Is Congress a Broken branch - Case Study Example

Is Congress a "Broken branch"?

Introduction

The US Congress is a legislative body that was established through the constitution in 1789. It is structurally separate from the judicial and executive branches of the government. Congress has two branches, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The main role of Congress is policymaking (Connelly et al., 11). For quite some time, Congress has been accused of being the "broken" branch of the government. This piece of work will present a discussion about Congress being the "broken" branch.

Historical background

The breaking of the US Congress started a long time ago. By the time Bush (II) got into power, the Congress was already divided. The majority had grouped themselves on a partisan basis, and no one cared about representing the people who elected him/her. The majority were pushing ideas of the parties they support. Getting into power, George Bush (II) ignored the loss in the popular vote and the slim victory he had obtained through the electoral college (Mann & Norman, 41). By using force, he forced his conservative agenda via a congress that was divided. The republicans narrowly had the control of the Congress, and hence Bush (II) took advantage of this to push his agendas. His proposals on tax cuts only required a unity among the republicans to fend off any input from the democrats. It became very hard for the Democrats to push an agenda because it was difficult to attain the required majority. Some of the democratic senators, especially in the states where the president had control, felt the pressure and decided to join the Republicans in pushing proposals made by George Bush (II) (Connelly et al., 15). In these tax cut proposals, the majority of the input was from the president. The work of the Congress was only to push the ideas without making any input in the process. The education reform agenda is another area where the dominance of the president was seen. After the terrorist attacks on 11th September 2011, the president as well dominated in discussions on the national defense agenda. He even went ahead and instructed the defense department to carry out attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. It was during this time that the weakness of the Congress became visible to the people (Connelly et al., 25).

In the 2002 elections, the president made sure that he has increased his stakes by vigorously campaigning for Republican candidates (Mann & Norman, 48). The result of this was the Republicans getting majority of the seats in the House and also in the senate. It was a win for the president because it gave him an easy way of controlling the senate. After the elections, almost all the president's judicial appointments and the Homeland Security bill were approved quickly. Congress became a competition between the two parties, where the republican with the majority had its agendas approved easily. The tactics used by the president and his deputy pushed Congress to a point where they assumed the subordinate role in governance (Mann & Norman, 51). The president also made it clear that he expected the republican leaders to deliver and help him push the national agenda. The Republican leaders in both houses energetically pushed the president's agenda to a point where the Congress's institutional roles were sacrificed.

The elimination of the deliberative processes in the legislature resulted in a flawed bankruptcy law reform in 2005. The rigidity of the procedural requirements defined by the law was exposed by hurricanes Rita and Katrina that left thousands of people without the proper documentation required. Since then, Congress has grown weak and is controlled on a partisan basis (Mann & Norman, 51).

Discussion

The weakness of the Congress has been exposed on a number of occasions. The crash that occurred in 2008 gave Congress a key role in policymaking (Connelly et al., 19). The policy question was on how to improve the financial sector in order to prevent similar catastrophes from happening in the future. The majority of the answers that made their way into the bill were provided by Obama's administration and not the Congress. This incident exposed the Congress as a body that could not execute the roles given to them. The bill written by the administration was quickly approved by frank and then made the framework needed for reforms. Even though some adjustments were made through the two houses, the change was very minimal. Frank also had some input in the debate. An example is the unification of all bank regulators into one agency. However, no senator supported it, and he was forced to support the approach taken by the administration. The reason behind the poor debating on this issue is because the majority of the senators did not have a good understanding of the regulatory reform and had not mastered the majority of the elements needed in the reform (Sinclair, 703). As a result, they chose not to make any input in the process. Discussion on the topic was the backbone of the United States' economy, and hence it was a failure by the senate to not input in the process of making the economy better for Americans.

Support for such a bill was a challenge to Frank because the House was divided on a partisan basis, and the only way to have such a bill approved was by getting support from both sides. The democrats had very little support for the bill. With polls showing that the public was in support, Frank warned democrats that failure to have their input in the bill would be going against the electorates. He also warned that their approach would set people against the banks (Sinclair, 703). The democrats had no option but to bow to pressure and be part of the process. Even though politics mattered for everyone, bills such as this one were very key to the future of the US economy and the reason as to why Frank was calling for a sober discussion without party influence. During the debate, party politics took part in it, and it took Frank's intervention to shut down members interested in party politics. Looking at legislation reforms such as this one, it is evident that debates in Congress are based on party issues and not service to the electorates (Connelly et al., 17).

