A grade 24/30 Pearson Edexcel USA politics essay - Evaluate the view that congress is dysfunctional and no longer fit for purpose
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Course
US politics
Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)
Harshly marked by tutor with experience in US history and Politics. 24/30 A grade essay. Can be improved upon to get a top grade by adding few details. Worth the money.
Evaluate the view that Congress is now dysfunctional and no longer
fit for purpose
(30 marks)
It is has become quite apparent, in recent times, that congress has become a much more
hostile and tougher place for Presidents and also for congressman who want their
legislation passing. Regarding all three of its functions, people have now started to label
congress as being dysfunctional and some even saying it is not fit for purpose, due to the
gridlock of voting due to hyper partisanship, the overrepresentation of smaller states and
the over and under scrutiny of policies. However, many claim these claims are exaggerated
due to the tough design of congress and the higher representation of BAME communities in
the current congress. In this essay we will conclude that congress is fit for purpose.
A reason to why congress could be said to be fit for purpose would be that the legislative
function could now possibly be the most dysfunctional it has been in recent years which can
be seen in the current congress with enacted legislation being passed at 1% compared to
the 100th congress having a 7% pass rate. Reasoning for this would be due to hyper
partisanship within congress where the opposing party will vote against a bill solely to
weaken the opposing party rather than because they disagree with a bill and making it
nearly impossible for some bills to receive their required majorities. Obviously, such low
success rates of bills show dysfunctionality in congress and due to the illogical voting of
congressman it can be said that in this case it is unfit for purpose.
On the other hand, some would say that that congress is still fit for purpose as the tough
legislative process was purposefully designed this way by the founding fathers, meaning
that only highly refined and quality legislation can pass through congress leading to better
laws and lack of ruling by the majority. A perfect example of this would be Obama’s
Affordable Care Act, which had been voted against and had the act die multiple times. This
then led to the revision of the bill and had congress work together to finally agree on the
legislation after a lengthy process over nearly a year from 2009-2010. Therefore, it is clear to
see that that congress isn’t unfit for purpose in the more recent times as bills of such
magnitude are able to be passed even after being as controversial between both parties like
Obamacare.
Another way in which congress can be seen now as being dysfunctional and unfit for
purpose would be that many would say that smaller states such as Wyoming (with a
population of 578,769) are able to have as much of an impact as states such as California
(with a population of nearly 40,000,000) meaning that votes in California can be worth
much less and Senators of smaller states can have much higher influence despite
representing fewer people, especially when smaller rural states are highly concentrated
white areas. Therefore, the function to represent the people of America in the senate, the
most powerful house, could definitely be seen as unfit for purpose as this structure could
in fact over represent certain parties such as the republicans from these smaller states and
miss out on a majority for the democrats in which could be more popular nationwide,
meaning that the votes in the senate may not represent the consensus of the nation.
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