Investigative Commentary
Congress May Be Better at Producing Conflict Than Laws
Only 27 bills passed during 2023.
Reuters called that a record low. But Congress did not look inactive. Members held hearings, issued statements, attacked one another, posted clips and explained why somebody else had made progress impossible.
The legislative machinery stalled.
The political-content factory ran beautifully.
That distinction matters because “do nothing” may no longer describe simple incompetence. Failure can now produce attention, campaign material and partisan loyalty. An unresolved issue remains available for the next fundraising message, election promise and televised confrontation.
Congress may be failing at lawmaking while succeeding at attention management, which is a marker of a failing society.
The issue changes. The operating cycle does not.
Immigration today. Spending tomorrow. Then health care, crime, debt or foreign aid. Always running out the clock, moving the goal post and making the people chase the red dot.
The public argument is a managed cycle, it changes every few years, sometimes every few weeks. We have actually seen politicians and talking head pivot in the same interview. Underneath it, the same sequence keeps appearing.
A deadline approaches. Negotiations move behind closed doors. Public rhetoric hardens, or better put, the social noise jumps pumped and guided by the signals put out by the system. An unacceptable provision emerges. Leadership restricts amendments or prevents a clean vote. Crisis coverage peaks. Then Congress produces a temporary measure or an enormous package. All theater.
The immediate disaster is delayed, at the last moment, oh the intrigue. The underlying dispute survives, always ready for another day of turmoil.
In September 2026, a Fortune commentary described congressional dysfunction as a cross-party condition (or coalition?). Its authors wrote that Congress had failed to enact every annual appropriations measure on time for 30 consecutive years. Since World War II, they said, the process had been completed on schedule only four times.
That cannot be explained by one party, one president or one particularly difficult session.
It is a durable institutional pattern. Maybe it is an actual mechanic of it?
Continuing resolutions are part of that pattern. They allow the government to keep operating without Congress completing its regular appropriations work. Temporary rescue becomes routine. Routine failure is then narrated as another emergency caused entirely by the opposing team.
The teams can sincerely disagree. The outcome can still serve both. Just look back and ask yourself, when the power shifted did they push the bill they envisioned? Probably not.
That is the uncomfortable part. That is the part the average citizen, when presented with this gambit, recoils to the standby of pointing fingers at the other party or toss their hands up and say, why does it matter.
A joint conspiracy is not required when the incentive system keeps rewarding the same behavior. A proxy conspiracy is not a theory here, it is a pattern that has emerged from some time.
“Not good enough” can keep an issue alive
A flawed bill should sometimes be rejected. Bad provisions do not become harmless merely because somebody stamped “bipartisan” on the cover. Nor does passing it say bi-partisan either, it says you wanted to do something, now make it better.
Still, “not good enough” is politically useful language. One that makes sure no real change can happen and no real reform will take hold, they constantly run out the clock.
It permits a member to refuse an imperfect settlement without openly admitting that preserving the controversy is more valuable than addressing the problem. The demand for a comprehensive solution then becomes the mechanism for avoiding a partial one.
Then the script flips. The pendulum swings.
A proposal is called inadequate under one president and responsible under another, by the same party. A procedural tactic becomes obstruction when the opposing party uses it, then necessary leverage after control changes. Yesterday’s poison pill becomes today’s essential protection, again by the same people.
This does not prove hidden coordination. well, when you apply game theory and a little chaos mathematics It suggests a better test is the least we need, it really says there are choices and goals that are being hidden from the citizenry. Real alignments that do not seem to resonate with the public.
Track the language. Mark the actions.
Compare what legislators say when their party controls the House, Senate or presidency with what they say from the minority. Then compare the actual provisions. The argument becomes less about policy than ownership fand funding. Maybe it is to keep the public looking at each other and not at them? Just a thought.
The phrases are already familiar: “Dead on arrival.” “The votes aren’t there.” “Clean bill.” “Political stunt.” “No path forward.” “Now is not the time.” “The American people deserve better.”
Those phrases may be sincere in any single case. Their value appears when followed across changes in party control. That is where principle can be separated from position.
Most bills do not die in a dramatic vote
Public attention usually lands on the final roll call. That may be the wrong control point. Many proposals never receive a final recorded vote. Leadership controls calendars, committee referrals, amendment rules and conference negotiations. A measure can collect bipartisan cosponsors and remain inert because the people controlling floor access do not want members placed on the record.
No vote means less accountability.
A politician can claim support without facing the consequences of passing the measure. An opponent can quietly rely on leadership to bury it. Both can later blame an abstract process, the other chamber or a shortage of time.
“The votes aren’t there” sounds definitive. It can also conceal the absence of a vote that would reveal whether the claim was true.
Committee action matters for the same reason. So do discharge petitions, cloture filings and House Rules Committee resolutions. The public speech tells us how failure was marketed. The procedural record tells us who had the ability to move the bill and chose not to.
That record may be far more revealing than another partisan interview.
Giant bills solve the visibility problem
Reuters reported that more policy has been packed into enormous must-pass legislation because individual measures cannot move independently. Remember the " you have to pass it to read it" mantra.
Larger packages create a lot of problems.
They provide camouflage.
