The Second Civil War

John Fund thinks Congress needs an intervention:

The House of Representatives almost turned into the Fight Club Thursday night, when Democrats ruled that a GOP motion had failed even though, when the gavel fell, the electronic score board showed it winning 215-213 along with the word FINAL. The presiding officer, Rep. Mike McNulty (D., N.Y.), actually spoke over the clerk who was trying to announce the result.

In the ensuing confusion several members changed their votes and the GOP measure to deny illegal aliens benefits such as food stamps then trailed 212-216. Boiling-mad Republicans stormed off the floor. The next day, their fury increased when they learned electronic records of the vote had disappeared from the House's voting system.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made matters worse when she told reporters, "There was no mistake made last night." Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had to rescue her by acknowledging that, while he thought no wrongdoing had occurred, the minority party was "understandably angry." Under pressure, the House unanimously agreed to create a select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican charges the vote had been "stolen."

Congress appears to be gripped by a partisanship that borders on tribal warfare. In a forthcoming book, Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein compares it to a "second Civil War" that has led to "the virtual collapse of meaningful collaboration" between the two parties. Public disenchantment with Washington is such that now both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia are musing openly about an independent run for president. But Congress itself has to act if it doesn't want to degenerate into one of those fist-wielding European or Asian parliaments we occasionally see on TV.

The August recess couldn't have come at a better time. I actually think we might have had an out-and-out fistfight in the House had the session gone much longer. That would have perked up the ratings for C-SPAN, but wouldn't have solved any real problems.

The partisanship that really became serious when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were battling it out has just gotten worse. Someone described the problem pretty accurately the other day. Republicans think Democrats are wrong, and Democrats think Republicans are evil. It's hard to work together with that frame of mind.

Add to that incredibly partisan and ineffective majority leadership in the Senate and you have the makings for an all-out war. Fortunately, a lot of potentially bad legislation won't get through because of the partisan battles, but some needed fixes for the country's problems are also held up.

Frankly, a lot of these things could probably be fixed by term limits. Getting some new blood in Congress would probably clean things up quite a bit.