Democracy Forward's Jentleson on New Book

seeing in the GOP. For seven years, Adam Gentlesen has been had an up close view of growing Senate dysfunction as a top aid to former Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada. He writes about it in his new book, Kill Switch, The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. He is public affairs director at Democracy Forward. It's a legal advocacy group against corruption in the executive branch and government. Adam joins us on the

phone from Maryland. First of all, did I see your last name correctly? I like to get it right. You did? You did? All right? Well, Adam, it's great to have you here. Congratulations. First, I've got to ask you before we diggle a bit deeper into your book. Is the last two weeks they hate the anger of the division, the polarization. Are you surprised that we're here? I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised. I think this is the logical result of what the president has been

staking for the last four years. Um, And you know something I talked about in the book. I mean, you know, the rise of these forces predates him. Um. He took over the GOP in terms of assuming its leadership, but a lot of the forces that propelled him to office existed before he even stepped into the political arena. So I think that it's horrible to see what we've been seeing over the last week, but it is sort of sadly the culmination of a lot of trends of extreme

partisanship that have been building for decades now. So explain your title to kill switch? What do you mean? So? When I worked in the Senate, one of the things you hear a lot is that the Senate is supposed to act as a cooling fauthor. This is dates back to an apocryphal story about George Washington explaining to Thomas Jefferson as they were drinking some tea, that the Senate was supposed to act like the Fosster under Jefferson's tea.

There you would splash out of a saucer, cool on the splash off the cup, and cool on the saucer before I was ready to drink. Uh? What that was true at a time? Um The founders created the Senate to be delivered and thoughtful. They also created it to not have a filibuster and to not have a supermajority threshold for passing legislation. They created it as a majority rule institution. It was designed to be thoughtful, but also to get things done and for debate to be thorough

but limited. What we see today in the modern center is a body that allows the party that's out of power to use the rules of they as they have come to evolve, to stop everything that comes before the chamber. This combines with the forces of partisanship that are dominating our politics today to turn the Senate from what was once a cooling saucer now into a kill switch that shuts down everything that the federal government tries to do.

And a big reason for that is in something that you really dig deeply into in your book is the filibuster. That's right, and so the book explains the historical evolution of the filibuster. Um. This is something that you know, if folks know anything about the Senate, they tend to know about the filibuster. And when they think of it, they tend to think of Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith

goes to Washington, right, holding the floor, talking at length. Uh, sort of using it as an underdog against the forces of corruption and entrenched power. Um. The thing is, this is not really what the filibuster has ever truly been in practice. Uh. And even though it is directly associated with the Senate in the popular imagination, it was not part of the Senate and was not meant to be part of the Senate. Um. When the Framers created the Senate,

they did not include the filibuster. And not only did they not include it, they argued against ever creating something like it. They were writing the Constitution in the shadow of the Articles of Confederation, which had established a super

majority threshold for most bills to pass Congress. The Framers saw that that was a disaster, and they are dude very clearly in the Federalist Papers and other writings that establishing a supermajority threshold would have the direct effect of giving what they called a pertinacious minority, the ability to bring everything to a halt for the sole purpose of

embarrassing the majority. You know, they were realised, they understood this essential fact of politics that you give the party that's that a power of this ability to throw a monkey engine in the system, they're going to use it. It took basically two centuries for that power to evolve in the way that it has today. But that is what we've come to scene. That's what we've come to see happen in the Senate is the minority use that power and that monkey wrench, and exactly the way that

the Framers warned us they would. One thing I want to ask you, um, take us back to the first time you got to the Senate. What was it like? What was your first experience of it? The first start I got to the Senate, I was I was brought up to meet my boss, Senator Harry Reid. And it's an incredibly ornate building. I mean, unfortunately, a lot of scenes are on display this last week of the inside

of the Capital for the wrong reasons. But when you're there and able to appreciate it, it is incredibly dramatic. You've got painted walls, you've got arched ceilings, you've got giant chandeliers, you've got historic portraits everywhere. It's overwhelming. Uh. It feels a little bit like versa I uh in a little bit uh, a little fancy for a democracy, more than you might expect. Um. But it's an incredibly

intimidating place. Uh. And then the leader's office is they've they've nicknamed at the taj Mahal for a good reason. It's got these huge views of them all, dramatic feelings, huge fireplaces. It's it's a lot to take in, is as a young staffer. Um. Yeah, And I think it's interesting when we read about right, we grew up reading about history. We read about the capital, and it is something. It's got it. It must have just been something to actually be kind of part of it. Then uh and

