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WASHINGTON – It’s no secret that Congress has an image problem.
A recent poll of voters found:
- 14 percent approved of the work of Congress; 80 percent disapproved
- 30 percent approved the performance of Democrats in Congress; 64 percent disapproved
- 28 percent approved of the job done by Republicans in Congress; 66 percent disapproved
However, Congress just got a fresh start and a chance to fix its sullied reputation.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has a plan to do just that.
He has heard the complaints loud and clear, and has given a lot of thought to the problem.
Now that Republicans control both the House and the Senate, the temptation might be to ram through partisan legislation. But, Lee favors engaging Democrats in dialogue and searching for common ground, while sticking to conservative principles.
If conservatives are wary of talk of compromise, they might be reassured by the Heritage Foundation Scorecard, which listed Lee as the most conservative member in the just-concluded 113th Congress, ahead of every other member of the Senate or House.
Lee published his plan to fix Congress, which he recently detailed to WND.
It requires steps he described as both simple and bold.
The major complaint with the session of Congress that just adjourned was probably the accusation of gridlock, and the mainstream media often seemed keen to put the lion’s share of the blame on the GOP, especially when Republicans opposed President Obama’s agenda on a variety of crucial issues, such as amnesty and Obamacare.
However, the numbers indicate the problem was not an intransigence on the part of the GOP, but a legislative roadblock erected by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
At a press conference on July 29, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kans., remarked, “The president is fond of referring to the House as the ‘Do-Nothing Congress.’ But we have 352 reasons why it’s a ‘Do-Nothing Senate.'”
She fingered Reid as the real culprit:
- 352 bills are sitting on Harry Reid’s desk, awaiting action.
- 98 percent of them passed with bipartisan support. Republicans and Democrats working together to pass legislation.
- 50 percent of the bills passed unanimously, with no opposition.
- 70 percent of the bills passed with two-thirds support in the House.
- And more than 55 bills were introduced by Democrats.
The new year is an opportunity for a fresh start, and the 114th Congress, which began on Jan. 3, has the GOP in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
However, that doesn’t mean it will be clear sailing. The president is still a Democrat, and the Republicans are split between conservatives and moderates on some major issues.
Lee addressed both challenges and described his fix with a characteristic optimism, but he didn’t say it would be easy.
WND began by asking: What is the most important thing to fix in Congress?
At the very top of Lee’s list was simply the need to restore the trust of the American people in Congress.
Critics claimed Reid ruled the Senate in a way that obstructed progress by stifling dissent, causing Americans to harden their perception of Congress as dysfunctional.
Lee believes the best way to restore trust is to simply open up the legislative process in the Senate and let the debates begin again.
“To once again allow senators to be senators, meaning, allow senators to propose amendments and have those amendments debated and discussed and voted upon.
“That’s what has distinguished, differentiated, the Senate from other legislative bodies throughout the United States and throughout the world, is this open-ended amendment process. It’s been dormant for the last few years, and, as Republicans, we need to open it up.”
Another key to cleaning-up Capitol Hill’s reputation, according to Lee, is undoing cronyism in Washington, and, “to abide by the conservative ideal that it’s not the job of government to select winners and losers in business.”
Lee mentioned a simple but big step to restore confidence would be to merely pass a budget, something Congress hasn’t done in nearly six years.
“I’d like to see a budget, for example, that could bring us to balance within 10 years and do so without raising taxes and without any accounting gimmicks that would make it look like we’re getting to a balance when we’re really not.”
Passing a budget would also go a long way toward ending something else Lee identified as souring the public on Congress: the seemingly never-ending “cliff-crises.”
Lee described how the lack of a budget leads to a “take-it-or-leave-it” choice when funding the government. Without a budget, Congress passes a dozen, or so, bills to keep different parts of the government running. That leads to a single vote on either a continuing resolution or an omnibus bill that funds everything, basically at current levels with certain minor exceptions and adjustments.
