TAMARA KEITH, HOST:
Congress has left the building. Lawmakers are home for the holidays with the memory of the longest ever government shutdown still fresh. This Congress is earning a reputation as the least productive in modern history, and a record number of lawmakers are announcing they plan to retire rather than run for reelection in the upcoming midterms. NPR's Barbara Sprunt has been talking to former members of the House who say, all of this is a long time coming, and she joins me now. Hey, Barbara.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Hi, Tam.
KEITH: So you talked to a dozen former members from both sides of the aisle. They're now on the outside looking in. So what do they make of the way Congress has changed?
SPRUNT: Well, many said that they see Congress these days as abdicating its constitutional authorities to the White House. Here's how Charlie Dent put it. He's a Republican who represented Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2018.
CHARLIE DENT: I'm really most concerned about the erosion of its power of the purse authorities, as we've witnessed through tariffs and through unilateral executive decisions to cancel funding and departments and agencies. And I think that's the greatest threat to Congress as an institution that I've seen.
SPRUNT: But Dent and others say that even though there's concerns specific to this year under this administration, a lot of the challenges in Congress have been brewing for quite some time - you know, things like rising political violence, a toxic partisan environment and just feeling like they can't get anything done.
KEITH: Yeah, and like you said, political violence is sadly not new. I'm thinking about when Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in 2011. And then in 2017, Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a congressional baseball practice. How much was that a factor for people who you talked to?
SPRUNT: Threats of violence were top of mind for nearly every person that I talked to...
KEITH: Really?
SPRUNT: ...Including some of the people who served in the House during the times that you mentioned. And they said, that's when they started to make some adjustments to their own security - you know, adding safe rooms and planning out escape routes from their...
KEITH: Yeah.
SPRUNT: ...District offices.
KEITH: Wow.
SPRUNT: Yeah. What stood out to me is that a lot of people said that the threat level, even since then, has just skyrocketed. The Capitol Police is working through about 14,000 threats against members this year alone. And Cheri Bustos, a Democrat from Illinois, described how much things changed for her when she was first elected in 2012 to then when she left in 2023.
CHERI BUSTOS: So the first office I opened was in a secure building where you had to have a code to get in. And I viewed it at the time as obstacles to reach our staff or to reach me. And so I made a decision to get out of that building because I wanted to be very accessible with no security. Well, fast forward toward the end of my career in Congress, the staff didn't feel safe. We had to install these little buttons that would go to the local police department in case somebody was there and was threatening.
KEITH: Wow, that is a big change.
SPRUNT: It is. And, you know, the impact is not on members alone. You know, they say that the threats take a toll on their families, on their staff, you know, the people who are at these district offices. And they worry whether this could prevent people from running for Congress in the future.
KEITH: You talked about polarization, too, but that also seems to be standard these days.
SPRUNT: You know, members said that they thought it was toxic when they first got to Capitol Hill, and then now they're questioning, wait, were those actually the good old days? You know, they said, over time, it's just gotten so much worse. I talked to California Democrat Anna Eshoo about this. She was elected in 1992 and retired this year.
ANNA ESHOO: I got to the point in Congress where I wanted to have a conversation with a Republican colleague that I didn't know at all. When I approached them, I want you to know that I don't view you as my enemy. I mean, isn't that something, that I felt like I needed to say that?
KEITH: But Congress is, in many ways, a reflection of the country, and the country is really polarized. I remember I used to hear from lawmakers that they got a lot done because they got to know each other on a personal level, playing softball or baseball or over dinners. Is that still true?
SPRUNT: Not as much. It has been decades since the norm was to live in D.C. with your family, and the workweek is short. You know, it's usually 3 1/2 days for the House, and then people are hopping back on planes to fly back home. Here's how Fred Upton put it. He's a Republican from Michigan, and he served from '87 to 2023.
FRED UPTON: You don't have as much time where you can socialize and build some of those friendships that are important. Particularly when your word is your bond, trust is important. So what are you doing? I mean, how's your family? I mean, you miss that, and proof's in the pudding in terms of what we see today.
KEITH: So what else is getting in the way of Congress being a good workplace?
SPRUNT: Well, you know, a common theme that former members told me was not feeling involved in the legislative process itself. There has been this centralization of power in party leadership over time, which weakens committees, which traditionally have served as the places where legislation on very specific issues is written and debated. And because of Senate rules and budget processes, there's a lot of trying to cram through an agenda in one big piece of legislation, which members say just is not satisfying.
KEITH: So a record number of lawmakers, over 40 in the House, have said they won't run for reelection, and that number is growing. Is Congress just not a good gig anymore?
SPRUNT: You know, I think it is a combination of all of these things - that this is a job that requires you to be away from home, that comes with a lot of public scrutiny and threats. And if you feel like you can't get anything done, then that all is a recipe for frustration, right? But I think the sentiment that I heard from Patrick Mchenry who was once in Republican leadership in the House was interesting.
PATRICK MCHENRY: You're there to improve the institution, to make it work in the environment that you're in. Politics is the art of the possible. And in each generation, it's different - new challenges, new set of circumstances - and you have to evolve with those changing politics.
SPRUNT: And I asked everyone, you know, if someone that you like came to you and said, I want to run for Congress, what would you say? And, you know, there was a lot of, be forewarned about these challenges, but no one flat out said, absolutely don't run. So, you know, that's got to count for something.
KEITH: That's NPR's Barbara Sprunt. Thanks for being with us.
SPRUNT: Thank you, Tam. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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