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 113th 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 113th 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 114th
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.
