From Deliberation to Dysfunction

8/7/2019 From Deliberation to Dysfunction

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From Deliberation to Dysfunction

It Is Time or Procedural Reorm in the U.S. Senate

Scott Lilly March 2010


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From Deliberation to DysfunctionIt Is Time or Procedural Reorm in the U.S. Senate

Scott Lilly March 2010


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1 Center for American Progress | From Deliberation to Dysfunction

Introduction and summary

Te U.S. Senate has a proud tradition o ensuring that important decisions are careully

weighed beore they become law. Tis has served the nation well at times. But under

current practices the latitude granted to individual senators to obstruct does not always

contribute to more measured consideration o national policy. In recent years, the Senate

has been less and less able to ollow the regular order in the consideration o pending legis-

lation, the confrmation o senior executive branch ocials, and other work.

Increasingly, the Senate has been orced to rely on legislative shortcuts that severely

undermine the philosophy o ull and careul consideration o all maers beore the body.

Even so, the chamber ails to complete much o the work or which it is responsible and

alls so ar behind schedule in completing the work it does do as to seriously undermine

the capacity o the entire ederal government to respond in an eective and ecient way

to the problems acing our country.

Te root cause o these problems is the institutions inability to adopt rules that balance

the responsibilities o Congress against the rights o individual senators. Rules that allow

the Senate to limit debate and maintain a unctional schedule have not been strengthened

in more than our decades, but during that period the workload has increased signifcantly,

and the willingness o senators to use all o the powers oered by the rules to obstructlegislative progress has increased exponentially.

While many Americans continue to think o the flibuster as it was portrayed in the 1939

flm, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it has evolved into a very dierent practice over

the course o the past 71 years. It has been decades since a senator actually took to the

oor and aempted to block legislation through extended speechmaking. Now a senator

merely needs to serve notice that he or she will not concur in a procedural motion by the

leadership that the prospects or making progress on the legislation proposed or consid-

eration are so diminished that it is oen pulled rom the legislative schedule. Tis practice

applies to not only new laws altering national policy in some signifcant way, but also to

the annual spending bills that keep the government operating and even the appointmentjudges, senior, and even not-so-senior executive branch ocials and military ocers.

While it is unlikely the Senate will abandon the flibuster, it is clear that the rules govern-

ing the use o the flibuster must change i the body is to be prevented rom becoming a


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more serious impediment to competent governance. Te chaotic, hit-or-miss process in

which rather mundane maers are debated at great length while more important issues

are slipped past the ull Senate without signifcant debate or opportunity or amendment

turns the concept o deliberation on its head.

Te long delay in adopting spending measures diminishes the capacity o program manag-

ers in executive branch agencies to eectively manage public unds. And the hundreds ounflled administrative positions across the executive branch created by Senate inaction on

executive branch nominees urther reduce the prospects that taxpayer dollars will be spent

in a thoughtul and eective manner.

At a minimum, the Senate needs to adopt modest procedural changes to its rules curbing

some o the flibusters worst abuses and making the Senate not only more responsible in

perorming its work but at the same time more deliberative.

The word flibuster is taken rom Spanish and translates roughly to the

English word pirate, as in stealing the legislative process. The ramers

o the Constitution did not envisage that individual senators would hold

this powerul tool. The original Senate Rules provided or the termination

o debate at any time by majority vote. A motion to ask or a vote on the

business pending beore the Senate, or in legislative-speak to move the

previous question, was allowed until the rules were rewritten in the 9th

Congress in 1806, but even then, prolonged debate or the purpose o

obstruction was not practiced until 1841 as comity deteriorated in thedecades leading up to the Civil War.

In the two decades preceding the Civil War, the flibuster became

strongly established in Senate tradition. During that period, there was

no legislative recourse to a decision by a small number o senators to kill

legislationeven i they were the only ones in the entire country who

opposed it. As a result, Congress ceased to be a orum or resolving the

major issues o the day unless senators themselves recognized the need

to limit their power to obstruct.

