Early July marks the halfway point of the first session of the 109th Congress, a good time to take stock, gauge lawmaking performance and consider future prospects. While legislative actions can be sliced and diced a number of ways, this year’s media coverage and public perceptions of Congress seem more out of sync than normal.
Call it the Rodney Dangerfield Congress — an institution that deserves a little more respect.
Polarized political parties competing in a 24-hour news cycle, echoed by the megaphones of well-organized interests and punctuated by a cynical press corps, paint a dark caricature of Congress these days. Everyone knows why the mainstream media focus on conflict — political pugilism sells. For example, the media predicts and yearns for a War of the Worlds fight narrative even before President Bush announced a Supreme Court nominee. While news reports focus on partisan bickering,ethical lapses, sleazy lobbyists andfightsabout judges, good news is seldom reported. This in turn breeds cynicism, distrust and negative evaluations of Washington institutions among voters. Yet while not perfect by any means, lawmakers this year are making significant progress with unusual levels of bipartisan cooperation — a story that rarely makes the evening news or the front page of many newspapers.
Consider the appropriations process in the House. Several weeks ago this column reported lawmakers were on track to finish all 11 annual spending bills in the House by the July 4th recess — an accomplishment that hasn’t happened in nearly 20 years. Last week the House did just that, completing the spending bills in record time, while eliminating 101 programs, saving taxpayers a total of $4.6 billion. The House appropriations bills also fund domestic discretionary programs below last year’s levels, a dose of spending restraint the Congress has not shown since the Reagan administration.
But processing these bills in record time and under budget was not a product of the House Republican majority, using its procedural powers to ram through controversial spending bills. No, each of the 11 bills also gained the support of an average of 188 Democrats — an achievement that creates a certain amount of dissonance on the song sheet of conventional media thinking. Instead of harsh partisan bickering, this year’s House spending exercise sounded more like legislative Kumbaya.
Other bills in the House and the Senate have also merited bipartisan support. Class-action reform, bankruptcy legislation, energy policy, the highway bill and eliminating the death tax (House only) all attracted an average of 50 Democrats per measure. Indeed, none passed with less than 40 Democratic votes in the House, another curious development that undercuts the image of an impenetrable partisan Leviathan.
Beginning next week, the House and Senate launch a three-week sprint to the August recess. Congressional leaders plan to send highway funding legislation to the president. They also plan to complete the energy bill and the Central American Free Trade Agreement, reauthorize the Patriot Act and bring Social Security reform to a vote on the House floor. Adding these measures to earlier accomplishments represents a healthy portfolio of success, but don’t expect the mainstream media to report it that way.
These bipartisan accomplishments are one side of a “Tale of Two Congresses.” At one level legislative leaders spar over issues, expressing sharp ideological differences. That’s politics. But there is also another side of the story, one that produced a remarkable amount of agreement so far this year — and more could be on the way in the next few weeks. Maybe as political scientist Morris Fiorina argues in his book “Culture Wars,” America is more “closely” than “deeply” divided. If lawmakers reflect this division, some closely divided issues eventually can be bridged through the congressional process. That’s why after expressing differences and vigorously fighting over amendments, Republicans and Democrats eventually came together to support most of the major bills passed so far this year.
It’s regrettable that the news media and many observers obsess over just one of these Congresses — the seamy, conflicted, dysfunctional side. Rodney Dangerfield once lamented that he was so ugly as a kid that when he played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering him up. Rodney deserved more respect and so does this Congress.
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