The Issue: Our form of government - viable since 1776

The Arizona Republic
July 4, 2007

On this Independence Day, the United States is governed by a frustrated lot.

Partisanship rules. Narrow self-interest on both the right and left acts like razor-sharp garden shears, pruning flowering compromise to the nub.

It makes one wonder: Has the American Experiment in governance, anchored in the forced compromise of competing interests, seen its day?

Is today's federal government just too far different from what the Founders had in mind?

Call the failed immigration-reform legislation what you will -- and lots of people called it things we cannot print -- the measure constituted the most serious attempt at bipartisan compromise since 1996's successful welfare reform.

Eleven years have passed since Congress last managed the sort of legislative heavy lifting requiring both Republicans and Democrats to bend their backs. In the meanwhile, a lot of necessary change has been left on the ground: serious tax reform ... health care reform ... Social Security ... Medicare ... and immigration reform.

It makes one wonder, indeed: Have we left the founding principles too far behind?

"The metaphor is the presidential election process," surmises Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, who fought as hard as anyone in behalf of the immigration-reform package. "With the long, lengthy process that it is now, it's not surprising that in Washington it is now non-stop politics."

A lot has changed about America's peculiar brand of politics since the summer of 1776. But it is the suddenly rapidly accelerating rate of change in the dynamics of partisanship that is unnerving those of us with archaic notions about the meeting of minds.

The never-ending race for the presidency is a problem, certainly. Immigration reform has been declared effectively dead until after that big election -- over 17 months off.

But consider, too, elections for the House of Representatives, which the Founders envisioned as government as close to the people themselves as they could make it.

Today, notwithstanding the convulsions prompted in 2006 by the Iraq war, the House is "an elite preserve for incumbents who have walled themselves off from competition," in the words of conservative commentator John H. Fund.

The political curse of gerrymandering of House races has helped wall off those elites from us, of course. But politicians have been toying with the shape of districts since the Supreme Court ordered in the mid-1960s that congressional districts must be essentially the same in size.

What's different now? One big difference is this: For $150 or so, partisans in charge of state redistricting can plug hyperprecise redistricting software into a computer and produce weirdly contorted districts that effectively wall out competition. In 1982, when state legislators did their redistricting with grease pens on plastic-coated maps, 79 House races were considered competitive. By 2002, there were 38. In 2004, nearly 98 percent of House incumbents won -- the largest re-election margin in history.

Lawmakers elected in such a system, of course, aren't much influenced by high-minded notions of compromise.

No Founding Father ever considered the uncompromising influence of multimillion-dollar campaigns, either. Nor, for that matter, could he have envisioned the remarkable stratification of partisan electorates.

For all his capacity for foresight, James Madison never envisioned blue states and red states. In many respects, Americans are a stunningly separated bunch of citizens.

So is the American Experiment going to hell in a handbasket? Well, take heart. History tells us that compromise was a pretty rare commodity in those early days of the republic, too.

When Joseph J. Ellis was preparing his 2000 history of the American Revolution, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, he said he was stunned that the rancorous lads managed to hold it all together.

Historian Joanne B. Freeman came to many of the same conclusions in her 2002 text, Affairs of Freedom: National Politics in the New Republic. She described President Washington as utterly flummoxed with the free-wheeling partisan agendas of his own Cabinet members, ordering them at one point to end their "wounding suspicions and irritating charges."

Sound familiar? The early days of politics in this nation obviously do not mirror contemporary politics perfectly. But compelling recent histories like John Adams by the remarkable David McCullough tell us that the human dynamics of political actors haven't changed much, at all.

As a matter of fact, another primary participant in the immigration debate, Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, told The Arizona Republic that he remains quite upbeat about the legislation's fate.

"The vote on the immigration bill was actually a lot closer than the final tally suggested," Kennedy said, noting that "passions were high" and that the 2008 presidential race "obviously raised the stakes."

"I'm not discouraged by it. Politics has always been a contact sport," he said.

Are we frustrated now? Oh, yes. But we need not despair. George Washington, after all, managed to muddle through.