August 12, 2025

Has Congressional Failure Reached a Tipping Point?

Author: Steven Pearlstein

Program: Fixing Congress

Office: Penn Washington

Has Congress now fallen so far into dysfunction that its Members are ready to do something about it?

That is the question posed by three excellent columns that have appeared in recent weeks following passage, on a party line vote, of Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that many Republicans acknowledged was the deeply flawed product of a broken process.

“It’s bad—really bad,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one such Republican, told the New York Time’s Carl Hulse, on the eve of the bill’s passage. “There’s a level of frustration.  How do we get back to doing our jobs?

Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was heard to complain, “I just want a normal Congress.

With Republicans disregarding bipartisan norms at every turn, Hulse warned that a government shutdown looks increasingly likely when funding expires at the end of September.

The following week, Hulse’s Times colleague, Michelle Cottle, penned an insightful, well-reported column, captured the frustration of senators of both parties with what one dubbed the “maximalist partisanship” that now runs rampant on Capitol Hill.

Cottle highlighted Gresham’s law, which has now taken hold, in which the good members are driven out by the “extremists, opportunists, and self-dealers.”

“I believe there will be a tipping point,” said Sen. Tina Smith, D-Wisc., who, after only eight years, is part of a growing number of senators who have decided not to seek reelection or run for governor. “I think we’re actually pretty close to it.”

Writing in the Liberal Patriot, George Washington University professor Casey Burgat recently highlighted the vicious cycle in which Members who have given over their power and discretion to party leaders now spend less and less time researching issues, building coalitions and proposing legislation and amendments knowing “the leadership won’t let it see the light of day.”

“Most lawmakers simply don’t know what it means to legislate anymore because they’ve never [have] had to,” writes Burgat.  “Committees are weaker, floor debates are shorter, legislative muscle has atrophied. As a result, Members spend their days attacking the other party on social media.

The essential insight that runs through all three of these pieces is that dysfunction has not been foisted on Members of Congress by a polarized electorate or a bullying president.  To a significant degree, this is a dysfunction of their own making that is within their power to fix, if only they could find the courage and seriousness of purpose.

Steven Pearlstein is a Senior Fellow at Penn Washington. He is also the Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University and a former Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post. The views expressed here are his own.