From the decade ollowing the Civil War until the U.S. entry into WorldWar I, there were repeated attempts to change Senate rules and allow

limitations on debateall o which ailed. But when antiwar isolation-

ists used the flibuster to block the arming o U.S. merchant ships against

German submarines in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson recognized the

opportunity to orce change. Calling a special session o Congress t

complete the work that flibusters had blocked in the previous Con

Wilson demanded reorm:

The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the wo

which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group

willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered

great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

Days later, the Senate adopted Rule XXII, which allowed limits to b

placed on debate i two-thirds o the senators present and voting

concurred. Then (as is the case today) the rule still provided severa

days o debate and parliamentary maneuvering beore the matter

being subjected to flibuster could be resolved. In essence, the Sen

moved somewhat in the direction advocated by President Wilson,

established a threshold or terminating debate that made reorm m

apparent than real.

Following the Watergate scandal a second wave o reorm swept th

ate in 1975. Included in the changes adopted by the post-Watergaate was the requirement that committee meetings be open to the

and public and that the two-thirds requirement or ending a flibus

lowered to three-fths, or 60 percent o the membership.

Origins of the filibuster
http://books.google.com/books?id=rBi7gsXtD0AC&pg=PA365&lpg=PA365&dq=quincy+%22recommended+the+abolition+of+that+respecting+the+previous+question&source=bl&ots=5A-5mjgsUD&sig=7cvMpp9GzL8QoANXfDUji0GaGjc&hl=en&ei=bNcsS6yYMIz8lAf-5dCRBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAghttp://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/chronology.htmhttp://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Cloture_Rule.htmhttp://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Cloture_Rule.htmhttp://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/chronology.htmhttp://books.google.com/books?id=rBi7gsXtD0AC&pg=PA365&lpg=PA365&dq=quincy+%22recommended+the+abolition+of+that+respecting+the+previous+question&source=bl&ots=5A-5mjgsUD&sig=7cvMpp9GzL8QoANXfDUji0GaGjc&hl=en&ei=bNcsS6yYMIz8lAf-5dCRBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAg


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The disappearance ofauthorizing legislation

Te ederal government is run through a two-track process. In one, Congress enacts legis-

lation authorizing the parameters o a particular program, or instance the National Park

Service, while in a separate process it decides annually the amount o money that will be

spent on the programs that are authorized. Over the course o the past several decades, the

authorizing processin which many o the most contentious issues aecting programs

should be resolvedhas been in decline.

Te Congressional Budget Oce reports that in the current fscal year, FY 2010, about

hal o the money provided or the nondeense activities o the government ($290 billion

out o $584 billion) had to be appropriated without legal authority. Tat is because a

total o 250 laws authorizing various pieces o the ederal bureaucracy had expired, and

Congress had ailed to take the necessary steps through the authorizing process to enact

replacement legislation.

Tere are a variety o reasons why these authorizations were not renewed, but chie

among them is that the chairmen o the commiees o jurisdiction in the Senate can-

not get the legislation scheduled or consideration by the ull Senate. Te reason? Te

legislative calendar is so consumed by extended debate and deliberationoen on minor

issuesthere is no time le or most major authorizations to come to the Senate oor.

Tis problem then cascades into the appropriations process as the Senate leaders must

decide whether to und programs or which there is no legal authority or terminate impor-

tant government services and activities. Appropriation bills must then address programmatic

problems that should have been dealt with by the commiees with authorizing jurisdiction.


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The appropriations logjam

Despite numerous eorts over the years to ensure that Congress pass all o the 12 annual

appropriation measures beore the beginning o a new fscal year, Congress has not

enacted all appropriation bills on time in 15 years. Frequently, ederal agencies do not

know how much they have to spend in a given fscal year until nearly hal o that year has

expired. In most instances this is problem is tied to the Senate schedule.

During the past year, the House o Representatives passed 4 o the 12 bills in June and

the remainder in July. Te Senate passed three in July, one in August, two in September,

one in October, and two in November. Te remaining three bills, including the largest

domestic spending bill, never went to the Senate oor at all. Tose

three bills nonetheless conerenced went to conerence with the

House o Representatives as i they had been considered by the

Senate when in act they had only been considered in a commiee

comprising only 30 o the Senates 100 members.

