TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/041789/04178900.000

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 107 lines

ESSAY, Page 84

In Defense of Congress

By Michael Kinsley


    The U.S. Congress celebrates its 200th anniversary this year,
and scolds say the old fool is aging disgracefully. It has
declined, they say, from a serious, democratically elected
legislative body into a self-perpetuating oligarchy engaged in a
mad power grab against the Executive Branch, perverting the
Constitution and paralyzing the U.S. Government. The Senate's
rejection of John Tower as Defense Secretary and the deal forcing
President Bush to give up all hope of military aid to the
Nicaraguan contras are just the two latest examples. Other supposed
mileposts on the road to megalomania: the 1973 War Powers
Resolution, the Ethics in Government (special prosecutors) Act, the
Boland amendment (which was supposed to halt aid to the contras but
didn't) and the 1987 rejection of Robert Bork for the Supreme
Court.

    The theory is heard mostly from Republicans. We have settled
into an arrangement in which the Republicans seem to have permanent
control of the White House and the Democrats seem to have permanent
control of Congress. The essence of the complaint is that Democrats
are somehow cheating when they use their control of one of the two
elected branches of Government to thwart the will of the
Republicans, who control the other.

    The constitutional debate cannot be easily summarized. There
are conservatives -- and not just Oliver North -- who seriously
argue that a President has constitutional authority to pursue a
foreign war in direct contravention of a law enacted by Congress
and signed by himself. And to lie about it. What can be said
briefly about this and less sweeping assertions of presidential
power is, first, that even the conservative Supreme Court has so
far found them generally unconvincing, and second, that these
imaginative readings of the separation-of-powers clauses come from
conservatives who are great ones for "restraint" when it comes to
interpreting the Bill of Rights.

    What comes over strict constructionists, for example, when they
contemplate the words "advice and consent"? Suddenly this rather
clear phrase doesn't mean what it says. Instead, it means "Approve
him unless he's a practicing alcoholic." Read literally, the
Constitution does not require the Senate to show special deference
to the President's choices for major offices. Yet in practice the
Senate shows enormous deference, approving candidate after
candidate it would never choose itself, even for lifetime court
appointments, where the consideration that a President has the
right to his own team does not apply. If an occasional nominee
sticks in the Senate's craw -- based on a subjective judgment it
can neither quantify nor promise to apply uniformly in the future
-- that is hardly an abuse of power. Senator John Tower himself
opposed several Cabinet appointees over the years.

    The Wall Street Journal editorializes that the real purpose of
toppling Tower was "to cripple a President fresh from an electoral
victory. To demonstrate that the real power lies in a PAC-elected
Congress immune from effective voter control." And ultimately "to
dismantle the presidency" no less. Of course, 87% of the members
of Congress are also fresh from election. But this doesn't count,
the argument goes, because Congress has "less turnover . . . than
in the Supreme Soviet," as former President Reagan has complained.
Only six House incumbents lost re-election bids last year, and more
than 85% of current members won by over 60%.

    The reasoning from these figures to the conclusion that
Congress is "immune from effective voter control" is peculiar. Why
is it that Ronald Reagan's 59% landslide re-election in 1984
constituted a mandate but the 60%-plus landslides run up by most
members of Congress constituted a scandal? Why is the apparent
Republican lock on the White House considered to be a profound
ideological message from the voters, whereas the apparent
Democratic lock on Congress is considered to be a sign that the
system doesn't work?

    But wait (the theory goes on), those Democratic victories are
tainted because of gerrymandering by state legislatures, most of
which are controlled by Democrats. Gerrymandering certainly
happens. But gerrymandering hardly explains why the Democrats have
a large majority in Congress. Constituency election systems
inevitably exaggerate majorities; that is part of their function.
(How many times did you hear that Ronald Reagan carried 49 of 50
states? Yet he got barely 29 out of 50 voters.) In fact, though,
the Democratic majority is not all that exaggerated. In 1988 in
elections for the House, Democrats got 53% of the votes and won
59.7% of the seats. In the Senate, which is constitutionally
gerrymandered in favor of the Republicans (two seats for Wyoming,
two seats for New Jersey), Democrats got 52% of the votes and 55%
of the seats up in 1988. In the Executive Branch, George Bush got
54% of the votes and all the seats.

    It might be better if the U.S. had a parliamentary system in
which the Executive and Legislative branches were always under the
same control. Not only would that avoid paralysis through partisan
disagreement; it would also prevent the evasion of responsibility
that is the real cause of paralysis in our Government. Negotiations
on the budget, for example, are more like thumb wrestling than arm
wrestling: the opponents don't really disagree about the
destination; they just know that whoever goes first loses.

    We don't have a parliamentary system, which is why Presidents
are always calling for bipartisanship, President Bush's favorite
postelection mantra. But bipartisanship must mean more than
Congress always giving in to the President's wishes. "The duty of
an opposition," a hoary British political maxim has it, "is to
oppose." When the opposition controls an equal branch of
Government, opposition is a duty that can be pursued gaily and
without remorse.