The depressing state of Congress

For more than a century, major game-changing legislation has triggered profound inflection points in America. One thinks of the Sherman Act of the 1890s, the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act of the 1930s, the civil rights, voting rights and Medicare legislation of the 1960s, and the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Though the Supreme Court has often lagged in its understanding of America and its needs, Congress has sometimes come through proudly.

With Joe Biden’s presidential administration came hope for a new inflection point that would bend Americans’ well-being upward. The Build Back Better bill that passed in the House of Representatives on a straight party-line vote addressed a number of pressing needs that included reducing child poverty, pre-K educational support and programs to curtail climate change. But as it turned out, one unremarkable senator managed to kill the Build Back Better bill.

With an evenly divided Senate, Democrat Joe Manchin held the key to its enactment. Here was an opportunity for him to make a positive difference far exceeding his justifiable influence, much like Sen. Sam Ervin’s heroic management of the Watergate commission in the ’70s or Sen. John McCain’s heroic vote against repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2017. But after a year of stringing out his president and his Senate colleagues with evasive and contradictory positions, and after insisting on drastic reductions and modifications in the bill, he announced he would not support it, effectively snuffing the aspirations of his president, his political party, substantial majorities of Americans and, in all probability, his West Virginia constituency.

One unremarkable man, who may not have even understood the momentous nature of his action, passed on the chance to be a hero.

This outcome is disturbing but not surprising. America’s democracy is much diminished. It consistently fails to step up to the needs of the American people. Though substantial majorities of Americans favor gun control, a woman’s right to choose, voting rights protection and universal health care, to say nothing of the Build Back Better bill’s initiatives, Congress simply cannot effectively come to grips with these matters. Some commentators blame the current climate of bitter partisanship, others look back to the Constitution’s arrangement of senators and representatives that favor rural areas and states with small populations. Still others cite the Supreme Court’s demolition of election finance restrictions, or state legislatures’ gerrymandering, or the Senate’s arcane rules.

My explanation for our country’s democratic crisis is simpler. Over my lifetime of some 80 years, the character and capability of those Americans drawn to elective office have noticeably diminished. A background in entertainment, wrestling or football is now deemed adequate preparation for national elective office. The absence of any hint of legislative purpose describes many of our current representatives and senators; legislating seems a distraction from their partisan posturing.

Others view congressional incumbency as a temporary way station between lucrative private sector positions. And of course, there are those willing to accommodate any lie to remain “relevant,” and are prepared to support insurrection to curry favor with, or stay out of the crosshairs of, the “former guy.” All these characteristics are troublesome. But as evidenced by Manchin and his incomprehensible behavior, it seems to me our current members of Congress are just not up to the task.