Tat may sound like a terrible abuse o process and a lousy work record,

but in act it is beer than normal. In only two o the last 10 years has

the Senate considered all o the appropriation bills that were sent to the

president or signature. Since FY 2001, the Senate has conerenced 51annual appropriation measures as though they had been considered by

the Senate and brought back conerence reports or nothing more than

an up-or-down vote on every one o them. Te average number o bills

ailing to get ull Senate consideration has been fve per year over the

course o the past decade.

By the same token, Congress did not enact the last o the appropria-

tion bills or FY 2010 until December 19, 80 days or nearly a quarter

o the way into the new fscal year. But that was beer than normal by

the standard o the past decade. Te FY 2003 bills did not become law

until late February. In FY 2004 it was late January, in FY 2006 it was theend o December, and in FY 2007 was mid-February (See table 1).

Table 1

Failing on the job

Record on the passage o appropriations bills withou

consideration on the loor o the Senate, 2001-10

Fiscal yearAppropriation bill

considered

2001 5

2002 0

2003 10

2004 1

2005 7

2006 0

2007 9

2008 5

2009 11

2010 3

Total 51

Average 20012010 5.1

Source: Thomas, Status of Appropriation Legislation, Fiscal Years 2001 -2Congressional Research Service, available at http://thomas.loc.gov/homapp10.html.


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The hollowing out ofgovernment leadership

Another major responsibility o the Senate is to confrm or reject presidential appoint-

ments to key positions within the ederal government. One practice that has evolved with

the Senates handling o this responsibility is a special orm o the flibuster known as a

hold on appointments.

During an earlier period, holds were used to simply give an individual senator an oppor-

tunity to have a week or two to examine an appointee beore a decision was made on

confrming or rejecting an appointment. Te hold means that the senator who has placed

it is signaling that he will object to a unanimous consent request allowing or consider-

ation o the appointment. Tat means that a cloture motion will be required to proceed to

consider the confrmation. Since that will take the beer part o a weekand the Senate

must under current law confrm hundreds o executive and judicial branch positionsit is

practical to bring up only those nominations that can get unanimous consent.

Over the years, senators have realized that presidents not only need these nominations to

proceed but are willing to pay a price in certain instances to get them. A White House des-

perate to put their team in place may be willing to make valuable concessions to a senator

willing to release a holdbut you cant be a player i you dont have a hold to begin with.

Increasingly, holds are aached to nominees or reasons having nothing to do with thenominee or his or her ability to serve.

Evidence o how much this practice has grown suraced recently when it was revealed

that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) placed a hold on every single one o the 80 administra-

tion appointees who had been cleared or approval by Senate commiees. Sen. Shelby

explained that he thought the Obama administration had a bias against his home state

in awarding grants and contracts. In particular, he was concerned that the U.S. Air Force

might decide that the bid by European Aeronautic Deense and Space Corporation to

build a new generation o tanker aircra was not the best value to U.S. taxpayers. EADS

had indicated that although the components o the plane would be largely produced in

Europe they would be shipped to the United States and assembled in Shelbys home stateo Alabama. Te senator elt holding up all nominees would place maximum pressure on

the administration to ignore other contract bids.

Aer a barrage o negative press reports, Sen. Shelby released the hold on most o the

appointees but continued until recently to block confrmation o nominees to manage the


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Department o Deenses acquisition and technology operations and Air Force installa-

tions and logistics (both o whom had now been awaiting confrmation or nearly seven

months). Sen. Shelby also continued to block the confrmation o the administrations

nominee to be undersecretary o the Air Force.

As o March 1, there were 228 presidential nominees pending confrmation beore the U.S.

Senate. Tere are six who were nominated more than 10 months ago. A total o 34 nomi-nees have been on hold more than six months, and 34 more have been on hold between

our and six months. Among the positions le vacant during that period are the head o

the oce o legal counsel at the Department o Justice, the undersecretary o treasury or

international aairs, and the undersecretary o commerce or international trade.

Whats more, many nominees who eventually were confrmed were prevented rom

joining the Obama administration or most i not all o its frst year in oce. One emblem-

atic case in point: Te administration sent the Senate a nominee to run the Oce o

Resources and echnology at the Department o Health and Human Services on June 1 o

last year. She was confrmed more than eight months later on a voice vote, but only aer

the presidents budget or the department had been submied or the coming fscal year,

which ends in September 2011.

