There was a time that a party out of power sought to regain power by presenting detailed arguments countering policy positions offered by the majority party. Positions were debated and eventually a compromise was reached. The opposing party did not just oppose the party in power. Legislators understood the old maxim “you scratch my back, and I will scratch yours.” Members understood that majorities change and except for a few issues, there was always room to resolve conflicts, legislate, and come back to fight another day.
At its source, America is not a parliamentary system where the party in power makes policy. The United States also is not governed by an authoritarian ruler who dictates what a government does. The U.S. has an elected President who is supposed to recognize that in the long run only through conflict resolution and compromise can the nation effectively be governed.
Historically, no party and no leader won every fight. The Members of the legislature like the President accepted the institutional traditions and norms. If they violated these rules a President could be removed from office as could a Member of Congress or they could be chastised or rebuked. If a senator or house member sought to remain after conducting egregious acts, members of both parties together, could invoke institutional sanctions against the miscreants. The ideals and principles that underlie this democracy transcended the party’s platform or a member’s personal self-interest.
To differing degrees, the Congress has been running away from these long-established principles since the 1987 Senate fight over the judicial confirmation hearing for Robert Bork. In the past decade or so, beginning with the pointless impeachment of President Bill Clinton 1998/9 to Senator Mitch McConnell’s pledge to spend all his efforts as Senate Majority Leader to defeat President Barack Obama, Congress has been operating as a broken system.
As far as policing its own Members, congressional behavior has reached its nadir over the past decade or so. The Constitution provides that each Chamber can expel Members. It left further punitive action such as forms of censure to each Chamber, including rebuke, denouncement, reprimand, and condemnation -- short of explosion--to be determined by each body. In addition, both Chambers established Ethics Committees—which had different names at different times—with the responsibility to assure that Members of each Chamber conduct their personal and political lives according to a high standard. It was generally in these committees that charges of ethical misconduct were assessed, with appropriate punishment then recommended to the full body. The recommendations of these committees generally only moved forward when there was clear bi-partisan support for action.
The problem more recently is that appropriate ethical standards and political behavior have declined dramatically. While consensus was never easily achieved, in the contemporary toxic environment Congress has been ambivalent at best to penalize its Members, especially when the offender was a Member of their own Party. Democrats in recent years, have not been without their own failings, as R’s and D’s both in the House and the Senate have been sanctioned. These included: Democrats House Speaker Jim Wright, Congressman Charles Rangel, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Senator Harrison Williams, Senator Thomas Dodd, and Republicans such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Representative Joe Wilson, Representative Laura Richardson, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Senator Bob Packwood, and others.
Today, parties do not want to police the behavior of their own Members especially among Republicans. In the name of free speech, Members of the House and the Senate verbally attack Democratic Members with impunity. They threaten their colleagues with murderous amines, cartoons, and outrageous charges. Republicans then wait for Democrats to respond, and any form of civil discourse descends into the gutter.
Republican leadership in the House tolerated Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attacks on Speaker Pelosi and former President Barack Obama; her denial of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon; and her charge that Jews including George Soros were responsible for the starting the California wildfires. When the Democrats moved to censure her and remove her from her Committee assignments, only eleven Republicans to vote to do so. (Many of this group have announced their retirement from Congress next year or are being challenged in a primary for their 2022 re-election.)
The Republican Party reached a new low when no GOP House Member voted to censure Congressman Paul Gosar last week for posting an anime video showing him killing Democratic House Member Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes and attacking President Joe Biden with swords. Following his expressed support for the January 6 insurrection, Gosar continued to receive praise from Members of his own caucus.
Similarly, since House’s passage of the infrastructure bill last week, a number of the thirteen Republicans who voted for passage now have received death threats. For some this was not the first time they and their families have received threats of violence for voting or speaking their mind. Many Republicans have now opted to label these conscientious Members who voted with the opposition as “traitors”; a term normally used for those who are disloyal to the country.
The conversation in American politics has descended to all time lows. Democrats are not perfect and do engage in ad hominem attacks against their opponents, but the Republicans appear to have no limits as to how far they will go in their effort to stir-up their base. The growing ugliness of the political conversation—which was and continues to be stirred up by Donald Trump—will no doubt intensify during the lead-up to the 2022 off-year elections. If the Republicans do gain control of one or both congressional houses next year the nature of civil political conversation will become non-existent.
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