Bayh leaving doesn’t break partisan stall

Opinion: February 19, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

In announcing his retirement from the Senate, Evan Bayh put his finger directly on what many people think is the biggest problem facing the American government.

“There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving,” the Indiana Democrat said. “Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people’s business is not being done.”

The irony is that Bayh’s decision almost certainly will make things worse. It removes from the Senate a respected Democratic moderate. And it increases the chance that whichever party controls the Senate in 2011 will hold so slim a majority as to ensure more gridlock, especially on the eve of a presidential campaign.

More important, it underscores the fact that, over recent years, the number of centrists in both parties has diminished substantially, reducing the opportunities for compromise bipartisan solutions and making the Senate more like the traditionally more polarized House.

The importance of these senators lies in the fact that, unlike in a parliamentary system, American majority parties generally need to attract some support from the minority party to prevail, especially in the Senate. Their top targets have been those members of the opposition whose views were closest to theirs more liberal Republicans like Maine’s Olympia Snowe or more conservative Democrats like Bayh.

Both groups are far smaller today than a generation ago. For example, on the key 1975 vote when the Senate cut the number of senators needed to limit debate to 60, 16 Republicans joined 40 Democrats in the majority. And when the Senate rejected two Supreme Court nominees proposed by President Richard Nixon, more than a dozen Republicans voted with 38 Democrats.

As recently as 2006, seven Republicans and seven Democrats — the so-called “gang of 14” — played a major role in heading off the Republican leadership’s bid to make it harder for a minority to block judicial nominations.

But the National Journal’s study of 2007 Senate voting records show that the 49 most liberal senators were Democrats (and Socialist Bernie Sanders), while all but three Republicans were more conservative than the most conservative Democrat, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson.

Bayh cited two recent instances in which partisan considerations undercut bipartisan efforts. In one case, opposition from liberal Democrats prompted Majority Leader Harry Reid to reject a compromise job-creation bill, though he also feared its plethora of business tax breaks would damage Democrats who supported it.

Deficit control

In the other, seven Republican co-sponsors of legislation to create a deficit control commission — including Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and John McCain of Arizona — flipped and helped kill it after tax-cutting advocate Grover Norquist denounced it as guaranteeing a tax increase and said taxes would be a GOP primary issue.

This has created a situation where Obama and Senate Democrats only can pass most important legislation with Democratic votes and a stray Republican or two.

Last year’s effort to woo a handful of GOP senators on health reform came up empty and at great cost, delaying action so long the Democrats failed to pass a bill before their unexpected Massachusetts Senate loss cost them their 60-vote majority.

So besides putting into play a seat that would have been safely Democratic, Bayh’s decision increases the pressure on Obama and Democratic leaders to get their acts together and deal with the problems voters elected them to solve.

In recent weeks, they appear to be floundering as they try to cope with their changed circumstances.

The White House has brought in David Plouffe, the architect of Obama’s 2008 election victory, to help set campaign strategy, and it seems to have unleashed Vice President Joe Biden to strengthen the effort to counter Republican attacks.

But nothing it can do is likely to help much unless the unemployment rate drops enough to persuade voters that last year’s stimulus bill and other key Obama measures have achieved a lot more than GOP critics contend.

X Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.