Penn Washington, Fixing Congress The Other Threat to Democracy

According to recent polls, more than three quarters of Americans believe democracy is on the line in this year’s presidential race. Voters fear the other party will try to steal the election and, once in power, will run roughshod over democratic norms.  

There is, however, another serious threat to American democracy: a dysfunctional Congress that has lost the instinct and capacity to resolve major issues facing the country.

During this year’s campaign, hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on largely issue-free House and Senate campaigns that are almost certain to produce razor thin majorities in both chambers with no policy mandate to govern. As a result, unless Members and party leaders figure out how to engage in serious bipartisan deliberation and compromise, we are facing the prospect of two more years in which nothing significant is done about immigration, climate, reproductive rights, the cost of housing and health care and the runaway federal deficit.  

This current session of Congress has arguably been the least productive in recent memory. A session in which the Republican-controlled House spent most of its time and energy electing, deposing and replacing a Speaker, pursuing baseless, vengeful impeachment investigations and nearly undermining the war in Ukraine.  A session in which a Democratic-controlled Senate couldn’t manage to find the time or political will to consider bipartisan proposals to secure the border, protect data privacy, reign in drug prices, regulate AI or shore up a Social Security system that will run short of funds by 2035. 

This was yet another Congress that failed to perform its most basic function of enacting a fiscally responsible budget and setting spending priorities.  Yet another session in which what passed for full-time work was showing up at the Capitol three days a week, two weeks a month, ten months a year. Yet another session that in which many of the dwindling number of serious legislators got so frustrated they decided to throw in the towel and leave.  

So why is nobody talking about this threat to democracy?

In fact, some people are. In recent months, 15 former Members of the House and Senate from both parties hammered out a blueprint for fixing “the broken branch.” The group was originally convened by the University of Pennsylvania and former Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.)  and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and former Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) (I’ve also been involved). The agenda aims to increase the time Members spend with each other, restore power and initiative to Members and committees, strengthen majority rule and create opportunities for the kind of bipartisan collaboration and compromise that Americans say they want.

The ideas are hardly revolutionary [link]: Be in Washington five days a week, three weeks a month, nine months a year—with an allowance for moving the family to Washington. Streamline the budget and appropriation process, with no recess allowed after Oct. 1 until a full-year budget is approved. Reduce the size of committees while allowing committee members—not party leaders—to elect chairs and ranking members.  Guarantee debate and votes on bills that pass committee with bipartisan majorities or that have support of a majority of the chamber. Guarantee debate and votes on germane amendments with significant bipartisan support. In the Senate, require Senators to actually show up and debate if they want to filibuster a bill. In the House, require signatures of at least 50 House members from the majority party to trigger a vote to remove the Speaker. 

These ideas have been kicking around for decades and have been well vetted by outside experts. While they favor neither party, they pose a modest challenge to the power of party leaders and caucuses and the factions and special interests that hold undue influence over them. More significantly, they challenge the conventional wisdom that to survive politically, Members must put party and party unity over country, constituents and their own job satisfaction. The gridlock and dysfunction that now threatens our democracy, our economy and America’s status in the world flows directly from that cynical and misguided view. 

The first and most urgent question we should be asking all candidates for Congress this year is, “What will youdo to fix it.” 

Steven Pearlstein was a Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for the Washington Post.  He is now the Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University and a senior fellow at Penn Washington’s Fixing Congress Initiative.