Congress has been so polarized along partisan lines for so long, voters are now accustomed to it. The devolution from rules of civility began some three decades ago when Newt Gingrich rose to the Speakership and both sides quickly jumped onboard the tribalism train.

Republicans weren't the first to try to refuse to certify a presidential election this century. In 2001, a dozen Democratic House members objected to the certification of Florida results and tried to block the counting of Florida's electoral votes. When then-Vice President Al Gore refused, they left the House chamber in protest.

In the next Congress, Democratic senators blocked President George W. Bush's federal appellate court judicial nominations no fewer than ten times. After regaining a GOP majority in 2005, new Senate Republicans were ready to invoke the "nuclear option" and eliminate the filibuster to prevent such actions in the future until the "Gang of 14" stepped in and brokered an agreement that Democrats would not filibuster judicial nominations and Republicans would not propose the nuclear option.

And so on and so on. Government shutdowns, investigating everyone, impeaching everyone, every nasty trick in the book. Congress is very busy doing everything besides legislating.

In some cases, members of the same caucus are even turning on each other in their rush to launch procedural missiles. Two of the most high-drama House GOP members, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, got into it on the House floor just a couple weeks ago.

Greene and Boebert are competing to impeach President Biden. On July 21, Boebert pulled a fast procedural maneuver to force a vote on her resolution. Greene, who has been screaming for Biden's impeachment since January of 2021, was miffed that she didn't get due deference as Impeachtrix In Charge.

So she called Boebert a "little b*tch" on the House floor. Because Greene wanted credit for hating the president first, longest. This is certainly a useful exercise for our House of Representatives. Not to mention that if President Trump couldn't be convicted for fomenting the January 6 riots, which we all saw unfold on TV, President Biden is far less likely to be for some bad decisions his addicted son made.

Greene did have a solid moment of clarity about Boebert's motivation after the exchange, however. "It's purely for fundraising," she told the online publication Semafor. "It's throwing out red meat so that people will donate to her campaign because she's coming up on the end of the month, and she's trying to produce good fundraising numbers."

Members of the House spend up to 30 hours a week fundraising. Which also gets in the way of quality lawmaking.

I suppose one could call the debt ceiling compromise an example of Congress working together to accomplish a goal for the nation. But then consider there was no attempt in either caucus' original plan to come close to balancing the budget, meaning the debt would continue to grow, and that the "compromise" was to eliminate the debt ceiling entirely until after the next election, essentially writing themselves a blank check for the next 18 months. Is that a compromise or an exercise in self-expediency at great national cost?

This devolution and polarization have greatly reduced Congress' role in our government and that is a problem for American citizens. Because Congress has abdicated much of its policymaking role, the other two branches of government have stepped in to fill the void.

White House executive orders have become the norm, not the exception. And much more worryingly, our Supreme Court no longer rules solely on the Constitutionality of issues. The Supreme Court is openly setting national policy in the absence of Congress doing so.

It's not clear what the immediate path forward is to correct this imbalance of powers but voters need to be aware that it exists. Demanding more than shouting the loudest from our lawmakers is a possible start.

Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appears regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run two head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.