Is Congress effective at carrying out its roles? - essay

Alternative transcript:

committee hearings and 'mark-ups', in addition to required majority votes in both houses- scrutiny is certainly not an issue, especially as very little legislation is ever vetoed or struck down by the Supreme Court. In spite of this, the legislative process gives unjustified powers to some key individuals: the Speaker of the House can place a bill in multiple committees, thereby slowing it down, the President can veto legislation (Obama and Bush both used the veto 12 times), and a single senator can filibuster a bill, which would be highly unlikely to be stopped due to the requirement for 60 senators to vote for a cloture motion. As such, partisan politics limits the effectiveness of the process so that very little is passed despite mandates from the public (Biden's 'Build Back Better' initiative struggled to be passed due to rebellious Senator Joe Manchin) and results in 'pork barrel politics. Therefore, whilst major legislation such as the Affordable Care Act 2010 and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 2018 have been passed, the increasingly polarised nature of US politics has exacerbated the issues of certain individuals having too much power, and the short sessions have severely restricted the ability of Congress to pass necessary and much legislation. Therefore, Congress is not effective a fulfilling the role of legislation. A further role of Congress to be analysed is representation of different groups. In essence, all Congressmen and women should represent their constituency, party, community, congressional caucus, and lobbyists, but this balance is not regularly met. For instance, despite minority groups being increasingly more and more represented, only 20.2% of Congresspeople were women in the 115th Congress and the proportion of Hispanic peoples was less than half that of the real population. Similarly, 'majority-minority' districts have repeatedly been ruled undemocratic by the Supreme Court. On the contrary, congressional caucuses do allow members of the same communities to work together to pass favourable legislation that transcends party-line, such as the Congressional Black Caucus. Moreover, parties are certainly sufficiently represented in Congress with almost everything being partisan, including votes on impeachment (Trump was only saved due to party loyalty), bills, and judicial appointments (Ketanji Brown Jackson was only selected by 53-47 in the Senate), though this increase in partisanship means that there is less compromise and impacts Congress' ability to represent other groups. In fact, the deep-rooted partisanship has prevented constituency representation as the minority party often fails to get anything passed due to the need for majority votes, and the dominance of the House Rules Committee by the majority party by 2:1. However, there are still some examples of effective constituency representation with the Brady amendments to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 2018 that were in the interests of the people of Nashville, and the 1 deselection of Eric Cantor due to his poor representation of constituents. In spite of all this, lobbyists exert far too much influence over members of Congress. For instance, whilst passing laws to stop mass opioid prescriptions could have saved the lives of many constituents, pharmaceutical companies lobbied members not to legislate- 90% of the House and 97% of the Senate had received campaign finances from "big pharma". Overall, although parties and, to some extent, constituents are well-represented in Congress, the dominance of lobbyists means that Congress is ineffective in its role of representation. Finally, it is worth considering how effective Congress is at oversight. Perhaps most notably, Congress acts with deference in times of national emergencies such as following 9/11, allowing the President to pass the USA PATRIOT Act entirely unopposed. Yet, this is only a short-term transfer of power. On the other hand, the President has certainly assumed the power to declare war and makes frequent use of executive orders to impose pseudo-treaties and pseud-legislation such as vaccine mandates for healthcare staff. Moreover, in times of unified government, Congress rarely votes against a presidential appointment- all of Trump's somewhat controversial Supreme Court justice nominations had been approved, including Amy Coney Barrett, who is perhaps not as qualified as many other candidates. Similarly, the inability of Congress to ever impeach and convict a President has hindered its ability to have oversight over the President; 57 Senators voted in favour of conviction in Trump's 2nd impeachment proceedings, though even this prevented his removal from office. Contrastingly, there are a multitude of ways in which Congress has effectively limited and controlled the power of the Executive, especially in times of divided government. This control over the President can be witnessed in the failure to pass any of the gun control or immigration reforms proposed by Obama in his State of the Union Addresses. Also, Congress has not refrained from using its veto override power: 4 of Bush's 12 vetoes and 1 of Obama's had been overridden (the 2016 9/11 Victims Bill was overturned by approximately 97% of Senators). Finally, there are times of weakness for the President, during which Congress exerts far more influence. These include the run-up to the midterm elections, in which Congressmen or women may distance themselves from the President in order to appeal to constituents, and at times of low presidential poll ratings (the attempt to 'repeal and replace' Obamacare in 2017 failed due to Trumps' low 40% approval rating). As a result, it is clear that Congress is quite effective at performing oversight, especially at times of weakness for the President, though there are certainly some instances in which the President dominates. In conclusion, there is little doubt that Congress does have varying levels of success in effectuating each of these roles. Whilst there is reason to argue that the in-depth scrutiny as part of the legislative process, the high level of representation of parties and constituents, and relative success in controlling the actions of the President means that Congress is effective at performing its roles, this can be easily disputed. In reality, the US is so polarised and has such short time limits that it is quite ineffective at legislating, lobbyists exert a disproportionate amount of influence over Congress, limiting the level of representation of other groups, and there are many times during which the President remains unchecked. Therefore, despite being relatively adept at oversight, Congress is ineffective at legislating and representing.