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Jedi Mind Tricks: American Opinion of the Legislature

Since 1974, no true majority of the American public has held a favorable opinion of

Congress1; the consistency of national displeasure with the performance of our elected legislators

– independent of partisan minutia – has led to decades of speculation on the true cause of this

phenomenon. Is it truly the case that Congress simply hasn’t done anything well in the past 35

years? Or is the American public disinterested, uninformed, and unwilling to accept the true

nature of a representative democracy? Or is the media skewing the perceptions of representative

and constituent alike to present a deliberative process more fraught with mudslinging and blame-

games than true democratic compromise? Still another possibility suggests that our opinions of

our representatives are formed on the basis of the state of the nation – something that may be at

the mercy of any number of non-governmental forces – and have little at all to do with the

specific behavior of the legislative branch.

Americans have a love-hate relationship with their government; we never cease to affirm

our commitment to democratic values2, yet the practice of those values seems to incur national

antipathy for the institution ostensibly controlled by those same citizens. And a distrust of all

things governmental in nature seems to hover in the American culture – a sense that any

authority is more determined to usurp our civil liberties at first opportunity than to provide the

services for which government is required. As an old Jedi master once said, “Fear is the path to

1 Brady, David W. and Theriault, Sean M. “A Reassesment of Who’s to Blame: A Positive Case for the Public Evaluation of Congress” The American Congress Reader. Ed. Steven S. Smith, Jason M. Roberts, and Ryan J. Vander Wielen. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. P. 7. Print.2 Hibbing, John, and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. "What Is Wrong With the American Political System?" The American Congress Reader. Ed. Steven S. Smith, Jason M. Roberts, and Ryan J. Vander Wielen. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. P. 6. Print.

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the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”3 This paper

proposes that the time-honored American weariness of government has affected the behavior of

both citizens and legislators. The result is a maladaptive, resigned cynicism coupled with a

general tendency to lean towards the more radical or extreme ends of the political bell curve.

Explanations of low congressional approval ratings tend to focus on either legislative

conduct or public perceptions – or misperceptions – of congressional efficacy. Laying blame on

the latter cohort, John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse theorize that the fundamental nature

of representative democracy is unappealing when the actual practice of decision-making is

publicly visible. The public thus perceives a malfunctioning, acrimonious deliberative process

where what is truly taking place is the necessary give-and-take, debate and compromise that

inevitably result from the diversity of public opinion. That the congress is consistently targeted

as the nexus of governmental failure is the consequence of the legislature’s deliberative function

– a function essentially exclusive to the legislative branch in public format. We do not see the

president arguing with the opposition in forum debates; when the executive addresses the

legislature, he is not engaging in debate but passing information to a separate branch of the

federal government. Nor do judicial officers, unless we count the release of dissenting opinions,

bicker on the bench; our courts are conceptually the embodiment of austerity and unbiased,

rational conclusions.

Beyond the simple fact that the deliberative nature of Congress potentially creates an

unwarranted perception of rancor, the legislature is decisively and by design the primary

governmental institution:

3 Yoda, to Annakin. Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace. Prod. Rick McCallum. Dir. George Lucas. 20th Century Fox, 1999. DVD.

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Even though by the time of the Constitutional Convention many of the founders had developed serious concerns about abuses of legislative power, they knew that if the new Constitution did not provide for a strong legislature, it would have little chance of being accepted by the smaller states. Thus, there was no dispute with Madison’s Lockean assertion that “in republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.”4

Mezey continues to describe the historically inverse relationship between legislative and

executive power structures, both in America and other democratic regimes. That the president’s

ability to manipulate the political agenda is decreased by the powerful position granted to the

legislature by the Constitution makes Congress a natural first choice when laying blame for a

political system that is failing to meet expectations.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse purport that the absence of easy solutions to widespread

problems, the difficulty of producing effective legislation or gaining congruent opinions from

representatives, the squabbling within and between parties, and the lethargic pace at which the

congressional body operates appear to be a lack of efficacy. To a public that does not take into

account the necessarily disparate opinions and the deliberate design of the legislative process as

slow enough to prevent law from being passed merely on the basis of rapidly shifting public

opinion, these qualities seem to result from poor performance. Meaningful if heated policy

debates give the impression of overall discord; repeated revisions of bills that are necessary to

make them potable reminds the public that the people they elected or the party whose ideology

they follow does not, in fact, have all the answers.

