Review
"(Congress) is the broken branch...It's not working in a small 'd' deomcratic way."--Congressman Tom Allen"For anyone wondering why they should vote out the Republicans, this book provides the answer."--The Morning Call"...an important new book..."--Cox News Service"...The Broken Branch...reveals their relationship with the national legislature to be much more profound than mere observation. Frankly, it's love. And they are deeply distressed by Congress's current low esteem. Urging reform at every opportunity, they seem like the loyal spouse of an alcoholic or drug addict, desperately pushing their beloved into rehab."--The New York Times Book Review"Two of the most knowledgeable congressional scholars."--washingtonpost.com"It is easy to recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Congress, how it works and how it should work. Hastert would be particularly well-served by spending a few hours with The Broken Branch . And if Democrats win control of the House in November, this book will suddenly be useful to both parties: to the Democrats as a cautionary tale and a useful blueprint, to the Republicans as an insight into where they went wrong."--Robert G. Kaiser, Washington Post Book World"Mann and Ornstein document a litany of abuses so excruciating that their reaction to the impeachment debacle of 1998 is this: 'We didn't think they could sink any lower. We were wrong.' Examples abound. Minority Democrats are routinely given only hours to read the text of thousand-page bills before they're brought up for a vote. Conference committees are stacked exclusively with friendly members. Oversight committees lie dormant and cabinet secretaries treat congressional inquiries with open contempt. Lobbying and pork-barrel spending are at record highs."--Kevin Drum, Washington Monthly"Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein have few peers as Congress watchers, but their affection for this very human institution drives their analyses in The Broken Branch as much as their experience. You don't have to agree with every point in their criticism to feel renewed respect for their lifetime of devotion to helping make the people's branch of government a better functioning and more constructive tribune of the public interest."--U.S. Senator John McCain"Poll after poll shows a dramatic decline in public esteem for the Congress. In the opinion of many Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, the institution simply does not work. Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein, two of the nation's very finest Congressional scholars, have shown in sharp, clean prose what has gone wrong and why and refreshingly suggest ways to get the First Branch of government back on track. This book is essential reading for Americans concerned about our country and our government." --Thomas S. Foley, Former Speaker of the House"The Constitution makes the legislative branch Article 1. It precedes the presidency and the judiciary by design. Today the legislative branch is too weak, too dysfunctional, and too out of touch with modern times to fulfill its constitutional duties. Mann and Ornstein understand well the glaring gap between the framers' design and today's reality. The Broken Branch is a serious step toward strengthening the Congress and moving America back toward a more stable and safer system." --Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the House"This book confirms what many of us have long known. Norm Ornstein and Tom Mann are two extremely admired and knowledgeable students of the United States Congress. It is a 'must-read' not only for Members of Congress, but for all Americans who care about the success of this vital institution of our Republic in these troubled times." --Tom Daschle, Former Senate Majority Leader"Mann and Ornstein... are clearly on to something"--Financial Times Weekend Magazine"useful and enjoyable"- Publishers Weekly"If you have ever worried about the declining influence of Congress in American political life, listen up! This timely book is for you. A first-rate, close up story of congressional problems and institutional decline...historically informed, institutionally sophisticated, told by two of Washington's best informed observers of American politics." --Richard F. Fenno, Jr., University of Rochester Book Description
Two leading authorities offer a devastating critique of Congress, revealing why it has become so dysfunctional and what we can do about it
About the Author
Thomas E. Mann is the W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. The author of numerous books on American government, and a contributor to major magazines and newspapers like Washington Post and New York Times, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mann has served as co-director (with Ornstein) of the Transition to Governing Project and senior counselor (with Ornstein) to the Continuity of Government Commission. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.
