Congress Did Use To Be Less Awful

I Went From Helping Build the House Office Building To Covering It. It’s Been a Fraught Love Affair.

Most Americans can’t stand Congress. I’ve been hooked on it for years. I’ve been an aficionado of our legislative branch for half a century, since I was a kid of 18. I had an odd introduction then to the institution our Founders described in Article One of the Constitution. I participated directly, if insignificantly, in its post-World War II expansion into a huge bureaucracy.

I did this as a member of the laborers’ union in the summer of 1960, when I worked as an “assistant pile-driving engineer” helping to lay the …