Lexington
Man in the middle
One determined centrist, alas, will not make for a less partisan Senate
IT WAS the intense partisanship of the Senate that deterred Olympia Snowe, a popular Republican from Maine, from running for a fourth term this year—or so she said when she announced her retirement. So it is something of an irony that the front-runner to replace her, Angus King, is not just an independent, but one who seems to take positive glee in bucking America’s two-party system. Mr King refuses to say whether he would caucus with Democrats or Republicans if elected. Yet the question is of more than passing interest. His vote could swing control of the finely divided chamber from one party to another. And the price of his support, he says, could be the adoption of reforms intended to reduce the Senate’s partisan gridlock.
The very dysfunction that is driving Mrs Snowe out of public life, Mr King says, has prompted him to get back into it. Overhauling government, he argues, is even more important than repairing the economy, since an ineffectual Congress cannot craft effective economic policies. To that end, he supports some rather obscure changes to the procedures of the Senate: timelier votes on the president’s nominees to judgeships and other senior posts, fewer filibusters, more scope for the minority to offer amendments, and so on. More broadly, he would like to shore up the principle of centrism. He speaks of creating a centrist caucus, of campaigning for independent candidates in other states, of becoming “the tip of the spear” for America’s neglected moderates.
Read it at The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/21559612
No comments:
Post a Comment