The Dysfunctional Congress?: The Individual Roots of an Institutional Dilemma

Congress is in trouble. The public doubts its capacity to solve our nation's problems and the current majority party is attempting to shift the balance of institutional power away from Congress and toward the President. In The Dysfunctional Congress? , David Canon and Kenneth Mayer maintain that Congress's difficulties are the result of two fundamental flaws in the system: a misunderstanding of Congress's institutional role within our governmental process, and an ongoing conflict within Congress between actions that are individually rational for members of Congress, but are not in the collective interest of society more broadly. Most of the reforms suggested by well-intentioned outsiders—term limits, a balanced budget amendment, cutting Congressional staff, eliminating Congressional perks—skirt these two central issues.