Or consider the undersecretary or science and technology at the Department o

Homeland Security. She also was approved on a voice vote, but only six months aer

her nomination had been submied to the Senate while a critical oce in planning our

deenses against possible terrorist aacks remained vacant.

Having run on a platorm o reorming government contracting and procurement policies, a

top priority or the Obama White House was flling the top position at the General Services

Administration. In the end, their nominee got all o the 96 votes cast on her approval, but itwas nearly 10 months aer her name had been sent to the Senate or confrmation.


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Systemic government failure

Unortunately the ailure o the Senate to pass new authorizations, send spending mea-

sures to the White House in a timely manner, or confrm nominees or key positions in

the executive and judicial branches o government are not simply measures o how well

the Senate is perorming in a given year. Tey have immense implications that extend ar

beyond the Senate chamber.

Te ailure to pass new authorizations means that most o the resources available to the

Senate to oversee the unctioning o the ederal government are disengaged. Executive

branch managers are not challenged on program perormance. Standing authorities or

program management are le in place or years aer they should have expired and new

authorities that are needed are not granted. Further, ailure to resolve issues through the

work o the 18 Senate commiees that are charged with reviewing, repealing, or updating

authorizations means that contentious issues that should be resolved through that process

are dumped onto annual appropriation bills, making expeditious consideration o those

bills more dicult.

Te ailure to adopt spending legislation in a timely manner has a more proound and

immediate impact on government programs and how eciently tax dollars are spent. Each

agency has fnite resources to manage the workload it is assigned under ederal law. I proj-ect managers, contract ocers, or grant administrators get their budget at the beginning

o a fscal year in October, they have a ull 12 months to publish solicitations or grant and

contract proposals, appoint reviewers to select proposals that give the taxpayer the great-

est value, dra contracts that protect the governments interests in the timely and eective

perormance o work, and consummate those contracts.

I appropriation measures are not agreed to until February, however, then unds may not

be allocated to agencies until March. Tat means there simply isnt enough time to make

the process work, and there is certainly not enough time to make it work well. As a result,

the delay in adopting annual appropriation measures that has become a routine conse-

quence o the Senates methods o making decisions is a prescription or waste, raud, andabuse. Contracting procedures are necessarily short circuited. Noncompetitive contract-

ing becomes routine and the reviews to determine best value become pro-orma.


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Te consequences o leaving key executive branch positions unflled or extended periods

is more obvious, but the costs in terms o quality government are underestimated.

Government programs must be unded without ormal standing legal authority because

there is no time on the Senate schedule to bring such authorizations to the Senate oor.

Funding or much o the government is not agreed to until months aer the fscal year has

already started, leaving program managers and contract ocers with only six or eight monthsto do a ull years work. A major portion o the agencies and programs across the government

are le leaderless not simply or months, but in some instances or years because the Senate

fnds it impossible under its rules o procedure to move orward with nominations.

An additional price paid by taxpayers or the manner in which nominations are now man-

aged is the increasing unwillingness o qualifed people to place their lives on hold or the

extended periods o time that is requently required or Senate confrmation. By shrinking

the pool o qualifed people willing to become candidates or managing government pro-

grams the Senate is without question increasing the cost o those programs and lowering

the quality o services provided.

More aggressive use of obstruction

Filibusters used to be viewed as an option to slow consideration on measures o great

import on which there were deep philosophical divisions. Remarkable restraint was

exercised in the use o this powerul and undemocratic tool during most o the 20th

century. During the 44 years between 1917 and 1970, motions to limit debate were fled

on 56 occasions or lile more on average than about once a year.

Signifcant change in the use o the flibuster began to occur beginningin the 1970s. During the 22 years between 1971 and 1993, 420 cloture

motions were fled, or an average o nearly 20 flibusters per year. Te

pace picked up again in 1993. Between 1993 and 2006, there were 504

cloture motions or 36 per year.

But since the 2006 elections the use o the flibuster has again doubled.

o borrow a term rom Star Wars, flibustering has gone rom over-

drive to hyperspace. Filibusters are now commonly used to block

not only legislation the minority opposes, but to block legislation the

minority does not necessarily have strong eelings on but will use to

place a stick in the spokes o the legislative wheel anytime an opportu-nity presents itsel.

