Repairing Our Engines of Democracy
This is a guest post by Daniel Schuman, policy director at Demand Progress Education Fund and Demand Progress Action.
Elections and Congress are the motors of our democracy. A properly running democracy engine establishes a feedback loop between the two. When elections generate a new crop of Members of Congress who push to implement the policies they campaigned on, citizens feel that their vote matters, that their views are being taken into account, and they are more likely to engage in our political processes. Conversely, when elections result in new Members of Congress who are largely unable to implement the policies on which they campaigned, citizens lose faith that their vote matters, that Congress is listening, and they become less likely to engage in our democracy and they begin to look for alternatives.
Both elections and Congress matter. You cannot fix our democracy by focusing only on one system when both are in need of repair. An outsized focus on elections only succeeds in feeding a “spiral of despair” in circumstances when our institutions don’t deliver between the elections. The key to cultivating a stronger democracy is to make Congress more effective. While there are many who think that congressional dysfunction is largely intractable and not amenable to reform, our experience suggests the opposite: that comparatively inexpensive interventions that are driven by deep expertise can get Congress “unstuck.” But making these changes requires seeing beyond the next election and taking into account a systems view of our democracy.
Our focus at Demand Progress Education Fund is on creating a durable democracy built upon a capable Congress. When most people think about Congress, they likely picture the 435 Representatives and 100 Senators on Capitol Hill. But Congress is much more than that. When you look under the dome, you can see there are about 20,000 other people who are critical to managing the day-to-day in order to protect public interests. These are the public servants who answer constituents’ myriad requests for assistance; they are the ones who listen to advocates (and lobbyists). They are the policy experts who draft legislation. They keep their bosses apprised of key policy developments and the news cycle.
But these civic- and institution-minded staff are often overworked and underpaid. They labor with outdated technology, poor institutional support, and declining resources. It is no surprise that many routinely leave jobs for the private sector after a few years of public service, taking their valuable institutional knowledge with them. As we all know, personnel is policy, and this is a policy of disinvestment and incapacity. Congress didn’t always “work” this way — the short-term attitudes are driven by often-overlooked changes in institutional policies.
The Gingrich-era Congress put the Legislative branch on the chopping block. Speaker Gingrich and the 104th Congress reduced the number of political and non-political expert staff by more than 20% and moved power to the Speaker’s office. The purpose of this was two-fold. First, it centralized power in the hands of leadership by weakening institutional rivals: the committees and rank-and-file members. Second, it deliberately weakened Congress so that outside businesses and special interests could set the agenda and become the primary source for information and expertise. Inexpert staff will look to people with expertise — their former colleagues — because they are unable to obtain basic facts about matters under their purview. There was also a third consequence of these Gingrich-era changes: by weakening Congress, the already powerful presidency became over-powerful, as its historical institutional check, the Legislative branch, became largely unable to function.
Since that time, Republican and Democratic leaders have kept this institutional arrangement. Republicans continued to decrease funding for congressional offices, which has squeezed staff and resulted in high turnover and low levels of expertise. Democratic leaders were more inclined to address some of the funding issues, but ultimately were more invested in maintaining their own power, viewing themselves as the only engine that could make the Congress work at all. That became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we can see the turn away from democracy as showing the limits of this centralized approach to a legislature that is intended to represent and empower everyone.
Starting a dozen years ago, we have conducted research and made recommendations to rebuild the legislative infrastructure dismantled in the mid-1990s. Our purpose is to make Congress function better and to explain what has happened. We have told the story of the defunding of the Legislative branch and its consequences, making the intellectual case for where we need reinvestment in its operations — especially in its staff — and what that looks like. We have explained how the rules have unbalanced the power dynamic between the leadership, the committees, and rank-and-file Members, and how that can be addressed, especially by fostering non-partisan relationships among members with shared interests. And we have shown how technology can be a force multiplier for legislative activities, built technology now incorporated into congressional systems that supports a stronger Congress, and constructed a coalition that routinely engages with Congress.
The funny thing about working to improve congressional operations is that these institutional impediments are often overlooked by those on the outside. People often search for a silver bullet to fix Congress — a highly visible rule change or an election victory — but small, incremental changes can have a significant outsized effect on the Legislative branch’s ability to function. Most of these reforms have low political salience, so they’re unlikely to move elections and be caught up with all those politics, but instituting Congressional reforms means that changes in control of Congress can result in significant policy consequences. And that in turn can restore faith in our democracy.
This isn’t just theory. The last six years have shown the power of these ideas to inspire Members of Congress to fix their institution. We are living through a period of significant reform right now. But those reforms need to be sustained. Congress isn’t a turn-key operation. We must maintain engagement with the Legislative branch to buttress these reforms and support new ones so that when the next great governing coalition comes to power, they can make the changes that voters desire. That will show that our democracy works, that our faith in it is requited.
There’s often a focus on the urgent. Elections happen every two years and they’re viewed as life-and-death. But it’s not hard to imagine a political system where regular elections have no impact on policymaking. Where people look to a strong leader to make the political change that no longer happens through our democratic systems. This is a terrifying future and one that we must avoid.
Elections and Congress are the engines of our democracy. Both must be in good working order. Fortunately, addressing the problems inside Congress are much easier than most people realize, but it requires expertise and sustained engagement over time. That is where we can maximize our impact to rebuild our democracy.
To learn more about the efforts to modernize Congress, you can subscribe to our free, weekly newsletter, the First Branch Forecast, which provides deep context about the reform efforts inside the Legislative branch, and what should happen next.
Daniel Schuman is policy director at Demand Progress Education Fund and Demand Progress Action. He can be contacted at daniel@demandprogress.org.
