Institutionalizing Bipartisan Collaboration: The Problem Solvers Caucus

• In Event: Coalition Building in the U.S. Congress

Abstract

In the United States, parties are the backbone of legislative organization. In the majoritarian House and super-majoritarian Senate, they facilitate coalition building among members, structure the agenda, promulgate chamber rules, and distribute parliamentary posts and perquisites. Today, however, it is increasingly apparent that party-based legislative control has come to frustrate many of its ostensible beneficiaries. Congressional hardliners in both parties publicly gripe that their respective leaders wrongly favor compromise over ideological orthodoxy when deciding the party’s priorities. Although less vocal than their colleagues, a cohort of moderate lawmakers have taken an even harder line, seeking to forge competing bipartisan organizations.

In this project, we consider one such organization: the Problem Solvers Caucus, a roughly forty-person bipartisan group formed by House members in 2017. Comprised of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, with by-laws and operating procedures to structure and enforce collective action, the caucus resembles in spirit the mid-century “conservative coalition,” which brought together Southern Democrats and Republicans intent on curbing what they perceived as the excesses of New Deal liberalism. Unlike other centrist organizations in Congress today (e.g., the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and Republican Tuesday Group), the Problem Solvers Caucus seeks to institutionalize cross-party collaboration in defiance of partisan control. To understand how the caucus operates and why members participate, we conducted interviews with lawmakers who are or were previously affiliated with the group as well as unaffiliated individuals with similar ideological leanings. The interviews address four core themes: the origins of the caucus’s rules, its policy victories and losses, the benefits and drawbacks of caucus membership, and their goals for the future. We also explore why some members have chosen to broadcast their involvement in the caucus, while others avoid mentioning their efforts to work across the party aisle. By attending to the procedures and norms that govern this “middle against the ends” coalition, we aim to better understand how polarization is reshaping legislative behavior and what those developments will mean for ordinary Americans.

Authors

• Ruth Bloch Rubin, University of Chicago

• Danielle Thomsen, University of California, Irvine