Congress: Don't Just Do Something, Sit there! (Part 2)
Headwinds, and a vicious cycle that makes "doing politics" more difficult
Apologies unseen readers for the delay between Parts 1 and 2—I was avoidably detained. I’ll do my best to get to Part 3 more promptly If you like what you see here, please share with your friends. If you don’t, share with your enemies! And either way feel free to reply or comment and tell me what you think (or know!) I got wrong.
Here’s a quick summary of what I covered in Part 1: In short, I argue that a conservative or libertarian who looks at Congress and says “gridlock is good” should NOT be happy, despite some surface-level signs that fewer bills pass today than in the past. Despite the talk of dysfunction (all of which is true), you aren’t getting the gridlock you were promised. Not only is big legislation still passing1, legislating is happening in a more partisan fashion while the Congress loses the ability to “do politics.”
Why this place blows: Legislative headwinds inside the walls of Congress
I think its hard to miss the polarization discourse and everything going on “out in the world” that is raising the temperature on just about everything, including our politics.
However, I want to focus for a minute on the institution of Congress, and run through the forces that are making it hard for a typical senator or representative to move a bill, especially since these trends are part of why we’re getting the “megabill and gridlock” pu-pu platter. Fittingly, since we’re talking about Congress and/or demoniacs, when it comes to causes I think its fair to say that their “name is Legion, for we are many.”
Here’s a quick run through of some of the many headwinds:
Humans, like monkeys, are social creatures: we learn from each other and build hierarchies where we want to fit in. Members of Congress are no different. As in many other institutions, institutional knowledge is waning, and it seems like members aren’t able to be “socialized” into a world where lawmaking and oversight occurs, because the senior members who know how to do so are fewer and far between. Say what you want about the late Congressman Don Young — he got things done; he knew how to get legislation of interest to his constituents passed, was consistently ranked as one of the most effective lawmakers, held a knife to John Boehner’s throat2 over losing earmarks, and came to the Senate to endorse Deb Haaland’s confirmation to Secretary of the Interior.
This problem extends beyond members of Congress to their staff— Young staff turnover constantly, leaving fewer experienced hands left.3 The “pay premium” of leaving the Hill to go elsewhere has increased with more money going into
rent-seekinglobbying than ever, while staff salaries haven’t kept pace with inflation4, escalating the “do-my-time-and-get-out” phenomenon. The effect of experienced staff is hard to measure, to be fair, but a variety of studies point to more experienced staff leading to more legislative effectiveness.5 Of course, you have to be into that sort of thing… and not the Madison Cawthorn approach of “I’m only hiring communications staffers.”
If you care about legislating, more experienced legislative staff helps… Members and staff are stretched thin—We’ve got the same number of Representatives (435) as we did in 1910, while the number of voters has tripled. (Insert obligatory “expand the House!” demands here and here6). On top of that, their staffers are not only less experienced, but there are fewer of them, at least of the kind that matter when it comes to legislation. Since 1980, the world has grown by over 3 billion people, the population of the United States has increased by over 100 million, and there are more government agencies (with their attendant complexity) than ever before. In that time, legislative staffing levels have remained flat (or worse) in member offices7, while the “subject matter experts” at the committee level have seen major reductions in staffing (along with the CBO, CRS, and GAO).
So not only is there an ever-dwindling number of legislative staffers and support staff for members who represent a greater number of Americans, there is a shrinking proportion among those remaining who can explain the process of running a bill through conference, give some examples of successful bipartisan negotiations, or explain “how things used to work” before the ever ratcheting consolidation of leadership power kicked into high gear with Newt Gingrich and the Republican Revolution of 1994.8
Leadership centralization—In an attempt to gain more control of the agenda and narrative, the Senate Majority leader and the Speaker of the House have generally consolidated power.9 Done ineptly, we get absurd maneuvers like the failed “voting rights” votes in the Senate, or as I like to call it: “The Schumerashi Maru” (also known as the the “It’s Not Like We Need Sinema and Manchin To Count to 50 Maneuver”). Done “well,” it locks the members out of offering amendments for consideration even when something does pass.10 This interacts with the staffing issue, as one of the few areas where Congress has seen staffing increases is within the leadership offices.
