Where do we go from here? Party politics after the ACA and marriage decisions

by Julia Azari 

What are the political consequences of the Supreme Court decisions last week about the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality? Speculation abounds. At Vox, Dylan Matthews argues that Obama’s presidency has moved into the realm of the “most consequential” presidencies. Jonathan Martin at the New York Times argues that the marriage decision will allow Republican candidates to “pivot” to issues beyond the social and cultural ones, a view also expressed by Seth Masket. Among political science bloggers, there’s even more disagreement about the political impact –John Hudak writes at the Brookings blog FixGov  that the decisions represent a political opportunity for Republicans, while Jonathan Bernstein writes at Bloomberg that the marriage decision “won’t be controversial,” and suggested that the ACA decision “ended the politics of Obamacare.” 

The contours of this emerging debate tell us some important things about the political impact of Obama’s presidency. In terms of policy and political ideas, Obama has managed to effect major change, and yet leave the major pieces of the political system – coalitions, interests- fairly intact. Stephen Skowronek observes this in the essay on the Obama presidency in the 2^nd edition of Presidential Leadership and Political Time, referring specifically to the ACA. But I think we can apply this framework to the Obama presidency in general.

Thinking first about the political impact of the Affordable Care Act, it seems almost tautological to mention that the legislation has affected the healthcare industry and has created some disruptions.

In terms of mass politics, however, the Affordable Care Act appeals to groups who were already fairly stable members of the Democratic coalition – African-Americans, lower income voters, younger voters. When you think about this compared with New Deal legislation, which solidified a cross-regional coalition of urban and rural voters for the Democratic Party, or Johnson’s civil rights program that split that coalition apart, the political impact of the ACA seems modest by comparison.

The Tea Party movement that emerged in opposition to the early years of the Obama presidency also represents continuity as much as change. For example, Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto argue that the Tea Party is “nothing new” and actually represents a long-standing tradition of reactionary movements in the United States. For the purposes of the impact on conservatism,  there are two important features of the Tea Party: its supporters’ preference for established  social order(to quote Parker and Barreto, "heterosexual, Christian, middle class, (mostly) male, white," p. 3); and its process preferences - more on that in a bit.

With the politics of gay rights, a similar dynamic seems likely. Mobilization and party sorting around a constellation of gender issues (ERA, abortion, gay rights), framed in terms of modern vs. traditional approaches to family life. With traditional family groups already entrenched and evangelical voters having moved, generally, into the Republican column, it’s not clear how much more mobilization potential exists. 

Regarding the Democrats, it might be an exaggeration to say that the last seven years have been a complete continuation of what’s come before. Obama and Biden’s statements in favor of marriage equality were received as important “firsts” despite Obama’s slow “evolution” on the issue. While the issue clearly divided the parties in 2004, the extent to which it has become a standard party position – included in the platform for the first time in 2012 – represents a real and important change. It’s neither fair nor accurate to downplay that. What’s not clear is how, if at all, the party might extend this position into other policy areas (as the New Deal ideas were extended into various health care platforms and proposals, the Great Society, etc.).

For Republicans, I see three possible options. They could turn away from social issues to focus on other things, as Seth's piece predicts. Different political science theories predict different things here. If you think parties are networks of groups, then it seems unlikely that the Republicans, bolstered by various pro-family groups, will jettison social issues. If you think parties are electoral organizations inspired by winning office, it might seem more plausible that the Republican Party (like the Supreme Court) will move toward the center as the American public comes to support marriage for same-sex couples. 

The second possibility is that ambitious Republican candidates (of which there seems to be no shortage) will work to reframe the issue, moving away from previous themes (see this 2008 ad from the California referendum) and toward a new religious liberty frame. One advantage to this approach is that it allows the party to continue to bundle social issues with the ACA, where religious liberty questions have also come up around the contraception mandate. At the state level, religious freedom laws that allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT customers haven’t gone so well. This particular frame may not be a way to bring new members into the coalition, but may help to maintain the current position using the other side’s language of discrimination.

A third possibility involves process preferences. I started thinking about this over the weekend after reading a discussion among political scientists in which one mentioned that “partisans are inconsistent” about their preferences for active courts vs. social change through legislation. The response was that partisans are consistent about the policy outcomes they prefer.

Process preferences are hard to nail down in terms of party politics. They clearly distinguished the early Democrats from the Whigs, but those differences over the proper role of the people in decision-making versus the Senate, the courts, etc. faded to some extent after the civil war. The movement for direct democracy, through the Populists and the Progressives, pervaded both parties incompletely. Both parties had advocated for presidential term limits before the passage of the 22^nd amendment.

In the twenty-first century, some Republican leaders have come back to process as part of their political ideology. This has included standard attacks on “unelected judges” following controversial rulings. More recently, with the emergence of the Tea Party, we’ve also seen direct primaries used to attack entrenched party elites, calls to repeal the 17^th amendment and, of course, a very distinct view on the proper role of the federal government.

Embracing process as a main ideological premise is risky. It’s wonky, and, as mentioned above, it makes it easy to seem inconsistent. And it could land libertarians and social conservatives on opposite sides just as easily as it could reinvigorate their alliance.

Looking at these options, I don’t predict much change happening in either party’s coalition or ideology. The policy changes that have happened during the Obama presidency, while significant, have reaffirmed and reinforced the parties’ ideas and constituencies.

This assessment has implications for how we understand Obama’s presidency, of course. But it also may – if accurate and generally applicable – tell us something about the nature of divisions between the parties. Pundits often characterize American politics as “deeply divided.” But if my prediction is correct, parties’ lack of ideological depth will be more evident. If neither party stakes out new policy territory that logically extends from positions on marriage or health care, what does that tell us about the strength of underlying philosophies about equality, or social safety nets, or traditional society, or whatever? Party polarization instead seems reactive and more closely tied to specific policies, causes, and personalities than some of our main theories would predict. If that turns out to be the case, the Obama presidency won’t have changed politics very much, but it will have shown us a great deal.