On March 2nd, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul called in the press and wheeled a copy machine all the way to the House of Representatives where his Republican colleagues were working on the healthcare bill now known as the American Health Care Act. Paul calls the bill, updated this week in preparation for a vote in the House Thursday, ‘Obamacare Lite.’
We polled readers to find out if shenanigans like this would fly at City Hall or in chambers. Was this appropriate or inappropriate?
Portable copy machine KY Sen Rand Paul wheeled over to the Hse to try to photocopy still unfinished health care bill pic.twitter.com/etb5tcQiwf
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) March 2, 2017
Poll respondents were equally divided -- 50 percent of respondents said yes, and 50 percent said no.
What’s interesting about the tactics we see from political leaders is in-part based on their personalities, according to research by New York University-Abu Dhabi political scientist Adam Ramey. His book, More Than a Feeling: Personality, Polarization and the Transformation of the U.S. Congress, to be released next month by University of Chicago Press, is co-authored by Jonathan Klinger and Gary Hollibaugh.
The researchers looked at how personality and ideology work together to show how legislators make decisions, according to a 2014 article in the Washington Post discussing how computer modeling revealed insights into the behavior patterns legislators engage in.
Which brings us back to Paul and his copier.
In 2014, Ramey wrote:
“In the last few years, we have seen increasing disagreement within the Republican caucus over tactics. While most members of the Republican caucus are ideologically conservative, they pursue their goals in different ways. Some think the best way to pursue to policy goals is to forge compromise. Others think the best tactic is to defund the federal government, taking the floor of Congress and Twittersphere by storm to advance their agenda. Indeed, ideology (alone) cannot explain this variation in behavior that we are currently witnessing.”
This passage eerily foreshadows current arguments within the Republican party to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act -- aka Obamacare -- and nearly defines why Paul would lug antiquated technology a quarter of a mile.
It’s easy to see that personality traits systematically affect the outcomes of government.
But the results of our unscientific poll also suggest that expectations of political leaders’ behaviors are also polarized. Perhaps if we expected -- or demanded -- more appropriate behavior in all levels of government, we would experience less polarization when it comes time to make decisions everyone must live with.
