The House Is Where the Hatred Is

Name-calling and "negotiating"

By
17

Armed with a provocative assortment of inappropriate puns, Jonah invites AEI Senior Fellow Philip Wallach onto the Remnant for the first time to discuss the importance of Congress and what we can do to fix the legislative branch. As holders of the Remnant bingo card are well aware, reforming Congress by expanding its size and discouraging performative behavior within its ranks has been one of Jonah’s primary obsessions since the launch of this program. Today, he’s sure to indulge in as many nerdish lines of inquiry on the subject as possible, waxing Yuvalian from start to finish. What core functions is Congress failing to perform? When did the institution begin to decline? And are its deficiencies fueling broader cultural partisanship?

Show Notes:

– Phil’s page at AEI

– Phil’s new book, Why Congress

– Phil: “Time for Congress to Choose Deliberation Over Dysfunction”

– Phil: “If We Give Up on Congress, What Will We Lose?”

– Ben Sasse’s Kavanaugh hearing speech

– Lyman Stone on expanding Congress

By
Comments (17)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. MP

    Excellent episode. Thank you both.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Sean

    Jonah, help me understand this stronger institutions point. I see how the weakness of our political parties results in bad candidates leverage the party primary process and small-dollar fundraising to win nominations that hurt the party position itself. Making the political parties stronger will let them determine which coalitions and ideologies fit under their tent and run candidates that they feel have the best chance to win a general election and represent the party well.
    I also see the weakness of Congress where most members are fundraising instead of legislating, tweeting instead of politicking. And the other branches of government end up doing more of Congress's work and growing their own power. A stronger Congress lets more members influence legislation, pass laws, and take its proper powers back from the Executive and Judiciary. They can give their constituents their judgement about what is best for their district.
    So now getting to my question (in a belated Goldberg-ian fashion), how do you strengthen Congress without weakening Parties? How do we make sure stronger parties doesn't end up with simply more party-line voting and reinforcing the idea that the -R or -D after someone's name is all that matters? How do we ensure a stronger Congress that sees its members creatively crafting legislation to get votes from both parties doesn't weaken the ability of those same parties to further the party's interests? What am I missing?

    Collapse
  3. Bkamena

    The conundrum of smaller districts creating more representative, less gerrymandered districts, but at the cost of also creating a House of unwieldy size and less deliberative power is, as noted a biproduct of large population.

    The solution: decentralize. Most state legislatures are small enough for deliberation and interaction to occur easily, while doing so with members from small districts.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    NashLives

    The criticism of DW-NOMINATE (attempts to estimate the relative ideology of members of congress based on their roll call votes) offered in this episode is right, but not fatal. It doesn't matter how we compare members of Congress, they look extremely polarized across partisan lines using a wide variety of different types of information (votes, important votes, donations, public remarks, campaign promises, etc.). There's a lot of debate in political science about the extent to which the public is polarized, but the debate on Congress is settled and rightly so. It really doesn't matter if in private members of Congress are "Sassian" in the sense that they prefer normal operations and bipartisan compromise. What matters is what they actually do. In real votes and other behaviors, they're very polarized.

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Seth B

    "Congress" is not a verb. Not even when it refers to coitus.

    Other than that, an enjoyable episode.

    Incidentally, is there a reason why the duration of each podcast episode isn't given on the website? Can it not at least be printed in the description?

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    AndreaLeane75

    I loved this podcast. It was meaty and thought-provoking. This is why I listen to Tbe Remnant.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Jill

    A question you don’t hear very often: “Is it Greenland or is it New Hampshire?” 😣

    Collapse
    1. P Satter

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_House_of_Representatives
      New Hampshire. They do both have snow and kayaking though. Easy to confuse them.

      Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Congress is not merely first among equals under the Constitution. It is by far the most important branch because of the powers the Constitution gives it. But calling Congress "supreme," Mr. Goldberg, is an overstatement that's just as bad as calling all three branches "equal." Neither term fits across the board; both terms are accurate within specific limited contexts.

    Your verbal footnote about bankruptcy courts was unneeded, however. Ms. Isgur's father is a universally respected bankruptcy judge in Houston, before whom I've had a few occasions to appear, and one of her long-running intra-family gags that she's mentioned on the Dispatch Media's flagship podcast, Advisory Opinions, is her contention that her father is "unconstitutional." She's laughed off my quibbles that he's merely extra-constitutional because it's more fun to accuse her father of being "un-" than "extra-," I guess. (Ms. Isgur, I note, is never obliged by her job to appear before her father in court, which is probably a good thing; I presume that there's no U.S. Marshal with handcuffs and a handgun at her family dinner table.)

    Here's the deal: Article III definitely requires a SCOTUS and a Chief Justice thereof, and as you point out, empowers Congress to create and define the rest of the courts that collectively make up the federal judicial branch. But all those judges, by definition, have life tenure during good behavior guaranteed to them under Article III once their positions have been created and their own appointments to seats therein confirmed by the Senate.

    Although Congress is obliged by Article III to create lower courts whose judges have life tenure, it historically has tried to have "just enough" of such judgeships. And since Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution authorizes Congress to enact "uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies," Congress has written those uniform laws, via the Bankruptcy Code (a 1978 recodification and expansion of prior law on bankruptcy), to create a lesser form of judgeships that exist solely by virtue of statute, and which have only the job benefits that Congress may from time to time specify — NOT including life tenure.

    Thus, Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur, like everyone else on the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts benches, is not an "Article III" judge. His position is statutory — outside the Constitution's specific protections, and thus "extra-constitutional," but by no means CONTRARY to the Constitution (as Ms. Isgur's joking formulation suggests).

    That Congress can create, delete, or tinker to its heart's content with bankruptcy judges and magistrates and administrative agency law judges and a variety of other extra-constitutional decision-makers, though, ultimately reinforces your point that Congress was intended to be, and is (when and if the system functions properly), the most important branch.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Thanks for the extended defense of bankruptcy courts. My mother is a bankruptcy judge like Judge Marvin Isgur, so I’m more familiar with article I judges than the average person without a law degree. I agree that Sarah’s “unconstitutional” talk is silly and it’s always clashed on my ears, too.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

        I don't normally practice bankruptcy law, but I've nevertheless tried three adversary proceedings to a conclusion, plus a fourth that settled at the close of evidence, in bankruptcy court. I enjoy practicing there, so long as I'm confident that my ducks are in very good order, all in a very straight row.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          Ben Connelly

          I’ve definitely learned to appreciate the value of our bankruptcy system. I was pleased to see Kevin Williamson write on it a couple weeks ago. Too many Americans don’t know anything about it and that leads to gross misunderstandings. Whenever I hear Elizabeth Warren or Patrick Deneen or Sohrab Amari talk about our bankruptcy system, I shudder to think what they’d do if they had power.

          Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    That was really interesting.

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Patrick

    You danced around one obvious solution.

    Write a law that no bill passes unless it gets a certain percentage of yes votes from each party.

    Devilishly genius or half-baked idea?

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Well, you’d either have to get it to be a constitutional amendment, or it would only be a rule change in Congress. A new statute wouldn’t really be useful. The rule change could be successful - the filibuster is merely a rule, not a provision in the Constitution. Still, you run the risk that some later illiberal progressive or nationalist would just ditch the rule to ram through a massive agenda. I could see benefits and downsides to such a rule. It would further entrench our two parties in the system - then again they probably aren’t going anywhere (unless some new replacement party comes along).

      Collapse
Load More