Currently, Congress is rarely a legislative, let alone a deliberative, body. Two years ago, when Republicans controlled the House, a Republican congressman defended a committee chairman accused of excessive subservience to the president by saying: “You’ve got to keep in mind who he works for. He works for the president. He answers to the president.” Pathetic.

Because congressional leaders live in terror of spontaneity among the led, hearings designed to generate publicity are tightly scripted, which is why, Amash says, such hearings are “an elaborate form of performance art” and members “often look as though they are asking questions they do not understand.” Congressional leaders’ stern message to potentially unmanageable members is to pipe down and “live to fight [for spending restraint, entitlement reform, open House processes, etc.] another day.” Amash’s campaign slogan should be: “Vote for someone who is as disgusted with Congress as you are.”

The Libertarian Party might ask Amash to take his — actually, it’s the Founders’ — message to the nation as the party’s presidential nominee. He does not seek this — he has three young children — but does not summarily spurn the idea of offering temperate voters a choice of something other than a choice between bossy progressivism and populist Caesarism. Or he could become the first non-Republican the Grand Rapids area has sent to Congress since 1974.