If you look at the New York State Senate and Assembly, there is no question who is in control&mdashin the Senate, it's the Senate Majority Leader, Joe Bruno, and in the case of the Assembly, it's the Speaker, Shelly Silver.

But if you look at National politics, you'll see nothing at all like that. While Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Speaker Hassert seem to exist, they don't seem so ready to whip their party in line (nor is their party's whip any better).

Weak Parties Preserving Democracy

I guess you could say it's not that bad of a thing, though because the strong party system seem to subvert democracy. With strong party houses, you either agree with your party, or you agree with your party. It's that simple, if you want to happy, get favors (like decent committee assignments), campaign funds, and of course be reelected. Obviously there are execptions to that rule, like when you need to defy it for your consituity (think close elections).

But shouldn't Senators and Representives be more loyal to their consitutants and to their own beliefs, then their party? Ater all, they are there to govern for the people, not for their own parties. When they are forced to vote the way of the party, they forget about the people.

Strong Parties; Change Happens

When the party system is strong, things can get done, especially when the executive office pushes hard for a bill. An effective executive leader can insure passing a bill, if they want such a bill to be passed. By forcing the member of the party to vote along, they effectively ensure desirable results on their bill.

The thing is, there have been no strong executives of late. Our leaers of late have been very careful with the use of power. It is too easy nowdays to be accused of working for special interests, and not the public interest.

Without politicians like Lyndon Johnson who view politics as a big cattle drive (which it generally is), nobody really goes anywhere fast. It's an unforentate reality, of if you don't demand results now, things don't go anywhere quickly.

The Problem with Fast Politics

But the problems with such solutions are obvious—if your always moving, it leaves little time to study and consider how the results of your programs are. Too many programs seem to fail, not because they are weak, but because the leaders of our country do not want to spend the time figuring out what is wrong with these programs and repairing them.

Minor fixes of a major social program, rarely makes the news, after all, who cares about minor little details. Everybody wants more now, it's the American way. Nobody wants to wait a couple of years to see the effect of their public policy, by then they may be out of office, or at least the public will have forgotten about it.

One House Bills

When you have different parties controlling different houses, you sometimes find bills that will easily pass one house, and not the other. Having an executive that strongly supports a bill, then it's far more likely that they will pass the other. But for the majority of one house bills, when they hit the other house, they are effectively dead. There is nothing they can really do at this point, they have reached the end of their rein.

Often these one house bills do have a purpose, to make a point. They want to demostrate their loyality to a certain consitutity or party, to ensure members they they believe in them, and are at least giving lip service to their issue.