Trading Smoke Filled Rooms for Gridlock

At last week’s health summit, the conversation was intelligent, civil, well-informed. It also predictably achieved nothing. How could it? Deals are never reached in front of the television camera. My latest CNN.com column discusses how the open government reforms of the 1970s led to an unintended side-effect: more gridlock.

My latest CNN.com column discusses how the open government reforms of the 1970s led to an unintended side-effect: more gridlock.

It's hard to dispute: Congress just got a lot more done in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s than in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

Why?

You hear many grand, sweeping explanations. Let's try just one simple one.

Congress in the first period was controlled by a handful of committee chairmen, who owed their positions to seniority. The committees did their work in secret. Bills written in committee typically could not be amended on the floor of Congress. The institution was authoritarian, hierarchical, opaque. And stuff passed.

In the mid-1970s, Congress underwent a revolution. The power of the committee chairmen was broken. The number of subcommittees proliferated. The committees met in public. Amendments multiplied. Congress become more open, more egalitarian, more responsive. And stuff ceased to pass.

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