MSC Political Compromise Course

MSC Political Compromise Course Supplement for Week 3 “Valuing & Resisting Compromise”

This supplement was rewritten after the class—we did mention most of the below as I tried to weave these points into a continuing discussion of the difficulties in compromising in this current political situation (nationally and in Maine). The difficulties can lead to a sense of depression, but that feeling does expose the value which many of us place upon the pursuit of political compromise.

30 First…the greater the resistance to compromise, the greater the bias in favor of the status quo.

The status quo offers no assurance even of stability, let alone of progress by anyone’s standards.

32 A general resistance to compromise implausibly presumes that the status quo is always more defensible than a compromise, or that it is always a mistake to yield something to one’s political adversaries even when they are willing to yield something to you.

A strong psychological resistance to compromise flows from the fact that the costs of not compromising are never equal for everyone in democratic politics. The costs depend on the difference between what credibly can be achieved by compromise and what the status quo offers without compromise.

33 Another source of general opposition to compromise is the perpetual hope that there is more to be gained (or less to be lost) in the future by not compromising now.

34 Second …resistance to compromise undermines practices of mutual respect that are essential for a robust democratic process. Mutual respect expresses a constructive attitude toward, and willingness to engage in good faith with one’s political opponents. It is based on a principle of reciprocity, which is at the core of many different conceptions of democracy.

So two values of compromising are that it enables mutually beneficial improvements over the status quo, and that it promotes mutually respectful politics.

35 …even if people recognize the costs of not compromising, they will find that all compromises by their nature are perpetually vulnerable to criticisms from all sides.

36 There seems to be a sense of surrender in compromises which arises from a concern that the other side got the better deal which arises from the fact that their motives are opaque to us.

37 There is, also, a sense of confusion in compromises arising from the fact that they do not flow naturally from one’s principles!

38 Of course this need not be the case, sometimes there can be an “overlapping consensus” where individuals with divergent moral views can agree on legislation for differing reasons. Our authors mention 2008 housing legislation[1] and 2011 farm subsidy legislation[2] where liberals (who wanted to help financially-troubled bowers and ending some over-farming) and conservatives (who wanted to stabilize the housing market and cut back on some government intrusions into the free market). Here there can even be” consensus without compromise” as there may be no departure from principles (p. 39).

40-41 Brief discussion of three “compromises:” Tax Reform Act of 1986[3], Affordable Care Act of 2010[4], and The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996[5] (welfare reform—all WERE compromises which significantly improved the previously existing situation.

41-42 The uncompromising mindset should not dominate governing, but it is well-suited to the domain of campaigning, social movements, political protests, demonstrations, and activist activities.

Moreover, “with the uncompromising at their flanks, compromisers gain bargaining power.”

42-43 Amongst the most uncompromising recent activists are the Tea Party activists. I would add, on the other end of the spectrum to avowed socialists!

44 The evolution of the Tea Party activists showed that the uncompromising mindset has limits also: “the limits became apparent as the representatives sent to Congress faced a dilemma—a choice between legislating or protesting.

45 The choice to protest rather than legislate doesn’t bring about legislative change, and the status quo is generally not acceptable to such activists, and this frustrates the very base which elected these legislators.

So while the uncompromising mindset can limit the domain where compromise is possible, if it is pushed too far I can decrease the domain of the uncompromising mindset.

46 Secondly, the process of compromising imposes a limit upon compromise. If the compromises are pursued without minimal mutual respect (or via manipulation) people may not be prone to accept the compromises.

48 Finally, the content of compromises provide another limitation (48-49 and Senator Nelson of Nebraska with a $100 M of extra Medicaid funding for a vote on Obama Care—too unfair even for Nelson!

49 Legislative compromises have many moving parts and this itself poses limits to the compromises.

49-51 Moreover, one can’t effect a legislative compromise if one is unwilling to modify initial principled stances: Dan Rostenkowski in the House on Tax Reform and the Senate lowering the top rate to 27%, he closes loopholes and is able to settle ultimately for 28%; Bob Casey, Democratic Senator and not wanting to let government funds pay for any abortions, and a ultimate vote for insurers in government plans to pay for abortions with private funds collected.

