Congress needs to get back to regular order
The November 2018 election offers the best chance to reform Congress in 24 years. The large group of incoming members could join with pro-reform incumbents to improve the way the House and Senate do business.
Presumably, every candidate for Congress wants a functional first branch of government, not the “broken branch” criticized by political scientists Norm Ornstein and Tom Mann. But they will have only a few weeks after their election to become tree surgeons. New members will barely have arrived in D.C. when crucial leadership votes are called this December.
Ever since Speaker Newt Gingrich took power in the mid-1990s, the House of Representatives has acted like a parliament, not a congress, with strict party-line voting, weak committees and centralized control in the hands of party leaders.
This system can work for a prime minister-led government. With a president, the result is often gridlock, extreme partisanship and incompetence — even government shutdowns.
The Senate did not start misbehaving as fast as the House, but reduced comity and a rise in filibusters have driven good senators into retirement.
Cross-party comity is healthy and essential
The best cure for these congressional ills is returning to regular order. Several different caucuses in the House are proposing such reforms. Candidates for speaker should take notice.
By “regular order,” we mean strengthening committees and allowing the House to work its will, the frequent goal of 1980s-era Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill, who only asked members to “vote their conscience and their district,” not their party.
Being a hard-core Democrat did not prevent his genuine friendship with Bob Michel, the Republican minority leader, and even the Republican president, Ronald Reagan.
Cynics, including today’s party elders, think that returning to “regular order” is a fantasy, a political Brigadoon.
After a quarter century of dysfunction, it is tempting to agree. We won’t know, however, until the organizing session of the 116th Congress this December.
Regular order has 3 key elements
❚ The speaker, third in line to the president, is a national figure who should transcend political party by delegating most partisan duties to the majority leader. Merging these two jobs has done much to ruin Congress.
❚ The speaker must allow the House to vote on rival bills in a timely manner. Under “regular order,” even a Republican Congress could have passed immigration reform with supermajorities in the House and Senate. In parliamentary jargon, this means allowing “Queen of the Hill” rules and ending the “Hastert rule” that gives control of the House floor to “a majority of the majority.”
❚ Committees should return to being incubators of good ideas. Tip O’Neill made fun of the “Tuesday-Thursday Club” of members who shirked their committee duties by legislating only three days a week, but now everyone belongs.
Ironically, new members elected to “throw the rascals out” will have to team with enough rascals in order to win. Otherwise, unless there is a “blue wave” — electing as many new members as the post-Watergate class of 1974, their ambitions will be thwarted.
Perhaps there is a better way to repair Congress, but the only proven way is the one that worked for Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan: regular order.
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, represents Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.