The Eviction Ban: A Case Study in Congressional Dysfunction

“Our members of Congress—no matter how extreme their ideological predilections—have a duty to quit using the institution as a performative stage and begin working within it to actually forge policy solutions to our most pressing issues.”

On Friday, July, 30th, Congresswomen Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley slept outside of the United States Capitol to protest the lapsing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s eviction moratorium.

That single sentence nicely sums up two dynamics that define congressional dysfunction: (1) the delegation of major policy decisions to the executive branch and (2) the rise in performativity by members of Congress in the absence of actual legislating.

I take no position on whether a nationwide ban on evictions is still warranted, and I do not doubt that these members of Congress feel strongly and genuinely about the ban’s importance. In fact, Congresswoman Bush once was homeless and lived out of her car with her infant children. While I disagree with many of her policy prescriptions on how best to combat homelessness, she writes movingly regarding the nation’s housing problems.

Housing policy aside, Congresswoman Bush et al.’s protest points to deep issues with the modern Congress.

As Congress’s institutional knowledge and strength have withered away in recent decades under the weight of gridlock and partisan polarization, many members of Congress have never had much experience engaging in the grind and give-and-take of the legislative process. They are habituated to toeing the party line when in the majority and then lambasting the other side’s moves when in the minority. Their law-making muscles are weak and memories of collaboration, especially across the aisle, nearly non-existent.