talking about, right?)  That said, here we go…

A realist/game theoretic interpretation of democracy implies that it “works” (if it does) only because voters hold incumbents accountable for their decisions.  Taking this logic on its own and pairing it with the overwhelming empirical support for background checks, the intuitive conclusion is that democracy must be failing: clearly a few Senators at least must be ignoring the demands of their constituents.  Right? (Don’t worry, I’m not about to make an argument based on the (mal)apportionment of the Senate or sampling error.)

Umm, yes, perhaps…until you realize that Senate elections choose Senators, not positions. Once you realize this, you “think down the game tree” a bit as an incumbent and you think…

“Well, I vote on lots of different issues.  Each voter comes into the voting booth and does something like a weighted sum over the various positions I am seen as favorable/reliable on and then compares me with the challenger.”

In a nutshell, this means that every incumbent—when faced with a vote on any issue—considers the weight (or, in the terminology of political science, salience) of that issue with his or her electorate. (I’m abstracting from individual-voter-level differences for simplicity.)

Thus, the impact of an incumbent’s gun control vote on any given voter i‘s “approval/support” for the incumbent is basically something like

w_{i}^{\text{gun}} L_{i}^{\text{gun}},

where w_{i}^{\text{gun}}>0 is the importance of gun control (larger values imply gun control is more important to i) and L_{i}^{\text{gun}} is “+1” if i agrees with the incumbent’s vote on gun control and “-1” otherwise.

Note that this is just one issue among many.  The total approval/support of the voter for the incumbent is something like

A_{i} = w_{i}^{\text{gun}} L_{i}^{\text{gun}} + w_{i}^{\text{health care}} L_{i}^{\text{health care}} + w_{i}^{\text{deficit}} L_{i}^{\text{deficit}}.

Okay, that’s voting.  Now let’s think about psychology. In a nutshell, who cares most strongly about background checks? This is sort of a Olsonian–Tversky&Kahneman effect:

Those who encounter the policy most often care the most about it.

Gun owners (or people who think/fear they might want to buy a gun someday) will generally have (or be believed by incumbents to have) larger values of w_{i}^{\text{gun}}. And, to cut to the chase, many of them will not prefer to submit to (say) background checks.  (After all, most these voters are, indeed, good Americans.)

So, while 90% of the voters might prefer a vote for background checks (i.e., L_{i}^{\text{gun}}=+1 for a vote for yesterday’s amendment), few if any of them assign nearly as large a value of w_{i}^{\text{gun}} as the 10% of the voters who oppose background checks.

This matters because an incumbent—in the spirit of democratic responsiveness—is responsive to a voter on any given single issue only to the degree that the voter’s vote is responsive to the incumbent’s vote/stance on that issue. Congress deals with many issues. For better or worse, my argument here is that “gun control/gun rights” votes are generally more important/dispositive for voters who refer to the issue as “gun rights.”

Here’s a picture suggesting this, from Pew:

Revealed Differential Importance of Gun Rights/Control

In spite of that picture, note that, according to my argument, this is not about polarization in the classical sense (the two sides don’t necessarily have wildly different policy goals). While gun control is a fairly partisan issue, it is not actually a strongly partisan one. Rather, background checks represent an issue that (in line with the Olson shout-out above) present “concentrated costs” to an arguably much-less-than-majority group and “dispersed benefits” to a larger-than-majority group. If we had a referendum on the background checks amendment (and everybody had to turnout and vote), then I have no doubt that the Manchin-Toomey amendment would win in a landslide. But that’s not the way indirect democracy works. (And, for another day, thank goodness for that. AMIRITE, CALIFORNIANS WITH SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN?)

So, I am sad that our nation tears and blows itself apart over both the issue and its instantiation. I cried (a lot) watching the coverage of Newtown and for a few days afterwards. That said, the institutional and psychological/preference realities of the issue mean that at least I sleep well at night confident in the notion that this strife does not imply anything untoward about our politicians or voters. To put it another way, as hard as it is to accept sometimes, democracy is about choices—the logic above is a convoluted (but more precise) way of saying “pro-gun rights voters will “throw the bum out” for a pro-gun-control vote…and a pro-gun-control voter probably won’t do the same to his or her incumbent for a pro-gun-rights vote.” As I disclosed above, I am more than happy to be proven wrong on this in 2014. And with that, I put my money where my mouth is and leave you with this.

