Divide This Government

When one party rules, both parties fail.

Jonathan Rauch | November 6, 2006

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Politicians compromise because they have to, not because they like to. Divided government forces them to compromise as a fact of daily life. Although compromise does not guarantee sound or successful policy-making, it does draw both parties toward the center and produce bipartisan buy-in. It's no coincidence that divided government produced the 1986 tax reform and the 1996 welfare reform, the great reforms of their respective eras.

Two-party rule also helps to marginalize partisan extremists and curb ideological excess. The Democratic Congress moderated President Reagan's unsustainable tax cuts and defense buildup, safeguarding his legacy. In the Clinton era, divided government produced a miraculously frugal fiscal detente. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both succeeded not in spite of divided government but because of it.

One-party rule, by contrast, impelled the Republicans to govern from the center of their party, instead of the center of the country. It made them dependent on their base, magnifying the power of partisans and extremists. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, governing with a narrow majority has required the Republicans to protect every GOP incumbent and scrounge every GOP vote, forcing them to pander every which way (see: horse meat). The result is the dysfunctional mixture of partisan extremism and philosophical incoherence that has characterized the party for the last four years. The Republicans lost their way because they won control.

Coherent criticism comes from a coherent opposition, and one-party rule undermined that, too. Without any institutional stake in the government's policies, Democrats have been free to surf the wave of Republican unpopularity, offering little -- too little, in any case -- by way of ideas and agenda. Control of part of the government would have forced them into the game, where they would have had to call some plays and keep their governing muscles in shape. Instead, they have atrophied.

Republicans, then, are unable to keep themselves from drifting into extremism and incoherence, and Democrats are neither willing nor able to stop them. Unified government turns out to be worse than "gridlock" (stasis). It is a negative-sum game, causing the institutional degeneration of both parties.

True, the horse-meat bill might have found its way through a Democratic House. True, bipartisan negotiations might have made some laws (the prescription drug benefit?) worse instead of better. Divided government is no panacea. Unified rule, however, has produced an unhappy electorate and two flailing, failing political parties, one with no governing philosophy and the other with too many.

In an October Harris poll, a large plurality of Americans said they would prefer divided government. In fact, so did a modest plurality of Republicans. The record is in, and the public is right.

© Copyright 2006 National Journal

Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a frequent contributor to Reason. The article was originally published by National Journal.