Daniel Lipinski, a Democrat, represented Illinois’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2005-2021. He is the Pope Leo XIII fellow in social thought at the University of Dallas.
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Don’t look now, but the House Freedom Caucus is trying to accomplish something that will actually help strengthen our republic.
As Republicans head into the new year with a looming razor-thin majority in the House, some members of the caucus — a group of GOP representatives often viewed as “far right,” “radical” or even a threat to democracy — are leveraging their votes for speaker to push for the diminishment of the imperial speakership and a return of power to individual members and committees.
And they’re absolutely right. It’s a change that’s long overdue, and I hope all members who care about our constitutional order, wherever they are on the political spectrum, will support this.
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Here’s the issue: Congress — especially the House — largely fails to function as the framers intended. To address fears that a country as diverse as the United States could not function as a republic, they dispersed power to three separate but interdependent branches of government, giving the lion’s share to Congress as the branch closest to the people but requiring the assent of two coequal chambers to pass legislation. This design was meant to force rigorous deliberation and compromise by the people’s representatives within and between the chambers. It would not only prevent one person or faction from gaining too much power. It would also assure Americans that their views were represented in lawmaking, enhancing the legitimacy of the federal government and the laws it creates.
But today’s House members have ceded much of their power to represent their constituents to their party leaders. This centralization has made the speakership more powerful than at any time in the past century. The content of major legislation and other key decisions about what the body will do are determined in the speaker’s office, while committees, where members are supposed to have their greatest policy impact through debating and negotiating the content of legislation, have had much of their power usurped. The amendment process for bills on the House floor has come under the complete control of the speaker and is used mostly for partisan messaging, not legislating.
There is little or no deliberation in the House. Most major legislation that passes is written under the auspices of the speaker, with the content negotiated by a few members, some committee staff, the speaker’s staff and leaders of interest groups aligned with the party. This means that members have very few opportunities to voice the varied views of their constituents in the legislative process. Representation is often limited to voting with one’s party — for or against — on legislation shaped by the speaker.
The process not only prevents minority party members from representing their constituents but also severely limits the sentiments given voice by majority party members. This truncated version of representation offers Americans little faith that they have an opportunity to be heard in lawmaking.
The speaker’s domination also greatly weakens the House’s role as the primary federal policymaker, along with the Senate. During a divided government, which has been elected in more than three out of four years in the past half-century, lawmaking can happen only when lawmakers pursue relatively moderate, compromise legislation. The centralized House instead passes more ideologically extreme bills that play to the majority party’s base and only contribute to gridlock. This leaves a policy vacuum that the president and the Supreme Court fill, exercising power they were not intended to have in our democracy.
But even during recent times of unified government, House-passed legislation has usually been rejected by the Senate as being too extreme. In the past two years, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, historic gun safety legislation and the Inflation Reduction Act were Senate bills that became law largely without House input. If the House does not change, its members will continue to fail in representing their constituents in the legislative process on most major issues.
In his forthcoming book, “Why Congress,” Philip A. Wallach demonstrates how a decentralized Congress can work in a bipartisan manner, helping strengthen democracy and Americans’ acceptance of groundbreaking federal policy. During World War II, Congress asserted itself against President Franklin D. Roosevelt on key domestic policies and helped distribute the burdens of the war in ways that were acceptable to most Americans. In the early 1960s, the lengthy congressional process that produced the Civil Rights Act delayed needed action but produced greater policy compliance than presidential action or a rushed process would have.
Four years ago, members of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus used the same tactic now employed by the Freedom Caucus to try to force a similar decentralization of the House. Though these two groups have very different ideologies, both understand that our Constitution empowered the American people by empowering Congress as their representatives, but House rules now greatly diminish this power.
For the sake of our democracy, it is time for House members to once again make the institution a deliberative, powerful and relevant body that effectively represents our diverse nation. Let’s hope the Freedom Caucus succeeds in this effort.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
Don’t look now, but the House Freedom Caucus is trying to accomplish something that will actually help strengthen our republic.
As Republicans head into the new year with a looming razor-thin majority in the House, some members of the caucus — a group of GOP representatives often viewed as “far right,” “radical” or even a threat to democracy — are leveraging their votes for speaker to push for the diminishment of the imperial speakership and a return of power to individual members and committees.
And they’re absolutely right. It’s a change that’s long overdue, and I hope all members who care about our constitutional order, wherever they are on the political spectrum, will support this.
ADVERTISING
Here’s the issue: Congress — especially the House — largely fails to function as the framers intended. To address fears that a country as diverse as the United States could not function as a republic, they dispersed power to three separate but interdependent branches of government, giving the lion’s share to Congress as the branch closest to the people but requiring the assent of two coequal chambers to pass legislation. This design was meant to force rigorous deliberation and compromise by the people’s representatives within and between the chambers. It would not only prevent one person or faction from gaining too much power. It would also assure Americans that their views were represented in lawmaking, enhancing the legitimacy of the federal government and the laws it creates.
But today’s House members have ceded much of their power to represent their constituents to their party leaders. This centralization has made the speakership more powerful than at any time in the past century. The content of major legislation and other key decisions about what the body will do are determined in the speaker’s office, while committees, where members are supposed to have their greatest policy impact through debating and negotiating the content of legislation, have had much of their power usurped. The amendment process for bills on the House floor has come under the complete control of the speaker and is used mostly for partisan messaging, not legislating.
There is little or no deliberation in the House. Most major legislation that passes is written under the auspices of the speaker, with the content negotiated by a few members, some committee staff, the speaker’s staff and leaders of interest groups aligned with the party. This means that members have very few opportunities to voice the varied views of their constituents in the legislative process. Representation is often limited to voting with one’s party — for or against — on legislation shaped by the speaker.
The process not only prevents minority party members from representing their constituents but also severely limits the sentiments given voice by majority party members. This truncated version of representation offers Americans little faith that they have an opportunity to be heard in lawmaking.
The speaker’s domination also greatly weakens the House’s role as the primary federal policymaker, along with the Senate. During a divided government, which has been elected in more than three out of four years in the past half-century, lawmaking can happen only when lawmakers pursue relatively moderate, compromise legislation. The centralized House instead passes more ideologically extreme bills that play to the majority party’s base and only contribute to gridlock. This leaves a policy vacuum that the president and the Supreme Court fill, exercising power they were not intended to have in our democracy.
But even during recent times of unified government, House-passed legislation has usually been rejected by the Senate as being too extreme. In the past two years, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, historic gun safety legislation and the Inflation Reduction Act were Senate bills that became law largely without House input. If the House does not change, its members will continue to fail in representing their constituents in the legislative process on most major issues.
In his forthcoming book, “Why Congress,” Philip A. Wallach demonstrates how a decentralized Congress can work in a bipartisan manner, helping strengthen democracy and Americans’ acceptance of groundbreaking federal policy. During World War II, Congress asserted itself against President Franklin D. Roosevelt on key domestic policies and helped distribute the burdens of the war in ways that were acceptable to most Americans. In the early 1960s, the lengthy congressional process that produced the Civil Rights Act delayed needed action but produced greater policy compliance than presidential action or a rushed process would have.
Four years ago, members of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus used the same tactic now employed by the Freedom Caucus to try to force a similar decentralization of the House. Though these two groups have very different ideologies, both understand that our Constitution empowered the American people by empowering Congress as their representatives, but House rules now greatly diminish this power.
For the sake of our democracy, it is time for House members to once again make the institution a deliberative, powerful and relevant body that effectively represents our diverse nation. Let’s hope the Freedom Caucus succeeds in this effort.
