A gridlock model of the Senate stimulus vote

It's interesting to note how precisely the vote to end debate on the economic stimulus legislation corresponds to the gridlock zone model of the political scientist Keith Krehbiel. In the current configuration of power, the model predicts that the 59th most liberal senator -- the so-called filibuster pivot -- determines the fate of any legislation that would move the status quo in a liberal direction. As such, Obama should move policy as far to the left until the filibuster pivot is just barely willing to accept it.

That appears to be exactly what happened. Remember, Democrats have 58 seats pending a final outcome in the Minnesota race and they needed 60 votes. If we use Keith Poole's 110th Senate rank ordering of estimated ideal points and assume new Democrats are to the left of Evan Bayh (the most conservative Democrat) and new Republicans are to the right of Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter (the most liberal Republicans in that order), then we find that the pivotal senator is Collins with Snowe to her left and Specter to her right. The final vote corresponds almost precisely to the prediction -- Obama compromised with Snowe, Collins, and Specter and they were the three Republicans who joined 58 Democrats in voting in support of cloture.

The media has berated Obama for failing to attract sufficient Republican support, but the reality is that he didn't need more than a handful of GOP votes in the Senate (nor did he need any in the House). Should he compromise away what he thinks is good policy just to appease Washington insiders? That would be, as he said, "bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake" -- at best a second-order goal and one that can't take priority over policy in a crisis of this magnitude.

Comments

[Rob]

Your comments about the application of the pivot point analysis to the stimulus legislation makes a lot of sense. It's worth parsing a few of your statements, however, to discern an unstated assumption and perhaps to map you on the left-right continuum, as Keith Poole did for the Senate.

You state, "Obama should move policy as far to the left until the filibuster pivot is just barely willing to accept it." That is true if one believes that Obama wishes to govern from the left. It appears that is your belief; it's mine too. But your statement wouldn't be true if Obama's goal was to govern from the center, not to "move policy as far to the left" as possible.

In your penultimate sentence, you refer to what Obama "thinks is good policy." I'd simply note that we know what he says he believes is good policy, but we don't really know his mind. I'm prepared to take him at his word, but we should recognize that in doing so we're deviating from the strict Nyhanesque standard about knowing what people are thinking.

In your final sentence, you editorialize about taking "priority over policy in a crisis of this magnitude." That's your opinion and you're entitled to it; it's also the position of Congressional Democrats and the Administration. Some of us further right on the left-right continuum feel that the "crisis" is being used as a pretext for enacting many items that have little to do with economic stimulus without adherence to normal Congressional mechanisms for legislation.

[Jinchi]

That is true if one believes that Obama wishes to govern from the left.

No, it's true if Obama is to the left of the pivot point, which he undoubtedly is.

In fact, since the pivot point is at the 59th most liberal Senator (aka the 41st most conservative Senator), this strategy requires him to govern from the "center-right", not the left.

[David]

How does one know who the "most liberal Republicans" are? Presumably, they are selected as the Republicans who have most often voted with the Dems on a list of issues deemed to separate liberals from conservatives.

So, the prediction that came true amounts to saying that the Reps who voted with the Dems on the "stimulus" bill are the same ones who have most often voted with the Dems in the past. Not terribly surprising...

[buy aion kinah]

How does one know who the "most liberal Republicans" are? Presumably, they are selected as the Republicans who have most often voted with the Dems on a list of issues deemed to separate liberals from conservatives.

[mortal gold]

In fact, since the pivot point is at the 59th most liberal Senator (aka the 41st most conservative Senator), this strategy requires him to govern from the "center-right", not the left.