________________________________________________________________________

PS.  According to this article, Sen. Toomey (R-PA) “argued that `the Second Amendment does not apply equally to every single American…'”  I can’t resist the opportunity to suggest that this is wrong headed on arguably two counts.  First, it is distinctly poor taste and shortsighted to get into an Orwellian “some people have more rights than others” interpretation of the Constitution. Second, and more controversially, the Second Amendment is actually a guarantee of a collective (read: State) right, rather than an individual one.  I mean, one is the loneliest number even for militias?  (Also, are “poor taste” and “shortsightedness” synonymous in equilibrium?)

Now, I’ll Show You Mine: Why Obama Budged A Bit on the Budget

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President Obama proposed his 2014 budget this week.  A huge document, it contains a number of interesting policy proposals.  One that is attracting a lot of attention concerns the “chained CPI.” In a nutshell, this change will reduce the rate of growth in social security payments over the next decade.  Overall, the proposal arguably represents a compromise with Congressional Republicans.  Perhaps understandably (although this is a classic chicken-egg situation), some Congressional Democrats and liberal interest groups are outraged. Did Obama overreach?  Has he sold out his party? To both questions, I argue “no,” and I also assert that, while Obama may be a pragmatist, this proposal isn’t a fair-minded compromise with the GOP.  It’s far more aggressive than that and positioned for the 2014 elections.

From a strategic standpoint, Obama is in an interesting situation.  He’s a lame duck president with a receding mandate and an approaching midterm election.  I think he has policy/legacy motivations to drive him to do more in his second term than most (all?) two-term presidents.  Accomplishing this would be greatly assisted by the Democrats doing well in the 2014 midterm elections.  (And, of course, he might want such a thing either on partisan or personal grounds, too.)

Going into 2014, the Democrats are in a tough situation in the Senate and a long-shot in the House. So how does Obama’s proposal affect this?  Not much in the grand sense, of course, because budget proposals are “inside baseball” for the most part and it seems unlikely (to me at least) that the public will buy into the narrative that “Obama is attacking Seniors.”

However, Obama’s proposal puts the House GOP in a bind and, by extension, potentially presents Senators of both parties with a challenge.  On the one hand, the House GOP can not simply “sign off” on Obama’s budget: for one, it raises taxes and, two, it’s Obama’s budget.  In taking a stand against his budget, though, the House GOP must come up with a reason.  While Boehner can try to claim that the proposal is incremental and doesn’t go far enough with respect to entitlement reform, this approach forces the GOP to come up with an even more aggressive plan or keep pushing the Ryan plan. Given the public’s lack of support for cutting social security, and the fact that Social Security is technically “off budget” and therefore of little value in reducing the budget deficit in the short term, it’s not clear to me what the GOP can counter with in terms of spending.  (And, of course, I wrote about this last year: there’s almost no way to balance the budget without new revenues or dramatically shrinking the defense budget.)

One way to view this is that Obama has “caved” to GOP demands and that this is another example of Obama not realizing that Congressional Republicans can not be dealt with.  Somewhat ironically, Obama’s very public and tangible concessions (even if “incremental”) are arguably the strongest positive bargaining move he has made in recent years. The key words here, and the “math of politics” of this post, are public and tangible.  By going public with a specific proposal, Obama is framing the next stage of the budget process. He is putting the spotlight on the Republicans and thereby calling their bluff that they have a politically feasible budget plan. (It’s a dual version of the logic I sketched out during Boehner’s stratagem during the fiscal cliff showdown.)

It is important to note that Obama’s budget was two months late.  He waited until after sequestration hit, after the House and Senate each passed their own budget resolutions.  In a colloquial sense, this forces the House GOP to respond to his proposal, as opposed to the Senate’s.

By going public (as opposed to privately bargaining with Boehner), Obama imposes “audience costs” on both himself and the House GOP.  For Obama, he would face a potentially huge cost if his budget was approved and sent to his desk for his signature.  (This isn’t going to happen, but a partial version could.) For the House GOP, of course, it now has the public’s attention on their budget priorities again.  That hasn’t worked out so well in the past.

By being tangible (i.e., by including the specific, headline garnering proposal regarding Social Security), Obama has arguably placed himself as the compromiser.  More importantly, Obama’s proposal presents Congressional Democrats with a useful foil and “clear indicator” of the importance of the 2014 elections.  Key here from Obama’s perspective is that he’s a lame duck president: if he has policy goals, he can be less concerned with maintaining his short-term popularity.  He can also turn to his partisan base and say (truthfully, in my opinion): “if you want Democratic priorities to win, you need to give me—and you—a Democratic House.  More importantly, perhaps, you better be darned sure the Democrats hold onto the Senate.”

