Inside the U.S. Capitol, statues memorialize distinguished Americans, including famed social commentator and actor Will Rogers, who once quipped about Congress, “Every time they make a joke, it’s a law, and every time they make a law, it’s a joke.”

Humor like that still rings true to the nearly 9 in 10 Americans who say they’re unhappy with Congress.

“It’s a great American pastime to hate Congress,” said Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. “But I do think there’s a lot of frustration with Congress.”

Hulse has covered Capitol Hill since the Reagan administration. Asked if he sees a broken institution today, he replied, “Oh yes, totally. I unfortunately have said to people, ‘I’ve spent my career covering the decline of Congress.’ And yeah, they need to get it together. But there’s just very, very little cooperation between the parties, and you can’t make things happen that way.

“I do think a lot of them want to do the right thing, and they just can’t quite get themselves there to do it,” he added.

The fact is, under the Constitution, Congress really does have power. “Article I is a real thing,” said Hulse. “I think what’s happened with the Republicans in this Congress, and ceding power to the administration, has been a real mistake on a lot of fronts – tariffs, war powers, the things that are actually enumerated in the Constitution. They’re giving away the store. And once you give away some power, you never get it back.

“The Republicans might be looking at this and going, ‘Well, you know, this is President Trump, our guy. We needed to do that.’ Trust me: the next Democratic president isn’t going to turn around and say, ‘You know, that was a big mistake letting Congress get so weak. We need to empower them again.’ No, it’s not gonna happen. It goes for good.”

Pointing fingers

These days, Republicans control the Senate and the House, and legislation often faces gridlock. So far, the 119th Congress has passed fewer bills than many of its predecessors.

Some bills, though, have had real impact. There was the GOP mega-bill that will cut taxes by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, and a recently-passed bipartisan housing bill.

This Congress also will be remembered for the partial government shutdown over funds for homeland security. 

Still, critics left and right want more to be done, be it raising, or cutting, federal spending. And whatever its problems, Congress has been routinely bypassed altogether by President Trump, whether on trade or the war with Iran. He also pressures them to do his bidding, like urging an overhaul of federal voting rules this past week.

This is an especially uncertain time in the Senate. Former majority leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for weeks, and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham died suddenly this month.

For Hulse, these disruptions underscore how Congress is grappling with age, and an increasingly grim political climate – worse, he says, than when he first came to Capitol Hill four decades ago: “1985, Congress was different,” he said. “Lot of World War II vets who had already experienced a lot of life. So, this was not, you know, a big, difficult thing for them. They were trying to do the right thing.

“And now it’s both parties, much more aligned with the President. Hard to get things done. Margins are tight. The districts are really gerrymandered. There’s a lot wrong with Congress.”

Who is to blame? Both parties point the finger at the other for the mess. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said, “Well, the Republicans don’t control the House; the place is chaos.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said, “Unfortunately, Democrats have chosen to play politics and put that over people time and time again under this administration.” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told us, “You’ve got the biggest voice in the room, Trump, fighting against his own Congress.”

“People should be mad”

Sarah Binder, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says that the legislative branch is “struggling,” while Philip Wallach, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, describes Congress as “marginalized” – the result, in part, of an empowered president.

Asked whether she believes Congress is broken or diminished, Binder replied, “Well, both, for sure. Certainly diminished in the sense that it has enormous authority under the Constitution: Power of the purse, power to declare war. And yet, oftentimes, not just under Trump, this current president, but reaching back decades, Congress cedes that authority to the president. All the authority on the table, but struggling to try to use it, or even to try to get it back.

“So, the muscle memory for how to make deals, how to legislate, how to solve problems? The muscles, they’re there, but they’ve really atrophied,” Binder said.

“For me, what’s changed is how the members themselves see their jobs,” said Wallach. “I think what we’ve lost is the sense that, I’m sent here to solve the problems of the American people. I have to find a way to do that. That means building coalitions. That means compromise. Compromise has too much become a dirty word in American politics today. There’s a sense that if you’re willing to compromise, you’re not really holding true to your values.

“Today, people see their job as supporting the White House when it’s their ally there – or fighting against them in various ways when it’s the other party that has the presidency. And since Congress has for decades ceded so much authority to the executive branch, there’s a sense among the members on Capitol Hill, that’s where the real action is – in the executive branch, [and] in the judiciary.”

In his current term, President Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders — over 260 so far. The two presidents before him issued many of their own, leaving many Americans to wonder, What is Congress doing?

Is the public being too hard on Congress? “I think the truth is, Congress doesn’t need to be a very popular organization, even if it’s working well,” said Wallach. “The old line about lawmaking and sausage-making is there for a reason. There’s something unseemly about the way legislative politics has to operate that makes it hard to be really popular as a Congress.”

“I think the public should be hard on Congress,” Binder said. “There’s $30 trillion in public debt; Social Security seemingly on the brink if they don’t act soon – the whole host of issues and problems that we see around us. The cost of housing? People should be mad.

