The divide on Capitol Hill is commonly depicted as Democrats versus Republicans and for good reason — the greatest rift in Congress is indeed partisan.

Norm Ornstein, an expert on Congress, says House Democrats don't trust Senate Democrats who have lef
American Enterprise Institute

Congress watcher Norm Ornstein.

But there's also a cleft between members of the same party, Democrats specifically, with a split between House and Senate members.

In a conversation with Norm Ornstein, the expert on Congress at the American Enterprise Institute, All Things Considered host Robert Siegel spent a little time examining the wariness between the chambers, which is especially true in the case of House Democrats who are uncertain that their Senate counterparts can be counted on.

As Ornstein explains, House members have taken political risks by quickly passing controversial legislation like the climate change bill, and sending it on to the Senate, only to have bills languish there.

ORNSTEIN: "For the House to pass a climate change bill was the equivalent of going through 24 hours of labor without anesthetic. Pulling together a coalition that included people from coal-producing states, from the industrial states very wary of anything that might damage the automobile industry, or the steel industry, along with the environmentalists, just took tremendous pain.

They got it done. It was an amazing feat. They congratulated themselves and sent the bill into the black hole of the Senate where it remains, not quite moribund but close to it. So for House members who are able to act with dispatch, who have moved controversial pieces through, they sit and wait for the Senate because it doesn't mean much if it's not enacted into law. It means they go through the pain of politically vulnerable votes and don't get the advantage of those bill enacted into law."

 

For the House, the push on health-care overhaul has been deja vu all over again. And what makes it even worse, according to Ornstein, is that the Senate Democrats expect the House to pass the upper chamber's bill which has elements the House can't stand, like the "Cornhusker Kickback" Medicaid payment to Nebraska negotiated to get Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson's vote.

While Senate Democrats are promising their House co-partisans that if the House only passes the Senate bill, the Senate will later fix the most egregious aspects that trouble Democrats in the lower chamber, House members aren't buying it.

ORNSTEIN: "House members ... are wary that senators will give assurances and then, even if they are well meaning, and they're certain that they are, the process of the Senate will simply bollix it up and they'll be, once again, left holding the bag."