During the two sessions o the 110th Congress, 139 cloture motions

were required. And in the frst session o the current Congress, 67 such

Figure 1

Flooding the zoneAverage cloture motions to end ilibusters per yea

in the Senate, 19172009

19171971

1.3

19711993

19.1

19932007

36.0

2007

68

Source: U.S. Senate, Senate Action on Cloture Motions, available at httpgov/pagelayout/reference/cloture_motions/clotureCounts.htm.


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motions were required. Tis represents an average o about 69 flibusters per year over the

past three years. Since the cloture rule was created almost 93 years ago, more than two-

thirds o the motions or cloture have occurred in the last two decades, and more than a

quarter o those have occurred in just the last three years (see fgure 1).

Further, the number o cloture motions is only a partial picture o the total range o

obstruction taking place in the modern U.S. Senate. Cloture is fled against only thosethreatened flibusters that the Senate leadership has the oor time and possible votes

to overcome. Much legislation and many presidential appointments are killed beore

they can be reported by commiee either because 60 votes cannot be obtained or the

cost in time to the Senate schedule is too great to warrant the eort required to deeat a

threatened flibuster.


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Factors behind the out-of-controlfilibuster practice

What has changed? What ostered a culture o broad restraint in the use o obstruction-

ism or more than our decades but seems to have steadily dissipated in the subsequent

30 years and has now disappeared altogether? One explanation has less to do with the

Senate as an institution than the change that has taken place in our national political

culture over that period. As politics has become more conrontational and less gentile in

the country, it has gradually been reected in the types o people elected to the Senate and

their approach to the legislative process.

Beyond that, however, are other actors. Some observers believe the Senate has gradu-

ally become an institution that is more ocused on protecting the prerogatives o its

individual members than in protecting the integrity o the institution to act as a rational

and unctioning legislative body. Te capacity o a single senator to unilaterally block the

confrmation proceedings o senior administration appointees or to stall the consideration

o essential legislation may weaken both the Senate and the nation, but it ensures that any

administration or any Senate leader who ignores the demands o any senator regardless o

seniority, party, or standing among his or her colleagues places a great deal at risk.

Te current sta director o the Senate Finance Commiee, Bill Dauster, said it well in a

1996 article in Roll Call:Tese powers to debate and amend make every single UnitedStates Senator a orce to be reckoned with. Te absence o hierarchy and discipline within

the body may create a dysunctional institution, but it insures a certain minimal power

threshold or all o its members.


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Modest changes to make the Senatea more responsible institution

Tis is a sensitive subject. It is unlikely the Senate will adopt reorms that go as ar as many

eel appropriate. Whether the Senate should be able to resolve major transormative issues

such as the current proposals or changing the nations health care system by a majority

vote is air question or debate and there are good arguments on both sides.

But that is a dierent question rom the procedural issues raised in this paper. Approving

administration nominees in a timely manner or passing the annual appropriation bills

beore the beginning o a new fscal year is not about deliberationit is about whether

the country wishes to grant individual senators so much power that the institution can

devolve into the kind o anarchy, chaos, and gridlock we are now witnessing.

A huge amount o Senate oor time has been consumed each year in the consideration o

the annual appropriation bills. Last summer aer two days o seemingly endless debate

on the Energy and Water Appropriation bill a cloture motion was fled by Senate Majority

Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). Te ollowing day, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), the chair-

man o the Appropriation Subcommiee that had produced the bill, explained:

Te cloture motion was fled last evening, and I understand why We bring an appro-

priations bill to the oor that has very widespread support and then it largely comes to astandstill. It would not make much sense or us to be here in this position all week.

When the opposition to the bill realized debate would be shut o, they allowed it to come

to passage and moved their eort to clog the legislative calendar to other targets, allowing

the bill in question to be acted on. Te opposition then moved their eorts to a dierent

target, allowing the appropriation measure to pass the Senate and go on to conerence

with the House on an 85-9 roll call vote.

