A number of posts have discussed congressional capacity, legislative productivity, and deliberation.
The Senate’s smaller size, with senators representing the states and holding office for longer terms, ideally allows for more in-depth discussions and creates a degree of stability within the law. By contrast, the much larger House with its smaller districts and shorter terms, helps guarantee that the representatives are responsive to the public mood and that every geographic part of the country has an opportunity to have input into the formation of a law. These provisions not only encourage representative government but also promote legitimacy. Because Congress represents every part of the country, Philip Wallach argues in his recent book, Why Congress, “Only congressional deliberation is capable of tackling the [country’s] thorniest challenges in a way that the whole nation will accept as legitimate.”
Moreover, congressional debates can be taught in ways that might even engage students more than presidential speeches or The Federalist. While those works typically focus on presenting one side of an argument, congressional debates have counterarguments built into them. This provides students with the chance to read, understand, and perhaps even identify with different lines of argumentation presented in the same reading which can then be teased out in class discussions. Teaching congressional debates also allows students to see how abstract theoretical arguments may intertwine with the actual practice of politics and better understand the limits imposed by practice upon theory. Seeing how debate is promoted or stifled by congressional rules of procedure may further demonstrate how such ostensibly mundane issues contribute to the function (or dysfunction) of the institution.