Finally, I am contractually obligated to mention cameras.11 I will not pretend that the floor of the House, or some Committee business meeting, was completely perfect and lovely prior to the presence of cameras.
But something strange is going on when we are constantly subjected to the bizarre spectacle of loud floor speeches to a completely empty House by geriatrics channeling Dwight Schrute.
We’ve also got the spectacle of a committee hearing featuring 10 different Senators giving 4 minute and 49 second speeches followed by a “DO YOU AGREE, YES OR NO, ANSWER THE QUESTION?” to a bewildered witness.12 From what I can tell, these performative “hits” serve primarily to feed Twitter and bolster fundraising appeals.13 These actions might be great for getting retweets, but are counterproductive if you want your colleague to help you move a legislative priority. Its kind of hard to work with Representative Knowsbedder to end cruel and unnecessary factory farming of lizards when you spent 5 minutes ranting about how he’s actually working for the party of the lizard people. It is useful for keeping Grandma’s $5 TO SAVE AMERICA going, however.
So, to recap, we’ve got (tangled in a multi-causal web) a big pile of reasons to not bother with the hard work of “doing politics”, finding compromise, and moving bills:
Fewer examples of deal making and dealmakers to emulate
Massive changes in the fundraising and media environment for members of Congress
Declines in legislative staff capacity all while the executive branch breadth and budget grows
Centralization of power in the offices of the Speaker and Majority Leader, both by process and staffing
Polarization and jackassery
Why is this a vicious cycle?
It’s important to understand that each of these issues doesn’t stand alone. Each is pulling in roughly the same direction, toward the weakening of Congress as an effective institution, so that each new offense in one dimension makes a commensurate weakening more likely on another dimension. In other words, stupid begets stupid (unless the cycle is broken). So how does this work in practice:
If you’re still reading, hopefully I’ve convinced you that we’re working with an institutional weakened legislative apparatus, avoiding tough legislative issues (unless you’ve got the Presidency, the Senate, and the House), still moving the occasional megabill (generally spending a lot of money), and pretending we have gridlock.
We’ve got a vacuum of legislative action with weak committee chairs and a lot of members who feel like the 435th wheel. The vacuum is filled by leadership, compounded by polarization, and reinforced by our current form of congressional weakness. The smoke filled rooms of yesteryear, where deals could be done, have largely been replaced by performance art for C-Span, Twitter, and fundraising audiences. So, leadership brings that Big Beautiful Bill, puts out the vote “recommendation”, and schedules the vote.
Every time a freshman nobody in the House quietly sits through another “closed rule”14 vote with no amendments while some wackadoo gets Fox News or MSNBC time by talking about the plot to steal our precious bodily fluids and raises oodles of fundraising cash, the decision to hold your head high and stay above the fray gets a little bit harder.
Every time a nomination that used to be run of the mill becomes a knock-down drag-out fight in service of the next Presidential contest,15 things get a little bit worse because it gives the opposition an excuse for their behavior next time around. At least in the past, obnoxious holds were generally used to advance some policy priority.
Every time a giant bill is put together in secret by leadership staff, not on the basis of substance but by gluing together priorities of the White House and a few select members16 with no amendments permitted17, a few more Senators and Congressmen decide to do a few more TV hits and skip a few more hearings. Hiring legislative staff starts to look like wasting money that could be spent on a new TikTok manager — and the brain drain accelerates.
Every time a “normal-adjacent” member gives up and goes home, whether due to redistricting, frustration, or because they had the gall to call January 6th what it was, things get a little bit harder because the Value Above Replacement Member for the ones who are left behind goes up a little more… When you “throw the bums out” odds are you’ve probably got some version of Cori Bush or an “at least he fights” Republican in the new seat, making the situation worse, not better.