With that, I think of the President of the Senate, and leave you with this.

Consensual Resolution?

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Just a quick post. Yesterday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture (63-35) on the Mikulski-Shelby substitute to (i.e., the Senate version of) the continuing resolution, HR 933. In a nutshell, this obviates threats to delay this funding bill, which I have discussed previously (here and here).

I bring this up because it bolsters the case I made in the previous post that the Senate might be operating in a fairly consensual/bipartisan manner.  While McConnell (and 1 Democrat, Jon Tester (D-MT)) voted against cloture, 10 Republican Senators putatively “crossed over” to vote in favor of cloture.  The motivations for these votes are beyond the scope of this post and, regardless of their nature, I think it is worth noting that, yesterday at least, the Senate agreed to get to what has to be gotten to.

With that, I leave you with this.

Quid Pro Status Quo: A Tale of Two Tails

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In my previous post, I discussed the Senate’s consideration of a continuing resolution (or CR) that includes some provisions relevant to gun control.  In so doing, I mentioned a form of unanimous consent agreement, or UCA, (like this one) that the Senate has been using for consideration of measures that would presumably otherwise fail to obtain cloture.

Leaving aside the finer points of cloture, the key aspect of this UCA is that it guarantees a vote on the amendment in question but requires 60 votes (a three-fifths majority, like cloture) for passage.  Upon reflection, two of the first four amendments to the CR to receive consideration are particularly illustrative of the parties’ collective strategies of position-taking when compared side by side.

The first amendment considered by the Senate was offered by Ted Cruz (R-TX).  It was actually an amendment to an amendment in the nature of a substitute (i.e., a complete replacement for the CR) offered by Sens. Mikulski (D-MD) and Shelby (R-AL), the chair and ranking minority member, respectively, of the Senate Appropriations Committee.*

The second amendment I wish to compare it with is the one, mentioned in the previous post, offered by Sen. Harkin (D-IA), which was also an amendment to the Mikulski-Shelby substitute.  It proposed to increase spending on a slew of Democratic priorities, including

special education, childcare subsidies, The Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program, suicide prevention, aid for first-in-their-family college students, food safety, lead poisoning screening for kids in this country, diabetes prevention, and worker safety.

In addition, as I pointed out in the earlier post, this amendment essentially proposed returning to the substance of the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill except for any additional spending on Obamacare.

Thus,

  1. a vote for Cruz’s amendment was a vote against Obamacare (or, perhaps, “big government”), and
  2. a vote for Harkin’s amendment was a vote for traditional Democratic priorities.

Note the order of the votes—Reid essentially allowed Republican incumbents to take clear positions against Obamacare—prior to at least a handful of these Senators voting for the CR next week.  Then McConnell and Reid (essentially) agreed to a UCA under which Democrats would get a chance to cast themselves as pro-Democratic priorities sans
Obamacare.  This quid pro status quo did not threaten the CR, because Cruz’s amendment did not have majority support (hence, no need for a UCA, assuming no Democrat filibustered, which they didn’t) and Harkin’s amendment would not receive 60 votes (but it did receive majority support, hence the need for the UCA to obviate a Republican filibuster).

Thus, this sequence arguably represents a classic, cooperative logroll between the parties (really, between the incumbents of the parties).  Policy was not put at risk, but both parties’ incumbents got to take at least one good position-taking roll call vote.  A larger take on this trade-off—a classic “question” in political science—was recently offered by Greg Koger, Hans Noel, and—well—Greg Koger.  Well worth the read.

I won’t weigh in on the larger question at this time (though I have offered a take on it in published research (ungated version)).  Instead, it is important to note that sometimes the parties work together by agreeing to stand apart.  (Also, I have already talked about part of this dynamic with the fiscal cliff, though from a different angle.)

With that, I leave you with this.

___________________

* If my reading is true, Sec. 110 (Cong. Rec. S1613)  and Sec. 514 (Cong. Rec. S1619) contain the provisions (3 in Sec. 110 and 1 in Sec. 514). The fact that the Senate is using an amendent in the nature of a substitute to the House version of the CR means that—at least from a practical-cum-technological standpoint—it is even harder to find “the Senate’s version” of the CR.  This approach also greatly expands the “voting tree” for consideration of the CR.

Showdown at Uzi Gulch: Putting the Glock in the Spiel

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The Senate is considering a continuing resolution (CR) that both extends funding operations of the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2013) and also makes permanent several provisions that stymie enforcement of gun control laws. While the reality is that the provisions in the Senate bill do not represent a significant change in the day-to-day enforcement of gun control, making the provisions permanent represents a significant step “backward” in light of the Newtown school massacre and the 57% of Americans who favor renewing the ban on assault weapons and the 52% who favor “stricter gun control laws.”

