A new survey, “ State of the Congress 2024,” confirms what many Americans already believe: Congress is not doing well.
This survey of senior congressional staff conducted by the Congressional Management Foundation found that a large majority (81 percent) said Congress is not “functioning as a democratic legislature should” and identified deficiencies in the institution, especially with regard to civility and bipartisan collaboration. However, when comparing this late 2023 survey to a similar one conducted in early 2022, many metrics related to the capacity of the institution to function have improved.
“What we found offers both hope and reason for concern,” the authors of the study wrote. “Based on results comparing the 2023 survey to the 2022 survey, Congress may have improved in some important areas of legislative functionality including: access to high-quality, nonpartisan policy expertise within the Legislative Branch; the technological infrastructure; congressional capacity and support; human resource support; Members’ and staffers’ understanding of Congress’ role in democracy; and accessibility and accountability to the public. But there is still a lot of room for continued improvement.”
The report noted that improved attitudes are most likely attributed to the work of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, an equally bipartisan House committee that developed more than 200 recommendations to improve the House of Representatives from 2019 to 2023, with many already implemented. The work of the committee led the House to create a Subcommittee on Modernization under the House Administration Committee in 2023 that continues to implement improvements and focus attention on congressional modernization.
Among the key findings:
- Civility and bipartisanship were important to almost all senior staffers surveyed, but virtually no one is satisfied with the current state. Republicans (85 percent) and Democrats (70 percent) said civility was “very important” to a functioning legislature, and 60 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of Democrats said encouraging bipartisanship was “very important.” However, only 2 percent of Republicans and zero Democrats were “very satisfied” with the civility in the institution; and no one of either party reported they were “very satisfied” with bipartisanship. A large number (96 percent of Democrats and 98 percent of Republicans) agreed that “it is necessary for Senators and Representatives to collaborate across party lines to best meet the needs of the nation.”
- More Republicans (31 percent) than Democrats (12 percent) agreed that Congress is “functioning as a democratic legislature should.”
- Alarmingly, Democratic congressional staff report concern over their personal safety. When asked how satisfied they were that "Members and staff feel safe doing their jobs" only 21 percent of Democratic staff said they were satisfied with the current environment compared to 61 percent of Republican staff. Democrats (68 percent) and Republicans (73 percent) similarly report personally experiencing "direct insulting or threatening messages or communication" at least "somewhat frequently."
- When asked how frequently they questioned “whether I should stay in Congress due to heated rhetoric from my party,” 59 percent of Republican staff are at least somewhat frequently considering leaving Congress compared to 16 percent of Democrats.
- Regarding the capacity of the institution to perform its role in democracy, comparing the same survey question from 2022 measuring staff satisfaction, “access to high-quality, non-partisan expertise within the Legislative Branch” went from 12 percent “very satisfied” to 32 percent in 2023; “technological infrastructure is adequate” saw an increase in “very satisfied” from 5 percent in 2022 to 11 percent in 2023; and Congress having “adequate human resource support” went from 6 percent “very satisfied” in 2022 to 14 percent in 2023.
- Regarding congressional accountability and accessibility to the public, most senior staffers were satisfied with Congress’ physical (96 percent) and technological (85 percent) accessibility to the public. Similar percentages of Republicans (71 percent) and Democrats (70 percent) consider it “very important” that "constituents have sufficient means to hold their Senators/Representative accountable for their performance,” Republicans (50 percent) are much more likely to be “very satisfied” with the current state than Democrats (18 percent).
“While the findings overall suggest the absolute need for improving Congress, the positive change in attitudes about the capacity of the institution to do its job demonstrates that we can improve our democracy,” said Bradford Fitch, president and CEO of CMF. “It’s highly likely that the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and the new Subcommittee on Modernization were the catalysts for this change. This shows that a bipartisan group of lawmakers, acting in good faith and in a thoughtful way, can improve our democratic institutions and provide better representation and service to the American public.”
The survey involved 138 staff, with 55 percent having worked 10 years or more in Congress. The Congressional Management Foundation is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to strengthening Congress and building trust in its work.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.