A Wake-Up Call for a Moribund Congress

You’re reading The Briefing, Michael Waldman’s weekly newsletter. Click here to receive it in your inbox.

In recent days, it seemed that Congress had a pulse. Alas, it was not to be. Lawmakers complained about President Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for insurrectionists, then voted against stopping it. The House passed a bipartisan measure against the war in Iran, but it turned out to be a largely symbolic act. Lawmakers are making noise about blocking partisan attacker Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence or Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche as attorney general. But will they act? Count me skeptical.

Congress’s abdication over many years is a big reason why American government doesn’t work. It rarely stands up to the executive, serving instead as a cheering or booing section for whoever occupies the Oval Office. A supine Congress creates the opportunity for executive abuse and Supreme Court overreach. It has been polarized by partisanship for decades, but now the two parties barely speak. Committees, once a source of expertise and a platform for ambition, have been supplanted by lobbyist whispers to legislative leaders. And gerrymandering and deregulated campaign finance mean lawmakers spend their time fundraising, terrified of a primary challenger or a dark money dump, rather than catering to the vast majority of voters and their needs. 

What’s next? That will soon be the big question animating American politics. The public is angry and ready, it seems, for big steps. Citizens are dejected by government’s inability to solve problems. They seem ready to throw the bums out once again. In any case, it has been more than a decade since Trump first ran for office. His reordering of the Republican Party, and then of politics, once was new and rude. Now it seems like a rehash.

If the political system cannot act after voters speak, we will be sentenced to a recurring cycle of anger and disappointment. 

The Brennan Center has launched a series called Solutions for a Stronger Democracy, a string of innovative policy agendas that aim to help shape a new era of reform. We’ve published ideas for how to curb corruption and how to reform the Supreme Court.

Today, we published Eight Solutions to Unstick Congress. It’s made up of new ideas — new to us, at least — for how we can get Congress to do its job. To function better. To stand on its own feet.

Authors Maya Kornberg and Emily Whitehead write, “It may be hard to believe, but the framers expected Congress to be the preeminent branch of government. As James Madison wrote, ‘In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.’ Known as the people’s branch, Congress was established to most reliably represent the will of the public.” Yet right now, public approval of Congress hovers at 10 percent, among the lowest ratings ever recorded.

Some necessary changes would involve Congress stepping up — holding presidents accountable and supervising the courts — all as the Constitution envisions. In the 1990s, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) eliminated the Office of Technology Assessment and slashed resources, undermining Congress’s ability to perform effective oversight and use its power. Lawmakers should restore that expertise and expand staff. The last time Congress reorganized its committees was the 1970s. Now it should create a technology committee to focus on artificial intelligence and other transformative changes.

Other moves would shake things up even more. 

Congress increasingly resembles a gerontocracy. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers on average are a decade older than legislators around the world. We all cringe at lawmakers being tucked away in assisted living facilities when they are supposed to be on the job or appearing befuddled, as Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) did in her last years in office. This year, more than a dozen lawmakers over the age of 80 are running for reelection.

So there should be an age limit for representatives and senators. Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor who was also a member of Congress himself, has proposed a mandatory retirement age of 75. It could be higher, too. 

And Congress should be expanded. The size of the House has been frozen at 435 members since that number was set by law in the 1920s. It used to be that the Congress grew as the country grew. Not lately.

George Washington only spoke on the record twice during the Constitutional Convention. One of the times, on the last day, was to cut the size of congressional districts from 40,000 to 30,000 people. Today, each member of the House represents, on average, about 760,000 constituents. Lawmakers can’t truly reflect the diversity or interests of such a large number of constituents. We propose expanding the House to 600 members.

This is an idea propounded by the conservative American Enterprise Institute and others across the political spectrum. Many agree it would help address polarization and dampen the worst consequences of gerrymandering.

In the 1970s, after Watergate and the Vietnam War, Congress reasserted itself. It enacted a generation’s worth of reforms. It transformed its own operations to give rank-and-file lawmakers more say over policy. Now, a half century later, those reforms have been eroded or smashed to bits.

We are living through a time of corruption and abuse of power that far surpasses what we saw then. Our reform moment must be as big as the problems we face.