So, what’s the strategy here?  First, it is important to remember that the CR is a very potent vehicle: Obama could veto it, as Clinton did in 1995, causing the federal government to “shut down” during his struggles with the GOP-controlled 104th Congress.  However, given (1) the fiscal cliff debate & currently ongoing sequester and (2) the fact that the Democrats hold a majority of seats in the Senate, the analogy between the two situations is not a perfect one.  Simply put, it is not clear that Obama would win the “public approval game” following a veto as Clinton did.

But the more important point is that Senate Democrats are facing a very “tough map” in the upcoming 2014 midterm elections. In particular, at least 7 Democratic seats are up for election in closely divided states where support for tougher gun control is probably not a winning electoral gambit, ceteris paribus: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa (open seat), Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, and South Dakota.  So including these provisions might actually be a gift to Obama in some ways.  Democrats so electorally disposed can reaffirm their anti-gun control bona fides by voting for this CR and Republicans can more easily explain their vote to fund the government as a pro-gun rights vote. More interestingly, however, are two strategic possibilities that might come up as this story unfolds over the next week.

  1. A Senator’s anti-gun control bona fides would arguably be even better established by voting for an amendment that would strip the anti-gun control provisions.
  2. Similarly, a Senator’s pro-gun control bona fides could be similarly established by voting for an amendment in line with an even-more-anti-gun control provision rumored to be supported by some in the House.

These possibilities highlight an awesome implication of the Senate’s supermajority (“60 vote”) requirement for cloture.  Specifically, Reid and McConnell can broker an agreement (known as a unanimous consent agreement, or UCA) under which a pro-gun control amendment and an anti-gun control amendment are each considered and debated for a fixed amount of time and then voted upon, with each amendment requiring 60 votes to be approved. This agreement would allow Senators to vote for and/or against gun control measures while posing no real threat to the underlying CR, which is needed prior to March 27th.

Note that this type of UCA is not just some theoretical creature—it has already been used during the consideration of this bill.  And, furthermore, in line with the yarn I am spinning, the amendment in question* (sponsored by the retiring Senator Harkin from Iowa) failed with a majority of votes on a party line vote.  Thus, even though everyone presumably knew this amendment would fail under the terms of the UCA, it was nonetheless duly considered and the subject of a roll call vote. Finally, the starting point of my fantastic tale of legislative chicanery is that THAT VOTE IS THE POINT.  By agreeing to push the supermajority requirement back from ending debate to actual passage, Senators can go “on the record” about a majority-favored policy change with a vote that changes nothing.

We’ll see what Reid and McConnell do, but note that the consideration of Harkin’s amendment is telling in many respects, particularly given the huge number of amendments that have already been submitted to the CR and the queue of gun control bills now awaiting consideration, each of which could be considered under this type of UCA as well, of course.

With that, I leave you with this.

____________________________________________________________________

* For the curious, Harkin’s amendment was complicated, but Harkin’s summary of it from the floor (Congressional Record, p. S1742) included these interests:

special education, childcare subsidies, The Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program, suicide prevention, aid for first-in-their-family college students, food safety, lead poisoning screening for kids in this country, diabetes prevention, and worker safety.

What is really interesting to me about this amendment was that it was essentially the substance of the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill that had been negotiated between the chambers a few months ago minus appropriations for the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), a point that Harkin clearly and repeatedly expressed in his comments on the amendment.

Harkin’s amendment thus allowed Democrats to vote in favor of some clear Democratic “issues” without making them vote in favor of Obamacare. I’ll leave that for another day, but note that Ted Cruz’s amendment the CR to defund Obamacare entirely was rejected on a similar party-line vote.  And, furthermore, note that the absence of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV (!!)) for this vote and the hubbub surrounding his non-vote on this amendent underscores the electoral dynamic at play on these types of votes.

Gresham’s Law in the Senate: How Filibuster Reform Begot Rand Paul’s Filibuster

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Bad money drives out good. – Gresham’s Law

Gresham’s law was coined (hahaha!) back when it was apparently okay to call things laws based on a hunch.  Nonetheless, it has a solid theoretical foundation.  To understand it, just consider how you would pay for things if gold and lead were both made legal tender at the same price per pound (hint: you wouldn’t be smart to pay gold for anything).

