R.I.P. Nelson Polsby, 1934-2007

Nelson Polsby died yesterday. I sat next to him at lunch last month, just after the opening of the new congress.

"Why isn't Nancy Pelosi not now the head of the U.S. government?" I asked. "The House was set up with the powers the British House of Commons held in 1787. Since then because the Commons grabbed the purse--the financing--power has leaked from the Crown and the Lords into the Commons so that now it has it all. The U.S. House of Representatives has the same purse power--all tax bills must originate there. So why hasn't power flowed to the House?"

"Ah," he said. "I see you are more of a formalist than I thought. It's not formal power to initiate: it's democratic legitimacy. Power has flowed to the British House of Commons because it is the only elected and representative branch. In the U.S., power remains divided because the President and the Senate are elected."

"I grant you the President," I said. "A newly-elected President in full panoply of plebiscitory power is an awesome force. But the Senate? It's so malapportioned."

And I went on: "Within the Senate why hasn't power flowed to the most populous states? Why aren't the Senators from California automatically committee chairs? And why do we put up with this? Why don't we select 300,000 of us Californians by lot, and have them all move to the Rockies in the summer of 2008 to sway the balance and elect us three extra Senators?"

"That I can answer," he said. "That's been tried. Bleeding Wyoming. Pottawatamie under the Tetons..."

Rest in Peace, Nelson.

Comments

[davesgonechina]

"Bleeding Wyoming. Pottawatamie under the Tetons..."

Beyond knowing the Tetons are the main branch of Sioux, the rest of this statement is cryptic to me.

[Stan Collender]

I had the privilege of taking a seminar on Congress from Nelson when I was a public policy student at CAL about 100 years ago. And it really was a privilege. He berated, he cajoled, he was charming, he disagreed, and he was one of the absolute best teachers I ever had.

[StlInquirer]

I have to second the question - Bleeding Wyoming? Is this a reference to US governmental policy of moving Indians.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas. The term was coined in 1857 I believe by Horace Greeley.]

Plus, I would say that many long-term residents of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming feel that the plan on transplanting Californians to their states is well under way, given the complaints I hear about Californians moving in when I've visited those places. One might note also, the increasing competitiveness of the Democratic party in the broad region and one might imagine that the plan is a) occuring quite organically as liberal, environmentally conscious Californians are somewhat tragically drawn to some of remaining, relatively speaking, wilderness or areas of civilizaiton in close proximity to those areas and b) working.

[Michael Carroll]

Brad should know the reason we tolerate a malaportioned senate in 2007 is because in 1783 we couldn't tolerate crossing an international border to visit Rhode Island or Delaware.

[gordon]

The US Congress could make a start on resuming its proper functions by ceasing to delegate them to the President. I am still in a state of shock (after all this time) at the Tonkin Gulf resolution, let alone its more recent copies. Delegation of trade negotiating powers should also cease.

[DaveL]

"Bleeding Wyoming. Pottawatamie under the Tetons..."

He was referring to "Bleeding Kansas," and Pottawatamie, KS was the location of a massacre by John Brown's irregulars that was part of the struggle between pro- and anti-slavery factions in Kansas.

"Bleeding Kansas" came about because of the doctrine of popular sovereignty vis a vis slavery in the territories.

I guess the point is supposed to be that trying to take over a state for one political viewpoint or another by migration isn't such a good idea. Of course, as others have pointed out, California is exporting enough people that they are doing this anyway; the question is what political viewpoint they are exporting -- predomininantly Red state, Blue state, or a mix?

[Jason Christian]

When I was a PEIS undergraduate 30 years ago I had the great job of driving around distinguished visitors to the Institute of International Studies, which got me into the dinners afterwards with interested faculty. I remember a Chinese dinner in Albany with Shirley Williams about when she broke away from the (UK) Labour Party. Nelson was at the table, full of interesting comments on California, US, and World Politics...and he was gracious to the youngest person at the table, engaging me as if I were a peer (as if!), making sure I was a part of the conversation.

I never took a class from Nelson Polsby, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a valued and honored teacher. I rejoice that I knew the man for a time, learned from him, and enjoyed his presence. I join in celebrating his memory.

--Jason

[wkwillis]

Wyoming valley was where Connecticut and Pennsylvania colonists fought it out over whether what is now northeast Pennsylvania would be part of Connecticut or Pennsylvania. The preUnited States had significant border disputes, not to mention the Vermont Question...

[P.M.Lawrence]

De mortuis nil nisi bonum... still, Mr. Polsby's reported remarks concerning how the House of Commons became paramount are simply wrong.

All parts of the Westminster System are representative of something. At the relevant times, the Lords were a powerful part of British Society, and the people as a whole weren't - although the industrial middle class within that were. Furthermore, democracy conferred no legitimacy, being seen as mob rule reminiscent of the French Revolution.

Even now, democracy is not thought of as an ideal or justification in itself in countries under the Westminster system, apart of course by the priesthood of intermediary politicians that it elevates. Rather, unlike the sort of values that the USA projects (and even tries to impose), most democratic countries regard it pragmatically, as a means to deeper ends and not an end in itself.

To return to what really happened in the UK. The "Power of the Purse" was not a formal requirement describing who was entitled to raise taxes. This is the sort of error that having a written constitution leads people into, forgetting the idea of a constitution as meaning how things actually work out. The "Power of the Purse" was a practical thing that gave rise to what amounted to a tax payers' Trade Union, Parliament (now sadly captured and gone native). Raising taxes without consent used to be too inefficient, i.e. it used up more resources than it provided, net. Even if power comes out of the muzzle of a gun, the superior person has to ask where the gun comes from.

That was then, this is now; the facts on the ground are no longer like that, partly because of the groupthink capture of parliaments, and partly because of financial and technological improvements in the efficient resourcing of governments. As for how democracy is growing in effectiveness as an ideal - well, I put it down to an analogue of agency costs in corporations. There has always been an inherent incentive for intermediaries in a representative democracy to dilute the equity of the franchise by widening it, regardless of any merits they may have for their position. (And don't forget that not only do tempora mutantur but also nos mutamur in illis - our own appreciation of democracy is itself a result of recent tradition, so we cannot apply it as an objective test of merit.) We end up with "electing a new people" incrementally and by stealth, first by widening the franchise and then by immigration. We see that the widening itself wasn't seen as valuable from the way the Reform Acts disfranchised some people in the name of harmonisation across the country, and the way that "democracy" was used as a justification for the first steps in Apartheid, getting rid of the property qualification as soon as some coloured people began to qualify for the vote.