Is Congress the 'broken branch'?

Is Congress the broken branch?

Congress is often described as being the 'broken branch' of government. This suggests that Congress no longer fully accomplishes its role as the legislature, a check and balance on the powers of the executive and judiciary, they're dysfunctional to the point where there is no bipartisanship and nothing gets done. In recent years Congress has certainly generated an image of itself being 'broken' as illustrated by the 2013 government shutdown and the increasing polarisation which has led to bipartisanship going extinct. 

Congress is the broken branch because in recent years it has become increasingly polarised and the 113^th Congress has gone down in history as being the most polarised. In the two-party US system the Democrats and Republicans have moved further away from the centre ground, and this has been helped by the emergence of the Tea Party movement, which has acted as a polarising force within the Republican Party, forcing members to toe a specific policy line and refuse any compromise with Congress. Nowhere has polarisation been more evident than on Obamacare, which consequently led to a government shutdown in late 2013. On the other hand, although it is true that polarisation has been on the rise in recent years, critics argue that Obamacare did not epitomise polarisation. Instead, critics argue that stark opposition to Obamacare from the GOP came as a consequence of failure in strategy and not an inherent problem in Congress. President Obama could have compromised more or waited longer to find out people’s opinions of Obamacare, hence why Republicans have said that the reason they opposed Obamacare was because they had a mandate from their constituents to oppose any increases in taxation and secure a reduction in the government deficit. Regardless of whether or not polarisation was evident from Obamacare, it’s certainly evident within other policy areas such as immigration reform and a lack of bipartisanship in that area highlights how truly broken Congress is.

Moreover, Congress is the broken branch because of the fact that bipartisanship is no longer existent. The separation of powers relies heavily upon co-operation between the legislature and the executive but Obama’s 2015 state of the union addresses illustrated that bipartisanship is dead. In his state of the union address Obama made clear that any attempts made at attacking Obamacare, immigration reform or his own political agenda he will respond with Presidential vetoes and this process has already begun with the President issuing a veto for the Keystone Pipeline after Congress passed it. The very fact that the President is resorting to using presidential vetoes because Congress can’t agree with him emphasises the extent to which Congress is broken. Due to this, also, Congress fails to carry out its legislative role, which comes as a direct consequence of their own lack of bipartisanship. However, issues such as immigration reform and environmental policy are policy areas whereby it is inevitable that there will be disagreements given the stark ideological differences between the Republican and Democrats. In other areas, particularly foreign policy, there has been a lot of bipartisanship effort between the executive and legislature as seen by Congress granting the President further authorisation to use military force in the fight against ISIS. And between both parties, despite the ideological differences, they both agree that the US needs to take military against the Islamic State in the Middle East. Also, from a right-wing perspective in this era of partisanship Congress is not broken. One reason the separation of powers was introduced by the Founding Fathers was to make it difficult to find agreement on policy, thereby limiting the scope of national government. The right argue that the national government have been too intrusive lately and when Congress refuses to show bipartisanship they are effectively living up to the intent of the Founding Fathers by serving the purpose of limited government and preventing the national government from becoming too interfering in American citizens lives, which was one of the key principal objectives of the Founding Fathers and therefore, Congress is not broken. However, from a left wing perspective ‘limited government’ is a clear sign of Congress failing to function as states themselves have a poor record of helping its citizens or protecting minorities as seen from Arizona SB 1070.

