Congressional Conundrum

from VOID www.voidnow.com (Vote Out Incumbents Democracy)

Only 20 % of Americans approve

of the job

Congress is doing.

*******************************

Yet we will send virtually the same

Congressmen and Congresswomen

Back to Try Again.

Presidential elections always generate more interest and more press than Congressional elections, but I propose that Congressional elections are as important. The Bush term is coming to an end, but the unconstitutional powers that he assumed will remain for the next president. Whether we elect a Republican or Democrat, Congress must reclaim its constitutional authority and give us, once again, a government of, by, and for the people.

Oval Office Emperor

Recounting all the events that have made the Bush Administration a tragedy of historic measure no longer serves any purpose. However, we should acknowledge that this Administration has the power to ignore the overwhelming desires of the American people and the Congress we elected to right the Administration's wrongs. Our inability to restore the nation's honor and return to the principles on which the nation was founded is more than frustrating. Our President has the power to stonewall every effort to change our course and he has used the power repeatedly.

The problem may not end in January 2008 with a new president. Power is a subtle, but powerful, corrupter, and it may well corrupt the next president whether Republican or Democrat, whether man or woman. Our founders realized this and established a government of checks and balances. Congress was designed to be a check on the Executive and Congress simply has not performed that responsibility in the last eight years, maybe more.

Flailing, Failing Congress

e are unhappy with Congress. But we keep sending the same folks back to the same place. Walt Kelly put the right words into one of his characters in the 1950/60s comic strip, Pogo (I don't remember if it was Pogo or Alfred who said it), "We have met the enemy and they are us." For you younger folks, that quote was at a time when Pogo was poking sarcastic fun at the far Right Wingers of the time, the John Birch Society. He called them the Jack Acid Society. This was also a time of Senator McCarthy and his Anti-Communist Hearings, both the Birch Society and McCarthy attempted to silence opposition with smear tactics and calls to false patriotism. Sounds like the past eight years.

We, the American voter, must share the responsibility, but we may be partially forgiven because we had little useful information from the media/press. These folks basically forgot about responsible reporting and, instead, concentrated on entertainment "news" and accepted Administration press releases as truth.

There are many in the news business today who realize those errors and they are trying to separate the press from the media and bring back some honesty and integrity. There is now a recognition on their part that the entertainment media is incompatible with responsible news reporting. There are many facet to the problems and their solutions, but check out Nieman Watchdog in my News Blog Links and PressThink for discussions of the issues.

Congress has, from time to time, given the President exceptional powers. That is not the problem. But when Congress either gives those exceptional powers, or when the Executive assumes unconstitutional powers, Congress has the additional responsibility to monitor the use of those powers and to advise and consent, or advise and not consent.

Congress rolled over and played dead while Bush waged a wrong war, hamstrung environmental and energy regulation and in general promoted a big business policy at the expense of the people. Congress cheered for destructive tax cuts for corporations and the very, very wealthy and they assisted in selling those tax cuts by giving trivial cuts to the middle class and poor, and by selling permanent cuts as temporary.

Congress is now trying to perform their constitutional powers and responsibilities and they are failing. It is now too late to do much about Bush. But the acquisition of exceptional powers in the Executive do not naturally die with the next President, whether Republican or Democrat. Congress must not allow this to continue.

Congressional Conundrum - Polling Oddities

ongress has an absurdly low approval rating. Here's a sampling from PollingReport.com.

The table at PollingReport is actually longer and shows more poll results, but the they are consistent with what I've extracted here. Two-thirds or more of Americans disapprove of Congress as a whole group. Ten to fifteen percent are unsure. Only about 20% approve.

When it comes to individual members of Congress, the figures are not quite as bad (also taken from PollingReport.com). In February, PEW Research asked, "Regardless of how you feel about your own representative, would you like to see most members of Congress reelected in the upcoming congressional election, or not?" 49% said NO (36% yes, 15% not sure). The answers from polls taken late in 2007 were more negative.

Americans are very unhappy with Congress, but only somewhat unhappy with members of Congress.

There's certainly some disconnected thinking here. Since Congress is composed of nothing more the members, is it possible for a collection of so-so members to perform so badly? An explanation must lie in voter perceptions.

The conundrum. According to VOID (Vote Out Incumbents Democracy), 92% of all Senate incumbents will be reelected. In the House it's 98%. In other words, nearly all members of Congress will be reelected yet the job approval for Congress is around 20%.

Voters have a different perception for their own Senator or Representative than for Congressmen in general. Going back to the PollingReport.com, here's the way the questions were paired:

"Would you like to see your representative in Congress be reelected in the upcoming congressional election, or not?"

YES	NO
60 %	22 %

"Regardless of how you feel about your own representative, would you like to see most members of Congress reelected in the upcoming congressional election, or not?"

YES	NO
36 %	49 %

Fox News posed a similar question in November 07. The responses for 'own representative' totaled 50% Yes, 29% N0. Pretty close to the same as above. On the second question for 'all representatives' it was 26% Yes, 45% No. Again very similar answers.

Let me summarize those statistics in my own words:

	YES?
Is Congress doing a good job?	20 %
Are Congressmen doing a good job?	36 %
Do you like your Congressman (reelect)?	92+ %

So, Congress is performing poorly. Our own Congressmen are good guys or women. Then the problem is because of all the other Congressmen. That doesn't make sense and I would hope that anyone reading this would agree.

What's Wrong

here are only two other explanations. One is that our own Congressmen really aren't very good, but I doubt that. Most Congressmen have good intentions and are at least as competent as the average citizen. (The VOID site that I quoted in the opening has some interesting ideas, but voting out all incumbents responds to the frustration, not the problem.)

A second explanation lies in the way Congressmen interact and work together as a Congress, or do not interact and do not work together. We tend to call this partisanship, but that term evokes a vision of Republicans against Democrats. Congressional partisanship involves more than just political parties.

We do not like partisanship in our government. We want actions and solutions. But what if Congressional partisanship is really the partisanship in the American electorate being acted out on a national stage? I think so and I intend to discuss it in future posts.