I bring up Gresham’s law because today’s filibuster by Rand Paul—still ongoing as I write of this—highlights a similar phenomenon that has emerged recently in the Senate.  During the first two months of the 113th Congress, there have already been filibusters of presidential nominations (2 cabinet-level (Hagel & Brennan), one judicial (Halligan), and this phenomenon is directly, and presumably ironically, tied to the filibuster reforms agreed to in January.

In a nutshell, these reforms eliminated or limited the ability to filibuster some (arguably redundant) procedural steps, sped up cloture, and created a few explicitly bipartisan maneuvers that can be used to thwart holds on legislation (thus making it easier for the Majority and Minority Leaders to work together so as to actually begin debate on a bill).

The details of these changes are beyond the scope of tonight’s post.  The point/analogy I want to make can be summarized in two steps.

  1. Filibusters are often about a Senator or group of Senators seeking attention, where “attention” can take many forms: the opportunity to offer amendments, policy or patronage concessions from the President, etc. Accordingly, and particularly if the attention is rather parochial or not on the legislative agenda (as in the case of stonewalling by the White House in the face of requests for clarification about when the President can have drones kill people on American soil), it is often either strategically optimal or logically necessary to filibuster something that is unrelated to the content of the attention that the Senator(s) seek.

  2. The rules changes adopted in January explicitly exempt Cabinet-level and judicial nominations.  Without belaboring the point, the clear goal of the filibuster reform package was to increase the individual cost of filibustering, but it did not do so uniformly.  In other words, while the individual costs of filibustering other matters have increased following the reforms, the cost of filibustering Cabinet-level and judicial nominations is still the same..

Combining these two points: the “currency” of a Senator seeking attention is fundamentally that most precious of all commodities: time. Even in the Senate, where a day is often not a day, an hour is an hour is an hour.  However, the filibuster reforms made some, but not all hours of Senate time more expensive than others for a Senator upset about drone strikes and White House stonewalling.  Tonight, Rand Paul is simply using the cheap coin rather than the expensive one: quite fitting for one who is presumably dubious of bimetallism.

And, speaking of “bad coin,” I leave you with this.

Immigration Reform: You do it…So I Don’t Have To…Really.

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The US Senate is currently considering immigration reform, with a bipartisan group of Senators working toward a compromise on one of the higher profile post-election issues. At the same time, the Obama Administration has been preparing its own plan, which was leaked by USA Today.  President Obama called on Congress to address the issue in his State of the Union address, and reaction was generally positive from both sides of the aisle.

The strategic situation here is a classic, but nonetheless interesting one.  Immigration reform is seen as necessary by both parties.  The devil is in the details.  President Obama’s gambit here is to present both Democrats and Republicans in Congress with a “way out.”  For example, he is speaking in generalities about reform, encouraging the notion that there is a bipartisan consensus on the broad strokes of reform, and stating that he will sign a bill if given one by Congress. These strategies allow Obama to not take a position and also allow/require Congress to construct a policy that can cover enough members’ interests to secure passage.  It is notable in this regard that reform is “starting” in the Senate—this highlights the cross-cutting nature of immigration reform.  On the one hand, it is always tough to get 60 votes.  Starting the process in the Senate suggests that securing the votes is seen as “doable” by some, if not all, Senators.

At the same time, members of the Obama Administration are making clear that that the President will present his own legislation if Congress does not act quickly.  In addition, House Democrats are publicly claiming that President Obama can act unilaterally in meaningful ways. For example, Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) is quoted as saying that, with respect to immigration reform, Obama is “not just beating the drum … he’s actually the drum major.”

Obama may or may not have the stomach to make (further) significant unilateral moves on immigration.  But making the argument that he does increases the bargaining power of Democrats in Congress.  In particular, if Obama does proceed unilaterally on immigration, the pretense of bipartisanship is much less valuable to him.  Accordingly, Republican members of Congress who seek a say in the details of reforms must envision a tough road securing those details in a unilateral Obama-led administrative/prosecutorial immigration reform push.

In a nutshell, then, Obama’s language can be read as “I don’t have any reason to not yield on many possible specific points/details of this reform.  I also don’t have any reason to fight for them.  You put in the effort, you get the discretion.”  This gambit is possible precisely because of the cross-cutting nature of immigration reform: many of the details are themselves not partisan “per se.”  This gambit is valuable to Obama for exactly the same reason: any reforms he implements through unilateral action can–unlike statutory reform–be undone with the stroke of a pen by his successor.  That, regardless of your party, isn’t real reform at all.

With that, I leave you with this.