52-53 In the compromising process legislators will not be prone to indicate their negotiating parameters, and this means each side must work with estimates of where compromise might be possible. Given the fact that the negotiations themselves change some of the circumstances, this means flexibility is necessary.

D. [The] Limits of [American Constitutional] History [for Contemporary Compromises]:

I re-titled the title of the final section of the final section of this class and used it as we continued the discussion of the difficulties which confront efforts at political compromise. Most of the discussion of the chapter was woven into the class discussion.

54-57 History can be suggestive, but it is not a great guide to compromise. In our Constitutional history there are several important compromises and our authors discuss “the equal representation of states” and “the three-fifths representation of slaves.” The first case led to the different representational models in the House and Senate. The second a compromise between slaves should count at all for representation in the House and for purposes of distributing taxes and the view that they should count equally.

Brief mention of the compromise of 1877 which effectively ended Reconstruction (by the removal of Federal troops from the South) which garnered the support of Southern Democrats for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes’ winning the Presidency in 1876.

58 Just as we should not use the morality of widely accepted compromises of the past to reassure us about compromises we might make now, so we should not invoke the ignoble compromises of the past to move us to resist compromises we need to make now.

Nevertheless, historical examples can suggest some important lessons about the process of compromising….Assume what almost all historians agree on: at least some (even if no all) parts of the constitutional compromises were necessary to improve upon the status quo and preserve the union. Set aside any more definitive judgments about the content of the particular compromises in order to ask: what conditions encouraged delegates to make these compromises?

The “conciliatory habits of mind that most of the delegates possessed made compromises possible.

That temper of mind could be maintained because the proceedings were not in public.

Larger (or more significant) compromises were facilitated by many smaller procedural ones. For example, on the second day it was agreed to mutual respect and to listening to one-another.

Our authors begin their First Chapter (p. 25) by noting that Americans are ambivalent about compromise—many say they want leaders who compromise, but they also praise those who “stick to their positions or principles.” Moreover (p. 26 and quoting the Pew Research Center), “on most issues…openness to compromise is inversely linked to the importance people place on the issue.” Of course opposition to compromise fades in the face of a genuine crisis (which is why the 2011 Debt Ceiling Compromise[6] was successful). A second reason it was successful was that the topic had not been something either side had campaigned on! Finally, the compromise was devised by our representatives, and we seem to prefer that they be the ones to devise the compromises which we often need but do not want to negotiate (or approve of):

29 nothing is more common in political negotiation than praise for the idea of compromise coupled with resistance to [actions needed to] realize it.”

The authors’ discussion of mindsets needs no further introduction, but their discussion of principled tenacity is of central importance to their undertaking. On p. 73 they discuss the differences between “principles” and “interests” and suggest that compromise is easier when one speaks of interests than of principles. Their discussion of healthcare on say 75-76 coverage in terms of principles and interests lead them to maintain:

77-78 compromises of principle do not require all-or-nothing decisions any more than do compromises of interest. Principles can be—and most often are—realized only partially—more or less, not all-or-nothing….we are never likely to realize our most prized principles (liberty, opportunity, justice for all) entirely or absolutely. Less lofty political principles…such as commitment tower taxation and entitlement spending, or to provide universal healthcare coverage and decrease its cost—even more clearly admit of gradation of realization. Compromises of principle and interest are in these critical ways neither morally nor practically distinct.

In the section “Acceptable v. Unacceptable Compromises” they discuss attempts by philosophers Avishai Margalit and Ronald Dworkin to distinguish between such compromises regarding principles and conclude

83-84 …principles are an invaluable guide to the directions which politicians should try to head in a compromise….The problem for democratic compromise—and democratic politics generally—generally arises when principles are treated not as directional signals but rather as a series of roadblocks to compromises that would move society in the right direction, however imperfect or partially.