The technological advances that make congressional debate a widely accessible media

have contributed to the problem, according to the theory purported; the more visible our

4 Mezey, Michael L. Representative democracy legislators and their constituents. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. P. 13. Print.

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democratic processes become, the more exposure the public gains to the cacophony of politics –

something inherent and irremovable. That our politicians are much more visible than those they

represent and those for whom they are expected to work in the interests of intensifies

dissatisfaction. In a nutshell, the American people

dislike compromise and bargaining, they dislike committees and bureaucracy, they dislike political parties and interest groups, they dislike big salaries and big staffs, they dislike slowness and multiple stages, and they dislike debate and publicly hashing it out, referring to such activities as haggling or bickering.5

The problem, then, is that the people want democracy without having to see the process

involved, what the authors term “stealth democracy.” They want to know that government of, by

and for the people is still operating – that they may take part if they wish. In reality, they do not

want to participate outside of the proud civic activity of casting a ballot every two years.

According to the authors, an assurance that the system is sufficiently equitable and the absence

of an overt denial of participatory rights are adequately democratic.

Others disagree. David Brady and Sean Theriault6 define four widespread behaviors

exhibited by legislators that earn the public’s fitting outrage: seditious legislation that avoids

accountability, hyperbolic rhetoric, the tendency of congressmen and women to brighten their

reelection prospects by casting the congressional institution in a negative light, and the

overexposure of loud-mouthed radicals who attract video cameras while their moderate

colleagues do the grunt work. All serve to make Americans a bit more impatient with legislative

foul-ups.

5 Hibbing and Theiss-Morse. 4-5.6 Brady and Theriault. 7-15.

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To illustrate the supposed “subversive” legislation, the authors give a history of

congressional pay-raises; congress is given the exclusive right to determine its own salary in the

constitution (another device inserted to ensure an autonomous legislature), yet it is difficult to

put this clause into operation without angering the tax-paying electorate. Thus, congress has

conceived a number of clever if devious – and ultimately ineffective – strategies to make their

salary increase as inconspicuous as possible:

Since 1953, members of Congress have . . . delegated the responsibility [of pay raises] to a commission. They have linked it to inflation. They have delegated it to the president. They have made increases automatic. Finally, they have hidden it amongst a series of reforms.7

The delegation of the responsibility had been constructed so as to ensure that a raise would

occur; in at least one instance, the Senate voted against a proposed increase in hopes that the

larger and more malleable House would push it through. To ice the cake, the “hidden” increases

were inserted into lengthy ethics reform bills. This behavior degrades the system of government

that Americans have consistently held in high regard – never has it been the case that Americans

in any significant number proclaimed a desire to stray from the constitutional framework.8 And

given that representative democracy is a system that relies on a legislator accountable to his or

her constituents, tactics employed to avoid taking a political hit while enacting unpopular

legislation are destructive to the trust between America and its government – a trust that was

born tenuous and easily shaken.

The authors go on to describe two hyperbolic rhetorical devices commonly used by

representatives: the proposal of solutions to complex policy issues that are insufficient and

7 Brady and Theriault. 10.8 Hibbings and Theiss-Morse. 6.

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untenable, and the deliberate exaggeration of negative outcomes of policies supported by

opposition members. The first leads inevitably to disappointment when the problem remains

unsolved; the second generates fear that is unwarranted and intended to unfairly disgrace other

representatives and knock down effective policies. The frequency of this type of speech, usually

issued on the floor of the House or Senate, makes the public numb to valid proposals and cynical

with regard to the legislative assembly and its commitment to its representative and legislative

responsibilities.

The third behavior identified by the authors has not escaped the notice of most political

scientists; nobody, including congressional representatives themselves, seems to hold a favorable

opinion of the legislature. Representatives who resigned their positions have cited the desire to

make a difference as the reason for their departure.9 Routine campaign oratory casts Congress as

a dysfunctional institution that needs either a fresh new face to shake up the machine or a veteran

with the experience to effect change in Washington, depending on the candidate, to get

democracy back in working order. This does not, for obvious reasons, leave Americans with a

warm and fuzzy feeling about their representative system. In addition to insulting Congress as an

institution, candidates lay blame on specific members (generally their direct opposition) and a

broad range of intrusive special interests, tailored to the majority views of the constituency, for

causing legislative disarray.