“Or you don’t fund it all. And that’s what brings us to the point of governing by cliff. If we can pass a budget, which I think we should be able to do, we’ll be miles ahead of where we have been in the last few years toward avoiding this governing by cliff posture.”
Now that Republicans control both the House and Senate, people might assume they could easily collaborate and pass bills. But Republicans have a problem the Democrats do not: Republicans rarely vote in the lockstep uniformity regularly displayed by Democrats. How to deal with that?
“I think it’s a good thing. I think diversity of opinion within a political party and a legislative body is important. And I think when you get a lot of people who come together and they come at a particular discussion from different vantage points, you end up with legislative solutions that make a lot more sense.”
Lee doesn’t just mean finding common ground between conservative and establishment Republicans. He wants to restore collegial relations with Democrats, too.
“I think within our party we have a real opportunity to bring together divergent viewpoints, and I also think that will be helpful in bringing Democrats into the equation, as well.”
But, even with consultation with Democrats, that doesn’t mean the Democratic president will sign more bills, even popular measures.
For instance, a majority of Americans may support the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, but it is far from certain the president would sign a bill authorizing it. How does Congress deal with a potentially obstructionist president?
Lee mused the best way may be “not to try.”
“In other words, if we pass something like the Keystone XL pipeline, if he wants to veto that, he’s got to look the American people in the eye and explain to them why it is that whatever interest he’s trying to protect is more important than the many, many tens of thousands of jobs this would create. Why it’s more important than the energy security this would help North America secure.”
If the best way to deal with a presidential roadblock is “not to try,” there is still  every reason to try to send legislation to the president’s desk.
“We shouldn’t just assume the president’s just going to veto a particular bill therefore it’s not worth pursuing. The other thing is we won’t know for sure until we try. It’s one thing for the president to say I might veto that. It’s one thing for us to assume he would. It’s quite another for him to do it.”
Can a Republican Congress establish confidence-building measures with the president?
“Perhaps. Perhaps. I would like to see some. And, you know, we saw President Clinton, for example, after the Republican revolution of 1994, come back to Washington a different man. A much more pragmatic man, a man who was interested in working with Congress and willing to do what it takes to get there.
“I’d love to see that out of this president. He at least said that he was interested in doing that shortly after the election. And I look forward to working with him. I look forward to finding common ground. I hope he’s willing to meet us on some of these (issues.)”
Lee then adroitly turned the president’s own words up on him.
Three days after his inauguration in 2009, Obama, armed with a Congress then-controlled by Democrats, famously lectured House Republican Whip Eric Cantor that “elections have consequences” and “I won,” after presenting a modest list of GOP proposals for the economic stimulus bill.
Ever gracious, Lee now gently chided the president, “I hope that he’s willing to acknowledge that elections have consequences and to work with us to find common ground where it exists.”
The search for common ground doesn’t mean Lee thinks Republicans should be wallflowers. The senator strongly advised his colleagues to think big and bold. Not just cut the waste in government but come with ideas to actually fix broken policies that aren’t working.
In particular, he wants to “Ryan-ize” the committees in the House and Senate.
“When Paul Ryan assumed the chairmanship of the budget committee in the House a few years ago, he thought really big, and he said, ‘You know, we’ve got a big entitlement state. That entitlement state is under threat right now because if left alone it’s not going to prove sustainable, and Americans who’ve relied upon it for decades aren’t going to have access to those benefits unless we reform it.'”
“I’d like to see every committee chairman in Congress, in the House and in the Senate, take a similar approach and to think really big about policies that are important to the American people.”
Does going bold mean mean there’s also room for incremental confidence-building measures on those issues where there is general agreement?
“Yeah, I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive,” he said. “I think you can go bold and also achieve incremental progress where it’s available. There’s nothing wrong with plucking the low-hanging fruit. And, in fact, I think we ought to do that, but we also need to be bold.
“Be thinking three, four, five, 10, 15 years out and figuring out where we want to be then, taking the bold steps now to move in that direction.”