“At the same time, the public often does have quite unreasonable expectations of what’s possible. You need big, broad bipartisan majorities to get stuff done,” she said. “And in a polarized America, with factions in each party, that’s really hard.”

For Binder and Wallach, today’s Congress might be troubled, but it is, as ever, a reflection of its times – and of the people it represents.

Looking ahead, are they hopeful about Congress?

“I am an eternal optimist, but I’m not that hopeful about Congress,” said Binder. “I think the problems and the roots of the problems we’ve been talking about, they’re going to be with us for a long time. And whenever Congress has difficulties trying to tackle problems, they kick ’em to the future. And that just means the challenges are going to get harder.”

“I will say, taking the very long view about Congress makes me a little bit more hopeful,” Wallach said. “Congress has looked a lot of different ways over our two centuries. Members have found ways to reform the institution to make it act completely differently. And so, I think at some point, we’re gonna turn a corner. Congress has the power to regenerate itself, to put itself back at the center of the action. And I expect someday it may do that.”

     
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Story produced by Robbyn McFadden and Reid Orvedahl. Editor: Jason Schmidt. 

Key Facts

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“Our constituents are breathing the consequences of this failure right now, and they deserve better than to be told, again, that it will be handled,” the Michigan lawmakers said in their letter.

HOW TO STAY SAFE FROM WILDFIRE SMOKE

Those in states with extreme air quality warnings are being cautioned to limit outdoor activity and, in states with very unhealthy and hazardous warnings, to stay inside altogether with windows closed. Doctors advise anyone with heart or lung disease to stay indoors, and other groups to take precautions. For people who work outside, health officials have recommended wearing an N95 mask, which can filter at least 95% of airborne particles.

WHY IS WIldFIRE SMOKE SO DANGEROUS?

Smoke from wildfires is made of water vapor, pollutants and particulate matter, which can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream, trigger systemic inflammation, exacerbate conditions like asthma and increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Smoke also contains a mix of harmful gases, most notably carbon monoxide. Wildfire smoke has been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular health problems, with children and teenagers, older adults, pregnant people and anyone with pre-existing heart or lung conditions at a particular risk.

SHOULD PEOPLE IN WILDFIRE SMOKE STATES WEAR A MASK?

When the Air Quality Index rises to unhealthy levels, masks are recommended for people who must spend time outside. Respirator masks worn correctly may provide some protection against fine particles in the smoke, but they do not help with hazardous gases. Staying inside is considered the safest option, but those who must go outside can mitigate some risk by wearing a mask. N95 or P100 respirators are considered the most effective.

Key background

Scientists say climate change is creating hotter, drier conditions and longer fire seasons, increasing the likelihood of large, intense wildfires across North America. NASA says human-caused warming is driving more frequent and severe wildfire conditions in many regions, and that extreme wildfire activity has more than doubled worldwide over the past two decades. Research shows fire seasons in some areas are now more than a month longer than they were 35 years ago, and those larger fires also produce more smoke, allowing hazardous air pollution to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles and affect millions of people far from the flames.

BIG NUMBER

$394 billion to $893 billion. That’s the annual cost of wildfires in the United States each year, according to the Joint Economic Committee, including direct and indirect deaths and injuries, health impacts from wildfire smoke, income loss, watershed pollution and other factors.

further reading

ForbesEntire States Under Air Quality Alerts As Wildfire Smoke Spreads—Here’s Where It Could Go NextBy Mary Whitfill RoeloffsForbesGlobal Air Quality Declines As Wildfires Surge Across ContinentsBy Jamie Hailstone

After Medicaid officials improperly shared data about millions of people in January with immigration officials, ICE then shared that data with the data analytics firm Palantir, according to new court filings. Palantir operates an app called ELITE that is used by ICE agents to show the addresses of noncitizens who may be subject to deportation.

That revelation was made public in a motion filed Thursday by more than 20 Democratic attorneys general who sued the Trump administration last year over its data-sharing agreement between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and ICE.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in California ruled in December that health officials could share with ICE certain details from Medicaid data about immigrants without lawful status from the states that had sued, such as home addresses, dates of birth and immigration status.

Chhabria, who was appointed by former President Obama, then temporarily paused data sharing between CMS and ICE for immigration enforcement purposes in late May after federal officials admitted CMS had shared data with ICE in January that went beyond what the court order allowed. One dataset of refugees in Minnesota included U.S. citizens, and another that was transferred on Jan. 7 contained data of millions of people, including those in the country legally.

ICE was supposed to delete the improperly shared data. Chhabria set a hearing for August to further clarify his order and clear up ambiguity regarding which categories of noncitizens’ data could be lawfully shared with ICE.

But in recent days, federal officials have admitted to additional instances of improper data sharing.

In a court filing last week, the Justice Department said that CMS again inadvertently reshared with ICE the dataset with millions of names that CMS had first improperly shared with ICE in January. The government said the error occurred during an effort to share data from states not involved in the lawsuit.