The U.S. Congress is navigating yet another government funding deadline — the eighth in less than six months — and are at an impasse over sending aid to key allies in Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. Divisions among Republicans in the House and Senate killed a major bipartisan border policy bill. Reforms to bedrock programs like Medicare and Social Security are desperately needed but no closer to getting passed. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives spent close to a month without a speaker last year due to infighting between moderate and hard right factions of the Republican party.
When U.S. Representative Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, begged his colleagues in November to “give me one thing I can campaign on and say we did,” he was articulating what many lawmakers and observers were feeling: Congress isn’t working.
The simplest expression of this is the number of bills passed by Congress. Just twenty-seven bills were passed last year — a record low — but even before that, the number of bills signed into law by the president has been falling.
Down-under, we have some other mechanisms to try to preserve democracy:
Mandatory voting and preferential voting. This provides opportunities for third parties and independents who engage with voters.
Ethics Committees, used at state levels but pushes for a Federal Ethics Committee. “They allow Parliament to scrutinise the Executive more effectively, making it more responsible to the people”
Caps on political donations is another measure, supported by progressives but not yet by the conservatives.
