By Peter Oliver
As the election season ramps up, the Presidential race tends to crowd everything else out of the political headlines. But the Congressional elections ought to be of interest for this reason: Measured by various metrics, the current U.S. Congress is quite possibly the worst in history.
The House of Representative is, by Constitutional definition, a legislative body, but the amount of enacted legislation generated by the current Congress (the 118th) is, according to govtrack.us, the lowest output since World War II. It is about one sixth of the output of each of the previous two Congresses.
Most of the enacted laws have been innocuous, like reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration. And passing essential legislation once considered pro forma by previous Congresses, like approving appropriations to pay the government's bills, have been exercises in senseless brinksmanship. In addition, according to the Real Clear Politics poll average, more than 72% of the American public disapprove of the job the current Congress is doing. (To be fair, Congress has been getting a big thumbs down from the public for the last 20 years.)
CONGRESS IS A MESS
Simply put, Congress is a mess. The House is hamstrung by political grandstanders, mostly Republicans, more determined to use the pedestal of authority to trumpet their disdain for the opposition party than to pass laws addressing issues of concern among the American people. The Senate has been a little more legislatively active, but overuse of the filibuster rule, requiring a two-thirds supermajority to get almost any legislation passed, has been a roadblock to moving many bills forward.
Republicans aren't solely to blame for this legislative sclerosis, but they bear the lion's share of responsibility. The news-hogging Republican grandstanders -- Mat Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, et. al. -- get most of the attention in recasting the House as a political soapbox rather than a legislative body. But they alone shouldn't be saddled with the blame for the failure to enact laws. The 219 Republicans in the House usually fall in line like so many bleating sheep when the grandstanders or ex-President Donald Trump declare political imperatives that effectively stymie meaningful legislation. Some moderate Republicans voice objections in public and many do so in private, but they lack the spine and decency to stand up to the hardliners. Party and politics win over law and country.
Here's an example of how it works. In February, a group of Senators from both parties reached a bipartisan agreement on border security and immigration, packaged with aid to support the Ukrainian war effort. While the agreement might have fallen short of what radical Republicans (and radical Democrats) would have hoped for, it was a start at tackling a thorny issue that Republicans had been screaming at the Biden administration to address. Such is the nature of compromise (which is at the heart of crafting passable legislation) that neither side gets exactly what it wants.
POLITICAL WAND
Then, slinking behind the curtain as the Republican Wizard of Oz, Trump waved his political wand. Moderate Republican Congresspeople cowered, and the bill died in the Senate when it became clear it wouldn't pass in the House. Addressing the border crisis was a Republican issue -- Trump's issue -- and Trump and company weren't about to cede any credit to Democrats for stepping up to take action. Political gamesmanship assured legislative inaction, and problems at the border that the Senate bill might have helped to resolve were allowed to continue.
There is, of course, an age-old solution to this sort of Congressional folly -- vote the bums out. Yet here is the irony: while the great majority of Americans disapprove of the way the House conducts business, they seem to approve of the work of their own Congresspeople. According to govtrack.us, more than 95% of all incumbents in the House were reelected in 2022. (Most of the non-reelected incumbents weren't voted out; they retired.) It is a strangely skewed point of view: My Representative is doing a great job; it is the other 434 Congressional bums that are screwing things up.
Another solution is to vote just a few bums out to bring the House, the Senate, and the executive branch into one-party alignment. One reason the 117th Congress was so much more successful in passing legislation is that both chambers of Congress and the White House were controlled by the same party, the Democrats. But the chances of one-party control after the November election, whether in favor of Democrats or Republicans, are iffy at best; current polls indicate that races for control of the House, the Senate, and the White House are all too tight to predict with any certainty.
Passing legislation is fundamentally a matter of horse-trading. Put another way, you've got to give a little to get anything, and neither Republicans nor Democrats seem willing to move far from ideological boilerplate. Congress has always had blowhards like MTG or Gaetz -- anybody remember a guy named Joe McCarthy? But in the past, sensibility and moderation have eventually subdued bluster. Now the clown car is being allowed to lead the parade, and moderate, sensible Republicans are meekly letting it happen. But voting even a few of them out appears unlikely. The result: the most ineffective Congress in history.
Oliver lives in Warren.
