[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 161 (Monday, December 15, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2421-E2422]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            IS CONGRESS FAILING OR IS IT JUST MISUNDERSTOOD

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DAVID E. PRICE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 13, 1997

  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on September 13, the Center 
for the Study of the Congress at Duke University held a roundtable 
discussion to analyze the low and often hostile opinions of the 
Congress held by the American people. I participated in the roundtable, 
which was entitled ``Is Congress Failing, or Is It Just 
Misunderstood?'' Reflected one of its major objectives--to distinguish 
between misconceptions people have about how Congress does and might 
function, on the one hand, and areas in which the institution is 
failing to satisfy reasonable expectations on the other.
  Joining me in the roundtable discussion were U.S. Rep. David Dreier, 
Elaine Povich of Newsday, Candy Crowley of CNN, survey research expert 
Peter Hart, and scholars of congressional studies, media and public 
affairs, Joseph Cappella, John Hibbing, Tom Mann, and David Rohde.
  Two bedrock points brought the participants together. First, 
understanding and responding to Congress' low regard is important for 
the country. The United States, lacking the relatively homogeneous 
culture that serves to unite many counties, has grown together around 
its common Constitution and its political institutions and convictions. 
Before loss of confidence in our Government threatens our sense of 
shared identity, we ought to do what we can to restore that confidence. 
Public opinion polling shows that the public views the Congress as the 
most powerful of the three branches of Government, so that the general 
distrust of Government expressed in many surveys gets concentrated on 
that body.
  Second, no one advocated anything beyond trying to restore a healthy 
skepticism toward the institution, the kind of vigilant attitude that 
has served the country well. Still, as Tom Mann has pointed out, today 
this skepticism frequently borders on corrosive cynicism, and sometimes 
slips over into it. This already-in-place conviction that whatever 
Congress is going to do will disadvantage ordinary citizens saps 
Congress' ability to take tough stands on hard issues. We understand 
that Presidents need the political capital to make the tough decision; 
the same holds for the Congress.
  Continuing research on the public's attitude add considerable detail 
to the blunt image of angry voters that so dominated the 1994 
elections. Recent surveys done by Peter Hart for the Council for 
Excellence in Government show that five of the top seven reasons for 
the low public confidence focus on our elected officials failing to 
assert leadership in addressing the public's concerns, and John 
Hibbing's studies of public attitudes toward the Congress confirm this. 
As Hibbing put it, the voice of the average American is getting drowned 
out of lobbyists trumpeting special interest and by the self interest 
of Members, whether this can be expressed through pay raises or through 
an obsession with re-election. Rounding out citizen impressions is the 
taint of hypocrisy: believing what they do about the real motives of 
Members, citizens react to Members' defense of their actions in public 
minded terms as hypocritical attempts to manipulate voters.
  None of these characterizations fit the institution and its Members 
as well as Congress' worst critics assert. Close observers of the 
Congress continually testify to the dedication, hard work, and public 
spirit of Members and staff. Most Americans are not close observers, 
however, and, as Elaine Povich commented, one's sympathy for the 
institution varies inversely with proximity to the Capitol dome.
  Sensibly sizing up Congress' strengths and weaknesses from afar runs 
into several sources of interference. First, many citizens harbor 
unrealistic expectations about how smoothly disputes can get resolved 
in a representative democracy, especially one designed to make blocking 
action much easier than taking action--OK, so there's some truth in the 
coffee-and-saucer story.
  Second, media coverage of the Congress generates an image of the 
institution in which its warts, foibles, and inefficiencies loom larger 
than life and its laudable activity shrinks from view. Numerous 
analyses have documented the media's emphasis on conflict between 
Members, strategy over substance, and scandal at the cost of policy. 
Recent research has begun to link these types of coverage to citizen 
reactions to them, and the results are not auspicious for the 
institution. For example, Joseph Cappella's work at the Annenberg 
School finds a decided connection between stories written using a 
strategy framework and cynical reactions toward public officials 
involved. Candy Crowley noted that institutional changes such as more 
dependence on capsule TV reporting, the decrease in newspaper 
readership, the advent of tabloid TV journalism, the increase in TV 
magazine shows, and the explosion in talk radio and TV drive some of 
these media emphasis.
  Third, Members aid and abet both the unrealistic expectations for 
institutional performance and the media's unhelpful tendencies. Members 
frequently lead the verbal assault on the institution for its inability 
to act, and all Members know that hot rhetoric that implicitly treats 
solutions to problems as obvious and simple is more likely to get 
coverage than modulated comments that credit the good faith of 
opponents and acknowledge the difficulties of the issues being debated. 
When Members refer to the institution as a cesspool, as in a remark 
recently made to David Dreier by one of his colleagues, it becomes that 
much harder to criticize journalists for reporting on it that way.
  Clear away these sources of interference, and you would still have an 
institution that needs to reform itself. No one at the Duke conference 
sought to absolve Congress itself from the obligation to do a better 
job at governance. I talked about the felt necessities of campaigning 
exert ever more pressure on governing, reducing Members' willingness to 
take positions that may be correct, but are difficult to explain. David 
Rohde pointed out that we need campaign finance reform, if Americans 
were ever going to feel that interest groups and money are not the real 
powers in the Congress. More than one person noted that the negative 
tenor of modern campaigning only exacerbates poor images of Congress.
  The responsibility for Congress' low regard can be found in many 
places--the design of the institution and its process, the behavior of 
its Members, the operation of the media, the constant and rancorous 
campaigns, the influence of special interests, and the expectations and 
knowledge of the citizenry. What is more the way in which each of these 
contribute to cynicism and low regard seem to mutually reinforcing. For 
this reason, any attempts at reform must proceed on several fronts at 
once.

