Everyone with a plan to fix Congress wants to help it legislate again by making it easier for lawmakers to compromise. Some call for electing more moderates to serve in the House and Senate. And others want to empower party leaders to impose deadlines, block amendments, and limit debate. But they all share the same underlying goal: produce consensus before the conflict begins.
The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t work. Agreement in the legislative process is not an input that lawmakers supply in advance. It is an output. And the process that makes it possible generates the conflict this approach tries to engineer away. Moderates are the driving force behind shutting deliberation down precisely because they don’t want to take votes/positions. Clarity on their part makes it harder—in their mind—to appeal to their purple constituencies. That is why they empower party leaders to shut the process down. Gridlock is a real phenomenon. But it is not caused by two sides who can’t agree. That is not possible in a place like Congress. Legislative gridlock is not traffic gridlock. It only arises when lawmakers are unwilling to expend the effort required to legislate.
