The most essential branch of the U.S. government is collapsing before our eyes—right as it faces a historic showdown
Abigail Spanberger catapults herself out of a chair, yanks on two desk drawers and pinches a stack of white notecards, plopping them onto the table between us. The gust of activity is a bit disorienting. We’ve been talking for all of two minutes, just long enough to state the preface for my forthcoming line of inquiry—whether the U.S.
At a Nov. 2018 campaign rally, Abigail Spanberger speaks to supporters. | Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux How the impeachment proceedings affect an increasingly polarized nation is anyone’s guess. But it’s hard to imagine the coming showdown doing any more damage to an institution that, lawmakers in both parties will agree, was broken long before Donald Trump came to town.the United States government is collapsing before our eyes.
It’s been more than a decade since Congress’s job approval topped 30 percent, according to Gallup. For much of the past five years that number has loitered in the teens.
“In Congress,” former Virginia Republican Tom Davis testified on the Hill this summer, “bad behavior always gets rewarded.” Naturally, that sort of idealism doesn’t last. Once a member of Congress realizes he or she will never find a better job—and most of themthey will never find a better job—many will accept that some compromises are necessary to keep it. They adjust. They adapt. They play the game. They convince themselves that a mindless vote here, or a hurtful decision there, is worth it to sustain their career.
All of these dynamics make the Democratic wave of 2018 that much more compelling. Spanberger is part of a freshman class unlike any Congress has seen before. Not only are the members historically diverse, but an impressive number of them are political neophytes, having campaigned as outsiders vowing to wrest Washington away from the control of corporate money, career politicians and for-profit partisans.
“Congress is not working the way it ought to for the American people,” Kilmer begins, measuring his words. “Not only is that evidenced by poll ratings that hold us in lower regard than head lice and colonoscopies; it’s evident every time there’s a legislative meltdown, every time there’s bills written behind closed doors, every time something happens to erode public faith in the institution.
Each of the last three House speakers—Pelosi, Paul Ryan and John Boehner—pledged to do something about this, restoring a system of “regular order” that calls for a wide-open, free-wheeling process of building and debating legislation from the ground up. But in truth, the current arrangement is exactly what the leadership needs in order to govern an increasingly ungovernable institution.
But beyond the hashtag accolades offered by leadership officials in both parties—a sort of pat on the head to the well-behaved members of the panel—it’s well understood on Capitol Hill that this select committee will not be reinventing Congress. After at least the fourth mention between them of something being “not within our purview,” Kilmer grows somewhat flustered. “I don't think there are any silver bullets to making Congress more functional.
For the past five years, Hurd has earned a reputation as one of Washington’s best lawmakers—someone defined by professionalism, competence, pragmatism, meticulousness. He has passed loads of legislation under presidents and House speakers of both parties. He has shaken hands in every corner of his district, one of the nation’s biggest, spanning more than 800 miles of U.S.-Mexico border.
We haven’t seen the last of Hurd. A politician of his skill and initiative does not fade into obscurity. He’s going to travel the country speaking to these shortcomings in Washington. He’s going to write a book. He’s going to form a super PAC that will support diverse, results-oriented Republican candidates in primary elections. If all that sounds like the work of someone preparing to run for president one day, well, he just might do that, too.
Unlike them, Slotkin is bullish on the prospects of a good-government revolution in Congress. Not surprisingly, she believes it starts with electing the right people—better people, she makes clear, than the ones she has encountered in D.C.
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