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What to Do About Congress
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15840 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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1 / 1989 |
3,209 Words |
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Roger H. Davidson
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Belittling Congress is a venerable American pastime. Lord Bryce observed in the nineteenth century that "Americans are especially fond of running down their Congressmen." Will Rogers quipped that he consulted the Congressional Record whenever he needed new material. Nor was Rogers the only humorist to seek laughs at the expense of the national legislature: From Mark Twain and H.T. Mencken to Mark Russell and Johnny Carson, pundits and comedians have found Congress an inexhaustible source of raw material.
Serious commentators' views of Congress are apt to be just as disdainful. Journalists and scholars tend to see Congress as an irresponsible and somewhat sleazy body of people, not far removed from Woodrow Wilson's description of the House of Representatives as "a disintegrated mass of jarring elements."
Wilson can probably be blamed for starting the tradition of academic disparagement of American legislative bodies. One of the earliest political science professors--long before he went to the White House--Wilson openly admired the British parliamentary system for what he saw as its coherence and party discipline--qualities he found in short supply in Washington during the 1870s.
By the time I made my way through college political science courses a generation ago, the negative view of the "textbook congress" was well entrenched. The typical text boasted two chapters on the presidency, filled with awed descriptions of the president as "the great engine of democracy" or "a kind of magnificent lion who can roam widely and do great deeds." The single chapter devoted to Congress zeroed in on "congressional reform," reciting the litany of congressional horrors: inefficient procedures, the debilitating seniority system, and Senate filibusters. In those days, of course, left-learning scholars idealized presidential leadership and deplored the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and Republicans who tended to have their way on Capitol Hill.
Today's critics are more apt to wear Adam Smith ties and deplore Congress' interference with initiatives floated by conservative presidents. Among scholars, the favorite indictment is that reelection-bent legislators cultivate government programs as a way of satisfying constituents' desires and thus assuring incumbents of longevity in office.
Legislators themselves contribute to Congress' shabby image by portraying themselves as sanctuaries of sanity in the "funny farm on the Potomac." As Richard F. Fenno, Jr., puts it, members "run for Congress by running against Congress."
Members of Congress are neither far ahead of, nor far behind, the people who elect them. As one former member observed, Congress is "a mirror in which the American people can see themselves." By this measure there are grounds for optimism about the quality of senators and representatives.
When I began haunting the halls of Congress in the early 1960s, there were many time-servers and hangers-on. Mediocre party hacks still made up a large portion of big-city delegations; single-interest members and overt racists were not unknown in rural districts. A significant segment of members paid no attention at all to legislative matters; not a few were drunk every day--if not on the floor, then in anterooms or
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