Congress: Working Hard, Or Hardly Working?

We've all been disappointed in the performance of Congress this past year, but two folks from the Brookings Institution had an op-ed in the NY Times last week looking on the bright side of our legislative branch entering 2008. They start-

AMID the clamor of the presidential campaign, it’s sometimes easy to forget that all 435 House seats and 35 of the Senate’s seats are up for election this year, too. So how should Congress under its new Democratic leadership be judged?

The public has reached a decidedly negative conclusion, based on Congress’s inability to force a change in policy on the Iraq war and the pitched partisan battles that characterized much of the year in Washington.

That sums up how many feel. But don't forget the bigger picture they continue-

But expectations for seismic change in policymaking after the 2006 midterm elections were almost certainly too high, given the deep ideological differences between the parties, the Democrats’ narrow majorities, the now-routine Senate filibusters and a Republican president determined to go his own way on Iraq, the budget and domestic policy...

...In terms of both the number and significance of new public laws, however, last year’s Democratic majority significantly outperformed that [1995] Republican Congress. Only one item described in the Republican Contract With America was signed into law at the end of 1995, while most of the proposals the Democrats announced as their agenda were enacted.

Democrats, to be sure, aimed lower in their specific legislative promises...

...The new Democratic Congress delivered on the promise of ethics and lobbying reform, and made considerable progress in reining in earmarks, which had exploded under the previous 12 years of mostly Republican rule. In fact, between the 2006 and 2008 fiscal years, the cost of appropriations earmarks appears to have dropped from $29 billion to $14.1 billion. Perhaps most important, Congress reasserted itself as a rightful check on the executive branch, significantly stepping up its oversight on a wide range of important subjects.

They also have a chart comparing the performances of four recent, key Congresses- here.

Don't worry. The upcoming FISA battle will give us reason to be pissed at Democrats again.