The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, written by political scientists Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, is a novel which describes how Congress has failed to fill its responsibilities to the people of the United States, and how Congress’s role in the American Constitutional System differs from the part it was designed to play. Mann and Ornstein describe the shift from Congress being a decentralized, committee-based institution to a more regimented one that focuses on political parties rather than committee. The authors believe that Congress cannot succeed in getting the United States back on track unless they start to follow the rules dictated in the Constitution. In addition, Mann and Ornstein …show more content…
argue that the Legislative branch is the most damaged branch of government. The Democrat and Republican parties have become so divided that there is no room for compromise and negotiation, and members of Congress only look to benefit their careers and to extend their influence and power amongst other members of Congress. A vast series of decisions made by Congress, driven by Congress’s blatant disregard for institutional procedures and its tendency to focus on personal ethics rather than being qualified to be a government official, led to Congress failing to implement important changes in the United States government. Mann and Ornstein argue that the Legislative Branch is the most important branch of government.
Each branch is given specific powers and responsibilities, many of which overlap. However, “it is clear, when push comes to shove, that Congress can trump the other two branches” (14). Congress struggles to keep its head above the water when communicating with the other branches. Article One of the Constitution is about the Legislative branch and is twice as long as Article Two, which is about the Executive branch. In contrast, Article One is four times as long as Article Three, which is on the judiciary. The Framers of the Constitution did this to make it “clear that Congress was to be first among equals of the three branches” (14). …show more content…
Congress was seen as an independent and powerful party by the Framers of the Constitution, and they wanted it to represent the people of the United States, to deliberate on important issues and policies, and to check and balance the other branches. Mann and Ornstein argue that in the time Republicans dominated Congress, they failed to adequately oversee the Executive branch, and did not maintain the checks and balances system. Not only have restricted debate and a loose interpretation of the rules conquered Congress, but “over a decade of Republican control, the House went from shrill opposition to a Democratic president… to reflexive loyalty to a Republican president, including an unwillingness to conduct tight oversight of executive programs or assert congressional prerogatives” in regards to the Presidency (9). The House Republicans were too consumed with trying to back Bill Clinton into corners and bowing down to every whim of George W. Bush, that they did not follow the path paved for them by the Framers of the Constitution. This occurred concerning various matters, such as making decisions about war and the accessibility of crucial information. Members of Congress have consistently focused on their own interests, rather than the interests of the American people. The Senate evolved to “spread the wealth to accommodate the interests- and whims- of every member” (10). The House evolved in a similar fashion, growing to suffer from political polarization. At the very beginning of Democrat Bill Clinton’s first term as president, he wanted to enforce a new economic plan, which included increasing taxes for the wealthy and disciplining spending. As the vote proceeded in the House of Representatives to put Clinton’s plan into play, Democrats were short of victory with not a single Republican supporting the plan and forty Democrats opposing. Democratic leaders managed to convince Pat Williams of Montana and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky of Pennsylvania to change their votes, allowing for the economic plan to pass with a vote of 218 to 216. Although the budget plan proved to induce economic growth and sharply reduced federal deficits, the Republican Party enforced the strategy of denying all votes for crucial presidential priorities; in this case Clinton’s being to bring economic prosperity. Members of the Republican Party all voted “no” on the bill without even taking its content into consideration, all for the purpose of attempting to “thwart the president and make the governing party look weak and ineffectual” (93). The Republican Party, combined with members of the Democratic Party who lack intellectual insight and who “cared less about any president’s priorities than their own insular needs and viewpoints”, left the American people feeling as if their government lacks the ability to act (93). The passing of the economic plan ultimately proved to be a success. This goes to show how a political party deciding to vote against the passing of legislation could potentially prevent the United States from prospering either economically or politically. Mann and Ornstein argue that a person’s personal beliefs do not always triumph the pressure to side with one’s own political party. Williams and Margolies-Mezvinsky are both members of the Democratic Party, and were two of the forty Democrats in the House of Representatives who did not support the plan. After the Democratic leaders “finally managed to convince” the pair to switch their votes, the budget plan made it through (92). President Clinton went as far as personally calling Margolies-Mezvinsky on the telephone to ask for her vote and “convinced her to get on board” (Sarlin). Williams similarly received a telephone call asking for his vote, and “after his talk with the President, Mr. Williams decided to wait to the last minute to vote, just in case his aye was needed” (Krauss). Although the two originally believed that the plan should not be used, they struggled to hold onto their ideas as they were relentlessly pressured by members of their own political party to side with them. Occurring in 1993, Williams and Margolies-Mezvinsky are two along the continuing timeline of politicians who have exhibited this trait. Mann and Ornstein argue that members of the Legislative branch lose sight of what is really important when voting. In November of 2003, the House of Representatives voted to pass a bill to provide prescription drug benefits under Medicare. This bill was an important social policy initiative of President George W. Bush and the top priority of his congressional leaders. The 220 to 215 vote begun under the normal voting procedure, which limited votes to fifteen minutes. However, this particular vote took two hours and fifty-one minutes to complete. The House leadership kept the vote open hours longer than normal to seek out more votes so that the bill would be passed. Nick Smith, a Republican representing the state of Michigan, revealed the day after the vote that his own party’s leaders tried to bribe him by offering “$100,000-plus in campaign contributions” (3). House Republican leaders also “promised substantial financial and political support for his son’s campaign” if he voted yes (3). Smith was relentlessly pressured to vote yes on the bill, and feared that his son would face serious repercussions if he did not. This incident proves that members of Congress will be relentless in their efforts to get their way, even to go as far as bribing members of their own parties. Outside influence can greatly impact a government official’s decision-making regarding important pieces of legislation. Once again, Congress has failed to look out for the best interest of the people of the United States because some of its members were too consumed in trying to make their own party look better. Mann and Ornstein offer a slightly more optimistic view toward the end of the novel. The pair acknowledges that there are “signs of mending” (261). The divided party government has shown “a dramatic increase in congressional oversight of the executive and an appetite in Congress to challenge the aggressive assertions of executive authority…a rebalancing of institutions within the federal government is underway” (261). Although Congress has toughened its ethics regulations and has limited parts of the legislative process that previously encouraged a culture of corruption, the authors remark that the United States government still has a long way to go. Members of the Legislative branch must come together to compromise and negotiate in order to make decisions that will not solely benefit them, but will benefit the people of the United States. For far too long, the Legislative branch has proved to be the most corrupt branch. It is absolutely imperative that members of Congress begin to work with the Executive branch to make decisions and policies, as well as set regulations, which will help the United States prosper economically and politically. In The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, Thomas E.
