| Freshman of the 113th Congress pose for a photo on the Capitol Building |
The 113th Congress was sworn in last week, bringing with it more diversity than seen in recent years. There are now a record 81 women in the House of Representatives and 20 in the Senate, along with a record number of Asian, Latino, and other minority representatives. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), the first openly gay senator, as well as Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), the first openly bisexual member of Congress, also joined the ranks this year. Brian Schatz was appointed to the Senate after Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), one of the most respected members of the Senate, died last month (see here for more information about Senator Inouye and his impact in the Senate).
However, while this diversity may offer hope about the upcoming year's legislation, the new Congress might actually be more polarized than ever. Nate Silver says that "Most members of the House now come from hyper-partisan districts where they face essentially no threat of losing their seat to the other party." Instead, candidates face grueling primaries against members of their own party who are supported by increasingly narrow-interest groups with virtually unlimited and anonymous funding. (thanks to "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling). This results in candidates taking very narrow positions to appeal to their "base", vs. looking for broader solutions that would be open to compromise, as further discussed in the previous post. Also, look here for more of Nate Silver's analysis.
All of this affects how the new Congress will deal with the debt ceiling; Biden's recommendations on gun laws; the confirmation hearings for the head of the CIA, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense; and the large number of open judiciary positions that remain unfilled. Do you think the Congress' increased diversity will prove to be a blessing? Or will it, along with continuing polarization, actually end up being a hindrance? Will this new Congress be more or less efficient at passing laws than the previous one?
1 comment:
I think that the diversity will prove to be both a blessing and curse. With more perspectives accurately represented, the Congress will become more democratic (according to our definition). Like we discussed during the Congress unit, diversity matters because different Representatives or Senators of different backgrounds will have different priorities. However, when Melissa pointed out Silver's argument about the lack of competition between the parties fro many districts, I was worried. Democracy requires healthy competition to protect itself from factions, yet it seems this competition only pushes them to become more polarized during intensely partisan primaries.
As for the efficiency of passing laws, based on the issues of partisanship displayed in recent current events, I am not hopeful for this new Congress. Hopefully, this pessimistic prediction is wrong.
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