Better Democrats

Over the past year or so, one of my more regular complaints has concerned Congress’ complete willingness to abdicate its Constitutionally-mandated role as a watchdog for the executive branch.  In a post on the Obama administration’s congruences with certain Bush administration detention policies, I noted that when it comes down to it, Congress’ institutional failure is our real problem:

It’s useful here to reiterate the point I made yesterday with regards to executive power: the recurring pattern in American politics is not for the executive to lose those powers he acquired during wartime or a period of “crisis.”  Indeed, if there is a pattern, it’s for subsequent presidents to consolidate and expand on the powers their predecessors assumed.  That Obama would be reluctant – or even opposed – to attempts to limit the powers he inherited from Bush was completely predictable, so I can’t say that I’m too disappointed.  Where I despair however, is in the realization that Congress has effectively abdicated its role as a co-equal branch of government.  At least with regards to national security, Congress acts in nearly-unanimous agreement with the president, and has been almost completely complicit in the steady – and apparently, irreversible – expansion of executive power.

On a similar note, The League’s Chris Dierkes advises Bill Maher to blame Congress for President Obama’s (supposedly) paltry policy offerings and his general inclination towards taking an incremental or moderate approach to problems:

The simple fact is that the Democratic Congress has no effective leadership.  More disturbingly it is because we have three branches of government and one has completely abdicated its role.  Spading and neutering is good to help control the pet population; it’s not so good when it’s self-inflicted by the US Congress.  If there are not three legs planted to the ground, the stool will not stand. The GOP under Bush did stuff but basically just took marching orders from the President, but they didn’t have co-equal branch status.

I think this is about right – ultimately, Congress makes the laws, and we have a Congress which has not only abdicated its oversight role, but is increasingly uninterested in actually doing the work of legislating.  Unfortunately, some of this can’t be helped; elections privilege short-term thinking over long-term thinking, while the current outsized presidency gives Congress the freedom to act (or not act, as the case usually is) safe in the knowledge that their failures won’t have any political cost (if health care reform fails, Obama will find himself with most of the blame, not Congress).  Back in 2006, when progressives criticized their more moderate fellow-travelers for embracing conservative and “centrist” candidates, the response was “we’re looking for more and better Democrats.”  At this point, we have “more Democrats.”  As Stephen Suh observes, now is the time for us to complete that equation by looking for “better Democrats” and actual congressional leadership.