Congress wasn’t designed to work this way

Washington dysfunction is usually explained as a failure of people. The wrong politicians. Too partisan. Too extreme. Too unwilling to compromise.

That’s comforting. But it’s also wrong.

The deeper problem is structural. Congress isn’t just failing because of who is elected. It is failing because the institution itself has evolved into something the framers of the Constitution never envisioned: two competing democratically elected chambers locked in a system where virtually nothing gets done.

Start with the Senate.

The framers did not design it to be democratic in the modern sense. Senators were originally chosen by state legislatures. The Senate was meant to represent states as political entities, not to represent the people directly. That distinction mattered. It created a natural hierarchy. The House reflected public opinion. The Senate refined and restrained it.

That system is gone.

Since the ratification of the 17th Amendment, senators have been directly elected by voters. In