Finally, the authors note that it is the eccentric and radical legislative voice that is heard

by Americans – this is where TV news cameras tend to focus. The public is overexposed to the

type of representative that is most injurious to the legislative reputation – the extremist, the

9 Hibbings and Theiss-Morse. 4.

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exaggerating rhetoricist looking for campaign points with doom-and-gloom evaluations of

opposing policy outcomes and tauntingly simple solutions to vexing national problems, the

congress-basher and the negative campaigner. In essence, Americans see the behaviors they

associate with malfunction and those that incur cynicism about the character of our

representatives more than actual legislative behavior warrants; in truth, moderates play a major

role in passing legislation that gets little attention, and what money-making media outlet wants to

report about the Omnibus Surface Transportation bill that was effective and efficient?

At the same time, the authors report that the media is often focusing not only on the

camera-happy attention hogs but the representatives in leadership positions in the legislature.

Could it then be the case that these individuals are one and the same? Brady and Theriault admit

that recent congresses have been more partisan than in decades past; it would not be inconsistent

with human nature or American culture to move to the extremes when the general perception is

of a failing institution. Those who guarantee solutions to long-standing problems or provide an

acceptable scapegoat for obvious failures are attractive to the disillusioned masses.

But James Stimson10 offers another explanation of low congressional approval ratings,

one that has little to do with any specific branch of government, or potentially independent of

government entirely: American approval ratings of the legislative and executive branches tend to

follow economic peaks and valleys much more than policy outcome. Certainly, there are times

when scandal or moments of national crisis that unify the country effect Gallup statistics, but

these effects are temporary. Moreover, Stimson notes that over the entire term in office, most

presidents have very similar ups and downs in public opinion, and that the mean approval rating

10 Stimson, John A. "Between the Campaigns" The American Congress Reader. Ed. Steven S. Smith, Jason M. Roberts, and Ryan J. Vander Wielen. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. P. 6. Print.

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hovers near 50%; because the legislature and the president seem to be evaluated on the same

basis, this means that the legislature, though typically in poorer standing than the president, is not

being evaluated on the basis of conduct or policy outcome.

Humans in general, and Americans are no exception, seek a concrete institution or

individual to hold accountable when national welfare takes a turn for the worse. As described

previously, it is not surprising that Congress, despite the fact that the president is typically the

nominal recipient of blame, receives poor evaluations when unemployment is high, the market is

rough and paychecks that are worth less and less are stretched further than desired. And

although the economy may respond to the aggregate behavior of the government, it is never

under the control of any individual or specific branch; other factors unrelated to government

weigh too heavily to lay blame at the feet of the legislature or executive.

Is American fear of government justified? Or are consistent negative evaluations creating

an atmosphere where bitterness overshadows the democratic spirit? It is the opinion of the author

of this paper that both may be the case; clearly, it does not reflect well on the cohesiveness or

character of government when the people see the vice president using one of the seven words

you can’t say on television not only in that very venue but directed towards a colleague in the

representative system we hold in such esteem. We see situations in dire need of government

attention – a military operation in limbo, a healthcare crisis unresolved – and feel anger when the

people whose duty it is to attend such matters are more interested in publicly slandering one

another or producing flowery speeches that are no more than empty promises.

What is universal to humanity – whether it is subject to democracy, communism, or

authoritarianism – is that we fear the unknown, and in the sense of governments, particularly

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those elected by popular sovereignty, we fear not knowing how to solve problems. Whether it is

truly the case that we have sent the most able-minded individuals to steer our country in the right

direction is a debate best left to those who don’t feel the need to draw applicable conclusions.

The truth is that whoever is in the legislature does not actually know what to do all the time,

perhaps ever. Modern legislative policy is a complex affair; the outcomes – the bills passed or

strangled in committee – are not “right” or “wrong,” but genuine attempts to run the country

smoothly and ensure the welfare of its citizens. Legislation cannot be qualified dichotomously.

Every policy has its pitfalls.

The unseen work of legislators, whether unavailable or simply ignored, involves a candid

debate of the issues and a decision on what policies are most likely to affect a beneficial

outcome. If we fear our own institutions to the point of hatred and apathy, then we truly will

suffer as a consequence. It is the responsibility of both the electorate and the government to be

the keeper of government of, by and for the people. If we hold a negative opinion of Congress,

then we should also accept the role we played in placing our representatives in the positions they

occupy. Both representative and citizen play a role in low congressional approval ratings. But

this can be remedied by the judicious application of Jedi wisdom; surely, if Congress had the

discretionary budget for Star Wars-level special effects, the American people would not only be

more attentive to the activities of the legislature, but surely hold a higher opinion of our

representatives and their decisions. May the force be with us.

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