Congress and Media.

Congress receives too little coverage. It’s hard, given so many legislators, the concentration of power in the majority-party leadership (majority leader in the Senate, Speaker in the House), for news to make sense of all the many members and place blame or focus the public’s attention.

But I think until that happens, Congress will not improve. There are reforms that could help, like adding more members of Congress, mandating independent redistricting commissions, and the like, but it’s a can’t-get-there-from-here problem that until we have a good Congress those reforms cannot happen. There are other reforms that might happen even with a broken Congress, around their rules and how they organize themselves.

But media coverage can always happen. We see article after article on this administration’s malfeasances and irregularities, its corruptions and its revenge plots. But Congress remains undercovered all the while. In op-eds that point to this or that policy undertaken illegally, without a law being passed, the evaluation is purely of the policy when it is a requirement of the Constitution that Congress ultimately be the one to decide the wisdom of policy, not whatever poor schmuck drew the short-straw to draft another executive order.

The media should seek more comment from legislators on these matters. Would they not like to have their say on these policies? Do their voters not deserve to have them debating and voting on the direction of the country?

The fact is the media itself has a wildly distorted view of American government, heavily weighted toward coverage of the executive branch in ordinary times, even more so in these the dumbest times brought by the stupidest executive. And I’ve made the point before, but it bears repeating.

Our system is predicated on choosing our leaders, most especially our legislators, to go forth and attack the thousands of pages of words year after year so that the words—our laws—do our nation justice. When they cease in that function, they undermine the entire design of our national government, and we are left with the words—our laws—harming us.

But our system is also predicated on a free press delivering us understanding on the state of those words—our laws—and of the legislative efforts to tame the words before they can do us real damage. When the media conveniently ignores the legislature, they also undermine the entire design of our national government.

A couple of tips for covering Congress:

1. When Congress undertakes some novel strategy to avoid accountability, like pretending one legislative day lasts month-after-month, the mechanism should be shunted to the bottom half of the article, while the majority responsible (whether a party or an ad-hoc section of the members) gets the blame at the top.
2. When reporting on completely predictable votes coming to an abrupt deadline, like the budget, the recent vacations and which party ordered them deserve to be highlighted.

3. When the president or legislators point to some acute crisis, attempting to justify unilateral executive action, the article should discuss what pending legislation exists that addresses the matter. If there have been hearings, say so. If there’s crickets from Congress, the article should underline that either the supposed crisis either deserves attention that it hasn’t received or the crisis is a lie.

4. When the Supreme Court yields to the executive by using the shadow docket, undermining a bureau’s independence, the article must mention what other provisions of the same law were written with the idea that independence was the law. The public must understand that cutting the law into paper dolls is reckless, and the law deserves more respect from the highest court in the land. But they must understand it in context of Congress writing the laws.
5. When any legislator speaks on the national debt, the media should highlight how long they have been in office, and how much the debt has increased during that period. There is a faction that continually cries out about the debt, but their efforts have done nothing to reduce it, and in most cases they have helped to pile it up.
6. When members of Congress speak on an issue and they received campaign contributions from related groups, that should be noted more prominently. I almost never see that kind of disclosure when quoting or discussing what members are talking about. If a House member hails from a heavily-gerrymandered district, that should also be noted. Put a picture of the district next to their picture, and include one of the many map-scoring figures to help drive the point home.
7. When any legislator pretends a false dichotomy, or when any legislation under consideration does, or when the president does, it should be highlighted. There are few true dichotomies in life, and even fewer in government. There are broad horizons and many paths. Just because a legislator or our legislature lacks an imagination doesn’t mean the press should buy-in to their limited view of the world.

The people need a better understanding of what Congress is and isn’t doing, what it can and cannot do, and why. The media can help improve that. I’d also urge them, when discussing the margin of a presidential election, to think about and mention the margin in the House of Representatives.

America hasn’t always existed. The Constitution wasn’t written in 1776. New legislation remains possible, including improvements to existing laws and dropping the stuff that we don’t need. But the media must portray our laws as always subject to new legislation. We can always do better.

When Republican legislators and the Supreme Court let the current executive enact bogus policies that harm our economy, our environment, and our people, they have failed. When the media fails to make it crystal clear that Republicans could fix these policies, that the court is being reckless, they join the others in the failure.