What’s wrong with our Congress? Judging by its approval ratings over the past decade, Congress has lost the support of the American people. Once considered to be the great American contribution to constitutional government—being governed by our own consent through elected, representative lawmakers—Congress is now the most disliked part of our political system. Over the past decade, Congress has not once reached a 30 percent approval rating or above.  

It hasn’t always been this way. While Congress has never been very popular, its approval ratings during the 1990s were typically in the 40s and 50s. Today, they hover in the teens and the 20s. What has caused the public to turn against its own elected representatives?  

The causes of Congress’s decline are numerous, but understanding these causes requires careful attention to intricate rules and procedures that are little-known, and rarely the subject of careful reporting. The public, as a result, typically doesn’t understand how Congress actually works. It knows that something is wrong with our legislative branch, but it doesn’t know what happened.  

The materials in this book attempt to explain how Congress was designed to work, how it has changed over time, and how it functions today. Through the careful study of primary sources, chronicling the arguments and thoughts of the people who were involved in designing and reforming our legislative branch, we can come to a better understanding of what happened to our first branch of government. It is not easy to understand, or to teach, complicated procedural rules such as the role of the House Rules Committee, how members of Congress are assigned to committees, and so forth, but we can only understand Congress by examining these issues and the constitutional principles underlying the debates surrounding them.  

The Nature of Representation: Delegates or Trustees?

The documents in this book address the three broad questions that are the most critical to understanding and evaluating Congress. The first question is the nature of representation in the American political system. This debate was largely the focus of, and was largely resolved by, the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists.  

Anti-Federalists were extremely concerned about the perceived inadequacy of representation in Congress—that there were too few representatives, that they were elected for terms that were too long, that there was no provision for rotation in office or term limits, and that therefore the Congress would become a fixed, aristocratic, elite, establishment in the national capitol (see Cato No. 5 through 5). They therefore advocated shorter, annual terms for the House (see Cato No. 5), rotation in office and the ability to recall representatives, and a dramatic increase in the number of representatives (Federal Farmer No. 7, Federal Farmer, No. 11, and Brutus No. 16). 

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the primary authors of The Federalist Papers, responded to Anti-Federalists by emphasizing the accountability of the representatives to the people (see Federalist 52), but by also making the case for some space between the representatives and the people so that members of Congress could refine and enlarge the public views, serving as a filter to eliminate the pernicious elements of public opinion (see Federalist 10, 62, and 63).  

The debate between the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists was not simply a historical debate about representation. It addressed a fundamental question about what kind of representation works best. Should representatives act as delegates who mirror their constituents, or should they act as trustees, voting for what they think is right regardless of their constituents’ views? In other words, is liberty endangered by a government of elites, who ignore their constituents, or by a government that is too democratic, with majority tyranny?  This debate continues today, as Americans debate whether they are ruled by an out-of-touch “Washington Establishment,” of which (some argue) Congress is a central part. 

Once the Constitution was ratified, this debate over the nature of representation receded into the background. (However, Progressives in the early twentieth century returned to the idea of a more direct democracy, and were successful in making Congress more democratic. See, for instance, Progressive Democracy, chapters 12–13.)  

Parties and the Structure of Power in Congress

Because the Constitution was vague about the rules and procedures that should govern the House and the Senate, two additional issues have influenced the development of Congress to the present day. Thus a second question these readings seek to address is Congress’s internal organization. The Constitution does not specify how the rules of Congress are to be set up; it merely says that each House shall make its own rules. But the manner in which the rules are set up determines who wields the power in Congress.  

Thus, many of the primary sources after the ratification of the Constitution concern various rules governing debate, which bills can be sent the floor, what powers the committees will have, and so forth.  These rules allocate power among various people in Congress—such as the leadership, the majority party as a whole, the committee chairs, etc. In terms of the distribution of power in Congress, there have essentially been four distinct periods with four distinct approaches. 

In the first period, from 1790 to the middle of the 1800s, Congress was governed by collective deliberation among equal members, with weak leadership and no real committee structure. Attempts to limit debate, such as when Henry Clay tried to curtail the Senate filibuster in 1841 (see Debate on the National Bank Filibuster), were regarded as placing a “gag rule” on open debate enabling every member to participate in deliberations. 

Following the Civil War, Congress entered a second period of strong party leadership, disciplining an emerging committee structure. In this period, the Speaker of the House and the leader of the majority party in the Senate held enormous power (see Constitutional Government in the United States for an account of how this occurred). This structure ensured party loyalty, which allowed the majority to impose an agenda and legislate on behalf of the national majority (see Rules of the House of Representatives and Obstructions in the National House and A Deliberative Body).  

