Worse Than It Looks

With his own particular style, the biting columnist of The Washington Post, Dana Milbank, dispenses his venom today on the “Do-Almost-Nothing Congress.” This so-called Do-Almost-Nothing Congress is in recess – once again—this week so that congressional members can make “contact with their electorate,” or, in other words, to allow them to begin collecting funds for the upcoming electoral campaign.

Milbank points out that the legislators of the House of Representatives have devoted just 41 of the first 127 days of this year to holding sessions in Washington. Since the beginning of this legislative session in January of 2011, members of Congress have approved 106 public laws. To serve as a comparison, Millbank recalls that the Congress with the worst record for passing new laws was that of 1947-1948, which “only” passed 908 public laws.

The problem that Milbank touches upon ever so slightly in his daily column is examined in detail by Thomas E. Mann and Norman Ornstein, two the of most reputable experts on the constitutional system and the functioning of the legislative branch in the United States. They do so in their latest book “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism.”

The two academics, one more liberal and the other more conservative, argue that the recent ideological polarization of the two main political parties is a main cause of and reason for the current legislative impasse and the dysfunction in Congress. In addition, it explains why just 9 percent of Americans approve of the performance of their political representatives, the lowest approval rating ever. (Is it possible it could go even lower?)

In their opinion, the Republican Party holds the principal responsibility for the immobilization that has taken hold of Congress. The Republicans are guilty in that – far more than their adversaries – they have chosen to base their political action upon the absolute rejection of compromise – even refusing to accept or recognize the validity of facts, proofs and evidence in an often ridiculous display of rigidity.

Another summary of Mann and Ornstein’s work can be found here:

Although the two academics describe the issue with broad strokes, their book is a good read for anyone interested in the intricacies of American politics.

Rita Siza