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Washington DC Capitol dome detail with waving american flag © Andrea Izzotti / shutterstock.com
The US Congress consists of the
House of Representatives (House) and the Senate. Over time, the House
has abdicated its responsibility, especially its exercise of war powers, to the
president. The White House now has “free rein to go to war so long as it
notifies Congress first.” The House has also implicitly relinquished to the
president its powers to regulate international affairs and trade. The president
may also freely issue
regulations and executive orders without going through Congress. This silent
transfer of power has strengthened the president in relation to the other two
branches of government, the Congress and the judiciary. By transferring so much
power to the executive, the US Congress has undermined the constitutional ideal
of a balance of power.
The US Congress has also become
weak because of the influence of money in politics. Members of Congress spend
more and more of their time fundraising,
diminishing their ability to legislate. Increasingly, Congresswomen and
Congressmen represent their donors more than their constituents. Open
Secrets tells us that Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy raised over $27
million and the former speaker Nancy Pelosi raised over $25 million in 2021-22.
Because of this influence of
money in politics, Congress is increasingly under the thumb of interest groups.
Some of these groups are beholden to foreign states. The American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
is infamous for its hold on Congress. AIPAC has poured millions of dollars to defeat
progressive pro-Palestinian candidates in Democrat congressional primaries. On
rare occasions that members of Congress speak out against Israel’s influence,
such as Representative Ilhan
Omar in 2019, they are quickly ostracized.
AIPAC has also opposed
Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran as the former president has admitted in
his memoirs. Sadly, the Congress sometimes puts foreign interests above
American ones, endangering peace, prosperity and national security itself.
Other ills afflict the Congress
as well. Pork-barrel
projects, earmarks
and poison
bills, often referred to as “legislative
extortion,” interfere with legislation. The Congress has failed to deliver
for the people. They have not drafted laws for a healthy economy. Over 32% of
the wealth is owned by 1-percent of the wealthiest
Americans. Over 11% of Americans live below the poverty
level and 60%
“live pay-check-to-paycheck.” At such a time, the Congress is deeply divided.
Both Republicans and Democrats care more about hurting the other in an
adversarial system than acting together in national interest.
Even both parties themselves are
deeply divided. It took 15 rounds of voting for Republicans to elect Kevin
McCarthy as the speaker of the House. The Congress only unites to pass things
in the interest of their donors. The Congress has drafted tax
bills, which give tax cuts to the rich and pass on the tax burden to the
middle class.
There are representational issues
too. The District of
Columbia with a population just short of 700,000, far more than Wyoming,
and Puerto
Rico with a population of nearly 3,200,000, greater
than 21 states, have no voice on the House’s bills. The same is true for Guam,
the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and other US
territories.
In 1789, the first House had 65
members serving 3.9 million people, one for every 60,000 persons. Now, 435
members serve 334 million, one for every 767,816 persons. It is now difficult
for one person to represent so many different and varied constituents.
It is not just the president who
dominates the House. Today, the Senate has grown in power too. It dictates
terms and conditions. In reality, this has turned the bicameral legislature
into a unicameral one. The House now has to either ignore or “rubber-stamp
Senate bills”.
The US Senate is not exactly
democratic. Every state gets two senators. This means that Wyoming with the population
of less than 583,279 has the same representation, privilege, and vote as
California with a population of about 39 million. In the US Senate, the vote of
a resident of Wyoming equals the votes of 69 Californians. The consecrated
tradition of Senate filibuster speeches designed to postpone or neuter
legislative action illustrate the principle of the tyranny
of a minority over the majority.
As of 2023, according to the World Population Review,
the 50 states have a combined population of about 334 million. Mathematical
logic tells us that the 26 states with the smallest populations collectively
send 52 senators to Congress. Those 26 states wield a simple majority in the
Senate, although they only represent 58.7 million citizens or 17.6% of the
entire population. That means that the remaining minority of 48 senators
represents over 82.4% of the US population. If you were to remove the eight
most populated states from a Senate vote, it would take 42 states (84 senators)
to represent a simple majority of the US population (52%). In other words, the
will of a small minority of the US population represented in the Senate is
always likely to prevail over the needs and wishes of all US citizens.
Like the House, the Senate leaves
a significant portion of American citizens unrepresented. The constitution
excludes from the federal electoral system the entire population of the
District of Columbia (DC), Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American
Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and other US territories, despite the fact
that they collectively have a population greater than that of some states.
The US Constitution, ratified in
1788, gave state legislatures the right to elect senators. Over time, this
corrupted the process of selecting senators. Hence, the 17th
Amendment was ratified in 1913 and, since then, senators have been elected
by popular vote. Unfortunately, that amendment failed to solve the problem of
corruption for senatorial elections. Today the average cost of running for
senate runs into millions of dollars. This funding is usually provided “openly
and directly” by the wealthy through PACs
and lobbying groups.
When elected, a senator’s loyalty
is first to the rich who bankrolled their election. That is why legislators
vote to spend funds lavishly on dubious projects in the service of the wealthy
and their corporations, with little or no consideration of the needs of the
common people. This produces volumes of legislation whose logic most Americans
simply cannot fathom. The Senate consistently fails to represent the people’s
needs, interests, concerns, or welfare.
The various ills of the US
Congress have been steadily growing. It is now deeply corrupt and highly
undemocratic. Before lecturing the rest of the world on adopting democratic
norms, the US must put its own house in order and reform its Congress.
By Mehdi Alavi
This article was originally edited by Hannah Gage and published in Fair Observer on May 21,
2023.
