Ex-staffer says no one can see the 'gobsmacking' extent of damage done to Congress

Major damage has been done to the norms that hold Congress together in the Trump age of politics, but according to a longtime former staffer, few people can truly see the "gobsmacking" true extent of that damage, until now.

Don Wolfensberger spent nearly three decades as a congressional staffer and reached the level of House Rules Committee chief of staff in 1995. On Thursday, he published a new piece for The Hill, hailing a new book, “The Folkways of Congress: Legislating Norms in an Era of Conflict,” edited by Brian Alexander, as a comprehensive look at "the extent to which Congress has changed dramatically over the last five decades, for better and, more recently, for the worse."

"Yes, we’ve all observed bits and pieces of the big picture incrementally over time," Wolfensberger wrote. "But when you pull it all together in a single book, what it delivers is gobsmacking."

He added: "Today the 'folkways of Congress' don’t seem all that folksy as members trade insults in their committees and wage wars on the floor. People tend to draw their impressions of Congress from those more dramatic and traumatic moments than from any examples in the news of bipartisan cooperation in solving real problems."

Wolfensberger highlighted several contributions to the book that he found to be of particular value, starting with a section from the late former Senate staffer, Elise J. Bean, who extolled her former boss, former Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin's mantra: "You can’t have good government without good oversight.”

"In her chapter, Bean distills a dozen norms that guided Levin in his oversight investigations, marked by bipartisanship, civility, reciprocity and transparency. Levin valued bipartisan inquiries because they were most likely to produce better results," he explained. "This chapter alone is worth the time to read because it does hold out hope for Congress finding better ways to get things done."

He further highlighted entries from former Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, and former Rep. Daniel Lipinski, an Illinois Democrat, which he said provided a balance between celebrating the positive norms that remain, while "lamenting" the negative ones that are now dominant in Congress.

"Snowe writes that norms give stability to the machinations of policy making and are powerful only when broadly accepted," Wolfensberger wrote. "Too often, though, bills are crafted behind closed doors by leadership, and members are given more to theatrical messaging rather than productive leadership."

He continued: "Lipinski also regrets that in his later years of service the customs of inclusivity on floor amendments had significantly decayed as has collegiality among members. While positive norms are essential to good lawmaking, he writes, negative norms of partisanship, tribalism and contempt for other members predominate today. We must hope that this pendulum will swing back."

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