Gridlock, legislative supremacy, and the problem of arbitrary inaction

Notre Dame Law Review

Volumn 88, Issue 5, 2013, Pages 2217-2232

  Teter, Michael J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF UTAH   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84883302540     PISSN: 07453515     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (83)

1. See, e.g., Jeff Jacoby, Op-Ed, Gridlock, or Democracy as Intended?, BOSTON GLOBE, Dec. 25, 2011, at 9;
2. David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey, Op-Ed, Why Gridlock in Washington Is Good, WALL ST. J., Feb. 22, 2010, at A17, available at http://artides. latimes.com/2011/oct/05/news/la-pn-scalia-testifies-20111005;
3. David G. Savage, Justice Scalia: Americans 'Should Learn to Love Gridlock', LA. TIMES, Oct. 05, 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/05/ news/la-pn-scalia-testifies-20111005.
4. This definition is taken largely from the work of political scientists who have studied the concept of legislative gridlock. See, e.g., Sarah A. Binder, Going Nowhere: A Gridlocked Congress?, 18 BROOKINGS REV. 16, 17 (2000) (characterizing gridlock as the "inability to broach and secure policy compromise");
5. Sarah A. Binder, The Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock, 1947-96, 93 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 519, 519 (1999) (quoting Hamilton's references to gridlock under the Articles of Confederation in the first Federalist as an "unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government" (internal quotation marks omitted));
6. Cynthia J. Bowling & Margaret R. Ferguson, Divided Government, Interest Representation, and Policy Differences: Competing Explanations of Gridlock in the Fifty States, 63 J. POL. 182, 182 (2001) (discussing the view that the U. S. government is "gridlocked and ineffective⋯ [and] cannot make significant policy changes or can do so only rarely" (citations omitted));
7. George C. Edwards III et al., The Legislative Impact of Divided Government, 41 AM. J. POL. SCI. 545, 547 (1997) (describing gridlock in terms of legislation that has been "inhibit[ed]" or "obstructed");
8. Virginia Gray & David Lowery, Interest Representation and Democratic Gridlock, 20 LEGIS. STUD. Q. 531, 531 (1995) (describing gridlock as the government's inability "to introduce and enact legislation");
9. William Howell et al., Divided Government and the Legislative Productivity of Congress, 1945-94, 25 LEGIS. STUD. Q. 285, 285 (2000) (contrasting highly productive legislatures such as the New Freedom, New Deal, and Great Society Congresses to those marked by "gridlock, paralysis, and legislative slumps");
10. David R. Jones, Party Polarization and Legislative Gridlock, 54 POL. RES. Q. 125, 125 (2001) (defining legislative gridlock as "the inability of government to enact significant proposals on the policy agenda").
11. SARAH A. BINDER, STALEMATE: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF LEGISLATIVE GRIDLOCK 41 (2003).
12. See Sheldon Goldman et al., Obama's fudiciary at Midterm: The Confirmation Drama Continues, 94 JUDICATURE 262, 293 (2011) (showing the confirmation rates of judicial nominees across presidencies).
13. Data available from Senate Action on Cloture Motions, U. S. SENATE, available at http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/cloture-motions/ dotureCounts.htm.
14. Barbara Sinclair labeled such legislative maneuvering "unorthodox lawmaking." BARBARA SINCLAIR, UNORTHODOX LAWMAKING (4th ed. 2012).
15. Robert Pear, 6 Republicans Named to Congressional Committee to Reduce the Deficit, N. Y. TIMES, Aug. 11, 2011, at A14, available at http://www.nytimes. com/2011/08/11/us/politics/11panel.html?-r=0.
16. Tom Cohen & Jessica Yellin, Obama Renews Calls for Holding down Middle-Class Tax Rates, CNN (Jul. 9, 2012), http://www.cnn. com/2012/07/09/ politics/obama-bush-taxcuts.
17. See FRED R. HARRIS, DEADLOCK OR DECISION 151-58, 188 (1993) (focusing on the committee system's role in gridlock).
18. See THOMAS E. MANN & NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN, IT'S WORSE THAN IT LOOKS 84-98 (2012).
19. See generally JOHN B. GILMOUR, STRATEGIC DISAGREEMENT (1995) (describing strategic reasons for politicians to disagree with their counterparts).
