American government In Federalist 51, James Madison claimed that the legislative branch (Congress) would necessarily be the strongest branch of the federal government. Congressional experts and historians sometimes refer to Congress as "The First Branch". Recently, however, Congress is increasingly referred to not as strong but as broken. To begin this week's discussion, read this interview ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001155.html) with Congressional scholars Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute about the problems Congress faced in 2006. In the past 12 years, have things gotten better, gotten worse, or stayed the same? Why do you think this is? There was hope that a Congress dominated by 1 political party would be able to pass legislation (ie, the Republican-dominated Congress we have had since January 2017). Have they been successful? Why or why not?