The story of the last few years has been one of continuous gridlock and divided government to a point where 2013 has gone down in history as being one of the least productive legislative years since 1948. Due to this consistent gridlock Congress has failed to carry out its role as the legislator and the President has had to resort to taking action himself in the form of executive orders. For instance, in recent years Congress has constantly been met with gridlock in many policy areas such as immigration reform, while Democrats believe comprehensive immigration reform is the ‘common sense’ thing to do since deporting 11 million illegal immigrants is unrealistic, the GOP firmly oppose comprehensive immigration reform, seeing it as a way of rewarding (through amnesty) criminals who broke the law by coming to the US illegally. As a result, any attempts at immigration reform have been met by gridlock, such as when the DREAM Act was filibustered to death in 2010. Consequently due to Congress’s inability to function the President has resorted to signing off an executive order in November 2014 to help 5 million illegal immigrants. However, although gridlock has indeed been evident, Congress continues to initiate a considerable volume of legislation each year, any measure with a broad sustained of support will always pass as seen by the fact that Obamacare eventually passed despite heavy resistance from the GOP. Moreover, Congress despite its gridlock continues to carry out its many functions such as congressional oversight. It is the responsibility of Congress to ensure that the power of the executive branch and the various government departments are used responsibly, which is done through a variety of means such as scrutinizing presidential appointments and monitoring the work of executive departments and agencies through congressional committees. For instance, Congress recently appointed Loretta Lynch as Attorney General as well as previous appointments such as Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, which faced a lot of scrutiny from the Senate on her ‘wise Latina comment’. Also, through the Senate Intelligence Committee Congress has been seen to functioning quite well in terms of its role of scrutinizing departments, which led to the publication of the CIA torture report about the unlawful misconduct of CIA operatives on suspected terrorists. However, the most striking sign of Congress being broken is that it’s no longer the primary policy making institution. That role is now fulfilled by the President who clearly sets out the political agenda each year at the State of the Union Address and subsequently, much of Congress’ legislation is the Presidents own agenda.

Congress is the broken branch of government because it has lost one of its constitutional powers, which the Founding Fathers laid out for the legislature to use. Congress has not used its constitutional power to declare war since 1941 when declaring war on Japan. Today the President has effectively exploited his role as Commander In-Chief to overpower Congress’s role in foreign policy and has gone to plenty of wars with Congress not formerly declaring war such as the Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. Today in the area of foreign policy Congress plays a very minor supervisory role in the backseat while the President initiates and sets the foreign policy agenda as seen from the State of the Union address in which President Obama clearly outlined that American foreign policy will be aimed at eliminating the threat of ISIS in the Middle East. On the other hand, although Congress has not utilised its power in foreign affairs, it still maintains a dominant role in foreign policy. Through the War Powers Act and Case Act the president is required by law to request authorisation from Congress before taking military action abroad, and this was seen in February this year when Obama submitted a report to the Senate requesting permission to take further action in the Middle East. Congress even invited the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year in response to the on going talks about Iran’s nuclear facilities and program. Congress has also in recent years put on restrictions on the use of America’s drones programme. So, Congress still maintains a significant role in foreign policy despite not declaring war since 1941. However, even laws put in place restricting the presidents power as Commander In-Chief, the President does not always abide by such laws as illustrated by the 2011 Libya bombings whereby no congressional approval was authorized. Congress is truly broken as traditionally Congress used to be the initiator of American foreign policy and war, however, such roles have reversed and today the President initiates while Congress supervises.

Finally, Congress is broken due to the number of career politicians in Washington who merely focus on local concerns in their state or district in order to be re-elected but neglect the wider national picture. These career politicians have contributed to an image of a dysfunctional Congress. Career politicians prioritise re-election at the expense of wider issues such as bring down the government debt or working together to solve the ‘broken’ immigration system (according to the left) and this is illustrated by the use of earmarks. Jim Moran, for instance, during the 113^th Congress has used an excessive amount of earmarks totaling to $36.5 million which goes towards funding projects in his constituency, but it also adds to the burden of reducing the governments debt. While some earmarks are useful such as going towards building schools others are used on unnecessary projects such as the famous Alaska ‘bridge to nowhere’. The use of earmarks makes legislating difficult and inevitably contributes to the ineffectiveness of Congress. On the other hand, Congress is not broken given the fact that even if career politicians do exist, members of Congress can unite around a particular issue of national interests which is seen from the increasingly nationalised nature of congressional elections, for instance, the 1994 Contract With America, Six for 06 agenda and the Pledge to America. Also, House Speaker John Boehner and Obama have worked together to ban the use of earmarks, which Boehner has said will continue through to the 114^th Congress. However, though this influences their effectiveness, Congress is rarely ever setting the political agenda through nationalised elections and it’s usually the president through the state of the union who does so and the issue of career politicians is an inherent problem within Congress.