109th may be the real 'do nothing' Congress

WASHINGTON -- The 109th Congress slipped into history this weekend as one of the most unpopular and least effective since the 80th Congress that Harry Truman reviled as "do nothing" in his famous 1948 underdog campaign for president, according to experts.

"What would Harry Truman say about the 109th Congress? Harry Truman would probably apologize to the 80th Congress," said Norm Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of "The Broken Branch," a recent book about the increasingly dysfunctional nature of Congress.

"Compared to the 109th, the 80th wasn't so bad," he added. "I would say the 109th went out of town not with a bang but a whimper, but that would be an insult to whimperers everywhere."

Indeed, the 80th was not nearly as much "a good-for-nothing do-nothing" Congress as Truman repeatedly charged during his whistle-stop tour of America in the fall of 1948. It passed the multibillion-dollar Marshall Plan to rebuild war-ravaged Europe, the National Security Act creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the Truman Doctrine plan to send anti-Communism aid to Greece and Turkey, and the Clean Water Act that remains the primary federal law governing water pollution.

The 109th, which passed a flurry of trade and tax legislation before adjourning early Saturday, also had some noteworthy successes.

109th's achievements

In his farewell address Thursday, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., cited three major accomplishments during the 109th Congress: $15 billion for a global fight against HIV and AIDS, a new Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors and Senate confirmations of Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

It also reauthorized the controversial Patriot Act to fight terrorism. It authorized -- but did not fund -- a fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexican border to stop illegal immigration. And after Frist threatened to jettison two centuries worth of Senate rules, the Senate was able to confirm some of the more controversial Bush judicial nominees that Democrats had threatened to filibuster.

"Through it all, we kept at it the best we could: with hard work, with heart, with a lot of hope," Frist said.

But Ornstein said that the Republican majority "poisoned the well so much" with political partisanship going back to the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998 that in the 109th Congress, it was unable or unwilling to reach across the aisle to Democrats to accomplish anything. "So they hunkered down, tried to keep out of the cross hairs and tried to keep their political base happy," Ornstein said.

The complaints

Even the base was not happy, however. Just as the political campaign began this fall, Tom McClusky, chief lobbyist for the conservative Christian group Family Research Council, criticized the House for failing to adopt a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. McClusky said an inclusive "big tent" political strategy that avoided taking such a stand would result in "a bunch of clowns" in the GOP.

"The 109th Congress vies for the title of the all-time worst Congress," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution and co-author of "The Broken Branch" with Ornstein. Mann's indictment of the 109th includes these charges: "It spent little time in session, it failed to pass budget resolutions and appropriations bills, there was no serious oversight of the disaster in Iraq, there were no major substantive policy achievements, and corrupt members were forced from Congress."