Another weakness with Congress is seen through the fact that the staff does the majority of the work. Staff members do about 95% input to draft bills and negotiate up to the final form. This shows a shift in responsibility because such kind of work is supposed to be done by Congress. After Frank and Dodd, the two influential people in the 2009 legislation, the other people were unknown by the chairs of the various committees involved in the process. Dodd and Frank,, together with their staff members, were responsible for taking the bill through the majority of the required processes. Some of the processes that were done by the staff members include the writing of the provisions, vetting with various interested groups, looking for omissions or glitches, and hearing out complaints and recommendations from experts. Very few lawmakers had significant input in the process (Connelly et al., 15). The majority of them either voted in support or against along partisan lines without reading through the provisions to understand. Since staffers are not allowed to vote, it is evident that voting on important matters is done by people who have zero or very little understanding of the issues. There are, however, some circumstances where this feature helps rather than hindering the process of the Congress. This is because there is a likelihood of weaknesses in legislation if party members are allowed to be in control of everything. The majority of them will make proposals based on the interests of the party they support. Unlike the case of staff members where a problem can be corrected by Congress when debating, a problem from the Congress cannot be corrected because it is final (Mann & Norman, 55).

Currently, Congress neither deliberates nor legislates as it used to do in the past. Members of Bush (II) congress spent very little time in Washington (Mann & Norman, 63). The process of crafting legislation was left to industry staff, and committee staff and leadership. Their only work was to vote after the bill has gone through all other processes prior to voting. The legislation was quickly taken through the various committees and subcommittees without debate or input from Congress members. Past democratic congresses started this trend, and the republican made it worse. Lack of interest in debate and negotiations have been a characteristic of recent congresses. During such legislations, the interests of the majority is on the success their party will have garnered at the end of the process. It is very hard to find a procedural reform that is fair. Reforms in the US congress is all about taking advantage of one side’s influence to advance its agenda (Sinclair, 703).

The regular order is a set of procedural of norms, rules, and precedents. It is used to ensure that there is an order in the process of making policies. It also used to ensure that the Congress had complied with provisions of the constitution as they make policies (Mann & Norman, 72). There have been a number of incidents where the minority has tried to break these rules in order to block the rule of the majority. On the other hand, the majority have been taking advantage of their influence to dispense agendas advanced by members of the minority. During the time when the control of the democratic party was diminishing in the Congress, the members were tempted to break the regular order in order to move their agendas through the Congress. This trend started with the slim democratic majorities of the 1980s and continued with the majority Republicans in the 1990s. Since the party in control was a slim majority on both occasions, the only way to push agendas was by abusing the regular order. These tactics have been marginalizing the minority, and the outcome is the marginalization of some of the communities represented by the minority. By using such tactics, the Congress has not been complying with the 14th amendment, which demands equal treatment to all people (Sinclair, 703).

Analysis

For quite some time, the Congress has not been performing according to the expectations. One of the key roles of the Congress is policymaking. The Congress is required to have the capability of designing policies that will be able to address the needs of the electorates. Taking into consideration that people are affected by issues differently, it is the role of the Congress to ensure that the policy designed is able to cater for the needs of all people equally. Since the 1980s, the Congress has been failed to perform its duties as expected. The main reason behind the poor performance by the Congress is party politics. After the various members have been elected, they end up ditching their roles in support of the agenda advanced by their parties. For quite some time, the party with the majority has been taking control of Congress in policymaking and also in other functions of the Congress. In doing so, the key idea is to frustrate any efforts made by the minority. The problem has been worse in a situation where the president is from the majority party. Such governments have a characteristic of pushing the Congress to assume the subordinate role. With such a congress in place, it becomes easy for the president to pass his agenda through the Congress. Due to this, reforms need to be made in order to ensure the Congress serves people as required.

Conclusion

As discussed above, it is evident that the Congress is the "broken" branch of the government. This is seen through the fact that legislation is done based on party interests and not individual opinions. This problem has resulted into the passing of policies that are of no benefit to the electorates. Due to this, reforms in the Congress are needed to address the problem.