Finally, to put a fine point on it: when Steve from marketing disagrees with you, it would be be a problem if he went around telling African Americans that you “want to put y’all back in chains” while you accused him of being pro “child rapist”. At the very least, it would make sense if you weren’t able to work on that next ad campaign together.
And, yet, here we are, waiting for Congress to get back to “working” — while these actions strengthen the vicious cycle and lower the bar for acceptable behavior next time.
That sure was depressing—Are you telling me things are hopeless?
Somewhat to my own surprise, no, I don’t things are hopeless… The equilibrium can shift and move, if only a little, towards a virtuous cycle. Some of the hope lies within Congress, and I think some will have to come from outside the institution. But that’s a story for the sequel!
Good thing I took so long to get this “part 2” done - someone else has gone ahead and written up another angle of the “this isn’t really gridlock” argument for me, so you can read that along with my part 1!
The average staff tenure is now just 3 years, even as the premium in effectiveness for longer tenure increases.
Likely to get worse over the next few years, by the way. Unfortunately, the politics of the matter makes members of Congress unlikely to hand out raises or bring on more experienced staff, even when they have the budget to do so. Among other reasons for this counter-productive phenomenon: fear of being labeled a “big spender” by the hometown press, the dynamics of “high paid” DC staff making much more than in-state staff despite cost of living differences, and pride in being frugal. Republicans have often been more susceptible to this dynamic, arguably leaving them handicapped and more prone to relying more heavily on outside groups for their legislative subsidy.
To be fair, the blade was in the handle!
If you can’t get excited for the linked panel featuring Jonah Goldberg, Ruth Rubin, Lee Drutman, Kevin Kosar, and Yuval Levin… You are normal, but this might not be the newsletter for you!
One example is here, from Vanderbilt and the University of Virginia's Center for Effective Lawmaking - even if I think the Legislative Effectiveness Score is somewhat flawed.
Depending on where you measure from, the House has seen the largest declines in both Member Office and Committee staffing levels. The Senate has actually seen increases in office staffing but those increases are generally all in the state offices & doing “constituent services”. This is compounded by the shift from legislative staff to communications and constituent services in the DC offices as well, while the Congressional Research Service, Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office reduced 45% from 1975 to 2015.
Again, I’ll refer you here: Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform for much more on the topic, but there are many other options out there. And I’m not just picking on Newt - Hastert (of Hastert Rule fame, even though Newt followed it too), Pelosi, and others have kept this going to various degrees.
To be fair, you can’t say “wrested more power” and have it be entirely accurate, because our feedback loop also encourages the average back bencher to voluntarily cede the power in order to avoid tough votes, making their own decisions, or banging their heads against the leadership wall over and over again.
To be fair, some take a contrary view re: whether or not centralization is “good” or “bad” - my point however, is that centralization increases the incentives for legislators to STOP legislating, which increases the incentives for more centralization, which then gets more people running who don’t want to legislate, which then… you get the point.
Alternatively: Cryptocurrency or Antitrust
Effectively, this means the Rules Committee has chosen to eliminate the opportunity to consider amendments, other than those reported by the committee reporting the bill.
Hawley (Slowing DoD nominees until the Secretary of Defense resigns) and Cruz come to mind at the moment, but there is also a problem in that ~1,200 roles now need a confirmation instead of 779 in 1960.
Who, lets face it, are probably up for re-election
In the “equal and opposite reaction” category, there is a need for some caution here. An open amendment process could’ve brought the bipartisan infrastructure law down in flames if House wackos add crazy things… of course, as my “hope” section says - this actually could be a good thing, in that some of the people who killed it would pay the electoral price instead of the current situation where infrastructure-voting Republicans are retiring…
Good analysis. This is one of the best syntheses I’ve seen on the subject. At least recent/current ones - which is key since the goalposts are constantly shifting and Congress is a different beast today than it was 5 years ago.