Most of us know from only a glance at television or a newspaper, that the leaders in Congress have almost no control over that institution. When decisions are unavoidable, the warring tribes tie up a few loose ends and call it legislation. In that mysterious way we pick things up, we realize that weakness at the top and turmoil in the middle are keys to the wildness of the place.
The record today is dismal. Congress has no discipline, weak leadership for one party, none in the other. Responsibility has been shoved aside to make room for tribal conflicts, war dances, shouting matches, the occasional scandal. Here the badge of shame becomes a medal for valor.
Congress’ principle action has been to obstruct President Biden for four years. The dust and drama of a presidential election barely hides the fact that Congress has in the past four or eight years has offered no positive programs of its own. The historic infrastructure and inflation reduction acts came from the White House.
Congress never managed to get started on energy programs or even decide on an energy policy until the Biden White House pitched in. (Trump, when president, fantasized about reviving Big Coal.) Congress has skewered debate on health insurance beyond common sense. It has defeated economic plans offered by previous White Houses, declines to fashion one of its own, and threatens to spoil the emerging debt-limit talks and an approaching deadline for funding the government.
It can’t even agree on a farm bill.
Congress has deteriorated so deeply that there is a question whether it can function at all.
Why?
‒ For one item, political parties no longer control Congress. It is impossible for either Republicans or Democrats to establish party policies. Money and power are in the hands of special interest groups and cause lobbies. This has led to swollen, almost overbearing influence by private campaign committees. You name them, they have more power than most committee chairmen.
‒ Members of Congress no longer even give lip service to the national interest. They talk and act solely out of what is good for me, for my “base,” my reelection.
‒ The new power of single-issue lobbies ‒ anti-abortion and free choice groups, the Israeli and Palestine lobbies, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and so forth ‒ has sent to Washington some woefully weak legislators, as Kansas can testify.
Our system simply isn’t working any more. The stress and fray of a presidential election has fogged over the abject failure of the legislative branch. Those seats are also on the ballot, most of them consigned to one private interest or another and often conflicting with voters’ true interests.
Perhaps the shock of congressional failures which have helped produce today’s crises will jar members into a better performance. That, or a rare election that underlines the real needs of voters.
