The urgent 21st century upgrades Congress needs to do its job

The public has been really down on Congress for about 20 years. A Gallup poll in September found public approval of our nation’s legislature was a mere 17 percent. The ugly fight over the Speakership quite probably did not buoy Americans’ feelings. 

For sure, some of this grumpy public sentiment is driven by negative media. The old saying is that in journalism, what bleeds leads. Coverage of Capitol Hill focuses heavily on conflict. 

A survey conducted by Daniel Cox, my American Enterprise Institute colleague, found that “more than 8 in 10 (82 percent) Americans who say their preferred news topic is politics and government say the coverage was mostly negative.” The most outrageous partisans in Congress get a disproportionately high amount of coverage, and one finds more clips of political fighting on social media than of Democrats and Republicans working together like adults doing the public’s business. 

Americans likely also are dissatisfied because they do not hear about much of what Congress does. For example, Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) office provides superb constituent services. But I cannot recall the last time I saw a media story on that happy news. I have, however, seen plenty of coverage of Scott’s feud with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  

The work of oversight and legislation moves in fits and starts on Capitol Hill, but few people beyond the Hill hear of it. During the previous Congress, laws were passed to increase the supply of baby food, speed up payments to relatives of deceased Armed Services veterans, strengthen the nation’s cybersecurity defenses and more. Yet, public approval of the first branch remained abysmal. 

Those points noted, Congress is to blame for some of its low standing. The Democratic and Republican parties’ intense battle for majority control of each chamber has led to lots of toxic behavior on the Hill. The parties feel an incentive to own high-salience issues and to use them to fundraise and campaign against the other party, rather than to solve the problems through bargaining. 

This is why we do not see sober discussions on tough issues like immigration reform or reducing the nation’s sky-high deficits and debt. Lost upon these partisans is that their squabbling is making more and more voters dislike the parties and our legislature.  

Congress also has made it harder for it to please the public by failing to upgrade its own capacity. Think about it; any entity can only do as much as it is capable. A charity can only feed as many people as it can afford to acquire food. A factory produces only as many cars as its assembly lines and workers can assemble.  

The same holds true for Congress. Demands on Congress have been escalating for 40 years. The number of voters has gone up 45 percent since 1980, leaving the average member of the House of Representatives with 760,000 constituents to serve. The amount of federal spending recently hit $6.5 trillion dollars, and we expect Congress to oversee how all of those dollars are spent. Interest groups have proliferated, all of whom knock on Congress’s door and shower it with communications demanding attention.  

Meanwhile, Congress has not significantly upgraded its capacity since the early 1970s. Today, Congress has fewer staff (10,000) than it did in 1980 (11,000). Congressional committees, which are supposed to be the engines for policymaking and oversight, also have fewer staff (3,100 in 1980 and 2,300 today). 

Everyone in Congress knows the budget process is a mess, yet they continue to refuse to replace the 1974 statute that created it. Most hearings continue to be conducted in the way they were a century ago, with Team Donkey on one side of the dais and Team Elephant on the other. Witnesses sit at tables below and read statements and respond to the questions lobbed at them.  

Just about every aspect of Congress’s capacity is behind the times, from its work processes to its technology to its internal organization and staffing. Happily, the U.S. Constitution authorizes the first branch to organize itself and appropriate whatever money it needs to do its job. We voters would be wise to tell Congress to rebuild itself for the 21st century and get on with the public’s business. 

Kevin R. Kosar (@kevinrkosar) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the co-editor of “Congress Overwhelmed: Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform” (University of Chicago Press, 2020). He hosts the Understanding Congress podcast.