 

The Recesses of Recess

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A federal appeals court has ruled invalid the three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board President Obama made on Jan. 4, 2012. (My birthday, as it so happens.) The basics of the situation are pretty well known.  During this time period, the Senate was holding pro forma sessions during which almost no members were present.  The court ruled that these sessions implied that the Senate was not in recess, implying that the recess appointments clause (Article II, Section 2, clause 3) of the Constitution does not apply.  One can certainly debate whether the court’s reasoning is correct, but that’s not my goal here.

Rather, I just wanted to point out an interesting aspect of this scenario.  In 2012, the Democratic party held a majority of the seats in the Senate.  Accordingly, it seems reasonable to think that President Obama’s nominees would have been confirmed if the Senate had voted on them.  They did not vote on them at least partly because there weren’t enough votes (60) to invoke cloture on their consideration.  (I say partly because cloture is a costly process, so I don’t want to imply that cloture would have been invoked on these appointments even if the Democrats did have “the votes.”)

A motion to adjourn requires only a majority vote in the Senate and, more importantly, is not  subject to debate (so it can’t be filibustered).  Accordingly, viewed within the Senate rules, a “weak confirmation option” is available to the majority party: if a nomination is being (or will be) filistered by the minority, the majority could just adjourn and let the president fill the positions (albeit temporarily) with the recess appointment power.  (Of course, this comes with the concomitant risk that the president might similarly fill other positions at the same time, but let’s set that aside.)

In the case at hand, the Senate did not do this.  Instead, it was operating under a unanimous consent agreement that called for the Senate to hold pro forma sessions every third day.  At least part of the reason it did this is the requirement (Article I, Section 5, clause 4) that neither chamber recess more than 3 days without the permission of the other.  (Which, to be honest, is a bit of an odd requirement in a number of ways.)

Thus, to the degree that a Senate’s “recess” must be longer then 3 days to trigger the president’s recess appointment powers, the filibuster and Article I, Section 5, clause 4 of the Constitution combine to give the House of Representatives the power to stymie the president’s ability to fill positions that require the advice and consent of the Senate.  Of course, the Senate’s difficulty in this regard is self-imposed (i.e., its self-imposed supermajority requirement to end debate), but I’ll leave that well-worn topic for another day.

In concluding, I leave you with this.

Losing to Win: Nobody Puts Boehner In The Corner

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In light of my take on last night’s legislative shenanigans, a few very smart people have asked me, in a sense, “sure, perhaps, but do you REALLY think that’s what happened?”  Most of these objections (and the media’s narrative) suggest that Boehner thought he had enough votes for H.J.Res.66 and, upon seeing the too-close-for-comfort on  HR 6684, realized that he did not.  In other words, Boehner miscalculated, pure and simple.

This is a very good question for a number of reasons.  First, it correctly implies that I don’t really know what was going through any of the relevant actors’ minds in the days leading up to yesterday, not to mention what everybody was thinking last night.

Second, the question provokes one to think about what strategic analysis is supposed to do.  In some ways, my answer to this is classically dodgy.  Game theory is prescriptive: properly done, it informs the analyst about what one should do. Even then, it requires that you have some idea about how the other people are going to act.

More importantly, game theory is not supposed to (and generally can’t) tell you why somebody did something.  Furthermore, this statement isn’t merely some escape clause along the lines of “well, it’s just a model.”

No, the very foundations of game theory and strategic analysis lead logically to the conclusion that in some circumstances, rational/strategic behavior will necessarily not be indicative of what motivates it.  It is not too strong in my opinion to assert that this fact is the “heart” of signaling models, which have played a key role in my yammering about recent events.  (And are at the heart of the classic movie clip I posted in my previous post.)

Think of it this way: suppose (1) that everyone thinks that he really wanted to win that vote last night (I’ll come back to this in a second) and (2) that Boehner also wants to get as “conservative of a deal” as possible from the Democrats in averting (or, perhaps, in response to falling off) the fiscal cliff.  Point (2) is of course known by everyone.  After reading this post, Democrats also realized that Boehner might claim to not be able to deliver GOP votes for a moderate (much less liberal) resolution of the fiscal cliff. Accordingly, they and Obama tell Boehner “maybe you can deliver ’em, maybe you can’t. You don’t have any reason to tell us (particularly in private) that you can.  Prove it.”

Now, point (1) of my supposition — that Boehner doesn’t want to bring out a bill that doesn’t have the votes — comes into play.  According to this supposition, Boehner would not bring forward a bill and then pull it without it getting a vote unless he didn’t have the votes.