A member can support the package while condemning one section. Another can oppose it while praising several provisions. Both can return home with different explanations for different audiences.
The package becomes shield and weapon. this is by design.
Policies that could not survive a standalone vote may be attached to appropriations, emergency legislation or another measure considered too important to reject. Last-minute negotiations can also concentrate real control among leadership, senior staff and a narrow group of negotiators.
The harder a bill is to evaluate cleanly, the easier it becomes to obscure responsibility for what entered it, what disappeared and who insisted on the final trade.
Poison pills fit naturally into this structure. A provision can be important on its own merits. It can also be inserted knowing that the other side cannot accept it.
The package then fails.
Everybody gets a speech.
Gridlock sends power somewhere else
When Congress does not make a decision, the decision often does not vanish.
Practical authority can move toward presidents, administrative agencies, courts, emergency declarations, waivers, contracting decisions and enforcement discretion.
Congress can delegate hard choices, avoid difficult recorded votes and later attack the institution exercising the authority it received.
That creates an odd unity of outcome.
Democrats and Republicans may fight bitterly over the resulting decision while both participate in weakening the legislative branch. Each party can condemn executive overreach when the other party controls the executive. Each can rediscover the usefulness of executive action when its own side takes office.
The structure offers members authority without clean accountability. They can demand action, avoid specifying the compromise and then object to how somebody else filled the vacuum.
Congress seems to lose practical power.
Individual members maintain statue and keep their talking points.
The communications office may now be the productive one
A December 2025 USA Today opinion column argued that social media changed the definition of political productivity. Members no longer need legislative accomplishment to receive continuous publicity. They can attack, react and demonstrate partisan loyalty directly to an audience. All noise.
That alters the value of compromise.
Compromise is complicated. It gives the other party partial credit. It can anger the most engaged supporters. Worst of all, it may resolve the issue generating attention.
The failed bill is cleaner content.
It supplies villains, urgency and a new reason to donate. A completed law produces implementation details, tradeoffs and shared responsibility. Those are harder to fit into a viral clip.
Hearings can then function as content studios. Speeches may target donors and algorithms more than colleagues who need persuading. The performance does not replace every legitimate legislative activity, but it can become a competing measure of success.
A member who helps pass a quiet technical law may receive little public attention. A member who delivers a sharp confrontation can dominate the political conversation without changing a line of federal law.
Which behavior does the system reward?
Reuters also described a Monday-through-Thursday congressional rhythm that leaves only two full working days. Members spend less time together, reducing the informal contact that once supported negotiation.
Congress does not merely have a productivity problem. It may have redefined the product.
“Do nothing” has always been political language
Harry Truman made the “Do-Nothing Congress” label famous during his 1948 campaign against the Republican-controlled 80th Congress.
Yet that Congress passed hundreds of public laws.
The phrase was politically effective because it described more than a raw count. It framed the institution as obstructive, detached and unwilling to address public needs.
Today the contrast is sharper. Congress can produce fewer laws while generating vastly more political material around its inability to act.
That suggests a wild possibility worth taking seriously.
Legislative inactivity may no longer be merely a failure of the political media system. It may be one of its products.
Unresolved disputes provide recurring characters and familiar scripts. They keep supporters emotionally engaged. They allow both parties to promise that meaningful action is one election away.
A settlement ends an episode.
A stalemate becomes a series.
Both parties can oppose the same repair
Members regularly complain about congressional dysfunction. Meaningful procedural reform is more difficult.
Changes to calendar control, amendment rules and recorded-vote requirements could weaken party leaders. Greater committee independence could reduce centralized control. Allowing more measures onto the floor could force members in safe districts to take politically dangerous positions.
The people criticizing dysfunction may therefore have different ideas about which dysfunction should end.
Low-cost modernization can be welcomed. Reforms that redistribute power may encounter resistance from leadership, committee chairs, safe-seat incumbents and members who prefer not to vote.
Even reform can become performance. A committee issues recommendations. Congress adopts administrative changes. The deeper machinery governing calendars, amendments and floor access remains intact.
The same pattern returns.
Public frustration is acknowledged. Structural control survives.
The argument may be the distraction
The strongest version of this idea does not require believing that both parties secretly agree on everything.
They clearly can disagree. Their voters, donors, coalitions and policy goals can pull in different directions. Those conflicts are real.
But real conflict can exist inside a system that rewards nonresolution. This is the power struggle.
Congress preserves controversial issues because controversial issues preserve political careers. Party leaders retain control by limiting what reaches the floor. Members avoid dangerous votes. Presidents and agencies inherit authority. Media platforms receive continuous conflict. Fundraising operations receive permanent emergencies.
The public receives another argument about who stopped the bill.
Follow the money, follow the provisions not just the branding. Follow bills with broad support that never receive votes. Follow the burst of fundraising after legislative failures, this is used to pivot the issue away from them failing and you being integral to winning, well your money at least. Follow identical language as it reappears under new titles and different sponsors. Follow the sections inserted into must-pass packages after public negotiations appear finished.
Most of all, follow the role reversals. The two sides of the same mouth.
The speeches will say the crisis is unprecedented. The procedural record may show something older and more stable: conflict without resolution, power without clear accountability and an audience kept busy fighting over the latest explanation for why nothing moved.