In one of the most spectacular displays of Congressional malfeasance ever, House Republicans deliberately passed bills that they knew had no chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled Senate. One focused on, essentially, militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border and the other pulled back on President Obama’s ability to reduce the deportation of undocumented minors at the same border. Both were widely dismissed as un-passable by Congressional Democrats and a president that refused to sign it.
But they did manage to pass a wildly creative lawsuit against the president, accusing him of a Constitutional breach by not enforcing a law – the Affordable Care Act – that they’ve spent the last five years bombing with every political kitchen sink they could.
And then, like that, they went on a five-week break.
It pretty much sucks that Congress can’t be measured in performance the same way we are.
If that were the case, perhaps elections – like the Congressional midterms coming up – would be based on tighter performance metrics like the number of bills passed rather than the much more amorphous “records.” It’s not like members of Congress are managers or executives beyond their own small staffs and budgets, which the House Committee on House Administration averaged at about $1.4 million (for Senate offices it ranges from $3 million to $4.7 million). So, if you’re an average citizen with little knowledge of the machinations of Congress it’s fair to ask: what record?
Record implies something tangible that you’ve worked on or developed or produced. You could wager this is one major reason this particular Congress continues to get the worst public ratings of all time.
There’s a fair and reasonable logic when you align Congressional approval ratings, see, as an example, Gallup’s trend strip below …
… with the productivity of Congress gauged by numbers of bills passed, see this graph cited from Maddow Blog below:
RealClearPolitics averages Congressional approval at about 12.3 percent once it aggregates all recent polls, including the Gallup one above.
I’ve always been irritated by the pure numerical lack of real lawmaker productivity in recent years as much as I’ve been jaded by Congressional dysfunction caused by ideological splits and polarization. I’d imagine the rest of the American public would be, too, so we can assume that part of the hate spit Capitol Hill’s way comes from a sense that legislators don’t get anything of substance done. And maybe that’s a big part of the problem in encouraging voter turnout during elections: candidates spar over the illusory “record” rather than actual performance data.
It’s funny how elected officials, on any level, are quick to demand performance metrics on government employees or public servants like teachers – as one example – but, don’t let constituents ask for basic metrics on how they’ve performed. Let’s have big public hearings on that every quarter. This would constitute the basic stuff like (and why not list it below for good measure and reference):
- How many bills did you introduce?
- How many bills did you co-sponsor or sign on to?
- How many bills did you pass?
- How many bills that you co-sponsored actually passed?
- How many bills in each subject matter or area of focus did you introduce, co-sponsor or pass?
- How many ‘Ceremonial’ bills compared to how many “Substantive” bills did you introduce, co-sponsor or pass?
- How many constituents did you respond to?
- How many queries or requests did you send to government agencies?
Oh … and, can’t forget this one …
- How much money did your campaign raise and where did those contributions come from?
As a former Congressional staffer, I understand measuring Congressional performance, especially by Member, isn’t all that easy. It’s complicated, I get that. And, Congressional recesses aren’t necessarily walks in the park since members are still either plugged in, hitting a brutal campaign trail or refreshing ties with constituents back in home districts. But why not find a way to simplify performance measurement on Congress in a way that’s meaningful? Why wait till the next cycle to get bamboozled by clever Election Day messaging? Why accept that members of Congress can get paid six-figure salaries to do exactly jack shit when the masses have to face quarterly performance reviews, warnings, lay-offs and firings if they fail to perform on the job?
Experts will argue that elections conduct this function of performance benchmarking. Yet elections, especially these days, just don’t seem transparent and accountable enough.
Here’s a dope idea: build a graph with the answers to the questions above and provide it as a user-friendly button next to an incumbent candidate’s vote button that you can click into when navigating the touch screen on the standard electronic voting machine. News organizations should team up with election boards to mail that information out or to require incumbent candidates to include it in their online content or as a key piece of their literature, whether direct mail brochures or leaflets. Voila: not only do you get a real time capture of exactly what an incumbent produced, but they have incentive not to bullshit you (Voter X) with well spun tales of their legislative exploits. Obviously, you can’t do that for the challenger, but at least you have something simple to separate real legislators who hit rubber to road as opposed to deadbeats who just give good speeches. D.C.-based Sunlight Foundation is one organization that does a solid job of collecting and consolidating this data for free open access – but, how many people outside the Beltway know what the Sunlight Foundation is?
The ‘ceremonial’ compared to ‘substantive’ is an important meat versus potatoes distinction, for example. Pew Research played around with it late last year when it compared the 113th Congress’ productivity record against that of others before it:
That means bills passed to name post offices versus bills passed to finally revive long-term unemployment insurance that was cut off last Christmas as examples.
One reason expectations for Congress are so low is the perception of not only a “Do Nothing Congress” but also the people’s take that there are few effective mechanisms in place for lawmakers to answer to when doing nothing. That’s not entirely the fault of Congress, however, especially when they skip out for five weeks after not resolving a border crisis, yet go for the easy lift of suing the president just because their base voters feel like it. We have to, ultimately, fault ourselves for that because we should’ve been paying attention all along. That’s what Republicans are banking on – and that’s exactly why they keep pulling stunts like this.
CHARLES D. ELLISON is a veteran strategist and Chief Political Correspondent for Uptown Magazine. He’s host of #Uptownhall, Washington Correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune and a frequent contributor to The Root. He can be reached via Twitter @charlesdellison