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To so many Americans, Congress seems obsolete or useless. Why do we even bother with it?
Why Congress offers a defense of Congress as the indispensable branch of government, alongside a compelling account of how the institution has become so dysfunctional. At its best in the mid-20th century, Congress solved immense challenges like civil rights, but Wallach's history shows how the subsequent rise of powerful leadership and the decline of committees have left Congress divided and decrepit. As society feels divided and politics feels gridlocked,
Why Congress argues that only a revival of legislative deliberation can resolve our most pressing challenges.
List of contents
- Preface
- 1. What Congress Alone Can Do
- Part I: When Congress Worked
- 2. Congress and World War II
- 3. The Achievement of Civil Rights
- Part II: Congress Transformed
- 4. Cacophony - The Reforms of the 1970s
- 5. Conservatives against Congress
- 6. The Triumph of Partisan Posturing over Politics
- Part III: The Costs of a Failing Congress
- 7. Failing to Compromise on Immigration
- 8. Congress and COVID: We Needed Leadership, They Gave us Cash
- Part IV: Three Futures for Congress
- 9. Decrepitude
- 10. Rubber Stamp
- 11. Revival
- Postscript: An Open Letter to America's Legislators
About the author
Philip A. Wallach is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies America's separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state.
Summary
A bold defense of our nation's legislature and its ability to work through the country's deepest divisions, and a stark warning of what our political future holds if we allow Congress to decay.
Like it or not, our country's future depends on Congress. The Founding Fathers made a representative, deliberative legislature the indispensable pillar of the American constitutional system, giving it more power and responsibility than any other branch of government. Yet today, contempt for Congress is nearly universal. To a large extent, even members of Congress themselves are unable to explain and defend the value of their institution.
Why Congress takes on this challenge squarely, explaining why our increasingly divided politics demand a legislature capable of pitting factions against each other and forcing them to work out accommodations. This book covers the past, present, and future of the institution to understand how it has become so dysfunctional, but also to suggest how it might be restored. The book vividly shows how a healthy Congress made it possible for the country to work through some of its most difficult challenges, including World War II and the struggle for civil rights. But transformations that began in the 1970s ultimately empowered congressional leaders to suppress dissent within their own parties and frame a maximally divisive agenda. In stark contrast to the earlier episodes, where legislators secured durable political resolutions, in facing contemporary challenges, such as immigration and COVID-19, Congress has exacerbated divisions rather than searching for compromises with broad appeal. But Congress' power to organize itself suggests a way out. Wallach deftly explains that while Congress could accept its descent into decrepitude or cede its power to the president, a Madisonian revival of deliberation can yet restore our system of government's ability to work through deep divides.
Additional text
Wallach's primary aim in this book is to reassess Congress's role in the political and policymaking process over the past several decades...Wallach is rightly concerned with the political relevance of a Congress that is both quick to centralize policymaking and deliberation within the leadership, while simultaneously delegating significant policymaking autonomy to the executive branch.
