Most unproductive Congress in US history?

[Music] and now for today's Spotlight we're days away from the start of 2024 and looking back wow we have seen a lot of history in Congress this year for the first time since the founding fathers created the very idea of the United States Congress we saw a speaker of the house ousted from his job so instead of Kevin McCarthy speaker Kevin McCarthy we now have speaker Mike Johnson then there was Santos in his way he is historic too the first member of Congress since the Civil War era to be expelled from the house without having first been convicted of a crime so lots of history in there but what were the results in 20121 lawmakers passed 81 laws you see it on your screen in 2023 in that same period Congress will have passed only 27 laws so is this Congress one of the most unproductive in history we take that question right back to our panel Mike Julie Rachel and Barbara Barbara first question is for you as I assumed you wanted it to be as a former member of Congress how would you grade your former colleagues well listen uh you can't give uh them overall a great grade but let me point out it's the minority of Republicans the freedom caucus that is causing uh the major majority Republicans want to do something on Ukraine want to do something on Israel would like to get sensible border reform but that Minority of the freedom caucus is controlling everything and they're the ones that have brought it to a standstill and made them the do nothing congress and made them so unproductive and is causing them to have this bad reputation so even though you have somebody like a Mike McCall who wants to you know get something done on on Ukraine and others who want to get these Solutions others who didn't want to you know get rid of the speaker um you've had you have this minority who doesn't care if they shut down Congress which they might do in January and they're the ones who were responsible for this well you just let me right into my next question to Rachel which is this Congress it narrowly avoided a debt crisis they're still in the middle as Barbara just mentioned of trying to figure out how to fully fund the government they got deadlines in January deadlines in February recently Senator Tommy toille of abama was holding up hundreds of military nominations he only just recently caved so can you give us some sense of everything that these lawmakers while all of that has played out have put off and what they now have to focus on in January well it's a long list Jay as you know they've been very productive in GOP infighting not so much in doing uh the people's business I mean look when we come to January they're going to have a long to-do list I in front of me forgive me as I glance down I'm just looking at some of these uh foreign surveillance reauthorizing fisa and sort of our defense and National Security uh to be able to sort of Route out and root out terrorism that is trying to attack the country food nutrition programs for lowincome families is running out of money uh the Federal Aviation Administration needs to be reauthorized this is important for like consumer protections uh things like you know air traffic controllers and making sure that your flights aren't delayed things like border security uh spending bills Aid to Ukraine and Israel and I mean it's it's been tough and part of it is because Republicans have a very slim majority in the house and they're fractured right now the party is sort of divided between a populist Trump wing and traditional Republicans so they can't really get together and then also bipartisanship now is sort of seen as this dirty word I mean I think about the Republicans who who worked with Democrats on the infrastructure bill they were attacked by Donald Trump trump and their own party so what incentive do they have to actually work across the aisle right now I I was looking down so forgive me if you're watching at home because I was going through your list and checking it against my list to see if I had missed anything so so thank you for that but speaking of the infrastructure Bill Julie President Biden got some big pieces of legislation through Congress including that infrastructure bill but he did it when Democrats were largely in control of both chambers that is not the case anymore so do you think he can fundamentally work with this Congress or is there just too much bad blood there between the White House and House Republicans I don't think the owners should be and him to work with this Congress I think this Congress and especially the Republicans in the house need to get their act together and work with each other first I mean as Rachel points it out they're not even capable of working excuse me Barbara points it out they're not even capable of working with each other never mind across the aisle and look I might not have agreed with new Gingrich or John Boehner or Paul Ryan but you did have a governable republican House Majority in previous years and in previous decades the problem is they are ungovernable right now they don't have a speaker who's able to govern all of them you have people who may be meaning but nevertheless are caving into the freedom caucus party uh of of their Coalition and so as a result how in the world are they able to work with the White House when they can't work with each other Mike if you meet me in the halls of the capital you will often hear me say this statistic Rachel has heard me say this I believe 72% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Congress that's from a Pew research poll it varies but it's usually in the 70s because of that do you think Congress can ever turn that around and what do you think average Americans want to see from Congress I don't know if they can turn around the way that Congress conducts his business and governance as of today I think part of that data number that you pointed out Jay is because of what you and Rachel have outlined of all the checklist of issues that are before this Congress I just want to add one to that which is Tech policy we're talking about AI but this Congress still has been able to address data privacy before we can even get uh to artificial intelligence and I believe that it's too consequential the times that we're in right now Nuance is so strong with these issues that it's going to take a new type of governance in order to get process flow in logistics and strategy it's almost to the point now real I feel like they need strategic Consultants to come in and to help them prioritize help them do strategy but my concern with that Joe is that Jay cartisan is so strong I don't know if we can even get to process I mean yeah weren't we supposed to pass AI legislation in the next few months that's what Chuck Schumer wants to do but you're right I mean we got priorities anyway uh Mike Barbara Julie Rachel thank you all stick around hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 141,801

Keywords: Congress, Democrats, Johnson, Kevin, McCarthy, Mike, Republicans, Washington, abc, abcnl, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-105882916

Id: ZML_G0zZnBM

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 23 2023