Gridlock, as originally defined, refers to a severe traffic jam in a grid of intersecting streets, where cars backed up on the intersecting roads block each other from moving.  No individual car is to blame, but rather all of them together are to blame.  The term is now also commonly used to refer to the inability of Congress to get things done.

But the problem in the US Congress is not really gridlock.  As will be clear from several examples discussed below, a majority in Congress exists for moving important legislation forward.  The problem, rather, is that congressional leaders, who decide what will be voted on and when, have acted to keep such legislation from coming to a vote.  But this is not gridlock.  Rather, it is deliberately placed roadblocks.

Events over the last month show what might be done when such roadblocks are removed. The resignation of John Boehner as Speaker of the House in late September created a narrow window when he could call up legislation for a vote while not being threatened by a minority of just 30 Republican congressmen on a motion to remove him from the Speakership.  He had already removed himself.  As discussed in the previous post on this blog, the traditional practice of straight party line votes for the position of Speaker means that a small group in the majority party (equal to just 30 in the current Congress) could deny the majority party candidate of this post.  A small group of the Republicans in Congress threatened to use this against Boehner should he move legislation forward that they opposed.

Boehner struggled to lead his party under such constraints, and eventually gave up and resigned.  But with that resignation, he was able to negotiate and push through to passage, with strong bipartisan support, a bill that addressed the immediate threat of default on the US debt (current borrowing authority limits would have been reached on about November 2), provided an overall budget framework for fiscal years 2016 and 2017 (with the sequester restrictions eased by $50 billion in FY16 and $30 billion in FY17, equal to a total of just 0.2% of GDP over the two years), and addressed immediate issues arising on Social Security Disability Insurance and on Medicare premiums.

The bill was approved 266 to 167 when put to a vote.  All Democrats voting approved, as did about a third of the Republicans:

The bill then went to the Senate, where it was also approved by a strong majority (again with all Democrats in favor and about a third of the Republicans):

In perhaps an even more surprising example of what can be done to get around the roadblocks being imposed, the House membership used a discharge petition to force a vote on renewing the US Ex-Im Bank charter.  Successful discharge petitions are rare: Only three times in recent history (since 1985) have they been approved and then led to new legislation.  They require the public signature of 218 congressional members (half of the chamber), and thus require the support of at least some in the majority party even if all of the minority party are willing to sign.  Such maneuvering to force a vote against the wishes of the congressional leadership can and does lead to retaliation by the leadership against the members.  The petition was filed on September 30, with the support of 176 Democrats and 42 Republicans.

The Ex-Im Bank’s charter authority lapsed on July 1.  Reauthorization is required periodically, and never before in its 81 year history has Congress failed to approve this.  A strong majority voted in favor in the Senate in a vote on July 27, with bipartisan support:

Once the vote in the House was forced (it took place on October 27), a strong majority came out in favor, including not only almost all Democrats, but a majority of the Republicans as well:

The bill, however, is not yet fully passed.  The Senate will now need to reconsider the bill, and despite the earlier strong vote in favor, it is not clear a vote will be held now. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader, has said he will not allow a vote to take place, at least on the stand-alone bill passed by the House.  And by attaching the Ex-Im legislation to some other bill McConnell would force it to be returned to the House again, where the leadership could again try to block any vote from being held.

Paul Ryan has now been elected to be Speaker of the House, succeeding John Boehner. Despite these examples of legislation that can move forward in the current congress with bipartisan support provided votes are held, the prospects that Ryan will act differently from Boehner are slim.  Ryan still faces the challenge that just 30 members of his party can choose not to vote for him in future votes for the Speakership, and he would then lose the office.  Indeed, nine members of his party voted for another candidate in the October 29 vote.  And while Ryan at first said that as a condition of becoming a candidate for the Speakership, he wanted agreement to change the House rules so that no future such votes on the Speakership could be held until the start of the next Congress in January 2017, he was not able to secure such a commitment from those who had brought Boehner down, and Ryan then backed down from this demand.

An example where important reform would probably pass with bipartisan support if a vote were held is immigration reform.  The Senate passed a bill on immigration reform (written in part by Senator Marco Rubio, who later denounced his own bill following conservative criticism) by a 68 to 32 majority (with 14 Republicans voting in favor) in June 2013.  But with the conservative criticism, Speaker Boehner refused to bring it up for a vote in the House.  And while it is now more than two years later, with the 2014 elections in between, it is likely that a majority of members in both chambers would still be in favor of immigration reform along the lines of the bill passed in the Senate in 2013.

However, Paul Ryan has publicly announced that he will not allow any such bill to come up for a vote.  And he insists it is Obama’s fault!  In an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Ryan said it would be “a ridiculous notion” to work with President Obama on the issue, because Obama is someone they “cannot trust”.  But there is no basis for such a charge.  Obama’s executive orders on immigration have been no different in nature from orders issued by Reagan and the first Bush when they were president.  And no such accusations were leveled against Reagan and Bush then.

But regardless of what one concludes on that issue, why such actions should preclude a vote in the legislative chamber is not at all clear.  Rather, the basic disrespect of the presidential office by Ryan appears to signal that Ryan intends to follow the same path as his predecessor, and allow a minority of about 40 congressmen to dictate what legislation will be brought to a vote, and what will be blocked.  As noted before, the problem is deliberately placed roadblocks, not gridlock.