Fixing Congress: Operations Improve, Bipartisanship and Civility Need Attention

If you ask the public what they think of Congress, decades of polling shows that you’ll get a negative response. If you ask the staff who work in Congress, you’re likely to get similarly cynical and dejected answers. But a new survey of senior staff suggests that some aspects of Congressional operations have noticeably improved in recent years, reaffirming that Congress has the power to change.

Since 2019, Congress has been engaged in an effort to take stock of its internal operations, assess its strength compared to that of the sprawling executive branch, and boost its overall capacity that has been waning for decades. Essentially, Congress has been examining how it can get better at writing laws, helping constituents, and overseeing the federal government. These efforts were initiated by the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which operated from 2019 to 2023 and passed over 200 bipartisan recommendations aimed at improving the first branch. In 2023, the Committee on House Administration established a new Subcommittee on Modernization to implement the Select Committee’s recommendations and seek out new ideas for boosting congressional capacity.

These two member-led efforts, alongside counterparts in congressional support agencies and numerous external stakeholders, have diligently worked to improve the internal operations of the House of Representatives. Among other things, the congressional modernization movement has sought to address issues related to staff capacity, operational infrastructure, and the workplace culture of Capitol Hill. A new report from the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) provides a snapshot of the impact of this work thus far.

When it comes to boosting congressional capacity, the CMF report finds that senior congressional staff are noticing improvement. Across eight different measures including access to nonpartisan policy expertise, human resource support, and technological infrastructure there was a marked increase in respondents who were Very Satisfied with the institution’s performance, ranging from +6% to +20% across all measures since CMF’s last report in 2022.

These findings underscore the tremendous successes of the modernization movement. As former Representatives Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) highlight in a recent op-ed, Congress has already implemented many of the technology and infrastructure recommendations of the Select Committee, and the efforts of the Modernization Subcommittee have led to the recognition of Congress as a world leader for its approach to generative AI within a legislature.

Beyond technology, there have also been numerous advances in human resource support on Capitol Hill. The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) has launched numerous new programs to provide best practices and institutional support to the 441 otherwise independent member offices that have varying levels of management experience, such as a coaching program for staff, a centralized HR hub, and the House Intern Resource Office. These developments help further Congress’s ability to recruit, train, and retain high-quality staff, which is of particular importance in a tight labor market where positions outside the institution often come with better pay and improved work-life balance.

The CMF report also brings some nuance to the ongoing narrative of congressional dysfunction. Respondents from both parties overwhelmingly believe that civility and bipartisanship among members and staff are necessary ingredients to the functioning of the legislature. However, they are almost entirely unsatisfied with the current state of either, noting it is difficult to build relationships across party lines. Republicans and Democrats also agree that there is little incentive for doing so, and that the rhetoric used by some senators and representatives promotes division among staffers.

As one interview subject noted, “Relationships among staff appear to be much better than at the elected level. However, Members and Senators’ polarizing comments discourage staff from working together even when there is a good personal relationship.”

Addressing norms of civility and bipartisan collaboration is a more difficult problem to solve. Congressional leaders can’t mandate that members and staff simply “behave nicer” to one another.

The Select Committee identified several ways to help address these types of concerns. For example, Congress could provide information to members and staff about external organizations and resources focused on identifying and fostering common ground. To incentivize greater focus on legislative work rather than messaging politics, it could reassess chamber rules and build new technology to acknowledge a wider range of member contributions to legislation. Congress can also create more forums and opportunities that facilitate cooperation. For instance, committees could hold bipartisan agenda setting retreats, host nonpartisan pre-hearing briefings, and conduct more domestic policy delegation trips, all of which would foster policy learning and facilitate the growth of bipartisan relationships. Congress could even host a bipartisan retreat for the entire institution as it has in the past.

Unlike operations, technology, and human resources-related recommendations, many of the Select Committee’s civility and bipartisan collaboration recommendations remain unimplemented. One recent glimmer of hope is the creation of a staff collaboration space meant to provide a forum for staff from different offices—and parties—to easily meet.

As the CMF report notes and scores of people have lamented for years, in many ways, Congress is broken. But not irredeemably so. One leader of the modernization movement, Representative Derek Kilmer (D-WA), often quips, “if you want things to be different in Congress, then you have to do things differently.” This report’s findings indicate that this is true; congressional staff have noticed improvement in the areas where Congress has enacted policy and practice changes to its internal operations. Solutions exist to the problems that plague Congress, and things can get better if the institution has the will and courage to implement them.