If you tell Congress everything about the world situation, they get hysterical. If you tell them nothing, they go fishing. – Harry Truman

One of two things occurred during the Bush administration (amongst other occurrences which number far beyond two). Either Americans became interested in politics or I noticed that Americans were interested in politics. One side effect of this political interest has been our obsession with the approval rating. We look to these ratings to see what the American people think about an official’s performance in office. While any poll is flawed, this is generally accepted for positions such as the Presidency or on specific issues. If you were to turn on your cable news more recently you’d probably learn that congress has a really depressing approval rating, even compared to the president. Do you know why it’s depressing? It’s depressing because no one ever explains the context of these approval ratings!

The ceiling in a congressional approval rating is not 100% it has never been 100% and it will never be 100%. The closest it has ever gotten to 100% was on September 13th, 2001—it hit 77%. The president hit 92% approval after September 11th. There are only 8% of American’s that would probably never approve of Bush Deux if given the right circumstances (does that make everyone else a bandwagon hater?). When it comes to congress, those same circumstances would leave 23% of American’s unwilling to ride the faketriotism wave.

Why doesn’t congress ever get to reach 100%? There should be something in it for every voter. It’s filled with Democrats, Republicans and even the occasional independent makes an appearance. It would seem that no matter which way the majority leans there should be more willingness to approve than for an executive that is uncompromisingly aligned with a specific party, but quite obviously it doesn’t work like that. Perhaps what American’s see in congress is incomplete power, regardless of the election’s outcome. A Democratic majority is not a powerless Republican party, or even a completely silent Republican party. The Republican senators still have access to the same media as the DEMs and they can utilize it to question the actions of their counterparts.

There is only one president at any one time, and he rarely publicly questions his own actions. Almost as rare is to have a former president question the actions of the current executive. The result being regardless of who steps up to take a swing at the Prez—we can’t take everything they say as complete truth, we understand that only one person knows what it’s like to be in the position of the president so no critique can really burn as much as it does in congress.

Another reason why congress can never get any decent approval ratings is because no member ever campaigns about how great a job the system is doing. People have always hated our “imperfect” system and the guy that claims it’s functioning optimally is probably going to find his political head on a stake. It’s necessary for congressmen and women to always build up their own accomplishments and seek reelection and pawn off their shortcomings on the fact that there are too many undesirables making up the rest of the legislative branch. The system is the perfect scapegoat. The majority of congressmen do not have abysmally low approval ratings, if you were to look at each one, you’d see that they traditionally have ratings much higher than congress as a whole.

It’s just a long running reality that people dislike the congress and approval ratings on the broad body itself have rarely yielded any sort of “approval” to be proud of. Congress is a body that rarely accomplishes anything in broad good-for-all strokes that leave us beaming at the power of the bicameral system. When the president happens upon some good luck or exercises his power we are able to point to him and see what he accomplished while there are too many heads in congress and too many people looking for the credit.

So while it’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon in the news recently about poor congressional performance. The real indicator of their shortcomings will probably be the turnover rate next November and not the approval rating today.

Congress Approval Rating Records

Cedric King writes frequently for his personal blog here. You can e-mail him at LCKv3D@gmail.com or take AIM at LCKv4.

Last 5 posts by Cedric King

• MCS: Thinking About 9/11 - September 11th, 2007
• MCS: Bin Laden's Message - September 8th, 2007
• MCS: States Aren't Humans - August 22nd, 2007
• MCS: Acting Affirmatively Toward Racial Inequality - August 7th, 2007
• A Global Look: Cuba - August 1st, 2007