The folkways of Congress are eroding 

Last week, the Brookings Institution hosted an online forum on a newly published book, “The Folkways of Congress: Legislating Norms in an Era of Conflict,” edited by Brian Alexander, an associate professor at Washington and Lee University.

In his introduction, Alexander writes: “While much of the work on congressional norms speaks of how norms facilitate institutional cooperation, I have found norms of conflict to be increasingly present in the Congress of the twenty-first century.” 

The volume is a compilation of 16 chapters by political scientists, former members of Congress and staff. (Disclosure: I am author of an afterword to the book titled, “The New Normal in Congress and Its Changing Norms.”)

The webinar featured four of those authors offering a rich slice of the many topics and views on subjects ranging from budgeting and oversight to newsletters and “maiden speeches” in the Senate.

What was clear from the book and its authors is the extent to which Congress has changed dramatically over the last five decades, for better and, more recently, for the worse. Yes, we’ve all observed bits and pieces of the big picture incrementally over time. But when you pull it all together in a single book, what it delivers is gobsmacking.

When thinking of norms, the immediate perception is of those unwritten ways of doing things that aren’t spelled out in the formal rules of the two chambers, and yet help to hold the institution of Congress together. Or, in the case of negative or conflictual norms, contribute to the dissolution of the........

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