COLUMN: In defense of the democratic congress
In the heat of an exciting and historic presidential campaign, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Congress, too, is up for election this year.
The Democrats have controlled Congress for over a year now. In that time, have they met the voters’ hopes and delivered on their campaign promises?
The American people, it seems, think not. A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll has the Democratic Congress at a record low: an abysmal 22 percent approval rating. And for what it’s worth, I belong to that beleaguered 22 percent.
I think polls overstate the voters’ disapproval of Congress. Americans love to hate Congress, as a general institution. But the approval ratings for individual congressmen and women, especially Democrats, are markedly higher.
It’s also important to understand why this Congress is less popular than the previous Republican Congress. Not only do Republicans disapprove of this Congress, but many Democrats do too-again, primarily over the Congress’ failure to end the war.
Still, the record-low approval ratings are frustrating. This Congress, while far from perfect, deserves our praise.
Voters set unreasonable expectations for the Democrats. For example, I suspect that people believed that a Democratic Congress could reign in Bush’s executive abuses and bring an end to the occupation of Iraq. I, however, was under no such delusion-ending the war, with this president, would be difficult.
The Democrats have fought hard for a quick, but responsible, withdrawal from Iraq, having offered several bills demanding a timetable for withdrawal. But those bills were either filibustered and obstructed by Republicans or later vetoed by Bush. That’s just the nature of divided government.
Deaf to the will of the people, Republicans and the president have stymied other Democratic efforts. Expanding health insurance to low-income children (S-CHIP)-vetoed. Granting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research-vetoed. Increasing domestic spending on health, education and jobs-vetoed.
These setbacks notwithstanding, the Democratic Congress has many accomplishments of which to be proud, most of which were passed within the first 100 hours of Democrat control and often within bipartisan support.
The House and the Senate passed a bill to raise the minimum wage, the first increase in a decade.
They made America safer by passing all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
They replaced the Republican culture of corruption with the most significant ethics reforms in more than 20 years, reigning in the influence of corporate lobbyists and tightening the ethics rules that govern Congress. The legislation banned gifts, meals and travel funded by lobbyists.
According to the Washington Post, when Republicans took over Congress in 1994, there were 4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills. At the end of the 109th Congress, that number more than tripled to 15,000. Not once did Bush veto these pork-laden bills when Republicans controlled Congress.
As they promised, House Democrats cut the value of earmarks in legislation in half from last year.
The Democratic Congress also passed an aggressive energy bill that rolled back billions in subsidies to “Big Oil,” and instead allocated the money into the research and development of alternative energies.
Of most relevance to us students, the Democratic Congress passed legislation to make college more accessible by dramatically lowering the interest rate on student loans.
The Democratic Congress also restored oversight to the executive branch, reasserting its constitutional role as an equal branch of government. Thanks to congressional oversight, Alberto Gonzalez was forced to resign as the attorney general over the U.S. attorney scandal, unflattering details were uncovered about the administration’s warrantless wiretapping, and the public was made aware of the damaging and deadly role private military contractors like Blackwater play in war zones.
In contrast to the Republican “do-nothing” Congress, this Congress has been extraordinarily proactive. The Democratic House has held more than 1,000 votes, breaking the previous record set in 1978. And in 2007, Democrats instituted a five-day work week instead of the normal four-day work week.
There is a lot more work to be done, but the Democrats simply don’t have the votes to enact the policies Americans demand-all the more reason, though, for voters to ensure Democratic victories across the board this November.