As my daughter pointed out to me yesterday, Congress is the
real problem in this country, whether Obama or Romney get the presidency in
this next election. And she is
right. Why is this? What has gone awry with the Congressional
system?
The proximal symptom is that Congress is sharply divided
between the far right and the far left, with almost no moderates left in
between, so it cannot seem to work across the aisle and find compromises as it
used to do. But why is this?
One reason is certainly the gerrymandering of Congressional
districts that has gone on for the past decade or two, by both parties, to
makes a lot of “safe” seats for their side. Politicians from “safe” districts
need only appeal to their party’s base; there is no incentive to appeal to
voters of the other party because the politician doesn’t need their votes. So we tend to get more extreme, more
one-sided members of Congress from these “safe” districts. How bad has
gerrymandering become? Look at this map
of Illinois Congressional District 4 near Chicago, currently held by a Democrat:
A second reason, coupled to the first, is the lack of term
limits. Too often politicians get into the House or Senate and that becomes
their lifetime job. Bolstered by the free postage, the free publicity, and the
generous campaign donations from those companies and industries they represent,
they often become almost invulnerable in re-elections, and have little need to
compromise to attract support from voters in the other party.
A third reason, suggested by some writer (I wish I could
remember who) is that many politicians don’t live in Washington any more. In the old days, politicians stayed in Washington while Congress was in session, even owned
homes in Washington.
So inevitably, even with differing political views, they became friends. I
recall my great uncle, who was a Washington
news correspondent, telling me that it was not uncommon for Congressmen to
assail each other on the House floor all day, and then all adjourn to Sam
Rayburn’s office (he was the Speaker of the House) in the afternoon and drink
bourbon together. Like lawyers, they
could dispute vigorously on the chamber floor, but be great friends and golfing
buddies on the weekends.
But nowadays, apparently, many in Congress are in Washington
only 3 or 4 days a week, flying back to their home districts every weekend (on
taxpayer dollars, of course). So they aren’t friends, which makes it easier to demonize
each other. And certainly the personal
attacks flying between members of Congress seem to me far worse, and far more
frequent, than in past decades.
I don’t know that much can be done about the third point,
but undoing the outrageous gerrymandering and introducing term limits would
certainly begin to attack the problem.
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