If we really believe that we know exactly how much Boehner “wanted to have and win that vote” on H.J.Res. 66 last night, we can form a reasonably precise estimate of Boehner’s beliefs about the GOP votes heading into last evening.  But, if our belief about this is too high — i.e., if we think Boehner wanted to win (or, didn’t want to lose/pull) that vote more than he really did — the Boehner has an incentive not only to stage a dramatic “let’s vote….oh no, let’s stop!” AND he and his other policy-interested GOP colleagues have an incentive to bolster and shepherd the narrative of, “aww shucks, poor Boehner….He really screwed that one up.”  Because to say that it wasn’t that big a deal implies that the whole melodrama should be taken as simply a larger and more elaborate way of simply claiming to not have the votes.

This brings me back to the first part of the supposition.  There’s been increasing talk (and here) about whether Boehner might not be reelected Speaker on January 3rd because of all of these shenanigans.  I have separate thoughts on that, but they’re outside of the current discussion. (Short version: no, he need not fear, in my opinion.)  But this kind of talk is exemplary of the second-order incentives I am talking about in terms of Boehner and the GOP stoking (or at least not dousing) the flames of a narrative of a rowdy/uncontrollable/maverick GOP conference. The whole act of bringing up and then not taking a vote on an unpopular, dead-in-the-water tax bill is pointless unless observers think that this was costly to the man who made it happen: Boehner. 

(I might come back to discussing the apparent conflict between this and the conference’s solid affirmation of Boehner’s leadership in another post.  I’ll simply note at this point that I’m not seeing many quotes from GOP members alluding to that public support.)

(Similarly, I might revisit the intriguing point about why Boehner didn’t actually just go ahead and have the vote.  Short version: I think it might have passed.)

Well, that’s it for now. Thanking those of you who have read and questioned for pushing me to think even more about what I can and, more importantly, can’t do, I leave with you with this.

ApocaCliff Now: Boehner “Lost,” But Does He Really Mayan?

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Note: a road map is in order. I first describe what happened tonight in the House of Representatives.  Then I discuss one game theoretic take on Boehner’s “pulling of `Plan B’…”

Tonight, the House of Representatives passed a rule, H.Res.841, that called for the consideration of two measures, HR 6684, and H.J.Res.66.  Both of these bills are illustrative in terms of how the House Republican leadership is dealing with the fiscal cliff “crisis bargaining” situation.  The rule passed the House by a vote of 219-197, with 13 Republicans voting against it and no Democrats voting in favor of it.

The first business brought up by John Boehner under the rule was HR 6684.  The bill, titled “Spending Reduction Act of 2012,” puts off the sequestrations (spending cuts) component of the fiscal cliff and makes some other cuts.  Aside from the sequestration aspect, the bill is a bit of a hodgepodge.  Some of the various items are potentially important and subtle, but beyond the scope of this post.

(As an aside, the CRS summary of HR 6684 describes the bill as containing this doozy:  “Amends the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to authorize the chair of the Committee on the Budget of the House of Representatives or the Senate to make adjustments to any legislative measure to conform to the discretionary spending limits of this Act.”  I have a hard time seeing the Senate agreeing to that.)

HR 6684 was considered under a closed rule, with all points of order waived.  After an hour of debate, as specified in the rule, HR 6684 passed the House by a vote of 215-209, with 21 Republicans voting against it.  Note that 7 members did not vote (with Rob Bishop (R, UT) voting “present” and 6 other members not voting at all): the bill duly and properly passed…but just barely. (My friends at Voteview, as usual, provide a timely and interesting take on this vote.)

After this nailbiter, maybe Boehner headed out to have a cigarette and calm his nerves, leaving the House to consider and agree (in a nonunanimous but bipartisan way) to a conference report dealing with the 2013 Defense Appropriations bill and then suspended the rules to

  1. Name the VA medical center in Spokane, Washington, the “Mann-Grandstaff Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center” (which Scott Rigell (R, VA) bravely stood alone in opposing),
  2. Designated the VA facility located at 9800 West Commercial Boulevard in Sunrise, Florida, as the “William ‘Bill’ Kling VA Clinic” (which was unanimous), and
  3. Designate Mt. Andrea Lawrence. (which 6 Republicans and 1 Democrat opposed)..

The House then went into recess for 2 hours, during which Boehner met with his GOP colleagues behind closed doors.  He then issued this press statement:

“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass.  Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.  The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation’s crippling debt.  The Senate must now act.”

