Catch-41

Minority Senator Yossarian decided that the majority’s new bill was the best solution to the problem that plagued the country. He wanted to stop blocking the bill.

“You’re wasting your time,” said the minority leader.

“Can’t you allow someone to vote for the bill?” Senator Yossarian asked.

“Oh, sure, I have to,” the minority leader explained. “Our rules say anyone who wants to vote yes can do so.”

“Then why don’t you let me vote yes,” said Senator Yossarian, “I believe this bill is the best approach to the problem. Ask any Senator from our party; they all think we should pass this bill.”

“They’re right.”

“Then why don’t you let them vote yes?”

“If they believe in the legislation, they should vote yes. They just have to ask me to allow them to vote yes.”

“That’s all they have to do to vote yes on the bill?”

“That’s all. Let them ask me.”

“And then you’ll let them vote for the bill?” Senator Yossarian asked.

“No, then I can’t let them vote for the bill,” the minority leader replied.

“You mean there’s a catch?”

“Sure there’s a catch. Anyone wanting to get out of voting no is not a sane member of the party and will lose in his next primary,” the minority leader said.

U.S. Senate Catch-41 specifies that sane minority Senators could transcend party loyalty if a bill proposed by the majority would be the best solution to a problem facing the nation. Any sane minority Senator could vote yes. All that Senator needs to do is ask. As soon as the Senator asks, he would be deemed insane, since voting yes would ruin his chances in the next party primary. If that Senator votes no, he could be crazy not to support the best solution for the country, but only the minority leader could determine if a minority Senator was insane. If the Senator asks the minority leader if he could vote yes, it proves the Senator is insane, and so the party could not possibly let him vote yes.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-41,” Senator Yossarian observed.

“It’s the best there is,” the minority leader agreed.

We want politicians to do their jobs. Politicians say they will do their jobs, as long as voters elect them. But once we elect them to do their jobs, politicians go back to politics as usual. A politician’s job is to do anything necessary to stay in office. A voter’s job is to complain as much as possible and reelect the politician. A politician’s enemy is any one or thing that will keep him from being reelected, including his own rational judgment about how the country should be run.

It should not surprise us that the Senate, coupled with the tool of the filibuster and other Senate rules and traditions, has become irrationally obstructionist. Under current election rules, the Republicans have forced Senators to be more loyal to the party than to the people. Hardball party politics has warped what was intended to be a more deliberative, better experienced set of legislators into the least representative group of legislators our republic has ever produced.



There are two solutions to these concerns.

First, by we need to raise the bar on qualifications. Senators today are no more experienced to legislate than Representatives. A 30-year-old without legislative experience is little better qualified than an 25-year-old without legislative experience. Second, the election system we have is too prone to special and narrow influences. Our Senators have proved to be more like legislators in a communist system whose first loyalty is to The Party. Changing Senate rules will not solve these problems. Changing how we elect and reelect Senators could make Senators more sensitive to the broader interests of their state and the nation.

Short of eliminating the Senate (which would be my choice) we could require our Senators to be more experienced in order to run for office and to face a reelection that forces them to be more broadly representative of their state, instead of being beholden to the special interests and the narrow party loyalty that controls them today.

To be elected, only candidates with at least ten years of legislative experience, in their state legislature and/or in the House of Representatives, could run. To be reelected, Senators need not face an opponent, but only a yes or no ballot. Here’s the catch: in order to be reelected, a Senator must earn a yes vote of at least 75 percent. Failing to reach the 75 percent level, a new election would be organized in which the Senator who lost reelection could not take part. No interim appointments would be allowed. Senators could only be chosen by election.

Catch-75 is more rational than the idiocy that now “governs” us. More about this in my next post.