20. See Robert J. Pushaw, Jr., Justiciability and Separation of Powers: A Neo-Federalist Approach, 81 CORNELL L. REV. 393, 412 (1996) (referring to the separation of powers as a "skelet[al]" feature of the Constitution).
21. Compare Gary Lawson, Territorial Governments and the Limits of Formalism, 78 CAL. L. REV. 853, 853 (1990) (offering a "formalist" take on separation of powers)
22. with Peter L. Strauss, Formed and Functional Approaches to Separation-of-Powers Questions-A Foolish Consistency?, 72 CORNELL L. REV. 488, 492 (1987) (advocating a "functionalis[t]" approach to separation of powers). The jurisprudential dissonance extends so far, in fact, that on July 7, 1986, the Court announced two separation of powers opinions-relying on the same historical sources and precedents to reach divergent outcomes.
23. In Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714(1986), the Court took a formalist approach and struck down much of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act Id. at 717-36.
24. In Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833(1986), the Court employed functionalist reasoning to uphold against constitutional attack portions of the Commodity Exchange Act Id. at 835, 857.
25. See, e.g., M. Elizabeth Magill, The Real Separation in Separation of Powers Law, 86 VA. L. REV. 1127, 1147-52 (2000) (describing the separation of powers consensus among scholars).
26. M. J. C. VILE, CONSTITUTIONALISM AND THE SEPARATION OF POWERS 135 (2d ed. 1967).
27. Rebecca L. Brown, Separated Powers and Ordered Liberty, 139 U. PA. L. REV. 1513, 1517-18 (1991) (arguing that in the realm of separation of powers, the Court has "embraced no doctrine, endorsed no philosophy that would provide even a starting point for a debate").
28. E. Donald Elliott, Why Our Separation of Powers furisprudence Is So Abysmal, 57 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 506 (1989).
29. In another, longer piece, I focus exclusively on the dangers gridlock poses to separation of powers. See Michael J. Teter, Imbalancing Act: The Constitutional Consequences of Congressional Gridlock (Jan. 25, 2013) (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
30. All of the data regarding number of laws enacted comes from the Library of Congress database. See Public Laws, U. S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/LegislativeData.php?n=PublicLaws (last visited Mar. 7, 2013).
31. Public Laws 111th Congress, U. S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/LegislativeData.php?&n=PublicLaws&c=111 (last visited Mar. 7, 2013).
32. Public Laws 110th Congress, U. S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/LegislativeData.php?&n=PublicLaws&c=110 (last visited Mar. 7, 2013).
33. See Public Laws, U. S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, http://thomas. Ioc.gov/home/LegislativeData.php?n=PublicLaws (last visited Mar. 7, 2013).
34. Current Judicial Vacancies, U. S. COURTS, http://www.uscourts.gov/ JudgesAndJudgeships/JudicialVacancies/CurrentJudicialVacancies.aspx (last visited Mar. 7, 2013).
35. Michael Teter, Rethinking Consent: Proposals for Reforming the Judicial Confirmation Process, 73 OHIO ST. L. J. 287, 297-99 (2012) (discussing the consequences on the judiciary's functioning as a result the vacancy crisis).
36. New Process Steel, L. P. v. N. L. R. B., 130 S. Ct 2635, 2644-45 (2010).
37. Paul Kane, FEC Nomination Impasse Stalls Disclosure of Bundling Data, WASH. POST (Apr. 4, 2008), http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-04-04/ politics/36924400-l-dis closure-rule-fec-new-disdosure.
38. THE FEDERALIST NO. 48, at 252 (James Madison) (Ian Shapiro ed., 2009).
39. See, e.g., Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 130 S. Cl 3138, 3147 (2010) (striking down a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act because the law created a "multilevel" of protection for members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to be removed by the President). The Court noted that the tenure provisions limited the President's authority and that, "in a system of checks and balances, power abhors a vacuum, and one branch's handicap is another's strength." Id. at 3156
40. (quoting Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 537 F.3d 667, 694 n. 4 (D. C. Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted)). If the provisions in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act making members of the Board only removable for cause by the Securities Exchange Commission presents a separation of powers concern, it is safe to conclude that depriving the President of the veto would pose an even greater problem.
