How interest-group politics works for all

Follow Us Get the newsletter Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. We had a nice example this week of exactly how the U.S. government works. Sometimes. Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth and her Democratic Party colleague Mazie Hirono of Hawaii have been upset with the administration of President Joe Biden because, in their view, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have been overlooked for top positions in the White House and the executive branch. This has been going on for awhile, but it came to a boil on Monday when Duckworth raised the complaint to White House deputy chief of staff Jen O'Malley Dillon and believed she'd been treated dismissively. She publicly threatened on Tuesday to vote against Biden's executive-branch nominees until she was satisfied that her concerns were taken seriously. That could have prevented some choices from being confirmed in the evenly divided Senate. By Tuesday night, the White House had found a way to satisfy her concerns and Duckworth backed down. This is good stuff. Senator has concerns; senator uses leverage to address concerns; president and senator compromise. That's how the government is supposed to work! Some people are going to complain about this because they don't believe that Duckworth's concerns are legitimate. Why should anyone care about the ethnicity of administration officials? But that's not how politics works in a democracy. Of course politicians think in terms of groups!   The question is which groups have representation, and the answer is generally all the politically relevant groups, as defined by group members. Baseball fans, people who are left-handed and those who hate onions — to choose three groups I strongly identify with — don't (usually) think of themselves politically. Other groups — based on industry, employment type, location, religion and, yes, ethnic groups, do think of themselves politically, for sensible reasons. And therefore they want political representation. It's not up to me whether basketball fans, people who listen to ska bands, engineers, people from Nebraska or Asian-Americans think of their groups as politically relevant to them — it's up to those people themselves. That's how democracy works. If we recognize that groups and their preferences are behind a lot of what's really contested in politics, it's evident that we're not really talking about majorities getting — or not getting — their way. Yes, voting majorities can be constructed, most often in the U.S. through the grand coalitions that make up the two major political parties. But it's a mistake to think of those "majorities" as reflecting underlying majorities in the electorate. Outside of their party — outside of any coalition — almost all politically relevant groups are minorities of the entire polity. Parties and their coalition-formation tendencies are (extremely!) healthy parts of a democracy, and that's certainly one way that groups are represented. But at its best, the Senate can also allow for representation of groups and their interests outside of, or alongside of, the parties. That's what happened when Duckworth and Hirono took action this week. This time it was for ethnic-group representation. Next time it may be for a union, or for some parochial state interest, or for who knows what? In the Senate at its best, members of the minority party can also seek deals to help interests they represent. But that can only happen when individual senators protect their own individual influence within the chamber, rather than simply registering a party vote against (or for) the president's party. When representation works correctly, it should allow the majority party to pass many of its highest priorities — but also allow for individual senators from both parties to fight for things that their states care strongly about, even if they aren't part of that majority coalition. The filibuster as it existed 40 years ago, when it was used selectively by minority parties to protect only their highest-priority interests, tended to facilitate those sorts of deals. The filibuster as it exists now, when its routine use means that most legislation needs 60 votes to pass, really only reinforces partisanship, and actually may make smaller interests weaker, not stronger. Indeed, the Duckworth-Hirono episode took place over nominations, which require only a simple majority to succeed. It was a good demonstration that individual senators as well as the Senate as a whole have a strong stake in the executive-branch confirmation process. The more difficult that process becomes, the more likely it is that presidents will try to duck it and try to govern without many Senate-confirmed nominees. But confirmation can be a useful tool for presidents also, as long as they don't mind a little friction every once in awhile. Nomination hearings, committee consideration and then final Senate action can be a useful way for presidents to learn more about which groups are unhappy about what — because those groups have senators who represent them and ask tough questions or make demands that can serve as White House early warning systems. In other words, the system worked. A group got something it wanted. The president learned something about a group within his coalition. And it looks like the next round of executive-branch nominations won't suffer from any delays. 1. Seth Masket on gun-safety legislation after the mass killings at a Boulder, Colorado grocery store. 2. Sijeong Lim and Aseem Prakash at the Monkey Cage on water and democracy. 3. Dan Drezner on U.S.-China relations. 4. Derek Thompson on Florida and the pandemic. 5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Andrea Gabor makes the case for baby bonds. 6. And Jack Shafer on Trump's supposed startup social network. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.   Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Early Returns newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022