Former U.S. Rep. Tom Graves weighs in on how Congress has changed
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Graves says Congress has the ability to fix itself — and some of the mechanisms are already in the works.
The Ranger Republican represented Northwest Georgia from 2010 to 2020, when he decided against running for another term. In an interview last week, Graves talked about how the dynamics in the House of Representatives shifted while he was in office.
“One of the biggest changes over the last decade is the rise of social media,” he said. “It has its positives … but unfortunately it has created some barriers.”
He gave as an example the recent blowup between Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and his fellow Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of
New York. After AOC tweeted that Manchin is too close to oil lobbyists, he took her to task on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Members of Congress are now speaking to each other over social media or through the talk shows,” Graves said.
And that’s a recipe for dysfunction.
Graves declined to comment on the current GA-14 office holder, the controversial U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, who has focused major resources on building a social media following. However, he repeatedly circled back to the value of face-to-face interactions.
“It’s really hard to criticize somebody you have a relationship with, even if you disagree with them, when you have dinner together, when your families know each other,” he said.
Graves came to office as a rightwing Tea Party conservative, and it’s difficult to determine if he’s mellowed or the right wing has moved further right. What’s clear is that, unlike Greene — who declared at the Aug. 9 GOP rally in Rome that bipartisanship doesn’t work — Graves backs a unified effort to get the sand out of the institutional gears.
The capstone of his public service career, he said, was co-chairing the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.
“It was truly bipartisan, six Republicans and six Democrats,” Graves said. “Leaders and members of both parties were all frustrated with the inability to get things done.”
Before he left, the group had agreed on 97 reforms to implement and Congress had enacted about half of them. His co-chair, Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., is still there, working with a different Republican partner to continue the push.
“A lot of our recommendations centered around civility,” Graves said. “And part of that was reestablishing relationships and creating opportunities for Republicans and Democrats to spend time together.”
One of the best recommendations, he said, was to make the freshman orientation a bipartisan event instead of separating the new representatives by party. That was implemented with the 117th Congress, which convened Jan. 3 — although the COVID-19 pandemic created different barriers due to social distancing and some remote attendance.
Graves said the orientation session should be a time of “joining with your coworkers, meeting them, seeing who they are . ... You campaigned as Republicans and Democrats. Now you’re coworkers.”
Social media was just taking off when he was in office, Graves said, and they grappled with how to use it. President Donald Trump “took it to the next level,” he noted, sparking the question of if Trump’s Twitter feed must be preserved in the National Archives.
“It was all new — issuing (announcements) by tweet instead of press release,” he said.
Graves said his office opted to use their social media platforms as informational tools, to provide details on votes, policies and initiatives. That’s a positive aspect.
While he noted that the platforms also have expanded the opportunity for interaction between elected officials and their constituents, he was noncommittal on the value. Instead, he went back to his belief that Congress needs a foundation of personal relationships to function as intended.
“My heart goes out to all members struggling through this pandemic time ... As elected officials, you’re ‘people’ people,” Graves said.