Today's invocation of a closed floor Senate session by Harry Reid will likely have little direct impact on American voters and their voting intentions. Few people pay much attention to the parliamentary cut-and-thrust of what happens in the Senate and the House.
Precisely because there is a bicameral Congress with a separately elected executive, more of American politics is conducted outside formal settings and in the media. In a parliamentary system, even a bicameral one, there is less need to conduct politics through the media. It is the separately elected executive—President or Governor—that drives American politics into negotiation outside the institutions (sometimes literally, on the steps of Congress, or in the White House garden!). The sheer size of the American electorate extends this tendency towards a public, media-focused politics, because other forms of campaigning and publicity are not cost-effective. More concretely, in the American system there is not time to be absorbed in Congressional business andspend significant time meeting voters in person.
Yet the indirect impact of what occurs in Congress can be quite important. Today's events will have invigorated the Democrats and angered the Republicans. If, as Mark Schmitt argues, Bill Frist's ability to lead the Senate is now "completely in ruins," then the energies of the Republican Senate will be diverted to their own internal politics if there is a move to replace him. And parties consumed by their own internal battles tend not to fight elections so well.
One should not overstate the importance of what Reid did, but neither should it be seen as a sideshow. Parliamentary tactics are still very important to American politics, even if they are rarely seen by the public.
Posted by robe0419 at November 1, 2005 6:37 PM