  Finally, I and other participants at the conference agreed on one 
point. We all know most, if not all of Congress' failings. However, 
almost to a person believe that it is much better than perceived. I am 
proud of the work of the Center for the Study of Congress in attempting 
to separate the Congress' real problems from the perceived ones and 
come up with a course of action to deal with both institutions.

           [From the Sunday News & Observer, Sept. 14, 1997]

Panel Weighs Image of Congress--Citizens' Complaints About Congress Are 
  Discussed by 2 Congressmen, Professors, a Pollster, and Journalists

                           (By Kyle Marshall)

       Durham.--Those who think Congress feeds off conflict and 
     controversy wouldn't get an argument from Rep. David Dreier, 
     a California Republican.
       But to describe today's Congress as a ``cesspool,'' as one 
     Democratic congressman put it to Dreier over lunch this week? 
     That's going too far.
       ``I happen to love this institution,'' Dreier said of his 
     place of employment. ``And I take umbrage when I have many of 
     my colleagues, who have chosen to be here and have stepped up 
     wanting to be a part of it, maligning it.''
       Dreier, vice chairman of the Joint Committee on the 
     Organization of Congress, has spent a lot of time thinking 
     about the role Congress plays in governing--and what needs to 
     change to make it work better. On Saturday, he joined North 
     Carolina Rep. David Price, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, on a 
     panel with academics, pollsters and journalists to hash out 
     the many complaints about Congress from the citizenry.
       The forum, at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, 
     was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Congress, a 
     newly formed arm of the Duke University School of Law.
       Polls consistently show a lack of trust in Congress. To 
     many on the panel, that comes as no surprise, because it has 
     always been that way.
       Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think 
     tank, noted that in the election of 1874, no fewer than 183 
     incumbents were thrown out of office in the wake of a bribery 
     scandal. And Drier quoted the House speaker in 1925, Nicholas 
     Longworth, who said being a member of Congress had always 
     been an unpopular task and always would be.
       What has changed in just the past few years, however, is 
     the amount of outright venom spewed at Congress--much of it 
     inspired by special-interest groups and talk radio, some 
     panelists said.

[[Page E2422]]

       Dreier added some members of the institution itself to the 
     list of groups responsible for creating hostility toward 
     Congress.
       ``Many of the problems that are out there, I think have 
     been caused by members in Congress . . , who have made a 
     career of attacking the United States Congress,'' he said.
       CNN correspondent Candy Crowley said public apathy 
     represents a more serious threat to the institution's ability 
     to engage in discourse and pass laws.
       ``I don't think the anger is a problem,'' she said. ``The 
     idea that it's not relevant is a problem.''
       The speakers had little time to come up with specific 
     solutions for what ails Congress or for how to restore the 
     Public's confidence. That daunting task will be left to 
     future forums, said Ted Kaufman, a Duke law professor and 
     former Senate staffer who is the center's co-chairman.
       Pollster Peter Hart actually had some good news for the two 
     members of Congress taking part in the discussion. His latest 
     poll showed a 48 percent approval rating for the job Congress 
     is doing, one of the highest in recent memory. A booming 
     economy and the lack of a national crisis are two of the big 
     reasons.
       However, as if to illustrate that opinion surveys can show 
     just about anything, Hart said the public's confidence in 
     Congress as an institution is still rock-bottom: Only 21 
     percent say they have a ``great deal'' of confidence.
       ``That's the difference between performance, which will 
     fluctuate up and down, and the other element, which is, `How 
     do I feel about the institution as a whole?' '' he said. 
     ``Only the national news media fall below the Congress in 
     confidence.''

     

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