Gridlock By Design

Rivkin and Casey in The Wall Street Journal.

As every school child once was taught, all federal laws must be first agreed to by both houses of Congress, which are themselves fundamentally different institutions with different constituencies, powers and interests. In addition, federal legislation must be acceptable to the president, or both houses must vote to override his veto by a two-thirds majority. As a result of these stringent requirements, the vast majority of legislative proposals never become law for the very reason that the necessary consensus is so often elusive....

In addition, the Senate was itself designed to serve as a brake on change. As explained by James Madison, also in the Federalist Papers, the Senate would be a "temperate and respectable body of citizens" able to check the citizenry when "stimulated by some irregular passion."

Taking this role seriously, the Senate did the framers one better by adopting the much abused filibuster rule. Today it requires that 60 senators agree to end debate on any particular measure before a vote can even be taken.

In short, the government established by the U.S. Constitution, as well as the document itself, is "conservative." Its default is the status quo, unless and until the advocates of change can secure a sufficient consensus to support their idea.