Mann and Norman J. Ornstein argue that the Legislative branch is the most broken branch of government. Congress was designed by the Framers of the Constitution of the United States to be an independent and powerful party. The Framers wanted the Legislative branch to represent the vast diversity of people of the United States, to deliberate on important issues and policies, and to check and balance the other branches. However, Congress’s role in the American Constitutional System differs from the part it was meant to play. The authors argue that Congress has failed to fill its responsibilities to the people of the United States because of the division of the Democratic and Republican parties, which leaves little room for compromise and negotiation. Members of Congress focus on their own needs and interests, and will travel to far lengths to prove that their political party is the most powerful. Congress has turned a blind eye to the needs of the American people. Congress cannot succeed in getting the United States back on track unless they start to follow the rules dictated by the Framers of the Constitution. A vast series of decisions made by Congress, driven by Congress’s disregard for institutional procedures, its tendency to focus on personal ethics, and the overpowering culture of corruption, led to Congress failing to implement important changes in the United States
government. Although signs of mending are showing, the branch still has a long way to go until they solely function to benefit the citizens of the United States.
In the past century, people continued to express an increasingly discontent view of Congress especially true when one looks back before the Clinton Impeachment debacle As the size of the nation and the number of congressman have grown, the congress has come under attack by both public influences and congressman themselves. Yet looking at one congressman's relationship with his or her constituents, it would be hard to believe that this is the branch of government that has come under suspect. In “If Ralph Nader says congress is 'The broken branch,' how come we love our congressman so much?” author Richard F. Fenno, Jr., provides insight into this view and why, through congress coming under fire, constituents still feel positively about there congressmen. Although congress is often criticized, its fine tuned functioning is essential in checking the power of congress without hindering the making of legislation.
Davidson, Roger H., Walter J. Oleszek, and Frances E. Lee. Congress and Its Members. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2009. Print.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
...ilities of Congress is that minorities and factions exist: dissent takes place, not disagreements. Verbal brawls take place rather than actual argumentation, and that is what kills democracy. That is why things never get done.
"This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches- the objects to be provided for by a federal government, the quantity of power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the persons whom that power ought to operate," writes Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist #23 in reference to the separation of powers. The basic concept here is the idea of the federal government being divided into three separate branches that would balance excessive democracy through a system of checks on each other. The three branches, respectively known as the legislature (Article I), the executive (Article II), and the judiciary (Article III), were designed to entice the opponents of the Co...
The Legislative Branch is Congress, which has just two branches - the House of Representatives and the Senate. To understand the power held by the Legislative Branch, we should refer to the Constitution itself. Per Section 8 of Article I, Congress may only act within the powers granted to them explicitly in the Constitution, these are called enumerated powers. But this doesn’t mean the powers granted to them were diminutive. The entire legislative power was constitutionally delegated to Congress. The House and Senate serve, for the most part, to work together (though not necessarily in harmony) on passing laws, and both House and Senate must approve all bills. The framers began with the forming Article I: The Legislative Article for a simple reason; law making is an extremely important function for our government. I believe they dug their heels in here first because they intended for it to be the longest, most thorough article in the Constitution, and every word truthfully serves a divine purpose of laying out the structure of how our Legislative Branch should run. With a mere 2,...
