Recently in Policy Wonkery Category

At the beginning of his 1,938,378,366th* column demanding bipartisanship during a time when Democrats have majorities in Congress, David Broder illustrates how to achieve this nirvana by calling Senator-Elect Al Franken a "loud-mouthed former comedian."

Yeah, that's the way to get people to work together. Use tired old insulting cliches. Guaranteed to work.

Besides, as Paul Krugman notes, anyone who has truly watched Franken's career this decade -- from the books to the Air America radio show, knows that Franken is a serious policy wonk. As Krugman explains:

So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He'll raise it.

Unlike Broder's influence on the political discourse.

* Number may be an estimate.

Matt Miller wonders why the Republicans only trot out compassionate policies following natural disasters.

If we don't pause to parse our empathy in the wake of Charley, and ask ourselves, "If we're prepared to act here, where else does that mean we should be prepared to act," we're not doing right by our best instincts.

To take one example, poor children are about as blameless as you can get. Yet millions of these kids lack health coverage and decent schools.

Why can we agree to help Charley victims and let these kids languish?

Duh...

David Ignatius wishes we could get the presidential candidates to talk about how they would manage risks and prepare for the unexpected in today's global arena.

Now the hate-the-government wing of the Republican Party will not like this idea. But George Kenney, a diplomat in the first Bush Administration, makes a wonderful and sensible suggestion: it is time to increase the size of the United States House of Representatives.

There are currently 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a country of 290 million people, that means that each congressional district has nearly 670,000 people. That is ludicrously large — and it is not the way the House was intended to work.

In the 1st Congress, the 65 House members each represented about 60,000 people. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, as states were added and subtracted, and the population grew, the House frequently resized itself. In 1913, the 63rd Congress jumped from 391 to 435 seats — and a district still only included about 200,000 people.

But that's when it stopped. The general confusion and displacements during World War I, the Depression and World War II made the censuses of 1920, 1930 and 1940 seem provisional, and there were no increases. The calmer 1950s would have been the time to resume regular increases, but the House opted to go on doing nothing. Meanwhile, the population kept growing.

Kenney suggests increasing the House by five-fold. That goes too far in my mind. We should roughly triple it, returning to a ratio of 250,000 people per member of Congress.

While I am at it, California State Senate districts are even larger than Congressional Districts, with nearly 850,000 residents per district. Assembly Districts are half that size.

Do you think there could be a connection between these overlarge districts and California's history of a political uninvolved citizenry? I do.

David Broder highlights a harsh critique of Congress' refusal to declare war before the president sends our troops into combat. He writes:

Louis Fisher, the authority on congressional-executive relations at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, is one who argues that the failure was not personal but institutional. While joining those who challenge the intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the preemptive attack on Saddam Hussein's regime, Fisher is even more critical of the lawmakers who sanctioned the action.

In the fall issue of Political Science Quarterly, he writes: "Month after month, the administration released claims that were unproven" about weapons of mass destruction and links between Iraq and al Qaeda. "For its part, Congress seemed incapable of analyzing a presidential proposal and protecting its institutional powers."

"The decision to go to war," he concludes, "cast a dark shadow over the health of U.S. political institutions and the celebrated system of democratic debate and checks and balances. The dismal performances of the executive and legislative branches raise disturbing questions about the capacity and desire of the United States to function as a republican form of government."

That may seem to you, as it does to me, too broad an indictment.

I think Fisher's analysis is absolutely correct. It is a warning all of us should heed.

Congress has a necessary role to play in our national life. One of those roles is its solemn (and sole) right to declare war.

We have fought wars since World War II, but Congress has not taken up its share of the burden. With Iraq, Congress passed a vague authorization resolution that everyone short of certain Democratic presidential candidates knew would inevitably allow President George W. Bush to go to war against Saddam Hussein.

If Congress does not stand up for its prerogatives, then our form of government is in peril. It is a harsh critique, but Fisher is right to sound this alarm.

While I was away, the new Center for American Progress started adding interesting materials to its web site.

The Center for American Progress is a new liberal Washington, D.C., think tank. Former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta is the Chief Executive Officer and one of the driving forces behind this excellent new effort.

What is this new organization about? As the web site explains:

The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all Americans. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values. Our policy and communications efforts are organized around four major objectives:

• developing a long term vision of a progressive America,
• providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals,
• responding effectively and rapidly to conservative proposals and rhetoric with a thoughtful critique and clear alternatives, and
• communicating progressive messages to the American public.

The Center has rounded up an excellent roster of fellows, including several of my favorite policy writers.

I am quite happy the Center for American Progress is here. Its analysts will undoubtedly play a vital role in the policy debates to come. I have signed up for its daily policy e-mail updates, and urge you to do so as well.