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As 2023 neared its end, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote a column with a memorable headline. It read, “Worst. Congress. Ever.”
A year ago, I assigned myself to the Capitol to cover the new House Republican majority, suspecting that this erratic crowd of lawmakers would provide some lively material. They did not disappoint. What I could not have known then, however, was that this would turn out to be the most ineffective session of Congress in nearly a century — and quite possibly in all of American history.
To be sure, expectations were low after the 2022 midterm elections. Voters increased the size of the narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, but they also handed a narrow majority to far-right Republicans in the House. The prospects for legislative breakthroughs were low.
But by any fair measure, the current Congress is failing to clear a low bar.
Right off the bat, there’s the question of productivity. In first year of the current Congress, legislating fell to levels unseen since the Great Depression, due entirely to the far-right majority in the lower chamber, and as a Washington Post report noted last week, “This year is on track to be worse.”
This alone would help add the 118th Congress to the conversation about the worst of all time, but to appreciate what arguably gives the current Congress the edge over its most woeful predecessors, it’s important to look at what makes it unique.
This Congress has, for example, checked familiar boxes. Did Republicans launch a debt ceiling crisis? Yes, though they’ve done that before. Have these same GOP lawmakers threatened government shutdowns? Yes, though they’ve done that before, too.
But consider some of the developments that help set the current Congress apart:
- A lengthy and chaotic process to elect a House speaker
- The first-ever ouster of a sitting House speaker
- A lengthy and chaotic process to elect a new House speaker, leading to the majority conference settling on their fifth choice
- The first ever impeachment of a sitting cabinet secretary without cause
- The launch of an impeachment inquiry against a sitting president without cause
- An exceedingly rare expulsion of a disgraced member
- The most censures against sitting House members since 1870
In fairness, there’s roughly 10 months remaining in the current Congress, and members have plenty of time to do important and worthwhile work. There’s been precious little governing over the last 13 months, but it’s possible that lawmakers will turn things around.
It’s just not probable. In fact, it seems far more likely that conditions will continue to deteriorate. In the coming weeks and months, we might very well see House Republicans say they’re on board with letting Russia take part of Eastern Europe by force. Maybe another House speaker will be ousted. Maybe there will be a government shutdown. Maybe there will be additional evidence-free impeachment votes. There might even be another expulsion. The possibilities are endless.
But even if lawmakers were to take the rest of the year off, this Congress has already positioned itself as a cover-your-eyes embarrassment on a historic scale.