LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Fred Bernstein’s, “A Congress for the Many, or the Few?” paints the picture of congressional “casework” as undermining the purpose of the legislative branch. In fact, it enables and humanizes it.

When congressional staff receive dozens of requests for help on social security payments, veterans’ benefits or mortgage defaults, it alerts them to the human impact on ordinary citizens of existing policy deficiencies, agency backlogs or economic shifts. Yes, they request the responsible agency remedy the matter if they can within the existing law. But they also begin research, call for hearings and introduce legislation to address the situation.

Having worked with hundreds of congressional offices, we at the Congressional Management Foundation know that casework is equivalent to the central nervous system sending pain signals to the brain, demanding attention; it is the primary way that Congress preserves a degree of reality on the body politic it serves.