Saunders: Americans may be overdue for a good buddy movie

Can something good happen from something so wrong?

Doyle suggested a path toward civility. “When people see their leaders being uncivil toward one another, then you see the public being uncivil toward one another and toward their leaders.”

He wasn’t blaming anyone for the lone-wolf shooter’s rampage. He was acknowledging how Americans look at Congress — and what members can do to restore their image. A recent Gallup poll found that 20 percent of Americans approve of Congress, while 74 percent disapprove. And that’s up from December 2013, when fewer than 10 percent of voters approved of Congress.

Mark Harkins, senior fellow of the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, blames the jet airplane. Since the 1970s, as air travel became more ubiquitous, House members have gotten to know each other less and treat each other worse. Representatives spend so little time in Washington that they talk to each other like users of “an internet chatroom.”

Harkins noted that more than half of House members have been in Congress for less than eight years. Today’s congressmen and women “don’t have houses here. They don’t bring their families here — for the fear of seeming to have ‘gone Washington.’ ”

House Speaker Paul Ryan built his image as an anti-Washington frugal spender because he slept on a cot in his office and showered in the House gym. This is a model for many lawmakers who say their $174,000 salary cannot support two homes.

Voters may well think that’s a good thing. After all, who wants an elected representative more beholden to the machine than the people who sent him or her to Washington?

Little loyalty to Congress

The downside of the new order, however, is that members feel little loyalty to the institution they serve. They run for Congress trashing Congress, just as Trump ran for president promising to “drain the swamp” that is D.C.

They visit their districts most weekends. They fly into the capital on Monday or Tuesday morning and fly home Thursday night.

The House working calendar has adjusted accordingly. Last year, Reuters found that members “have been spending fewer days working in Washington since the late 2000s.” In 2016, the House scheduled 111 workdays. The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Commission on Political Reform recommended 180-200 working days.

It’s no wonder then that Washington seems so dysfunctional. House members can’t get out of the beltway fast enough.

“PBS NewsHour” anchor Judy Woodruff was so taken with the team of Barton and Doyle that she wondered why news coverage didn’t reflect their mutual admiration. “It doesn’t surprise me that Doyle and Barton are trying to do this kind of thing,” said Harkins; both men have been in the House for decades.

For his part, Doyle fingered the media. He told Woodruff, “We tend to be not the ones the media’s interested in interviewing … maybe the news media too could reflect a little bit more on that.”