Here’s something on which Americans of nearly every political persuasion appear able to agree: Congress is not working.

Were Congress an employee sitting down for its annual performance evaluation, the meeting would be brief. Public confidence has collapsed. Basic responsibilities are routinely deferred until the last possible moment. Cooperation has become a liability, theatrics a professional skill, and measurable output an afterthought.

Congress would be fired.

Gallup’s latest measurement offers little room for a more charitable assessment. In July 2026, just 16% of Americans approved of the way Congress was handling its job. Technically, that represented a six-percentage-point improvement over Gallup’s April reading of 10%. But a rise from 10% to 16% is only a movement from catastrophic to abysmal.

The public’s judgment is not based solely on mood or partisan frustration. It is reflected in Congress’s work, or rather, the absence of it.

Reuters reported that Congress passed just 27 bills in 2023, “a record low.” Its analysis, tracking legislative production back to 1973, found a long-term decline not only in laws enacted but also in measures passed by each chamber and activity recorded on the House and Senate floors.

Raw bill counts, of course, are not a perfect measure of effective government. One consequential law can matter more than a hundred ceremonial resolutions. But when legislative output and the ability to perform basic responsibilities deteriorate together, the pattern becomes difficult to dismiss.

Congress has become remarkably productive at producing everything except legislation. It produces viral clips, fundraising appeals, partisan investigations, cable-news appearances and daily declarations that civilization will end if the other party prevails in the proverbial culture war. It is less adept at passing budgets on time, addressing long-term fiscal problems, conducting sustained oversight, or reaching durable compromises on matters that cannot be solved by executive order. This undoubtedly presents another problem, since the president is not a legislator of last resort, no matter how popular or unpopular the president may be. But that is a discussion for another essay.

Despite the obloquy, not every member of Congress is lazy, corrupt, or incompetent. Many are serious people working within a system that increasingly rewards the wrong things. Outrage attracts attention. Compromise invites challengers. Governing requires patience, while political media rewards immediate gratification. In this environment, members become divas competing for the limelight, encouraged to cultivate their own individual brands rather than build a functioning lawmaking institution that serves us all.

The result is a Congress in which experience can tacitly turn into entitlement, longevity can be mistaken for effectiveness, and incumbency can be treated as ownership. Together, these tendencies form a distinctly anti-democratic triad.

Experience and institutional memory are certainly important. And public service should not be dismissed simply because it has been lengthy. However, experience is valuable only when it is being applied to the problems of the present. A congressional seat is not a lifetime appointment, and gratitude for past service is not an obligation to provide permanent employment.

Recent primary results suggest that voters are increasingly willing to make that distinction.

Instead, they demonstrate something far more basic. Political outcomes are not ordained. Money, seniority, endorsements, and name recognition remain powerful, but they are not invincible. Voters can still interrupt the seemingly inevitable.

That possibility makes people nervous. Change always does.

A familiar representative, even an imperfect one, feels predictable. A new candidate introduces uncertainty. Will that person be effective? Will the rhetoric of the campaign survive contact with the realities of governing? Will change produce genuine improvement or merely a different kind of dysfunction?

Those are reasonable questions. But they must be asked of incumbents, too.

The status quo is not neutral. Retaining the same leadership, incentives, and habits is itself a choice. Moreover, when congressional approval stands at 16% and legislative productivity has fallen to historic depths, continuity should not automatically be regarded as the responsible option.

Change is not something a society can permanently decline. Economies change. Communities change. Technology changes. Political coalitions change. The problems confronting Congress change. Even Congress itself has already changed, becoming more centralized, more performative, more polarized, and less capable of legislating through regular order.

The question, then, is not whether change will come. It is whether citizens will help direct it.

Electing new members will not, by itself, repair Congress. The institution also needs structural reform: independent and empowered committees, a more rational legislative calendar, greater transparency, fewer opportunities for individual members to profit from public office, and rules that allow ideas to receive genuine debate rather than disappear into leadership-controlled packages negotiated behind closed doors. In a word, we need to elect public servants who actually serve the public.

But institutional reform rarely begins with institutions voluntarily surrendering habits that protect the people already in power. It begins with political pressure. And elections are one source of that pressure.

Connecticut voters will soon choose among candidates for Congress. They need not regard every challenger as a savior or every incumbent as an obstacle. They should, however, reject the assumption that change is inherently reckless while repetition is inherently safe.

No single election will repair Congress. No single election will restore public confidence. But democracy was not designed to prevent change. It was designed to make change peaceful, accountable, renewable, and ongoing.

Something has to change in Congress. The evidence for that is clear.

So let us not fear change because its destination is uncertain. Let us examine it, test it, and judge it by what it produces. Should it fail, democracy gives us the power to change course once again.

Robert T.F. Downes is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, specializing in political theory and public law. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Rhode Island College, where he teaches American Government.