Spineless or Complicit or both???

Why Congress Rolls Over for Trump

The powerful institutionalists who used to rule the House and Senate have been replaced by inexperienced partisans. And it shows.

By DOUG SOSNIK

Hardly once during the 18 months of the most unconventional presidency in American history have Republican leaders in Congress stood up forcefully to assert the power and prerogatives of the independent, co-equal branch of government that they control. Not only does President Donald Trump insult and bully his fellow party members, but his policies—on the budget, on trade, on Russia—also shred once-sacred conservative principles. Yet in response, the GOP congressional leadership has retreated in sullen compliance, or even, in many cases, seemed to exult in their surrender of dignity and principle.

It was once inconceivable that the leaders of the United States Congress would cede such authority to the executive branch. When I was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, we fought with Democrats in Congress almost as often as we fought with Republicans. Senators like Robert Byrd of West Virginia cared more about protecting their institution—its traditions and its power—than they did about defending the interests of a Democratic president. Byrd served more than half a century in the Senate, and carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. During Clinton’s impeachment trial, we worried not only about Senate Republicans but also Democrats, especially Byrd, who was adamant that the Senate not yield its constitutional authority merely because the president of the United States was a fellow party member.

Trump, however, does not have any Robert Byrds to fight. The next Democratic president probably won’t have any, either. There’s an underappreciated reason for Congress’ inability to stand up for itself: the mass departures of leading members who were more committed to the institutions of the House and Senate than they were to their political tribe.

In the Senate, 29 members with a staggering 557 years of seniority left office—due to deaths, appointments, retirements and election losses—between the beginning of 2008 and the 2010 midterm elections. By comparison, the entire Senate had only 1,042 years of experience at the beginning of this year. In the next Congress, there will be at most only 45 senators who were in office before 2011.

In the House, the turnover has been almost as dramatic. Next year, there will be at most 160 House members—barely a third of the body—who were elected before the 2010 midterms.

Many of the most senior members of the House are departing at the end of this year. With the retirement of Paul Ryan, Republicans will be electing their third speaker in three years (if they manage to maintain control). In addition to the speaker, of the 21 members who started this Congress as House committee chairmen, 10 will not be returning next year.

But it’s not just the party leadership. Back-bench tea party members are streaming out of the Congress, too. Of the 87 tea party members elected in 2010, nearly half have already left the House or have announced their retirements.

This dramatic turnover in the composition of Congress has occurred at the same time as the emergence of a newly rigid partisanship. The convergence of these two forces—an inexperienced Congress and political tribalism—has hastened the decline of institutional politics in our country, particularly in Congress. Loyalty to party is now the most important thing.

This is a bipartisan phenomenon. The Democrats made the first move when they weakened the power of the filibuster in the Senate by reducing the threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes for approval of President Barack Obama's executive and judicial nominees. Since then, Republicans have responded in kind—and then some.

Yet voters are to blame, too. Not long ago, ticket splitters—voters who cast ballots for a president and a member of Congress from two different parties—were a powerful constituency. In 1992, 100 House members were elected in districts where the voters supported the opposite party in the presidential election. As recently as at the beginning of the 101st Congress in 1989, 53 senators came from states where voters cast a majority of ballots for the president of the opposite party in the most recent presidential election. That gave these members of Congress an electoral incentive—in addition to an institutional one—to oppose the policies of an unpopular president.

Those days are over. Senate and House elections now mirror voting in presidential elections. In the current Congress, there are only 15 senators who are members of a different political party than the presidential candidate who carried their state in 2016. Barely more than 10 years ago, in 2007, there were almost twice as many—27. In fact, since 2013, 69 of the 73 Senate elections have been won by candidates from the same party who carried the state in the most recent presidential election. In 2016, there wasn’t a single Senate election with an outcome that differed from the presidential vote in the state.

These trends are even more evident in the House. In 2012, when Obama was elected to his second term, only 25 members—less than 6 percent—of the House were elected from districts where the voters supported the candidate from the opposing party for president. That was the first time since 1920 that less than 10 percent of the House was elected from a ticket-splitting district. And in 2016, it happened again: Only 35 members—8 percent—of the House were elected from such districts. (Thirty years ago, in 1988, a third of the House—148 members—was elected by voters who preferred a presidential candidate of a different party.)

Not long ago, Washington was a place of institutional politics. Our congressional leaders defined themselves as stewards of the bodies they served, and they were rewarded by their ability to bridge differences and build coalitions of diverse interests.

Now, our politics rewards politicians who do the opposite, who draw sharp lines to emphasize their cultural identity and to convey the shared preferences and—just as important—the resentments and grievances of their supporters.

But contrary to popular opinion, this state of affairs is not all Donald Trump’s fault. Since his election as president, he has done everything he can to deepen divisions in our country, but he did not create the politics of partisanship and inexperience that now dominates our elections and our government. He merely exploits it.