The Pros And Cons Of Congressional Gridlocking

During the formation of the United States, America’s founders decided upon a federal bicameral political system. This ultimately divided the United States government legislature between Federal and State bodies embedded within Congress: the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. This concept of congressional legislation occurred while large and small states sought to reach a compromise regarding the formatting of proportional representative bodies. In doing so, Congress was given several functions intended to combat corruption, characterized by the application of legislative power, the assurance of equal representation within government policy, and oversight in the Checks and Balance system. However, despite efforts to ensure Congress as

The idea of gridlocking indicates that a vote in Congress is equally divided between both legislative bodies and contributes to the inability of elected representatives to pass laws on state or federal legislature. Because the United States government is run primarily by the Republicans and the Democrats, two completely different political ideology affiliates, the occurrences of gridlocking in legislature has continued to rise every year. In response to research conducted by the University of Georgia, political scientist, Keith Poole determines the grim manner in which this current system will play out for the future of U.S.legislative policy, “With almost no true moderates left in the House of Representatives, and just a handful remaining in the Senate, bipartisan agreements to fix the budgetary problems of the country are now almost impossible to reach.” (Poole

House of Representatives. Oftentimes, government strategists comment on the manner in which U.S. representatives have perfected the abuse of gerrymandering, a way in which political groups or parties manipulate district apportionment. By inhibiting or aiding political, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic groups, the American government has executed a lengthy tradition of practicing the art of gerrymandering to influence minority representation.

An example of this can be observed in 1965, following the Voting Rights Act which attempted to impose “affirmative” gerrymandering as a means to guarantee ethnic minority representation in government. Representative John Tanner, offers sentiments on impending consequences caused by the Supreme Court and Congress lack of initiative in resolving this issue, “When Members come here from these partisan districts that have been gerrymandered . . . they have little incentive to really work across party line in order to reach solutions. If one comes here wanting to work across the aisle, one has to