The Press-Release Congress
We don’t need more statements “calling for” change. We need members using the power they already have to make it.
Congress Doesn’t Need More Statements. It Needs More Work.
It’s become almost normal to judge members of Congress by their press releases — not their legislation. Scan the average congressional “press room” today and you’ll find statements criticizing Cabinet secretaries, statements denouncing foreign leaders, statements expressing outrage about decisions made in agencies, statements calling for resignations, and statements demanding someone else fix something.
What you don’t see much of are bills drafted, negotiations led, hearings chaired, amendments sharpened, regulatory gaps closed, or coalitions built to actually solve the problems those statements describe.
Take a recent example. In January, Rep. Brad Schneider (IL-10) issued statements calling for the removal of the DHS Secretary, condemning ICE actions, and expressing horror at policy failures. Scroll backwards and the pattern holds: statements on foreign leaders, statements on violence abroad, statements on the Epstein files, statements on vaccine scheduling. Nearly all addressed important issues. Nearly none represented actual legislative work that would close loopholes, improve agency oversight, or produce the accountability those statements insist is urgently needed.
This isn’t about Schneider individually. It’s bipartisan and deeply structural. We have a Congress incentivized to broadcast feelings rather than exercise power or do actual work. The incentives are terrible but rational: it takes minutes to issue a statement and it earns instant media pickup. It takes months to negotiate legislation and it rarely earns anything. We’ve built a political economy where outrage is rewarded and outputs are ignored.
The problem is that statements don’t govern. Legislation does. Federal agencies don’t change behavior because a congressman is sad, shocked, disturbed, disappointed, or “calls for removal.” They change when Congress writes law, restructures authority, or conditions appropriations.
If a DHS shooting reveals leadership failure, then Congress should use its enormous oversight and statutory authority to:
Clarify rules of force
Redesign reporting requirements
Condition appropriations on reforms
Create independent review mechanisms
Fix organizational charts and training gaps
Close statutory loopholes that let failures repeat
That’s the work. That’s what Congress exists to do. It is wildly underutilized.
We need a Congress that spends less time reacting and more time governing. Less performance, more architecture. Fewer statements, more statutes. The public doesn’t elect representatives to be commentators. We elect them to exercise the power only they have: to legislate, investigate, appropriate, and oversee the federal government.
If members want to criticize Cabinet secretaries, foreign leaders, or agencies, fine. But the criticism should be attached to an actual bill, amendment, subpoena, or oversight action, not just a quote.
America does not lack for statements. America lacks for Congressmen doing actual work.