The Waning of Congressional Expertise in Foreign Policy

Polarization + Gresham's Law = Very Stupid Congress

Photo by Jorge Alcala on Unsplash

One of the hidden trends in American foreign policy — one that I stressed in The Toddler in Chief — has been the ebbing of congressional influence over U.S. foreign policy. “Ebbing” does not mean “nonexistent,” as the debate over aid to Ukraine or the congressional role in economic sanctions would tell you. When money matters, Congress gets interested, as Helen Milner and Dustin Tingley explained in Sailing The Water’s Edge.

As I noted in “Immature Leadership,” however, Congress has grown increasingly reluctant to take any responsibility when it comes to foreign policy outside of spending and sanctioning:

This was the wellspring of Arthur Schlesinger’s concerns about an ‘imperial presidency’: ‘Confronted by presidential initiatives in foreign affairs, Congress and the courts, along with the press and the citizenry, often lack confidence in their own information and judgement and are likely to be intimidated by executive authority.’ Congress has not formally declared war since 1942; but that has not stopped presidents from using military force dozens of times since then. Presidents have relied on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to authorize the use of force in Somalia, Syria and Yemen; Trump used it to kill Soleimani. The vast system of alliances has further empowered the president to deploy military forces without consulting Congress. Congress has demonstrated neither the will nor the capacity to claw back those powers. Similarly, after passing the disastrous 1930 Smoot–Hawley tariff that helped to trigger the Great Depression, Congress decided it could not responsibly execute its constitutional responsibilities on trade. Over the ensuing decades, it delegated many of those powers to the president. Polarization has further debilitated congressional power. Political scientists have found that presidents are both more able and more likely to act unilaterally when the legislative branch is paralysed by party division.

This trend is not only reflected in the abdication of congressional authority, but also the decline in congressional oversight. As Linda Fowler has demonstrated in Watchdogs on the Hill, Congress has held fewer and fewer hearings on foreign policy matters since the 1990s. Even when there are attempts to hold hearings about world politics, polarization can cause serious problems. Politico’s Nahal Toosi gets at this with a story from late last month about problems within the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission:

There are few bastions of bipartisanship left in Congress, but the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission was one. That is, until the fight over Brazil.

More than a year after supporters of right-wing former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ransacked government buildings to express their fury over his election loss, the commission’s two co-chairs are fighting over an attempt to give the Bolsonaro crowd a hearing to air their grievances….

The Republican co-chair, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, proposed holding the hearing earlier this month, billing it as exploring “democracy, freedom and the rule of law in Brazil,” according to a draft announcement I obtained. Smith insists that he is trying to help Brazilians unjustly persecuted — or prosecuted, if you prefer — by a government whose tactics in the wake of the riots have, in fairness, drawn widespread concerns.

But the Democratic co-chair, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, saw something more sinister at play and refused to permit the hearing. He and his team point to the parallels between the Jan. 8, 2023, Brazilian insurrection and the one led by Trump supporters in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021….

[McGovern’s] team also was upset that social media posts about the hearing appeared online before McGovern had made a decision on it, suggesting that the GOP side had leaked information about the event in violation of commission procedures. Their frustration grew into fury when Smith later held a press conference with some of the people who could have testified, and who had insulted McGovern online for blocking the hearing….

Two McGovern aides told me that they now worry the dispute over the Brazil hearing is a sign of future problems for the commission. “This politicization undermines the commission’s mandate,” one of the McGovern aides said. Both aides were granted anonymity to candidly discuss sensitive behind-the-scenes issues.

As Toosi observes further on in the story, if these issues are paralyzing the Lantos Commission that’s a bad, bad sign for the rest of Congress:

The worries come as a similar bipartisan institution, the Helsinki Commission — an independent government body that includes lawmakers — is experiencing its own internal rifts while facing hostility from some in the MAGA wing of the GOP.

