The broken branch how Congress is failing America and how to get it back on track - Mann, Thomas E. (Oxford University Press, 2006)
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 19, 2009). - "The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.". - "The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania."
Includes bibliographical references and index
Introduction -- The first branch of government : theory and practice -- The seeds of the contemporary problem, 1969-1994 -- A decade of Republican control -- Institutional decline -- The case of continuity -- Conclusion
Congress is the first branch of government in the American system, write Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, but now it is a broken branch, damaged by partisan bickering and internal rancor. The Broken Branch offers both a brilliant diagnosis of the cause of Congressional decline and a much-needed blueprint for change, from two experts who understand politics and revere our institutions, but believe that Congress has become deeply dysfunctional. Mann and Ornstein, two of the nations most renowned and judicious scholars of government and politics, bring to light the historical roots of Congr