FIXING CONGRESS: The clarion call to American citizens

Most Americans don’t trust the federal government.  According to a December 2025 Pew Research Poll, only 17% of people say they believe their representatives in Washington, D.C. will “do what is right ‘just about always’ (2%) or ‘most of the time’ (15%).”  

It’s one of the lowest scores in almost 70 years. 

There are many possible reasons for the spreading skepticism: gerrymandering, the growing influence of dark money on elections, propaganda and social media, the reliance in Congress and state legislatures on partisan majorities to get things done, to name just a few. 

Old fashioned negotiation, goodwill and compromise, allegedly part of the congressional landscape decades ago, has all but vanished. The tone of the national dialogue grows in its savagery as people further self-sort, insulate, and get angrier over divergent points of view. 

This division is not helping the average American citizen. In Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt, Arthur Brooks makes the case for why contempt, which deepens division, is bad for our society, our democracy, and even our own physical health. 

Bipartisanship, a quaint idea that all but evaporated before the turn of the 21st century, allowed politicians to work together in service of the American people. It was actually a hallmark of some of the most “consequential legislation” in American history, according to Michael Johnson and Jerome Climer, authors of Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People.  The authors point out that the Social Security Act of 1935, the Medicare Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, all passed with majority support from both parties. 

Since today’s incumbents have little incentive (or even ability) to turn away from vitriolic partisanship, any change will have to arise from the populace. In their book, Michael Johnson and Jerome Climer offer citizens ideas for positively influencing the way government functions.

A former journalist who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican leader Bob Michel, Michael Johnson eventually joined the private sector as a lobbyist. He is a co-founder and former board chair of the Congressional Institute, and in the spirit of full disclosure, he is also this writer’s second cousin. 

In the first segment of our Enconversation, (our conversation for Encore, a term I hope you’ll come to recognize and appreciate), we explored how collegiality and compromise gradually shifted to a stridently partisan, hate-and-blame-filled political dialogue. 

Working in the office of Congressman Bob Michel during this bygone era of compromise, Johnson noted that the external influences were different. He described a deeper “moral grounding,” as well as a “sense of community” on both Capitol Hill and in communities across the country.

He also pointed to profoundly different internal forces. 

“Politics just wasn't personal like it is now. There wasn't the kind of name calling and character assassination and vitriol that there is now, not only just in Congress, but in society in general…So that enabled the legislative process to take place when members of Congress kept themselves at a professional level. They were able to get things done when there was still an era of bipartisanship, because off the grid, members of Congress knew each other and were often friends across the aisle.”

Beginning with the election of Newt Gingrich to Congress in the late 1970s, that collegiality started to diminish. The former history professor from Georgia  catalyzed the Republican hunger for a majority into a political shift Johnson characterized as “tough, cold, hard politics.”

Another key reason for the great partisan divide comes from the gradual power shift in Congress from committees to party leaders. 

“And the more it was necessary to deal with the national media and create national issues and national division, in order for Republicans to gain control, the real center of gravity for the power in Congress turned to the leadership. And because you needed a face, the Speaker became that face…”, said Johnson.

Instead of bipartisan committees hashing out issues together, the House Speaker became the arbiter of legislative agenda. 

Then there’s the media reformation. The vilified “Fourth Estate,” whose very freedoms are both threatened and integral to the healthy function of a democracy, is also widely distrusted by Americans. Perhaps for good reason. 

In his book, Fixing Congress, and in part two of our interview, Johnson called the news media “more powerful than lobbyists, than money, than even political parties,” in terms of its influence on politics. 

Really? More powerful, even, than political parties? 

“Now when I talk about media, I'm talking about the media industrial complex: social media, the traditional media, all of it, what I call infotainment… social media has become the primary source of news and information and communication among the people. And social media has a totally different standard of engagement,” said Johnson. 

Because of the breadth of this power, one of the best, most effective weapons Americans can begin to wield is media literacy, said Johnson. 

He doesn’t trust what he called “legacy media,” which includes the big TV networks.  When asked for an example of a story they really got wrong, he doesn’t hesitate.

“Russiagate.”

Johnson said, “That was one of the most embarrassing and tragic examples of media irresponsibility that we've seen in a very, very long time. It was just simply untrue – the idea that Trump was an agent of Russia and there was a conspiracy going on between Putin and Trump – [it] was just not true. And the origination of all of that really came from a now-totally disavowed analysis or paper that was paid for and originated out of the Hillary Clinton campaign.” 

There are reasons the media has changed, according to Johnson. One of the major causes of the shift: letting go of the obligation to present alternate views in a story. 

“And boy, that has really cut to the core of what our news media is supposed to do for us. Give us both sides or several sides of a story and let us decide what we think is right,” said Johnson.

Now this responsibility falls to the news consumer – this task of learning about other views.  Many people have the actual tools to do this, Allsides.com, for example, but how many are genuinely interested in the way the other side is thinking? 

Learning to distinguish among analyses, opinion, and straight news reporting is another media literacy challenge for citizens. 

Congressional reform is needed for better-functioning government, according to Johnson and Climer. Expanding the size of the House of Representatives, in order for each congressperson to have fewer constituents, would connect officials more closely to their districts, said Johnson. 

Johnson also suggests returning to Senatorial appointments through state legislatures, instead of holding elections.  The upside to this method, which was the way of things until 1913, said Johnson, is that “the states were really the source of political power back then, and a lot of good legislation, a lot of good ideas came out of the states and went up to the federal government. Now the stream is flowing in the opposite direction, and the federal government dominates, very much, what happens within the states.” 

He acknowledges the potential for further voter disenfranchisement, though, especially in heavily gerrymandered states, such as North Carolina.

“Gerrymandering has really put a damper on the idea of democratic self-rule,” said Johnson.  It’s an area requiring “fundamental, transformational” change. 

Campaign finance reform is yet another key to unlocking the disenfranchisement puzzle. 

But most of the proposals in the book require first a stronger understanding of civics among American citizens. 

“There are now 11 states in this country that don't even require history or civics to graduate. There are only 40% of the American people that can name all three branches of government. There are even less who can name the five individual rights in the first amendment to the Constitution. There are so many that don't know the difference between the Declaration and the Constitution,” said Johnson.

He continued, “Civics education is absolutely fundamental, and if our citizens are not educated in the ways of how government works now, they can't access it.” 

Civility is a cornerstone of constructive reform, along with greater media literacy and congressional reform, which all require citizen engagement. 

After reading Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People, it would be easy to conclude the system is beyond salvaging. But Michael Johnson wrote the book, in part, because he believed so deeply in the power and potential of these United States.  

In fact, he described the U.S.A. as “the most successful and the most effective representative republic in the world… and the longest lasting republic in history.” 

encore contributor Rachel Lewis Hilburn is a journalist and a current student of political science.

You can find the audio series at encorepub.org, linked at the end of this article, or watch the Enconversations series on encore's YouTube channel.