Norman J. Ornstein is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. An election analyst for CBS News, he writes a weekly column called "Congress Inside Out" for Roll Call. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs, and he appears regularly on television programs like The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, and Charlie Rose. He serves on the board of the Public Broadcasting Service and several other nonprofit groups. Like Mann, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
From The Washington Post
Citizens baffled by the House of Representatives' allocation of its time in July -- spent mostly on flag burning, stem-cell research, gay marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance, religion and gun control -- can find cogent explanations for its political priorities in this slim, forceful volume. Not that the subjects that ate up the House calendar last month are addressed here; they are not. It is the institution of Congress that Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein dissect, and they find it in appalling condition. The authors are members of what, sadly, may be a disappearing breed in Washington: independent-minded, knowledgeable experts whose concern for process is stronger than their desires for particular outcomes. They are means guys in an age dominated by ends. And they most emphatically do not believe that any particular end justifies craven or extra-legal means.
Mann and Ornstein are Washington fixtures, Mann at the Brookings Institution and Ornstein at the American Enterprise Institute. You've seen them both on television and quoted countless times; they are the sort of pundits that reporters rely on. They have been friends, sometimes rivalrous ones, since graduate school; they studied together at the University of Michigan and were congressional fellows together in 1969. Their personal politics are left-of-center, but, as they declare at the beginning of the book, their strongest partisanship is institutional. "For us," they write, "Congress has always been the first branch." Their devotion to Congress has won them admirers from all points on the political spectrum. A blurb from former Republican speaker of the House Newt Gingrich makes the point: "Mann and Ornstein understand well the glaring gap between the framers' design and today's reality."
The Founding Fathers quite deliberately described Congress in the first article of the Constitution, the presidency in the second. The authors of a revolution designed to overthrow a monarch did not want to put a comparably powerful chief executive officer in the king's place. Congress, explicitly granted the power to raise and spend money, was to have the upper hand.
Over more than two centuries of American history, the founders' intention to create a strong legislature has repeatedly been tested -- and sometimes evaded, as in recent years. Until now, the pendulum has always swung back toward the Capitol after periods of unusually strong White House influence. Mann and Ornstein fervently want this to happen again; their book explains why they consider this so important and provides some ideas for how it might happen. But fundamental change will not come from tinkering reforms, they argue; only angry voters can force the House and Senate to correct themselves.
Their account of the recent decline of Congress, and particularly the House, is scathing but difficult to dispute. They blame a poisonously partisan division in both houses and in the country for much of today's congressional bickering and irrelevance. Partisan warfare led Republicans to cater to "the base," the country's most conservative Republicans, which explains the House's bizarre agenda in July. Mann and Ornstein trace the origins of partisan warfare back to the 1980s, when a contemptuous Democratic majority dominated the House without any fear or expectation that the Republicans would ever regain control. But Gingrich's forces did, of course, leading first to the spectacle of a wholly partisan impeachment of a sitting president and then to the first period of extended GOP control of both Congress and the White House since the 1920s.
"The arrival of unified Republican government in 2001 transformed the aggressive and active GOP-led Congress of the Clinton years into a deferential and supine body, one extremely reluctant to demand information, scrub presidential proposals, or oversee the executive," Mann and Ornstein write. "The uncompromising assertion of executive authority by President Bush and Vice President Cheney was met with a whimper, not a principled fight, by the Republican Congress." The authors write contemptuously of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his willingness to ignore House rules and traditions to ram through legislation to please the White House.
History is often ignored or forgotten in contemporary America, but not by Mann and Ornstein. Their argument is strengthened by their ability to put it in historical context, to demonstrate how far the current Congress has wandered from the legislature's traditional and constitutional role. Unfortunately, Mann and Ornstein let their own history complicate their narrative by repeatedly quoting their earlier writings. Their editor did them no favor by permitting these self-citations, which create a "We told you so" tone not conducive to making, or winning, an argument.
Even so, it is easy to recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Congress, how it works and how it should work. Hastert would be particularly well-served by spending a few hours with The Broken Branch. And if, as Mann recently predicted in The Post's Outlook section, Democrats win control of the House in November, this book will suddenly be useful to both parties: to the Democrats as a cautionary tale and a useful blueprint, to the Republicans as an insight into where they went wrong.
Reviewed by Robert G. Kaiser
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
