[dragonwriter]

> ...Congress having lost the ability to make clear headed laws.

When do you imagine they had such ability, and does much of th Byzantine nature of the securities laws really post-date that period?

> There is so much friction in the partisan fights.

No more than usual, except in the sense that because of the partisan realignment (or two overlapping realignments, one stemming from the New Deal itself, the other from Johnson's signing on to civil rights) from the New Deal until the 1990s the bitter ideological fights were somewhat less often aligned with party boundaries.

[Ididntdothis]

“bitter ideological fights were somewhat less often aligned with party boundaries.”

This is what has made things worse in my view. The people in Congress don’t vote anymore for what they personally think is right but what the party tells them to do.

[dragonwriter]

> The people in Congress don’t vote anymore for what they personally think is right but what the party tells them to do.

They don't vote any less for what they think is right, either. Political expediency has always been a major factor, even during the realignment when the national party may not have been as big of a factor (though it was always a big factor) in the expediency calculation.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> They don't vote any less for what they think is right, either

I’d like to avoid the use of the all-encompassing “they” when referring to US politics. It’s demonstrable that one, specific, major political party lost all semblance of a moral compass (or even an ideological compass) in the past couple of decades and it would be an error of judgement to presume they vote for and support what they actually believe is morally right - even by their own definition of what is right and good.

[briandear]

Oh good grief. One party didn’t “lose its moral compass.” Chuck Schumer is just as likely to support a bad law as John Cornyn. And the facts support that time and time again. “Moral compass” is such a loaded term. Banning abortion could be seen as “moral” just as easily as passing stricter banking regulation. That’s the problem — morality has become so muddled as to have become a useless measure. To me, it’s immoral to want to take money from me and give it to some favored group. To others, it’s moral to take money from me and give it to some favored group. What we need is smaller, less intrusive government, then there is less opportunity to be bothered by the morality of laws — because there would be fewer of them and they would have a smaller scope.

[lazyasciiart]

> No more than usual

Is that true? Is there a similar period in history where the Senate simply didn't hear the bills being passed by the House?