A Cure for Congress?

With Washington stalled in partisan gridlock, a seemingly counterintuitive idea is catching on among some of the political elite: bring back the smoke-filled room.

“We elected these people. Let them go back into a room like they always did,” says Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, who also endorsed the idea of returning to federal earmarks, the specially tailored spending measures that have long greased dealmaking in the Capitol.

House Speaker John Boehner banned all earmarks in 2011, with the support of President Obama, in a nod to increasing transparency. But defenders, including many members of the appropriations committees who hold the reins of the process, have become increasingly vocal in their protest against the current policy in recent months. “You get members with the earmarks interested in the process and actually helping to try and push forward a piece of legislation–that’s why you have them,” says Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senate majority leader Harry Reid.

Indeed, just 22 bills–almost none of them significant–have passed both chambers in the first six months of the 113th Congress, the fewest since record keeping began six decades ago. But the slow-rolling Congress is in no hurry to change. “This is pretty simple: earmarks aren’t coming back anytime soon,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck says.