Tere was a ar less satisactory outcome, however, or a majority o the 12 annual appro-

priation measures. Eight had to be delayed or consideration until September, when there

was lile prospect that they could be enacted beore the beginning o the new fscal year.O those eight, three were not even brought beore the Senate until the fscal year they

were intended to und had already begun, and three others including the largest domestic

bill never came beore the Senate at all. Tose three bills were wrapped into a mustpass,

year-end legislative measure that was not subject to amendment.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=S8222&dbname=2009_recordhttp://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00248http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00248http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=S8222&dbname=2009_record


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Te ull Senates ailure to consider a signifcant portion o the annual appropriation bills

is not simply a monumental ailure o process. It also ironically deeats the very objective

that the flibuster was intended to protect: the right o individual senators to ully debate

and i necessary amend the decisions delegated to Congress under the Constitution.

When the extended consideration o appropriation bills consumes so much oor time

that authorization bills can never get to the oor, it means that authorizing commiees

are blocked rom real participation in the legislative process and that the appropriationprocess is the only real means o aecting government policy.

But when legislation produced by the Appropriations Commiee goes directly to coner-

ence with the House without debate in the ull Senate, it means that only the 30 members

o that commiee have a real say in the only part o the legislative process that is le. More

than two-thirds o the body is excluded rom the exercise o the most undamental power

o the legislative branch.

In 1974, the Senate agreed to an important exception to the rule o unlimited debate. Te

Congressional Budget Act provided that i a budget resolution passed by both houses o

Congress directed Congress to enact legislation altering the size o the budget defcit (or

surplus), then that legislation would be considered in the Senate with only limited oppor-

tunity or amendment and with no more than 20 hours o debate.

It is time or the Senate to adopt a second exception to ensure the deliberate and timely

consideration o all appropriation measures. All debate on each measure could be limited

to no more than 16 hoursexcept that each senator who chose to oer an amendment

could do so even i the 16-hour time limit had been exceeded. Debate on a single amend-

ment could be limited to one hour.

I this kind o reorm were enacted, then most senators would have more say in appropriationmaers than they do presently. Te Senate would be able to pass unding bills and get their

bills to conerence commiee with the House in time to send fnal legislation to the presi-

dent beore the beginning o the fscal year. And a more orderly and structured approach to

appropriations would ree the Senate to spend more time on other important legislation.

Te logjam created by extended debate on appropriation bills in the Senate oen makes

it nearly impossible or chairmen o authorizing commiees to get important legislation

on the Senate calendar. Authorizing legislation dealing with philosophical issues that

have proven historically to be more dicult to resolve would still be subject to current

rules o debate, but authorizing commiees would have greater opportunity to take their

legislation to the Senate oor by virtue o the restraints placed on the consideration oappropriation bills. More requent authorizations would in turn help reduce the number

o contentious issues in appropriation measures.


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Similar steps need to be taken with respect to the confrmation process. Tere is no ques-

tion that Congress needs to hold the executive branch more accountable, but this is not

the way to do it. No senator should be allowed to hold up the confrmation o a nominee

or more than a maer o weeks. Commiees should be discharged o urther consid-

eration o a nominee aer a period o two months unless the commiee ormally votes

or urther delay based on the act that it has received insucient inormation to reach

a conclusion. Aer 30 days, consideration o confrmation should be in order withoutunanimous consent, and debate on the confrmation should be limited to a reasonable

periodor example, our hours.

Many will see even these modest proposals as an inringement on the great traditions o a

great deliberative body. But all institutions change over time. Some change in gradual and

incremental ways to deal with the changes in the world around them. Others postpone

change until the problems they ace become grave and the remedies extreme. Te Senate

seems to be in the later category, but unlike many institutions it places more than itsel at risk.

Most rank-and-fle senators will not willingly give up the extraordinary powers that the

current system grants them. And their leaders would probably cease to be leaders i they

demanded such reorms. Change will probably only come when the public is made more

aware o the costs o the current system and demands specifc change.

About the author

Scott Lilly is a Senior Fellow at American Progress who writes and researches in a wide

range o areas including governance, ederal budgeting, national security, and the economy.

He joined the Center in March 2004 aer 31 years o service with the U.S. Congress. Heserved as clerk and sta director o the House Appropriations Commiee, minority sta

director o that commiee, executive director o the House Democratic Study Group,

executive director o the Joint Economic Commiee, and chie o sta in the Oce o

Congressman David Obey (D-WI).


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From Deliberation to Dysfunction