Such disputes bode poorly for U.S. national security. Congress already is increasingly unable to make important foreign policy decisions — from confirming ambassadors to sending military aid to Ukraine — because of political polarization. When even panels such as Lantos, which, relatively speaking, has little actual power, face partisan flare-ups, it’s another sign of the deep impairment.

So congressional withdrawal from foreign policy has been a long-running trend, and partisan paralysis is an increasing problem as well. More recently, however, Congress is revealing that it is subject to a variation of Gresham’s Law: “bad money drives out good money from circulation.” To apply this dictum to the legislative branch, bad elements of Congress are driving out good elements of Congress. Or, to be blunt about it: the ultra-MAGA folks are aggravating everyone else in Congress, causing many saner folks to leave.

This is true at both the staff and member level. The Washington Post’s Paul Kane noted the staff problem a few weeks ago:

When it comes to job satisfaction, members of Congress aren’t the only ones considering calling it quits.

Only about one in five senior aides on Capitol Hill believe that Congress is “functioning as a democratic legislature should,” and about the same margin believe that it is “an effective forum for debate” on key issues.

Given those assessments by the people who live and breathe these issues, this particularly glum finding should not come as a surprise: Almost half of senior congressional aides are considering leaving the Hill because of “heated rhetoric from the other party.”

These are just some of the findings from an investigation by the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to improve both lawmaker effectiveness and constituent engagement. Situated seven blocks away from the Capitol in Eastern Market, the foundation conducts seminars for staff and offers research to outside groups trying to figure out the byzantine ways of the House and Senate….

Slightly more senior Democratic staff members said they were considering leaving because of the GOP’s “heated rhetoric” than did Republican aides when considering Democratic rhetoric. But almost 6 in 10 senior Republican staffers said they were thinking about leaving their jobs because of the actions of “my party.”….

Their collective ire also goes toward the representatives and senators themselves, who have amped up their bombast so much that it makes it harder for aides to secure the goodwill needed to do their jobs effectively. Almost half of senior aides strongly agreed that the tone taken by lawmakers “inhibits the ability of staffers to collaborate across party lines.”

What is particularly disturbing about these survey results is that Congress, to its credit, has been trying to make it more attractive for senior staffers to stick around. They’ve increased staff salaries and made it easier for staffers to access outside experts. But the toxicity of some members is enough to make them think about leaving.

As Kane noted, it’s not just staffers who want to get out of Congress: so do members. Well, mostly Republicans. The Washington Post’s Marianna Sotomayor notes that the kind of members who want to leave appear to be the kind of members who actually like to accomplish things:

The tumultuous year in a slim majority hasn’t necessarily pushed departing Republicans to seek higher office or pursue other opportunities away from Capitol Hill. But it reaffirmed for most that they made the right call to leave, that because the House has become more partisan, it is now more difficult to pass legislation that makes an impact than when many were first elected.

The decisions to depart are yet another sign of the broader drop in morale within the GOP conference. Many Republican lawmakers have largely accepted that their inability to govern is a predicament of their own making. They acknowledge that overcoming their legislative impasse relies not only on keeping control of the House in November, but also on growing their ranks significantly enough to neutralize the handful of hard-liners who wield influence by taking advantage of the narrow margins….

Four GOP committee chairs are leaving, but Republicans were particularly shocked at the announced departures of Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and [Mike] Gallagher, who are not term-limited from continuing to oversee their committees. Eight lawmakers are retiring from the coveted Energy and Commerce Committee and eight subcommittee chairs are leaving. Four former members of a different GOP leadership era also have called it quits: former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), his trusted deputy Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), former deputy whip Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), and McMorris Rodgers, who previously served as conference chair.

The result of this dynamic is fewer staffers and members of Congress who know anything. This exodus from Congress will have unhealthy long-term effects on U.S. foreign policy. No matter how much Congress wants to have nothing to do with the topic, they inherently play some role. As Congress becomes less interested and less knowledgeable about international relations, it will act in an ever-more capricious way.

So expect more parroting of Russian propaganda or dysfunctional impeachment theater. Do not expect much in the way of value-added.