“It,” Mark Twain quipped in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, “could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” That most American of writers didn’t have a very high opinion of our elected federal legislators, attributing the “kindly feeling” Congresses had “for idiots” to their “personal experience and heredity”.
It seems most Americans share his disdain for Congress. For a post yesterday, I tracked down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s favorability ratings, I expected them to be low, but what I also noted was that both Republican leaders, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are slightly underwater, with each having an unfavorable rating slightly about his favorable, 4 and 2 points respectively. The Democratic leaders by contrast have even more significant deficits, 29 points for Mrs. Pelosi and 26 for Mr. Reid. While a plurality of Americans give the Republicans unfavorable ratings, a majority give such ratings to the Democrats.
And no matter which party is in power, congressional disapproval remains high.
This lead me to wonder has there even been a time period when Americans had a favorable opinion of the legislative branch — and its leaders?
*over an extended period of time.
Could it be because of entrenched incumbents?
The majority in any district tends to love their own, but hate everyone else’s…
I was going to suggest the 1st Congress (1789 – 1791), but their last action was to pass the Whiskey Act, which led to the Whiskey Rebellion, so maybe not even then.
Do the American people, generally, know who is even in Congress? Haven’t heard Hannity’s Man on the Street Fridays in a long time, but it never seemed like anybody asked could recognize any of the Congress Critters.
If we could turn to Congress to solve knotty national problems and depend on them to keep their hands out of the cookie jar and leave us alone when there are no knotty national problems, we might sort of like them.
I would say no, while there are bound to be a variety of reasons for this, the simple fact is that while each congress critter (gotta catch them all) may be popular in his own state, anything that they do to enhance their state over the interests of others is bound to create ill will. No one likes the people that make their rules but there is still a place for them in our society. I wonder merely as a hypothetical what an americans idea of a perfect congress critter would be and if they would be electable.