The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track

289 Pages·2006·13.587 MB·English

by  Thomas E. Mann, Norman J. Ornstein

THE BROKEN BRANCH
Institutions of American Democracy
Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Jaroslav Pelikan, Directors
Other books in thé séries
Schooling America: How thé Public Schools Meet
thé Nation's Changing Needs
Patricia Albjerg Graham
The Most Démocratie Branch:
How thé Courts Serve America
Jeffrey Rosen
THE BROKEN
BRANCH
How Congress Is Failing America
and How to Get It Back on Track
Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein
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THE
ANNENBERGG(O^BUNDAnoN(OyRus:
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THE ANNENBERG
PUBLIC POLICY CENTER
OF lllh UN VÏKM 1 V Oh 1hNN'sYl VAN IA
OXFORD
UN1VERSITY PRESS
2006
OXFORD
UN1VERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mann, Thomas E.
The broken branch : how Congress is failing America and
how to get it back on track /
by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein.
p. cm.
"The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands."
"The Annenberg Public Policy Center."
ISBN-13:978-0-19-517446-5
ISBN-10:0-19-517446-1
1. United States. Congress. 2. United States. Congress—Reform.
I. Ornstein, Norman J. II. Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.
III. Annenberg Public Policy Center. IV. Tïtle.
JK1041.M36 2006
328.73—dc22
2006002568
1 3 5 ï y S 6 4 i!2
Printed in thé United States of America
on acid-free paper
To our wonderful familles—Sheilah, Ted, and Stéphanie;
Judy, Matthew, and Danny (and Harvey and Renée)
—who sometimes joined, other times tolerated, our
fulminations about Congress and American democracy.
And to thé memories of two gréât legislators who
understood: Barber Conable and Pat Moynihan.
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Contents
Préface ix
ONE
Introduction 1
TWO
The First Branch of Government:
Theory and Practice 14
THREE
The Seeds of thé Contemporary Problem,
1969-1994 47
FOUR
A Décade of Republican Control 96
FIVE
Institutional Décline 141
SIX
The Case of Continuity 192
vu
SEVEN
Conclusion 211
Notes 245
Acknowledgments 257
Index 261
Viii CONTENTS
Préface
WE ARE BOTH HARDCORE PARTISANS—institutional partisans.
For us, Congress has always been thé fîrst branch. We bave
been fascinated with Congress for four décades, since we
began to study it as undergraduates at thé Universities of
Florida and Minnesota and afterward as graduate students
at thé University of Michigan. Our bias toward Congress
as thé linchpin of thé American constitutional System grew
substantially when we came to Washington together in 1969
as congressional fellows.
We love politics and thé législative process—in spite of
their transparently unattractive features. Even thé stron-
gest institutional partisans, ourselves included, sometimes
wince or gag in thé face of individual excess and collective
irresponsibility But those législative politics and processes
are also thé essence of democracy, especially in thé United
States. We each hâve had close friends who bave served in
thé House and Senate; some still do. They bave labored to
do thé right thing, and in many cases they hâve changed
thé country and thé world for thé better.
We hâve our différences on matters of policy and politics.
But over thé thirty-six years we bave been in Washington
IX