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Reconciliation Will Make Senate Less Human

Partisan reconciliation will turn Senate into House, predicts David Brooks

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 16, 2010 4:50 AM CDT

(Newser) – Using reconciliation to push health care through will turn the Senate into a crude, partisan arena much like the House, argues David Brooks. Once a place where alliances were formed between individual lawmakers, the Senate used to reflect the human sympathy seen in one-on-one relationships; a party-line vote will reduce it to the more cold and calculating nature of group-to-group relationships, Brooks writes in the New York Times.

If partisan reconciliation is used this time, it will set a precedent for every bill to follow and turn the Senate into the House. "The remnants of person-to-person relationships, with their sympathy and sentiment, will be snuffed out," he predicts. "We will live amid the relationships of group versus group, party versus party, inhumanity versus inhumanity. With increasing effectiveness, the system bleaches out normal behavior and the normal instincts of human sympathy."

[Images (1)]

[Quotes (1)]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. speaks during a health care news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

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Representatives are often subtle and smart as individuals, but crude and partisan as a collective. The social psychology of the House is a clan psychology, not an interpersonal psychology. - David Brooks

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 14 comments

toughstuff

Mar 17, 2010 5:14 AM CDT

I don't know what they are waiting for, they stand on camera on TV at least once a day & say they are going to pass this bill like they believe it & they hope like the pres. if they say it enough times it will come true. IF they have the votes they won't be on TV they will be voting.

Derni

Mar 16, 2010 11:41 PM CDT

Get over it/BS=this process has been used 22 times -17 by republicans wake up use it and get over it-ots legal and they won't cahnge their minds so just do it

793tango

Mar 16, 2010 11:24 PM CDT

How can the Senate BE less human? It's all partisan bickering and backstabbing. It's all about the automatic rejection of whatever the other guys are proposing. Never mind whether it might actually HELP some CITIZEN somewhere....

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Politics • Health

Senate • Senate Democrats • psychology • reconciliation • David Brooks • budget reconcilation

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Reconciliation Will Make Senate Less Human