Now the game theory.  It is interesting to consider Boehner’s incentives (as well as those of GOP members as a whole) at this juncture.  As I wrote earlier, even if Boehner can reliably command/deliver the votes of a majority of the House, he nonetheless has a strategic incentive to appear to lack control of his caucus conference.  In addition, as I also pointed out earlier, some GOP members may have an incentive to appear to take a hard line.

As The Hill’s Russel Berman put it tonight, Boehner “argued that his fallback plan was the best the House could do in the absence of a broader deficit agreement with the president.” I now come to the point of this post: tonight’s vote was strategic.  The possibility of a vote on Plan B happening tonight was brought up voluntarily by Boehner. As is now obvious, he didn’t have to take this vote today. More importantly, he didn’t have to suggest that he would take this vote today. (Also, note that while Boehner may have spent the day twisting arms, counting votes, and trading horses, the consideration of “Plan B” began just in time for evening news on the east coast.)

So, maybe Boehner was surprised by the vote on HR 6684 and backtracked out of necessity.  Or, perhaps he knew/suspected that he didn’t have the votes for one or both bills.  By bringing up a vote and then canceling it (and by perhaps coincidentally doing it during the evening news), Boehner got a public spotlight on “Plan B” and, arguably, now made a point that, among some of his conference, even exempting millionaires from a tax cut is simply a bridge too far for his conference.

The “math of politics” here is a second-order application of Boehner’s incentive to appear to not have the ability to deliver votes.  That is, purposely staging a vote that will ultimately not happen can be a strategic response to (for example) Democrats labeling claims that Boehner “does not have the votes” a bluff.  (Here, a “second-order application” means applying knowledge of the first-order incentives to figure out what your incentives become once others realize your first order incentives.  See my link at the end of the post for a far better illustration of this.)

In game theory, there is an important distinction between what are called “costly signals” and “cheap talk messages.”  In a nutshell, cheap talk messages are like me telling you that I really think the Pittsburgh Steelers will win the 2013 Super Bowl and costly signals are like me betting $100 that they will. (And, sadly, no, I’m not betting the $100. Also, consider this point the next time you hear someone say “if I were a betting man…”)

From a game theoretic point of view, cheap talk messages can not credibly reveal certain types of information. For example, suppose that you’re in a watering hole on Carson St. before a Steelers game and, like everyone else in this watering hole, you want to impress everyone that you are truly the most confident/optimistic Steelers fan.  Well, if simply saying that you think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl would impress everyone in this way, then everyone else would say this, too.

On the other hand, if you bet $100 on the Steelers and some of those present aren’t as optimistic as you, then some or all of those people will not mimic you and accordingly not send as strong a signal as you do about your faith in the Steelers.  As a result, you will (or should) accordingly be viewed as a greater Steelers fan by your fellow patrons.

A similar analogy for what Boehner might have done tonight is as follows.  When I tell you that I love you and nobody else is around, that’s cheap talk.  When I tell you the same thing in front of thousands of people, that’s a costly signal.  It’s costly in the second case because the presumption is nobody likes to be rejected in public. So, when observers describe tonight as “a major defeat for Boehner that will give significant leverage to Obama in talks on a deal to prevent looming tax hikes and spending cuts,” say that Boehner “had hoped to demonstrate Republican unity by passing a bill through the House,” or conclude that “any bargaining power Boehner had with Obama — or hoped to have — is gone.  … What happened on the House floor tonight made a bad bargaining situation for Boehner that much worse,” my natural contrarianism leads me to pause.  Boehner set this situation up for himself.  Boehner knows how to count votes.  And, importantly, Boehner and the GOP had this “problem” before during the Boehner-Obama-Cantor “Grand Bargain” drama that eventually led to the fiscal cliff, and it is interesting to note that the last time, some pointed to whack-a-mole dynamic hiding in the failure of the Grand Bargain, with John Bresnahan, Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman writing at the time that

Details of the potential “big deal” with President Barack Obama leaked before House members were briefed on the broad outlines of any agreement. “That was a huge problem,” acknowledged a top House Republican aide. “Boehner got way out in front of where he should have been. He pulled back because he had to do so.”

So, in conclusion, I agree with Chris Cillizza that tonight’s drama “was a gambit by Boehner designed to be a show of force to President Obama. This was Boehner putting himself out on a limb in hopes wavering members would follow him. This vote mattered to Boehner.”  Oh, yes, this vote mattered.  But I think it’s too early to conclude like he does, that Boehner “lost it.”  Good signaling games often have more than touch of irony.  Such is the case here.  In particular: losing can be better than winning but only if you do it in public and people think you don’t want to lose.

I leave you with this classic moment of game theory in film.