Robert Draper for the N.Y. Times:
‘Few Americans — including members of Congress themselves — believe that the legislative branch is fulfilling its duties as the founders intended. As Representative Jim Himes, a moderate Democrat from Connecticut who has served in the House for 18 years, told me in June, “Congress is somewhere between dysfunctional and irrelevant — and is despised by the people.” …
‘The fact that a majority of House Republicans voted against certifying the election mere hours after the riot, coupled with the role of Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader at the time, in acquitting Trump of impeachment charges weeks later, created a permission structure for Trump’s eventual return to power. That ugly episode also left its mark on Congress, Himes said: “It’s a huge unhealed wound that continues to separate the two sides of the aisle.” …
The article contains a lot of details painting a picture that will generally be familiar to ELB readers. Then, it continues:
‘How did we get here? How did arguably the most accomplished deliberative governing body in the history of the world become so febrile and decrepit? Did it all begin with the decision to install C-SPAN cameras in the House chamber in 1979? Or with the torpedoing of Judge Robert Bork’s Supreme Court nomination by Senate Democrats in 1987? Or with Newt Gingrich’s bomb-heaving speakership from 1995 to 1999? …
‘I began covering Congress in 2010, when the so-called Tea Party wave led to a Republican takeover of the House and the end of Pelosi’s initial reign as speaker. Raucous, perhaps even obnoxious, though that freshman class may have been, they saw themselves as reformers rather than arsonists.’
The article continues to describe how much worse it’s gotten since then. What’s lamentable is that the article devotes virtually no attention to the role the electoral system plays in contributing to the current condition. There’s a minor passing reference to redistricting: a quote by one Republican member calling the non-arsonist Republican majority of yesterday “The kind of majority that you won’t see again, thanks to redistricting.” But that’s it (as far as I saw).
There’s no analysis of how the structure of partisan primaries followed by plurality-winner general elections, given changes in political culture, create the toxic circumstances of today, or how nonpartisan primaries followed by Condorcet-based general elections would ameliorate the situation. If the job of a lengthy piece of journalism like this is to educate the public, this one in my judgment fell considerably short on that score.
