Democracy and Partyocracy

What a show! A democratic spectacle, unthinkable in Europe, with the possible exception of the UK, was offered to the world by the American democracy in the form of a congressional debate and subsequent vote on health care reform, President Barack Obama’s star domestic project. Here is parliamentary democracy in action on the other side of the Atlantic, while on these shores “partyocracy” reigns supreme. There are vibrant legislative bodies in the Capitol building in Washington, compared with the groups of robots in the European capitals whose members do not act in the interests of their voters, but respond to detailed instructions from their respective parties, which they obey without complaint because, if they deviated, they would not appear on the next electoral ballot.

Since the House of Representatives approved the first version of the bill, the U.S. president has worked morning, noon and night to win the support of senators and congressmen for his reform project. He tried to garner support from Republicans and Democrats for what would be considered a historic bill. The outright rejection of his plans by Republicans, supported by polls showing 53 percent of the population opposed to the legislation, caused Obama to change tactics and dedicate his powers of persuasion — of which he has no shortage — not to winning over the Republicans, but the Democratic legislators of his own party. He has spared no effort to get support from his own party— I repeat, his own party — ranging from the promise of perks for electoral districts in the case of congressmen (or for states in the case of Senators), to direct pressure aimed at the recalcitrant.

Who could imagine President Zapatero or any European prime minister going after his own representatives’ votes one by one in order to pass a bill? This is the difference between democracy and partyocracy, between government by the people and government by the parties. We already know the U.S. system is presidential, not parliamentary. But this does not prevent many people from believing that the American system is more authentic and representative, more closely connected to the citizens, who, at the end of the day, are the ones who elect their party representatives in state-wide primaries and send representatives to Washington. And the most admirable thing about the case at hand is that Obama finally succeeded in passing a reform that has eluded most of his predecessors, both Republican and Democrat, from Theodore Roosevelt 100 years ago to Bill Clinton in 1993, and that he did so with a margin of only seven votes (219-212). His enormous efforts were not enough to prevent 34 Democratic congressmen from conservative districts from joining the Republicans in rejecting a law their voters consider an intolerable intrusion by the government into their private lives.

The founding fathers did everything possible to insert two fundamental principles into the construction of the American governmental system. The first was a two party system, which would protect minority interests and impede a power monopoly by a single party. This is very different from the British parliamentary system. Second, there was a system of controls, the well-known “checks and balances,” of which John Adams, the second president after George Washington, counted 18, in order to keep any branch of government from dominating the other two. And this tradition continues today, more than 200 years after the enactment of the Constitution of 1787. But the health care reform act demonstrates that debate still continues two centuries after the signing of the Constitution. It is as if the endless polemic between Thomas Jefferson, defender of states’ rights, and Alexander Hamilton, advocate for a strong federal government, has re-emerged during the 21st century.

As of yesterday, 14 district attorneys from 14 states, from Florida to Arizona, announced that they will file suit against the federal government for violating state and individual rights by imposing, among other things, an obligation to buy health insurance. They invoke the 10th Amendment, which delegates to the states all matters not specifically included in the Constitution. Constitutional experts believe that these actions are merely playing to the crowd and will not succeed. Since Obama signed the bill into law, “the law of the land,” the federal legislation supersedes state laws. But the tension will continue until November’s legislative elections and could cause more than one disappointment for Democratic aspirations in both houses of Congress.