Most people find talk of clotures, filibusters, committee votes, bill reconciliation, the legislative calendar, and beyond absolutely boring. If civic-affairs news is the broccoli of American journalism, then coverage of legislative procedure is the unsalted lima bean.
Journalists’ imperative to explain all this to the public isn’t just about giving America (and the world) a civics lesson — rather, it may well amount to the best defense we have for maintaining democratic norms and holding politicians accountable.
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Many of us were raised on the Schoolhouse Rock version of how a bill becomes a law — it remains a classic explainer even today. But the reality is that the daily functioning of what happens in Congress depends on procedural statutes that are nuanced, confusing, and, quite frankly, boring — despite their relevance for the future of democratic life.
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And unlike the Schoolhouse Rock version of American civics, many of the delay tactics and strategies for introducing bills into laws, voting on appointments, appropriating budgets, and so on aren’t delineated in the Constitution. Procedural statutes also impact how executive agencies implement policies. As per the Congressional Research Service, this rule-making power has the force of law.
Journalists need to be proactive about covering politicians’ smart procedural shenanigans and cannot wait for a story to happen and respond. Manipulating procedure isn’t unconstitutional, because most of it is not in the Constitution, but it’s unclear what exactly compels any legislators to follow these procedural statutes, and the extent to which procedural processes are actually just norms rather than anything codified.
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Given the contemporary makeup of Congress and the new administration, there’s no telling whether any of the procedural statutes and traditional norms that structure how government works will actually continue — and what happens if politicians choose to ignore or subvert them. Journalists, please, let this be the year you help the rest of us understand how and when to cry fowl, raise hell, or smirk quietly while “our” side notches a sneaky win on a legislative technicality. Democracy depends on journalists to do this job and do it well.