41. The U. S. military's recent engagement in Libya demonstrates the point Despite protests by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress that President Obama was ignoring the War Powers Resolution, the military remained involved in the effort to overthrow Muammar Qadhafi well past the statutory deadline imposed by the War Powers Resolution. See Letter from Speaker John Boehner to President Obama on Military Action in Libya (Mar. 23, 2011), available at http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/speaker-boehner-letterpresident-obama- military-action-libya.
42. See Jonathan Weisman, Appointments Challenge Senate Role, Experts Say, N. Y. TIMES, Jan. 8, 2012, at A19, available at http://tmow.nytimes.com/2012/01/ 08/us/politics/experts-sayobamas-recess-appointments-could-signify-end-to-a- senate-role.html?pagewanted=all.
43. Rick Hasen recently completed a study showing a dramatic decline in the number of congressional overrides of Supreme Court decisions. See Richard L. Hasen, End of the Dialogue? Political Polarization, The Supreme Court, and Congress (Aug. 14, 2012) (unpublished manuscript) (on file with author).
44. See, e.g., Jeremy Waldron, The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review, 115 YALE L. J. 1346, 1348-49 (2006) (criticizing judicial review on the ground that rights may not be better protected by judicial review than through the legislative process and that judicial review is democratically illegitimate).
45. Frank H. Easterbrook, Text, History, and Structure in Statutory Interpretation, 17 HARV. J. L. & PUB. POL'Y 61, 63 (1994) (arguing that through legislation society wishes to confine judges so that they are "faithful agents, not independent principals").
46. Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 COLUM. L. REV. 527, 538-39 (1947) (explaining his objection to the use of the phrase "legislative intent").
47. Robert Weisberg, The Calabresian Judicial Artist: Statutes and the New Legal Process, 35 STAN. L. REV. 213, 226 (1983) (discussing the difference between precedential judicial authority and statutory authority).
48. Daniel A. Farber, Statutory Interpretation and Legislative Supremacy, 78 GEO. L. J. 281, 293 (1989) ("Violations of the supremacy principal are particularly serious because they impair the basic social norm of democratic self-government.").
49. DREAM Act of 2010, S. 3962, 111th Cong. (2010).
50. Christi Parsons & Kathleen Hennessey, Thwarted by Congress, Obama to Stop Deporting Young Illegal Immigrants, L. A. TIMES (June 15, 2012), http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/15/news/la-pn-thwarted-by-congress-obama- will-stop-deporting-young-illegal-immigrants-20120615.
51. Charlie Savage, Shift on Executive Power Lets Obama Bypass Rivals, N. Y. TIMES, Apr. 23, 2012, at A1, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/ politics/shift-on-executive-powers-let-obama-bypass-congress.html.
52. Defense Authorization Amendments and Base Closure and Realignment Act, Pub. L. No. 100-526, 102 Stat. 2623 (1988)
53. (codified as amended at 10 U. S. C. § 2687 note (2006)).
54. See Michael J. Teter, Recusal Legislating: Congress's Answer to Institutional Stalemate, 48 HARV. J. ON LEGIS. 1, 8-12 (2011) (describing the problematic history of base closures).
55. U. S. C. § 2687 note (1994).
56. See Kenneth R. Mayer, Closing Military Bases (Finally): Solving Collective Dilemmas Through Delegation, 20 LEGIS. STUD. Q. 393, 396-98 (1995) (analyzing the structure of the base-closing process and the commissions' procedural requirements).
57. Budget Control Act of 2011, Pub. L. No. 112-25, 125 Stat. 240.
58. That was coupled with over $2 trillion in tax increases that were set to take effect because of the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, thus combining with the automated budget cuts to create a "fiscal cliff." See Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-312, 124 Stat 3296.
59. See Janet Hook et al., Congress Passes Cliff Deal, WALL ST. J. (Jan. 2, 2013, 1:42 PM), http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB10001424127887323320404578215373352793876.html ("The compromise dodges one cliff, but it sends Congress barreling toward another.").
60. Or, at least, they claim to be. See ANTONIN SCALIA, A MATTER OF INTERPRETATION 9-10 (1997) ("[Judges are] in a sense agents of the legislature⋯."). But cf. id. at 22-23 (arguing that the legislature's intent is irrelevant and that the semantic meaning of the statute governs).
