The truth about the deliberations on the Senate floor.

Here is another topic that we tend to idealize. Who has not heard those paeans about how the Senate of the past, unlike that of today, truly made it possible to hold meaningful debates where one could change the Senators' minds? Now, did that truly ever happen, especially in modern times? I seriously doubt it. The legislative process is long, far loner than most citizens (especially those who never get involved in politics, who are the majority) imagine. The decisions are not truly made on the Senate floor, but rather in innumerable meetings and negotiations that take place behind the curtains. What we see on our TV is just the final staging of the whole process. Little else. As Obama explains:

...my colleagues and I don't spend much time on the Senate floor. Most of the decisions —about what bills to call and when to call them, about how amendments will be handled and how uncooperative senators will be made to cooperate— have been worked out well in advance by the majority leader, the relevant committee chairman, their staffs, and (depending on the degree of controversy involved and the magnanimity of the Republican handling the bill) their Democratic counterparts. By the time we reach the floor and the clerk starts calling the roll, each of the senators will have determined —in consultation with his or her staff, caucus leader, preferred lobbysts, interest groups, constituent mail, and ideological leanings— just how to position himself on the issue.

(Barack Obama: p. 14)

However, the important thing to notice here is that it is actually good that things happen this way. Why? First of all, because any piece of legislation is negotiated between the different parties involved, which means that the interests of different sections of the citizenry will be taken into account, therefore improving the process in the sense of making it more democratic. But, second, because it guarantees that the decisions are made over a period of time that is long enough to incorporate other elements into the process (input from the interest groups involved and affected by the piece of legislation at hand, feedback from the constituents, the point of view of the opponents and possible ways to work them into the final law...). Sure, the system is imperfect, but still much better than anything else human beings ever devised in the past. Or, to put it in very clear terms: once again, the perfect deliberation that so many people have in mind, where each and every legislator intervenes to present his or her point of view and listen to that of the others, adapting the final vote to what is discussed on the floor, is purely theoretical. It doesn't exist and never did exist... thank goodness. For, as I explain, neither the regular citizens nor the different organizations and interest groups representing them would ever have a say in such a "perfect" system.