The Pros And Cons Of Congressional Gridlocks

Congressional gridlock has become the norm in the highly polarised political climate in the United States. As a result of the unending stalemates, America’s chief law making body can no longer muster the capacity to make laws. As argued by Sweeny (2017), congressional gridlock weakens or undercuts the numerous principles that in total establish and maintain America’s governmental structure. Abramowitz (2010) notes that congressional gridlock mainly impends the vital or fundamental principles of legislative supremacy and separation of powers. This is the case as any gridlock makes it possible for the arbitrary exercise of government power as well as bringing about the problem of arbitrary inaction (Bonica, 2013). In essence, it makes the Congress

These districts usually result in partisanship representatives usually determined by the demographic characteristics of the district under consideration (Hirano et al, 2010). Hence, such representatives will largely hold on to their constituents viewpoints and this limits the possibility of bipartisanship efforts that can be used to break congressional gridlocks. The rise of anti-government sentiments has built distrust among the people who look for solutions from other areas. As such, legislations such as the Affordable Care Act among others become a tough sell on the ground and this takes the form of partisanship stand in the Congress and Senate (Teter, 2013). The ensuing gridlock becomes difficult to break resulting in

In the past, successful immigration legislation was made possible through a bipartisanship approach a case in point being the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) (Sweeny, 2017). Since then, attempts to make immigration reforms since the passage of IRCA have met growing polarisation on immigration within and between the two political parties. In 2013, lawmakers came up with a bipartisan approach to enable comprehensive immigration reforms. The bipartisanship approach saw the bill win two thirds support in the senate but failed to advance to the Congress due to differences among and between the two parties (Sweeny, 2017). For example, the Republican Party faced divergent opinions between moderates and Tea Party caucus members on a number of issues (Sweeny, 2017). Democrats faced opposition from Latino representatives who viewed the bill as failing to address the needs of the Latino electorate, with some representatives withdrawing support for the bill (Sweeny, 2017). One area that has continued to polarise debate on immigration reforms is the DREAM Act where despite a bipartisanship approach in its creation, support in the house was split along party lines with the bill defeated in the Congress. The failure to enact far reaching immigration reforms has seen the DREAM Act continue to be an issue even in the Donal Trump presidency an indication of failed legislation due to