Analysis: Why Congress barely functions

WASHINGTON -- How did it get this bad on Capitol Hill? Why does Congress barely function today? The legislative branch of the world's most powerful nation is now widely scorned as it lurches from one near-catastrophe to the next, even on supposedly routine matters such as setting an annual budget and keeping government offices open.

Congress is accustomed to fierce debate, of course. But veteran lawmakers and scholars use words like "unprecedented" to describe the current level of dysfunction and paralysis. The latest Gallup poll found a record-high lack of faith in Congress.

There's no single culprit, it seems. Rather, long-accumulating trends have reached a critical mass, in the way a light snowfall can trigger an avalanche because so many earlier snows have piled atop each other.

At the core of this gridlock is a steadily growing partisanship. Couple that with a rising distaste for compromise by avid voters.

Instead of a two-party system, American government has become a battle between warring tribes, former Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) said. When House and Senate leaders set out their goals and strategies, he said in an interview, "it comes down to the party first," with the public's welfare lagging.

Interviews with current and former lawmakers, congressional scholars and others point to several events that have tangled up Congress. They include:

Political realignment. Years ago, Southern conservative Democrats often worked with GOP lawmakers, and Rockefeller Republicans joined forces with moderate and liberal Democrats. Now, except for black enclaves, the South is overwhelmingly Republican. Liberal Republicans hardly exist, and moderate Republicans face criticism from tea partyers and others.

1994 Republican revolution. The GOP ended four decades of House minority status when Newt Gingrich led an insurgency that would change Congress' way of doing business.

Cultural shifts. Unlike two, three decades ago, most lawmakers keep their families in the home state, and many spend as little time as possible in Washington. They rarely socialize across party lines, further discouraging compromise. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), in one of several essays on Congress' decline, writes that "Fox and MSNBC . . . certainly inflamed partisanship." Social media, he says, has "popularized nonfact-based reality."

Unrestrained use of partisan tools. Until the mid-1990s, the House majority often let the other party offer legislation for debate and votes. The measures typically failed, but the practice gave the minority a chance to air its philosophies and push for compromises. That rarely happens now.

In 2004, House Speaker Dennis Hastert adopted a "majority of the majority" rule, which essentially made the minority party irrelevant. He let no major bill pass without support from most of his fellow Republicans, even if it would pass easily with Democratic votes and just under half of the GOPers' backing.

Bigger changes occurred in the Senate. Used sparingly during most of the 20th century, the filibuster tool was routinely employed by both parties, enabling the minority to block almost any bill if its members stick together. Unrestrained use of the filibuster contributes heavily to gridlock, Edwards said.

Money's role in polarization. New laws and tactics have steered millions of campaign dollars to interest groups on the far left and far right, and these groups spend to defeat candidates they oppose.