The immigration debate reminds me a bit of the debate on Social Security reform that Congress had a while ago. The deadlock from then and the deadlock I expect to see soon are not coincidental. Our system has what might be called a very strong status quo bias, one that makes it very hard to pass sweeping legislation.

On the issue of immigration, political activists on both the left and the right agree that we need to do something. The status quo is unacceptable, they all say. Without putting myself out there either for or against this bill, I would disagree on this point. The status quo is or is not acceptable ­- it all depends upon what it is matched against. If, for instance, we match the status quo against deportation of illegal immigrants, most of us would prefer the status quo. If we match it against amnesty, most of us would again prefer the status quo. So, what matters is what option stands as an alternative to the status quo.

We in the public usually do not think of policy in this way. We usually select our preferred option from a wide range of alternatives. However, legislators in Congress do not enjoy this luxury. Their votes are always choices between the status quo and a specific alternative. Members of Congress do not naturally prefer the status quo on the important issues of the day (at least any more than their constituents do), but thanks to the way the Congress works, that is what they end up supporting. Put all of them together to vote for or against any given alternative, require that a majority support a given alternative to make it law, and often you can wind up with a perverse result: everybody dislikes the status quo, but they cannot agree on any single alternative to it, so the status quo wins.

This is all part and parcel of our system's status quo bias. Let's take a closer look.

Suppose that you have the President in favor of a given bill, as is the case here. Your threshold in the House is indeed a bare majority, and in the Senate you need a 3/5ths majority to invoke cloture. What does this mean? In this case, it means that 218 Representatives and sixty Senators must prefer the bill to the status quo for it to become law. It does not matter how each member feels about the status quo in itself. It does not matter how "urgent" reform is. All that matters is how each member feels about the status quo in relation to the particular bill under consideration.

This will, I think, probably kill this bill.

The best way to think about this is via the following simplification. Let us suppose that every legislator's preference on every type of issue can be represented by a 0-100 scale called an "issue dimension." Each member gets a "score" on the dimension that represents his or her "ideal point," or what he or she would prefer policy to be. A score of 0 is liberal, a score of 100 is conservative. Every proposed piece of legislation also gets a score that represents where the bill would move the state of the world. Finally, the status quo gets a score that represents what the state of the world currently is.

So for instance, on a bill dealing with the issue dimension of taxation, we might say that Bernie Sanders gets a score of one, Jim DeMint gets a ninety-nine, the proposed legislation gets a forty-five, and the status quo gets a fifty. We would expect Jim DeMint to vote against the bill, as it moves the state of the world away from his ideal, and Bernie Sanders to vote in favor, as it moves the state of the world toward his ideal. If the President supports the bill, it becomes law if and only if it moves the state of the world closer to sixty senators' and 218 House members' ideal points.

In general terms, for a bill to become a law, you need to have these scores arranged in a certain way. What you need is for the status quo to be distant from the ideal points of a large bloc of the members in Congress. In other words, you need a large bloc of members to dislike the way the world is right now. You also need the members of this bloc to have ideal points that are close to one another. In other words, you need them essentially to agree with one another on what should be done about this unacceptable state of affairs. This is why bills dealing with divisive issues so often do not become law (and, relatedly, if they do become law, they are milquetoast bills that do nothing). Divisive issues divide people - and so, alternatives to the status quo often make half of the legislature worse off.

This problem confronts the Congress on immigration. But there is an additional problem. Namely, there are, as best I can judge, four divisive issue dimensions. I count economic prosperity, border security, cultural integration, and social justice. That means that legislators have four 0-100 ideal point scores that are relevant here. Ditto for the status quo; there are four status quo points. Ditto for the bill; it offers four alternatives to the status quo. That gives four different dimensions on which majorities must be found.

This will complicate the bill's passage greatly. Supporters of the bill argue that it is a good thing that both sides are angered by the bill. This may or may not be true from a policy perspective. But this is bad politics. It is a major problem for the bill that it angers the right on issue dimensions that the right values highly, and that it angers the left on issue dimensions that the left values highly.

Let's take a simple hypothetical as an example. Let's suppose that liberals like Nancy Pelosi and John Dingell are voting strictly based upon the social justice dimension, on which they both have scores of fifteen. They are concerned that some of the proposals will depress the wages of low-income workers, thus moving the state of the world on this issue dimension from the status quo of fifty to the bill's alternative of sixty. Meanwhile, let us suppose that John Boehner and Tom Tancredo are voting strictly based upon the social integration dimension. They both have scores of eighty-five. They are concerned that America cannot integrate so many immigrants as quickly as this bill would require. In other words, they see this bill moving the state of the world on this issue dimension from the status quo of forty to the bill's alternative of thirty.

What happens? Pelosi, Dingell, Boehner, and Tancredo are made worse off by the bill, though for different reasons. They thus form a left-right alliance against it.