61. See GUIDO CALABRESI, A COMMON LAW FOR THE AGE OF STATUTES 31-32 (1982);
62. see also Johnson v. Transp. Agency, 480 U. S. 616, 630 n. 7 (1987) ("Any belief in the notion of a dialogue between the judiciary and the legislature must acknowledge that on occasion an invitation declined is as significant as one accepted.").
63. See WILLIAM N. ESKRIDGE, JR., PHIUP P. FRICKEY & ELIZABETH GARRETT, CASES AND MATERIALS ON LEGISLATION 642-45 (4th ed. 2007);
64. Trevor W. Morrison, Stare Decisis in the Office of Legal Counsel, 110 COLUM. L. REV. 1448, 1482 (2010).
65. Chai R. Feldblum, Roundtable On: The Americans with Disabilities Act and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, 13 TEX. J. C. L. & C. R. 232, 239-40 (2008).
66. David P. Currie, The Distribution of Powers After Bowsher, 1986 SUP. CT. REV. 19, 19.
67. Lisa Schultz Bressman, Beyond Accountability: Arbitrariness and Legitimacy in the Administrative State, 78 N. Y. U. L. REV. 461, 499-500 (2003).
68. See Proceedings of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government: 1786, AVALON PROJECT, http://avalon. law.yale.edu/18th-century/ annapoli.asp (last visited Mar. 7, 2013) (calling for a convention to draft a new constitution).
69. See generally 1 1787: DRAFTING THE U. S. CONSTITUTION 84-157 (Wilboum E. Benton ed., 1986) (providing Convention notes discussing the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation).
70. THE FEDERALIST NO. 22, at 110-11 (Alexander Hamilton) (Ian Shapiro ed., 2009).
71. THE FEDERALIST NO. 62, at 315 (James Madison) (Ian Shapiro ed., 2009).
72. See 1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 448 (Max Farrand ed., 1966) (statement of James Madison).
73. THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, at 299-300 (James Madison) (Ian Shapiro ed., 2009);
74. see also Bruce Ackerman et al., Comment, An Open Letter to Congressman Gingrich, 104 YALE L. J. 1539, 1540-44 (1995) (discussing the framer's intent to not require a supermajority in arguing against a proposal to amend the House Rules to require tax increases to command a three-fifths majority to pass).
75. THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, supra note 76, at 299.
76. See LEE EPSTEIN & JEFFREY A. SEGAL, ADVICE AND CONSENT 75-78 (2005).
77. See RUSSELL WHEELER, BROOKINGS INST., JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS AND CONFIRMATIONS IN OBAMA'S FIRST TERM, 3(2012), available at http://www.brookings. edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2012/12/13%20judicial%20nominations%20wheeler/ 13-obama-judicial-wheeler.pdf (stating that American Bar Association "ratings appear to have a relationship, albeit tenuous, to confirmations").
78. Carl Hulse, Democrats Try to Break Grip of the Senate's Flinty Dr. No, N. Y. TIMES, July 28, 2008, at A1;
79. see also Advancing America's Priorities Act, S. 3297, 110th Cong. (2008) (providing the text of the omnibus bill proposed by Sen. Reid).
80. See U. S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress-2nd Session, U. S. SENATE, http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll-call-lists/roll-call-vote- cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00189 (last visited Mar. 7, 2013) (providing the roll call vote for cloture concerning S. 3297).
81. See David Waldman, Cobum Omnibus Coming Up for Cloture Vote, DAILY KOS (July 28, 2008, 12:15 PM), http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/07/28/558235/- Cobum-Omnibus-coming-up-for-cloture-vote?detail=hide.
82. It is partly for this reason that the Court rigorously enforced the finely wrought process of Article I, Section 7. See I. N. S. v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 951 (1983).
83. Though the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (the Simpson-Bowles Commission, as it quickly became known) was officially created by Executive Order, it grew out of bipartisan legislation. See Simpson-Bowles Budget Plan (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform), N. Y. TIMES, http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/ national-commission-on-fiscal-responsibility-and-re form/index.html (last updated Apr. 4, 2013).