Once upon a time, the U.S. had an old-fashioned Congress.

It was in the age of pencils and paper, of committees and meetings, where secret bargaining and earmarks flourished, and legislation of consequence occurred or a regular basis.

In those days, committee chairmen held power centers, controlling budgets, authoring legislation that was an honor to have one’s name attached to, and guiding through complicated bills that by necessity required political compromise.

Those were the days.

Following those Jimmy Stewart days of Congress were the hybrid days of legislation by conversation converted to regulation and detail by congressional staff and, often too, by powerful lobbyists, who voters loved to hate. In those days law-making became a 10-to-4 workday, Monday through Thursday, with ample time off to woo the voters back home and to drink and eat on the taxpayer dollar while in session.

And we loved to claim that our Congress was lazy and self-indulgent, not even reading the very bills they passed into law, for the often-lengthy documents were longer than comic books and less interesting than the fine print in a cable contract.

Those were still some heady days, days of the Affordable Care Act, and of the passage of over 14,000 laws, resolutions and other congressional actions. Since that Congress, the 110th, each Congress has passed fewer bills into law than the 110th. But even then, lawmaking in Congress was shifting from long, secreted committee work towards a bipartisan agreement, to the newer method of congressional leadership dictating the legislative proposals and thereby diminishing the role of congressional committees, compromise, and legislating by role in Congress,

Today, even that adaptation of congressional activity seems quaint and odd in the rearview mirror of time. Congress today no longer seems to be in the legislative business at all, barring the Senate’s blistering work on anointing conservative judges for lifetime appointments.

Congress now seems to best function waiting for a president to identify what legislators should be doing, or not doing. So, Congress sits on its collective hands following presidential pronouncements and waiting for instructions from the executive branch, once a co-equal branch of government. That satisfies the majority party, while finger-pointing defines the minority party. All-in-all, it is an entertaining but ineffective performance. Nothing gets done and major political issues remain unresolved.

Congress, now mimicking the presidency, has become a performative stage, a place where power-seeking finds its path not in creating bills that become law, but in appearing on camera more than your fellow elected officials, in voicing the outrage of the political moment, in speaking for that lost voter as though congress was the bastion of their salvation, while, in fact, Congress is the deathbed of action for citizens.

Unfortunately, for those of us who hope for new immigration law, a better plan for healthcare, or even infrastructure investment, we are out of luck altogether, as this president has little or no interest in legislative activity and therefore, provides a waiting performative congress, nothing to perform but to respond to the litany of daily tweets.

Without the tweets, the performative congress would be able to stay home in their pajama’s and watch Fox or CNN. As it now works, the dutiful congressional representatives must put on their suits and dresses, comb their hair and wait to find a media channel to proclaim their insights into verbiage that will never become law, never solve an American problem.

No one really knows if Congress will ever restore its co-equal role in governing, whether the people can ever again have a voice through their representatives, or if we are doomed to listen to the performance art that leads to “sound and fury, signifying nothing” — William Shakespeare.

We can still vote the performers out of office though.

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator, political enthusiast and award-winning columnist living here
in the Tri-State.