didn't live up to your expectations? Did it? Did it go beyond your expectations or did it start to disappoint how quick? My big yeah, pretty quickly. My big tickle a was was the big, massive gap between what you expect from such a grand institution and what it was able to produce. Uh. You know, I was there during a period of historic gridlock. One of the defining experiences for me I talked about us in the book was

after the murder of twenty first creators in Newtown, Connecticut. Uh. The absolute failure of the Senate to pass any kind of policy solution, even in the middle of the road. Uh. Some might argue, not even not even strong enough policy like background checks. Um, it is stunning. You know, this institution that has a reputation for being slow and has a reputation for working in a deliberative fashion. But I think that in many ways has been used as an

excuse for it to simply do nothing. And I think that's the problem that we're seeing today. We as we as a federal government are simply unable to operate in an intelligent way to meet the policy challenges that we face. And and part of what I argue in the book is that we need to find ways to restore the Senate, to keep what's good about it, to can let it continue to be a deliberative body, but actually make it be a ace where good ideas don't just go to die.

Good ideas go there to be developed and perfected and then actually passed. What's been miss McConnell's role in all of this, well, no one has done more to increase gridlock in dysfunction in Congress than Miss McConnell. When he took over as leader, there was a historic rise in the use of the filibuster under his watch and at his direction. I should be clear about that. Um. It

was explicitly a strategy of his. He decided when President Obama came into office that he could attack Obama's core political brand of fixing our broken politics in Washington, something President Obama talked about from his convention speech in two thousand four all the way up through his inauguration in

two thousand and eight. McConnell knew that if he used the tools of obstruction at his disposal, even though at the time he represented the minority of Senators representing just thirty five of the American population, that he could bring that political brand down to earth and voters would see

a gridlock Washington. They would see that Obama had not delivered on his promises, and then Republicans would have roped to massive political victories, as they did almost immediately in the two dozen and ten midterms, and Republicans gained enormous numbers of seats in both the House and Senate. So you know, he brought gridlock. The problem is it worked and that has increased the incentives for both sides to

deploy gridlock, which is a shame. Right, This whole idea of bipartisan deals, I think, you know, go back multiple decades. I've said this a million times Adam on Air. I remember being in a a Bloomberg event. This was a few years ago, and it was Alan Greenspan and he said when he got to Washington in the seventies, he'd go to a social event and you would have both Democrats

and Republicans at that social event, socializing. He said, now you would do something and this was mind you still a few years ago, but he said, you'd go somewhere and it was either all Democrats are all Republicans. You know, how did we get so far away from from being you know, lawmakers represented by we the people, um to do our bidding right while we go about working supporting our families. Right. It was interesting. I had a car ride in this morning. Is an immigrant and older individual,

very thoughtful. He said, we're the ones you and me. He pointed to me, you know, to keep the engine going, the engine being the economy. He said, our voice, we vote for those to protect us. We put you there to be our eyes, and this is what you give us. He said. The word that describes this moment for him politically is betrayal. I had to write it down because it just stood with me. But right, this is what

our lawmakers are, policymakers, Democrats and both Republicans. I hate to point the finger, but you know, it's just becomes so dysfunctional. No, that's absolutely right. And the problem is that our political system has come to incentivize gridlock. Uh. You know, these are larger forces at work. These are the forces of polarization that we see in all aspects of our lives, right where we shock. Uh you know what what we watch on TV, all those things, the

big sort. Uh, it's come to the Senate. And the Senate was one of the last American institutions to actually fall to this sorting. But it has fallen now. Uh. And what that means is that the party that's out of power has enormous incentives to block the other side so that they can regain power. Now, one of the things that's interesting here is that you would expect sort

of narrow majorities to increase the possibility for bipartisanship. Right, they're both parties sort of have evenly balanced power, maybe they'll work together. The problem is political scientists have found for for decades now, is that narrow majorities actually increase the incentives to obstruct because the party that's out of power knows it only takes one or two more seats

for them to get back into power. So if they make the party in power look bad, they the party out of power and the very next election can ride that voter discontent back to power by gaining just a few seats. Some narrow majorities can actually be very bad for cooperation. One last quick question, Is there a simple

way out? I think I think you need to Yeah, I think you need to get rid of the filibuster, but also restore some living incentives for senators to be on the floor together, to talk to each other, to bring amendments to the floor, to deconstruct the power of leadership so that rank and file senators can bring bills to the floor. You need to make the Senate the free and open place again. That's what it was designed to be, and I think you need to it back

to that God. It's time to like pull out the history books and remember what this is supposed to be all about. Adam Gentlesen, thank you so much. Public Affairs Director, Democracy Forward, former Deputy chief of Staff to Senator Harry Read. His new book that is out, Kill Switch, The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy really just gets to the heart of some of our problems.