Reality Check: Is Congress Really Getting Things Done?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The ads are hard to miss.
They feature candidates for public office in Minnesota telling the public how they "reached across the aisle to get things done".
"I worked across the aisle to make sure all of these bills became law," Republican 2nd district Congressman John Kline said in one ad.
"This is a bipartisan bill," Democratic Senator Al Franken said in another ad. "We wouldn't have gotten it done without Republicans and Democrats."
But what is really the reality in Washington?
Ferocious gridlock.
Almost nothing gets done.
"It's just very difficult to do anything," Larry Jacobs, a professor at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, said.
Jacobs studied voting patterns in congress and found it's as bad as it's been in more than a century.
"The Hatfield-McCoy battle between Democrats and Republicans is as wide as we have seen it in decades," he said. "Some measures take it back to the Civil War."
The 113th Congress, ending Dec. 31, is so paralyzed by gridlock, the U.S. Government actually shut down for 16 days in October of 2013.
The Clerk of the U.S. House reports the 113th Congress passed only 183 bills.
Here's how it compares to the previous two sessions of Congress:
- 113th Congress: 183 bills
- 112th Congress: 283 bills
- 111th Congress: 383 bills
"It's been amazing to see (Democratic Senator) Amy Klobuchar and (Republican Congressman) Erik Paulsen working together on this issue," a Paulsen campaign ad says.
Yet, despite what the TV ads say this Congress passed even fewer bills than the 1948 "Do Nothing" Congress made famous by Harry Truman.
This Congress: 183 bills.
The "Do Nothing" Congress?
It passed 906 bills.
Part of why candidates are running ads like this is that the public is fed up with gridlock, and Congress.
A national poll last week found only eight percent of Americans think Congress is doing a good or an excellent job.
To put that into context, seven percent of Americans believe the moon landing was faked.
That's Reality Check.
Here are some of the sources we used for this reality check:
Congressional Productivity 2014
Roll Call: 113th Congress Could Yield Fewest Laws in 60 Years
Harry Truman 1948 Acceptance Speech "Do Nothing" Congress
Rassmussen Poll Performance of Congress
Public Policy Polling U.S. Support for Conspiracy Theories
List of Bills Enacted by 113th Congress