There they offer a paragraph (pp. 84-85) emphasizing how their concept of “deliberative democracy” can help citizens and their representatives treat principles provisionally and discuss them in a context which encourages compromise.

Our authors then turn their attention from principled tenacity to mutual mistrust which manifests itself as a “cynicism about the motives of others.” Such “motive cynicism” makes compromise difficult in part because it comes out in campaigning (where it is all-to-natural and acceptable) but then bleeds over into the governing context (where it makes compromise—and thus democratic governing—most difficult:

90 to reach a compromise, politicians must adjust their wills as much as their reason. They must be able to set aside their mistrust of motives and to turn a will to oppose into a will to cooperate. That involves a psychological shift as much as a policy change To avoid the spiral of mistrust that motive cynicism generates, democracy needs institutions that are designed to restrain the ascendancy of campaigning.

As noted above, principled tenacity and mutual distrust may work together to create a stronger intransigence to compromise. As they note on pp. 92-93, this is what lead to the failure of the Comprehensive Immigration act of 2007:[7]

93 the bill was a classic compromise, and it was deluged with moral criticism from both liberals and conservatives….

95…the compromise was negotiated by a small group of senators operating behind closed doors….This made the need for public explanation greater once the proposal reached the floor. But instead the leaders sought to limit debate, fueling the mistrust….

96 Although the election was more than a year away, the campaign mentality intruded, fomenting discord even among senators who supported the compromise.

Notes: [click on the note number to return to the text for a given note]

[1] The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 was designed primarily to address the subprime mortgage crisis. It authorized the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee up to $300 billion in new 30-year fixed rate mortgages for subprime borrowers if lenders wrote down principal loan balances to 90 percent of current appraisal value. It was intended to restore confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by strengthening regulations and injecting capital into the two large U.S. suppliers of mortgage funding. States are authorized to refinance subprime loans using mortgage revenue bonds. Enactment of the Act led to the government conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

[2] Our authors refer to Jennifer Steinhuer’s “Farm Subsidies Become Target Amid Spending Cuts.”

[3] The U.S. Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to simplify the income tax code, broaden the tax base and eliminate many tax shelters. The bill was also officially sponsored by Democrats, Richard Gephardt of Missouri in the House and Bill Bradley of New Jersey in the Senate. It was given impetus by a detailed tax-simplification proposal from President Reagan's Treasury Department, and was designed to be tax-revenue neutral because Reagan stated that he would veto any bill that was not. Revenue neutrality was achieved by offsetting tax cuts for individuals by eliminating $60 billion annually in tax loopholes and shifting $24 billion of the tax burden from individuals to corporations by eliminating the investment tax credit, slowing depreciation of assets, and enacting a stiff alternative minimum tax on corporations.

[4] The ACA's major provisions came into force in 2014. By 2016, the uninsured share of the population had roughly halved, with estimates ranging from 20 to 24 million additional people covered during 2016. The increased coverage was due, roughly equally, to an expansion of Medicaid eligibility and to major changes to individual insurance markets. Both involved new spending, funded through a combination of new taxes and cuts to Medicare provider rates and Medicare Advantage.

[5] The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America and was authored by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. President Bill Clinton signed it into law fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to “end welfare as we have come to know it.”

[6] For more detail on this compromise, see the Wikipedia article on it. I will provide links to the appropriate Wikipedia articles on the other compromises our authors discuss.

[7] The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 was a bill discussed in the 110th Congress that would have provided legal status and a path to citizenship for the approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants residing in the United States. The bill was portrayed as a compromise between providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and increased border enforcement: it included funding for 300 miles (480 km) of vehicle barriers, 105 camera and radar towers, and 20,000 more Border Patrol agents, while simultaneously restructuring visa criteria around high-skilled workers. The bill also received heated criticism from both sides of the immigration debate. The bill was introduced in the United States Senate on May 9, 2007, but was never voted on, though a series of votes on amendments and cloture took place. The last vote on cloture failed 34–61 effectively ending the bill's chances.