Congress better than public thinks, say scholars« Thread Started on Sept 6, 2007, 12:56pm » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Congress better than public thinks, say scholarsby Frank Jamesread at source> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/po ... _th.htmlAs we keep reporting, polls shows Congress is held in fairly low esteem by the American people, with the latest Gallup Poll, as Mark Silva wrote earlier, showing Americans giving it an 18 percent approval rating.It could theoretically go lower, say if House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) were discovered running an illegal dog-fighting operation. But public approval of Congress is clearly close to bumping along the bottom.This may be a case of public unfairness, at least according to an assessment titled "Is the Broken Branch on the Mend? An Early Report on the 110th Congress" by scholars at the progressive Brookings Institution: Sarah Binder, Thomas Mann and Molly Reynolds.