This second period ended in a shocking, St. Patrick’s Day revolt against the party leadership of Joseph Cannon (see The Revolt of 1910 Against Speaker Joseph Cannon and Speech on Party Leadership in Congress). Tired of taking orders from party leaders, and spurred by Progressive reformers who wanted a more democratic distribution of power in Congress (see Constitutional Government in the United States, Progressive Democracy, chapters 12–13, and Your Congress), members of the House voted to take away the power of the Speaker. The result was the third period of Congress—a period of committee-dominated government, in which committee chairs held the power.  

This structure caused a great deal of concern in Congress, especially among Progressives, because the chairs were selected by seniority, and thus tended to be more conservative. During this period, from 1910–1974, there were repeated attempts to return power to party leaders and take power away from committee chairs, to make Congress as efficient as it was during the second period (see Debate on repeal of the 21-day rule and Debate to Expand the Rules Committee).  

Since the 1970s, Congress has entered a fourth era, characterized by a moderate return of power to party leaders, but without the centralization of the second period. In this period, committees play less of a role in the process (see Reflections on the Republican Revolution and This is the People’s House: John Boehner’s First Remarks as House Speaker), which has deprived Congress of much of its expertise. Politics, rather than expertise, dominates much of what Congress does today.

In examining the four periods of Congress’s history, we are challenged to consider the merits and demerits of each model of Congress. The documents referenced above indicate, in the words of the reformers themselves, the advantages and disadvantages that people identified as they were debating adjustments to these rules. While seemingly arcane, these rules are critical to American constitutionalism because they affect the responsiveness, the efficiency, and ultimately the willingness of the Congress to use its legislative powers and therefore to preserve our republican form of government.  

The Decline of Congress and the Rise of the President

The third and final theme in these documents, also debated consistently from the First Congress to today, has to do with Congress’s external relationship to the president. The legislative-executive relationship, and the balance of power between the two branches, has evolved dramatically since 1789.  Although there are other issues that raise questions about the balance of power between Congress and the president, three issues are highlighted in these documents: Debates on the Legislative Branch) the president’s power to appoint and remove administrative officials (see A Debate on the President’s Removal Power: The Decision of 1789, Articles of Impeachment Against Andrew Johnson, Cato No. 5) the president’s power over legislation and Congress’s ability to delegate power to the president (see House Debate on the Establishment of Post Roads, House Debate on the Influence of Alexander Hamilton, and INS v. Chadha), and Federal Farmer No. 7) the power to declare and wage war (see Debates on the Legislative Branch, Debate on the Constitutionality of the Mexican War, Speech on the Constitutionality of Korean War, and Debate to Override President Richard Nixon’s Veto of the War Powers Resolution).  

The first two of these questions address the balance of power between Congress and the president in domestic policy. Should Congress, the elected legislature, be the primary maker of policy through the writing of specific laws? Or should the president, the national representative, be the most important domestic policymaker, with Congress granting discretion to the executive branch controlled by the president?  

In the early years of the American republic, Congress acted as James Madison predicted when he said it would be an “impetuous vortex” (see Federalist No. 48). It wrote laws very carefully, addressing all of the details, so that the executive was merely carrying out its will (see especially House Debate on the Establishment of Post Roads). The president had total control over administrative officials (see A Debate on the President’s Removal Power: The Decision of 1789), but those officials had little authority to make their own decisions. Their hands were tied by the law.  

More recently, the president has emerged as a national policymaker because Congress has delegated more power and discretion to the executive branch. It has tried to keep control over these delegations, through things like legislative vetoes, but these have proven relatively ineffective (see INS v. Chadha). 

The same trend has occurred in foreign policy. Although presidents routinely involved the nation in military conflicts, without declarations of war by Congress (see Debate on the Constitutionality of the Mexican War), the nature of these conflicts changed in the twentieth century (see Speech on the Constitutionality of Korean War). Now, presidents involve the nation in major military actions without declarations of war. Congress has attempted to reclaim the power to declare war (see Debate to Override President Richard Nixon’s Veto of the War Powers Resolution), but this too has proven ineffective.  

Congress and the American Experiment

The American Founders famously committed themselves to an experiment to see if a nation could govern itself through the consent of the governed. This was a relatively new phenomenon at the time the nation was founded.  We often take it for granted today. But the decline of public esteem for Congress should be cause for serious concern. If we do not understand how consent of the governed works, and how it should work, we risk losing it. 

Teachers and their students have a critical role to play, therefore, in sustaining self-government by studying how it works in our Congress. Through careful examination of the principles and ideas in these documents, we become twenty-first century. Congress was once the great achievement of the American Constitution. A knowledgeable and engaged citizenry can make it so again.

Many of the debates in this book have been transcribed from the Congressional Record for the first time, and I am grateful to Allison Brosky for her assistance in transcribing them. I am also grateful to Grant Reinicke for valuable assistance in drafting and revising the document introductions. An anonymous reader for Ashbrook Press pointed me to important documents that I had not considered for the collection. Finally, I am grateful to the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation, whose sabbatical fellowship enabled me to complete this volume.

Joseph Postell