David Frum has a long piece today blaming procedural reforms of the 1970s for gridlock.  Bruce Bartlett and Matt Yglesias both point out that Frum's focus on the rules overlooks the importance of the demise of Southern Democrats, and they are correct as far as that goes.

However, there's something else wrong with Frum's analysis, which is that his timeframe of big important bills and Congressional reform is wrong, which in turn undermines his case pretty thoroughly.  Frum posits a stable set of rules in the 1950s through the mid-1970s, and then another set of rules after "Congress underwent a revolution" in the mid 1970s.  And, he believes, that was the turning point: "It’s hard to dispute: Congress just got a lot more done in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s than in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s."

But in fact, positing Congress with stable rules before and after a mid-1970s revolution doesn't get it right, and Frum's list of bills doesn't quite work, either.  ]]>