It seems to me that a coalition of this kind is a real possibility. The left opposes measures like the guest worker program, and the right opposes measures like the "Z Visa." Both sides are animated to oppose the bill based upon different issue dimensions. However, while they might disagree as to why this bill is so objectionable, they nevertheless agree that this bill is objectionable. And, while their ideal points are drastically different, both sides agree that this bill moves the state of the world from their ideal points.

A recent event in the Senate is indicative of the potential for this left-right alliance against the bill. Recently, Senator Byron Dorgan offered an amendment that proposed eliminating altogether the guest worker program. It was struck down by a vote of 31-64. Senator David Vitter offered an amendment that proposed removing the bill's provision to grant legal status to currently illegal immigrants. It was struck down 29-66. Both amendments lost, but - between the two amendments - there were fifty different senators who voted "Yea." These two amendments dealt with different issue dimensions. However, if forty-one of these fifty senators view the bill's proposal on one of these dimensions as absolutely unacceptable, expect a successful filibuster from a left-right bloc.

On the other hand, it is important to note the bill has some real political strengths to it - at least in the Senate.

Above all, it has the support of Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy. Both of them are world-class "whips." They might be able to induce senators to vote for the bill - perhaps by convincing them that the bill is not that far from their preferences, by promising them concessions on other matters of importance, or by convincing them that their preferences should be change. It might be that Senators Lott and Kennedy can induce enough of their colleagues to vote in favor of the bill.

It might also be that neither the legalization or guest worker provisions that those fifty senators opposed is a deal breaker for forty-one of them. After all, the bill deals with multiple issue dimensions. Maybe it is the case that enough senators feel that while they will lose a little on one issue dimension, they gain more than enough on another. In other words, maybe they object, but not too intensely. Importantly, neither of those aforementioned roll call votes tells us anything about the intensity of feeling behind the votes. Maybe these fifty opposing senators can support the bill, even though they lost on these amendments. While Democrats might view the guest worker program as suboptimal, and Republicans might view the "Z Visa" as suboptimal - overall, when all issue dimensions are considered, maybe both sides feel that the bill is better than the status quo. This is why it is worth mentioning that a subsequent Senate amendment offered by Senator Jeff Bingaman that proposed reducing the number of guest workers by half was passed 74-24. This might go a long way to winning over the bill's potential left wing opponents by ameliorating their concerns.

So, the bill definitely has some strengths in the Senate. Preferences seem to be much more moderate there, high-profile senators have signed on, and at least one moderating amendment has been passed. Indeed, last Thursday Senator DeMint told Fox News that he expected the bill to pass the Senate. The big challenge for the bill this week will be whether it can survive "killer" amendments. All senators are allowed to propose amendments to bills on the floor of the Senate. As members attempt to move the bill closer to their ideal points, will they alienate enough of their colleagues so that the bill is ultimately filibustered? We shall see. It is possible for an amendment to pass that would ultimately guarantee the bill's defeat. So, look for the bills opponents to try to kill it by proposing and voting for killer amendments.

Meanwhile, the bill's Senate strengths seem to be entirely absent in the House. Not only is the leadership on both sides in the House not supportive of the bill, the preferences in the House seem to be aligned in a way, and sufficiently intense, that we can expect a left-right coalition that kills it. This is why Rahm Emanuel - chairman of the Democratic Caucus - has indicated that the President needs to provide 60 or 70 Republican votes in the House. Only about 150 Democrats in the House could support the Senate bill - not just because of the provisions for guest workers, but also the change in policy on how visas are awarded. Meanwhile, Republicans have responded that this amount of Republican support is unlikely to be found.

Thus, we can expect the following: the House (a) agrees that the status quo is unacceptable, (b) disagrees about what alternative to the status quo is preferred, (c) agrees that the Senate's alternative is unacceptable. While nobody likes the status quo, it wins.

Why is this the case for the House and not the Senate? That is a good question, one that I will endeavor to answer later in the week.

Broadly speaking, I am skeptical that any type of immigration reform bill could pass through the Congress. My intuition is that all bills of substance will alienate at least forty-one Senators or 218 Representatives. I think the problem is that enough House members are so strongly animated by the dimensions that I have called social justice and social integration that any bill that passes the House will have to be very "protectionist" - too protectionist to pass the Senate. In other words, preferences on this issue might be aligned in such a way that, given the majorities our system requires, there is no bill worth mentioning that could gain the support of a sufficient number of legislators in both chambers.

Mind you, this is the case for many issues. Our system has a very strong status quo bias. When our system once again "fails" us on this, people will want to know whom they should blame. I say, "blame" the Founders. They envisioned the diverse, large Republic that we have, and they designed our system specifically to manage those diversities. Their solution was that most of the time the status quo wins.