As part of my government relations internship this summer at a health information technology company in Washington, D.C., I had the opportunity to go to Capitol Hill to attend hearings on policies that Congress was considering. The common perception nowadays is that lazy, incapable fools operate the "do-nothing Congress," because it has struggled to pass a budget and other crucial laws in recent years. While this perception is surely an exaggeration, watching the institution up close affirms my belief that if members of Congress want to regain America's confidence, they need to foster effective policymaking instead of extravagant and attention-seeking political theater just to impress political supporters.

Of all the hearings I attended, two stand out in my memory for their lack of productivity. The first hearing was with the Senate Finance Committee to discuss fixing the Medicare sustainable growth rate formula, that sets Medicare payments but has caused annual problems. Naturally, I expected the senators and experts to spend a substantial part of the time discussing the problems of the SGR, and offering ideas to fix them. To my disappointment however, the senators barely mentioned SGR during the hearing. They skillfully diverted the topic to discuss other themes about improving health care instead, and avoided outright discussion about the SGR itself. Looking back, that hearing looked more like a show the senators put on to avoid directly addressing this contentious issue, all while pretending to show their supporters the "progress" they were making in the "do-nothing Congress." The hearing was merely political theater for public consumption. It made the senators look smart, influential and important on-camera, but had little effective substance off-camera.

The second hearing was with the House Energy and Commerce Committee to examine the implementation progress of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Republicans started by attacking Democrats over the law's effects of discouraging job growth and increasing premiums, as well as the Obama Administration's hypocrisy in implementation. The Democrats fired back instantly at their turn, accusing the Republicans of prioritizing health care denial for vulnerable Americans. Needless to say, rudeness and venom characterized that hearing more than substantial discussion did. It became nothing more than a smear campaign by the committee Republicans and Democrats against each other using the law's shortcomings and successes.

The need to constantly cultivate support from one's electoral base led to the behavior in those hearings, as well as other instances of Congressional dysfunction as recent as this summer. The Senate could not reconcile a budget with the House because extremist senators have refused negotiations unless the Senate promises no tax or debt limit increases beforehand. The same senators have also pledged to block crucial federal spending unless the Senate defunds the Affordable Care Act. In the House, the Republican majority had voted for the 40th time on a futile repeal of the law. Simultaneously, Congressional Democrats have consistently grilled the Republicans for their proposed modifications to programs like Social Security and Medicare and have used the ideas to brand the Republicans as uncaring toward America's needy populations. The acts that those politicians put on in hearings and on the floor were mostly for the satisfaction and interest of narrow sections of America, in other words their principal supporters, rather than for the interest of the United States as a whole. They show their supporters that they can reliably fight for their supporters' positions at all cost in Congress.

With Congress unable to pass many laws nowadays, and having led the country to near fiscal ruin on several occasions, it is no wonder that it has record-low approval ratings. If Congress wants to be productive again, it needs to start by focusing less on campaigning and more on lawmaking. When members are in Washington, they can still score political points by participating in substantive lawmaking, but they should leave the political attacks, vitriol and shows for their campaigns back home.

Reducing the influence of campaigns in Washington requires a two-fold effort by both the members and their voters. The members must accept that while they represent narrow constituencies, they are also federal employees whose impact is national instead of regional. Using Congress to merely please narrow constituencies will harm the country, and ultimately themselves electorally if national programs fail because of their inaction.

The voters need to accept that in Congress, with 532 other members they did not elect, their own members cannot fulfill 100 percent of their pledged agenda without changes and compromise. Voters have to recognize that other members also have legislative priorities competing for attention, and those other members often have differing views on the same issues. They need to remember that while it takes one member to introduce a bill, it takes hundreds more to pass it. Under such conditions, with so many people offering input, compromise, trade-offs and sometimes broken promises are inevitable. As a result, few laws will fully meet everyone's expectations.

Capitol Hill is for those who want to help the country through lawmaking, not to look impressive on screen.

This past summer, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) remarked that Washington has become a theater instead of a policymaking center, and that "if [she] wanted to be part of a theater, [she] would have gone to New York" instead. Congress managed to swallow its pride in the 1960s to cast the hard votes for landmark yet divisive civil rights and social legislation. Such feats are possible today, but only when Congress resumes true policymaking. America needs its theater, but as Senator Landrieu said, Capitol Hill is not the place to hold it.