Congress Has a lot of Explaining to do

Most organizations convey a basic set of priorities to their customers and constituents. Whether it’s Wal-Mart or the White House, people usually have some idea of what the organization stands for, and whether they agree with these principles or not, such coherent messages enable the public to make choices ranging from where to shop to whom to vote into office.

Can anyone say what the U.S. Congress stands for? Or take Maryland’s entire Congressional delegation - does anyone know what they stand for? How about the state’s eight members of the U.S. House or its two U.S. Senators? Collectively or individually nobody in America or Maryland really has any idea what these 535 people are doing in Washington on any given day or what they will be doing next month or next year.

What they do know is that Congress is enveloped in chaos and dysfunction. The processes of budgeting, appropriations and oversight have fallen apart, allowing emotion and raw politics to reign on Capitol Hill. They also know that Congress is incapable of reforming itself. For example, over ten years after the bipartisan 9/11 commission released its report on improving our nation’s newest cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security, Congress ignores a key recommendation of streamlining the number of committees which have jurisdiction over it. There are 92 committees that have oversight into the Department’s budget and operations. There should be no more than four - two in the House and two in the Senate. If Congress can’t tackle small problems like streamlining its own committee structure, then how can it tackle big problems like reforming our complicated, expensive and inefficient tax code?

As the House of Representatives appears ready to back Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan for Speaker, now would be the perfect time to convey a coherent set of governing principles to the American people. Reform the institution. Make Congress matter again.

The last time Congress explained what it was doing for the American people was in 1994 with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. Did everyone agree with it? Of course not. But it was the first time since the Federalist Papers advocated the adoption of the U.S. Constitution over 225 years ago, that people understood what Congress was supposed to be doing for them instead of the other way around. The next House Speaker must establish a coherent message for America. And today we have the internet, social media, TV, radio and print. The American people deserve to know what Congress stands for and what the institution means for our country.