Vox: The liberal failure of political reform

Yet history does not support this view. Liberals in the 1970s also believed that institutions were holding back the advancement of their favored policies. They sought and achieved reforms in campaign finance, party nominations, government transparency, and congressional organization that were designed to depose moderate and conservative Democratic leaders while bolstering the influence of liberal activists at the expense of "establishment" interest groups. Rather than usher in a period of ambitious liberal achievements, these reforms in fact coincided with the close of an era of left-of-center policy change.

We explore the reasons for this failure in our new book, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats. Our analysis finds that the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups, each with pragmatic policy concerns. This party structure was well adapted to a policymaking process that required brokering compromises among a large set of discrete interests to pass legislation, especially within a system of multiple congressional committees aligned with associated interest organizations and constituencies. [...]

Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, shifted abruptly to the right and never turned back — even as they captured a growing share of seats in both the House and Senate. The post-reform political system has allowed the flourishing of the more ideologically oriented party: the Republicans. [...]

Note that the historical record gives conservatives good reason to be skeptical of legislative productivity: More new laws usually mean a shift to the ideological left.

As a result, Republican officeholders often focus more on blocking Democratic initiatives than on developing their own alternatives, concentrating instead on broader fights over taxation and the federal budget. We find that Congress is more productive under Democratic rule — not only in policymaking but also in committee hearings and in the number of substantive topics considered. In addition, Democratic presidents send far more new policy proposals to Congress and make more administrative changes within the executive branch.

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