ANALYSIS — In a time of bitter partisanship, there’s one thing that brings the country together: hating Congress. 

But while Capitol Hill is consistently and deeply unpopular, there are at least two specific actions members of Congress could take to improve their standing, if they have the courage. 

The numbers

It may be a point that doesn’t need supporting evidence, but Americans are more than a little skeptical of what happens on Capitol Hill.

According to Gallup’s March 2-18 tracking survey, Congress had an approval rating of just 16 percent coupled with a 79 percent disapproval rating. As low as that is, it’s not the worst it’s ever been. But it’s not far from the 10 percent approval over a short stretch in 2012 or the 11 percent in December 2011, October 2013 and November 2015.

The news isn’t any better according to YouGov. It had Congress with a 12 percent approval and 69 percent disapproval rating at the end of March. YouGov has been asking adults the question since 2009, and the congressional approval rating has never been higher than 25 percent. 

It would be lazy to simply say, “Well, this is just how it is.” Gallup’s data goes back 50 years, and Congress hasn’t always been this unpopular. 

After hovering between 30 percent and 50 percent between 1975 and 1995, congressional job approval was consistently closer to 50 percent and sometimes above from 1998 to 2003, including 84 percent after the 9/11 attacks. There won’t be anywhere near that level of approval (including President George W. Bush’s astronomical job performance ratings) anytime soon because even the most tragic events today almost immediately devolve into a partisan blame game. 

But that doesn’t mean Congress’ standing is destined to remain this low. 

The actions

At the outset, it’s important to remember that disapproving of Congress is a bipartisan affair. Democrats around the country disapprove of Congress because Republicans are in charge and because they believe Democratic lawmakers aren’t doing enough to stand up to President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, some MAGA Republicans disapprove of Congress because they feel it isn’t doing enough to support the president. 

Broadly, Congress could help itself by policing itself better. With a general reputation for being self-serving and out of touch, Congress could help its image by passing a ban on active stock trading. By confronting the issue head-on, members would counter the notion that politicians are just in it for themselves. 

There have been various efforts to do so over the years including, most recently, legislation known as the Stop Insider Trading Act. But there’s a lack of will from members on both sides of the aisle, as well as from GOP leadership, to bring it to the floor. 

Congress could also help itself by kicking out members behaving badly. 

The standard doesn’t have to be criminality. Rather, “disorderly behavior” should be enough for punishment, whether it be censure or expulsion. And yet just six House members have been expelled in history, three of them in the past 50 years.

Some potential expulsions were likely preempted by resignations, but there’s still a general reluctance to kick colleagues out of Congress. Lawmakers seem to fear a slippery slope that would ultimately push themselves or members of their own party out of office.

Rather than admit that Florida Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick may not have deserved to be in the House anymore, one of her colleagues had the opposite reaction. “We have gone a little too far with starting that precedent with George Santos,” Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson said Tuesday, when the congresswoman resigned from the House. “And I regret my vote to expel him.”

Santos is one of those three members to have been expelled from the House since 1980. Pennsylvania Democrat Michael Myers and Ohio Democrat James A. Traficant Jr. were the others. Cherfilus-McCormick resigned in the face of a flurry of financial allegations, first detailed by Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections four years ago. 

And following other recent House resignations by Texas Republican Tony Gonzales and California Democrat Eric Swalwell, there will be more focus on Florida Republican Cory Mills, who has been accused of sexual misconduct and domestic violence. After South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace moved to expel her fellow Republican from Congress, Mills responded by threatening to try to oust Mace herself. But that’s only more retribution instead of trying to hold Congress to a higher standard. 

Work together?

It’s unlikely that Congress will ever be extremely popular. 

There’s always an incentive for the minority party members to trash the institution because they need voters to believe that Congress is out of touch and to fire the incumbents. Millions of dollars in campaign ads are spent every cycle delivering that message to Americans. 

And yet, despite the very narrow Republican majority, there’s an opportunity for the two parties to work together. While members obviously want to be in the majority, self-preservation is important too. 

And being a part of an institution that isn’t collectively despised, and is even striving to be and get better, would be beneficial for individual reelection bids as well.