With guest author former Senator Jim Talent

“The growing dysfunction of the Senate has for some time grossly distorted the legislative process, forcing both the House and Senate to shoehorn normal enactments into the narrow channels that are available to avoid the effect of the Senate rules. That is the reason why so many otherwise normal people have taken the time to learn what congressional “reconciliation” means; the reconciliation process, despite being the most arcane and unworkable legislative mechanism ever devised by the mind of man, is the only way most substantive legislation can pass the Senate by a simple majority vote.

With this latest shutdown, the dysfunction engendered by the combination of politics and process has now reached its inevitable, ad absurdum result. It has rendered the Senate incapable of acting at all, even when there is a clear bipartisan majority that wants to carry out the most basic legislative function – appropriating money for purposes virtually everyone agrees are necessary.”