The United States of America has engaged in the battle known as political polarization since before its foundation in 1776. From the uprising against the powerful British nation to the political issues of today, Americans continue to debate about proper ideology and attempt to choose a side that closely aligns with their personal beliefs. From decade to decade, Americans struggle to determine a proper course of action regarding the country as a whole and will often become divided on important issues. Conflicts between supporters of slavery and abolitionists, between agriculturalists and industrialists, and between industrial workers and capitalists have fueled the divide. At the Congressional level there tends to be a more prevalent display of polarization and is often the blame of Congress’ inefficiency. James Madison intentionally designed Congress to be inefficient by instating a bicameral legislation. Ambition would counter ambition and prevent majority tyranny. George Washington advised against political parties that would contribute to polarization and misrepresentation in his Farewell Address of 1796. Washington warns, “One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.” Today, the struggle to increase power between political parties results in techniques to gain even the smallest marginal gains. To truly understand political polarization, we must examine data collected through a variety of means, the effects of rapidly changing technology, and observe what techniques are used to create such a polarized political system.
Otto von Bismarck once said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” The arduous process that a bill undergoes in order to become a law may seem grueling and pointless; however, the processes high caliber of difficulty allows for the extreme prestige and exclusivity of bills that are passed. Because the process is so exhausting, and filibusters, subsequently requiring a super-majority vote to pass a bill, have always been such a threat in Congress, historically, bills that attempt to reform sensitive issues have not fared well in the legislative branch. However, when Congress does pass controversial laws, it then also faces the task of effectively enforcing them. But, when the process is carried out to completion, laws that are enforced have significant impacts on the everyday lives of the American people—such as laws concerning abortion rights. In the United States, the government and Congress have significantly affected the rights of women with regard to abortions through laws that either restrict or guarantee their legality and availability, while the government’s capacity to do so is affected by the principle of federalism along with that of the separation of powers.
In the late 1940’s and the early 1960’s books written by liberal Democrats and aggravated members of the articulate tribe sought solutions to find structural reform in the constitutional separation of powers. However, in Congress-Bashing for Beginners by Nelson W. Polsby he says instead of reforms weakening Congress, what happened is we got a considerably strengthened presidency.
American politics is often defined by a continuing power conflict between the executive and the legislative branches of the government. This struggle for political power between the two stronger branches of the three is inherent in the Constitution, itself. The concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances ensure that the branches of government will remain in conflict and provide a balance that keeps the entire government under control. As it was first established, the executive branch was much smaller and weaker than as we know it today. Consequently, the legislative branch was unquestionably dominant. Over the course of history, the executive branch grew in both size and power to the point where it occasionally overtook the legislative and today rivals the legislative in a much closer political battle. Today both branches have major factors that contribute to their power, but on the whole the legislative remains the lastingly dominant branch.
The old idea of the separation of branches has proven to be able to solve modern day issues. However, recent issues have also proven to disregard the system, in which selfish needs over power and manipulate its uses. One example of this would be the over-empowerment of a singular branch within the government. A recent IRS scandal brought up the question as to whether or not the Presidential (executive) branch used the IRS to intimidate the opposite party, in which skepticism arose towards the “equality” of the separated branches. Another example of questionable equality of the balance of branches would be the passing of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (Obamacare) within 2008-10, which was a law passed without the consent of the other branches besides the executive. These are clear examples of how modern day issues can twist and ruin this ‘flawless’ system. These examples, however, show the greater need for the separation of powers in today’s government. As society has grown and evolved, the government’s people, their job being the voice of the people of the country, has turned into a way to achieve selfish wants for our representatives, creating an even more significant need for the separation of powers.
There are only a few things keeping the Legislative branch from getting out of control and that is its size and the implied powers that they have given to the other branches. Currently the United States congress is comprised of two houses, The Senate, and The House of Representatives. In which the senate is made up of one hundred people, fifty from each state. And the House of Representatives is made up of four hundred and sixty five publicly elected officials. With so many conflicting ideologies, because of geography and other factors, it is hard to please enough people to sway into deci...
America's republican form of representative government was premised upon the idea of three co-equal branches of government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The three branches, in theory, operate independent of one another and serve as check upon one another. It is this structure of this government, the founders believed, that would retard any establishment of monarchial government that the American Revolution was fought upon. However the civil war, and more specifically the Reconstruction period following it tested these principles to the core. While it may be accurate to characterize governmental struggles that defined Reconstruction as ones that were inter-branch, a more detailed and nuanced survey reveals it was borne more so out of ideologies that were incumbent within each branch. This essay surveys the ideological battles between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government, and evaluates its impact on the idea of American Federalism from the past going forward.
Throughout history, there have typically been shifts from harmony to conflict between the three branches of American government. The framers of the Constitution created the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government in order to form a system of checks and balances to prevent a single area of the government from becoming too powerful. This system of checks and balances has been accompanied by vast amounts of discord throughout its existence. The shifts in interbranch relations can be seen through Congressional deference prior to and during the beginning of the Vietnam War, Congressional resurgence after the Vietnam War, and a shift back to Congressional deference following the attacks of 9/11.
One of the key branches of the American government is the Congress of the United States which was established with the purpose of enacting legislation across the United States of America. In recent years Congress has not been a subject that the general population is well educated on, and many do not believe that Congress is strong enough as a major governmental branch. Many individuals do not believe that Congress is solving problems like it should be, or has in the past. Although Congress does not seem to be working as well as in the past, it still plays an important role in the American government today. Recent cases and legislative processes have proven that Congress can have a one-sided view on issues