Congressional Ambivalence: The Political Burdens of Constitutional Authority

2: To Close or Not to Close,That Is the Question

2 To Close or Not to Close, That Is the Question BRAC, 1988–2005 I was one of those who voted in favor of setting up the Commission. . . . I believed then, as I believe now, that it was the only legitimate way to examine bases objectively. I assumed then, and I assumed up to about 3 or 4 months ago, that their work would be good, that their work would be honest and . . . based on merit. I have come to the conclusion, however, after examining the base closure report carefully, after talking to people on the Commission, after talking to my colleagues who are aggrieved here today and after talking to people inside the Department of Defense and the Army that the base Commission’s report is flawed in a number of areas, and indeed tragically flawed. —Representative Jim Courter (R-NJ), 1989 Introduction: Cycles of Ambivalence on the Role of Congress in Military Base Closures This chapter offers a new perspective on the twenty-year history of the base realignment and closure (BRAC) process.Though the rationale and mechanics of the process have been examined well by others, the complex before-and-after life of this series of delegation decisions deserves deeper attention. Using primarily public legislative history surrounding all five rounds, I argue that BRAC shows Congress’s cycle of institutional ambivalence. BRAC is a unique policy solution to a very complex problem of institutional differences on military policy. Even as each phase of the cycle plays out in its own political and policy context, this chapter connects with the following two in the underlying causes and meaning 46 CONGRESSIONAL AMBIVALENCE of wobbly institutional identity and ambition in both chambers. Two decades’ worth of base closure–related rhetoric reveals deep debates over the constitutional contours of congressional and presidential foreign and domestic power, the difficult tug between the local and the national responsibilities of members, and the uneven assumptions of political and electoral bias in both branches. The immediate cause of the initial delegation in 1988 was Congress ’s previous decade of institutional resistance to the base closures desired by the Department of Defense (DOD). This obstruction was based on policy and political decisions made by Congress as a national institution composed of locally elected members. Although the first round was pushed by a coalition in the DOD and its allies in Congress for years before it was approved, the commission model for BRAC was deemed a success, and three more rounds were authorized in 1990. The fifth and final round was authorized in 2001. However, floor fights on the details before and after each round showed the continuing conflicts within the membership over this loss of power. Each BRAC round retained a symbolic after-the-fact gesture in the form of a disapproval process that would—if used fully—require supermajorities in each chamber to override both the full commission outcome and the president ’s approval of the commission’s list. This disapproval process was never used successfully. But ambivalence came through in other, more substantive ways. At first, members tried to withhold appropriations to execute the closures, but that method was cut off after the first round. In the second through the fifth rounds, members tried to tie up the process by preventing the confirmation of commissioners, sponsoring amendments to delay or cancel the round, altering the criteria for consideration, organizing local and national lobbying efforts, and publicly criticizing the president, the secretary of defense, the heads of the armed services, and the commissions themselves for political and regional biases. In the late 1990s, however , members found the easiest method of stopping the process was to not approve it in the first place. Congress said no to an additional round after President Clinton was accused of politicizing his part of the process by tinkering with the outcome for electoral reasons. A few years later, it relented to President George W. Bush. As in previous iterations of the pattern, from 2002 to 2005 members fought back against the process , but once again it was too late to undo the delegation. To Close or Not to Close, That Is the Question 47 In these ways, the cycle of ambivalence regarding BRAC also shows how institutional policy challenges and responses bleed from one presidential and congressional era to another. There is remarkable consistency in the assumed pathologies in Congress as articulated by the executive branch and many...