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11: Congress

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    204121
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    Congress is broken — at least that’s what everyone seems to be saying these days. For decades the legislative branch of the American government has been less popular than either the president or the Supreme Court, even while members continue to be reelected at high rates (as illustrated in Figure 11.1 below). Citizens decry Congress as being filled with out-of-touch politicians who bicker endlessly instead of working together to pass the commonsense laws we need. Presidents and presidential candidates accuse Congress of playing politics and obstructing important legislation, sometimes threatening to use executive orders to go around it if it refuses to play ball. Even the members join in on the dogpile, often claiming that Washington is dysfunctional and that only they — and certainly not their electoral opponents — can fix it.

    Photograph of the statue of George Washington beneath the dome of the U.S. Capitol
    Beneath the dome of the U.S. Capitol, a marble statue of George Washington guards the corridor to the House of Representatives.

    It is easy to look at Congress today and wonder why anyone ever thought it could properly function. Thomas Jefferson himself expressed some skepticism, admitting, “That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.” Yet the Founders who designed the legislative branch clearly expected it to “naturally predominate” (in the words of Federalist No. 51), influencing policy more than either the presidency or the judiciary would. Moreover, they clearly intended for it to play such a role, regarding it as a safer repository of power than either of the other two branches.

    Line chart showing congressional approval rating and reelection rates for the House of Representatives and Senate from 1974 to 2022, according to Gallup and Open Secrets
    Figure 11.1: Congressional approval rating and reelection rates, 1974–2022 (Sources: Gallup, Open Secrets)

    Many current traits and features of Congress were not anticipated by the Founders who originally formulated it, and would probably be regarded by them as negative developments. At the same time, much of what Americans dislike about Congress is also what the Founders expected and hoped would happen. Squaring Congress’s original purpose with its modern reputation requires an awareness of both how this institution was designed in 1787 and how it operates more than two centuries later.


    This page titled 11: Congress is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Benjamin R. Kantack (Tekakwitha Press) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.

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