Washington ( CNN ) -- At the end of his career , former House Speaker Tip O'Neill was asked how Congress had changed between the 1950s and 1980s . O'Neill answered : `` The people are better . The results are worse . '' Watching last week 's health summit , you see what O'Neill meant . The conversation was intelligent , civil , well-informed . It also predictably achieved nothing . How could it ? Deals are never reached in front of the television camera . Take this quiz . Name the most important legislation enacted in the 30 years between 1950 and 1980 . Overwhelming is n't it ? Civil rights . Voting rights . Interstate highways . Medicare . Medicaid . The deregulation of the airlines , natural gas , trucking , rail and oil . The immigration act of 1965 . Clean Air , Clean Water , and the Endangered Species Acts . Supplemental Security Income in 1974 . I could fill the whole screen . Now ... the next 30 years . There 's the Reagan tax cuts of course . Deregulation of the savings & loans in 1982 . The Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 . Welfare reform in 1995 . Medicare Part D. What else ? Leave aside whether you are liberal or conservative , whether you approve the measures mentioned above or disapprove . It 's hard to dispute : Congress just got a lot more done in the 1950s , 1960s and 1970s than in the 1980s , 1990s and 2000s . Why ? You hear many grand , sweeping explanations . Let 's try just one simple one . Congress in the first period was controlled by a handful of committee chairmen , who owed their positions to seniority . The committees did their work in secret . Bills written in committee typically could not be amended on the floor of Congress . The institution was authoritarian , hierarchical , opaque . And stuff passed . In the mid-1970s , Congress underwent a revolution . The power of the committee chairmen was broken . The number of subcommittees proliferated . The committees met in public . Amendments multiplied . Congress become more open , more egalitarian , more responsive . And stuff ceased to pass . Again and again , today 's gridlock can be traced to yesterday 's reform . Is the filibuster grinding Congress to a halt ? Before the 1970s , filibusters were both very rare and very difficult . But when Congress took action to make filibusters easier to break , it inadvertently made them easier to use . Back in the 1950s , a filibuster would bring the entire Senate to a halt , as the filibustering Senator talked and talked and talked . A filibuster was both spectacularly visible and personally exhausting : it exacted a high price from the filibustering senator . Then Congress took action to make filibusters easier to break , requiring only 60 votes instead of 67 . But that same deal made them much easier to start . No need to speechify all night ; no colleagues enraged that the filibustering senator has paralyzed the chamber . Today , a filibustering senator need only notify the majority leader of his intention . The filibustered legislation is sidetracked until 60 votes are found to enact it , while other business continues as normal . The price of the filibuster has been drastically cut . No surprise we get more of them . Candidates consumed by fundraising ? Two generations ago , candidates barely raised money at all . Once nominated , a candidate would turn to his party apparatus to provide the money and expertise needed to contest an election . But the maximum contribution by a party organization was capped in the 1940s , and it has not been raised significantly since . This cap was supposed to clean up politics by weakening party bosses . Instead , it has forced every individual member of Congress to spend the bulk of his or her time begging for funds -- the very opposite of clean politics . Lobbyists everywhere ? In 1950 , a lobbyist who wanted a tax measure would have very few targets . The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee could help , ditto the ranking member of the opposition party . The senior members of the Senate Finance Committee would likewise be worth talking to . Maybe some of the upper level officials at Treasury . The days of concentrated power have ended . Today , almost any one of the 535 members of Congress could help -- and so of course the interests must employ many more lobbyists to woo them all . Congress utterly polarized ? Once upon a time , members of Congress did their business mostly in secret . They struck quiet deals with each other . A Republican might support a Democratic labor measure in return for some discreet help with a farm bill . Today , everything happens in the bright glare of sunshine , policed by hundreds of ideological interest groups . Deviate one step from the party line , and you are a traitor , a sell-out , an enemy . Just ask Scott Brown , yesterday 's Republican hero , today a villain for voting against the filibuster of a jobs bill . We have an ideology that more publicity , more transparency , more openness must improve Congress . And when each successive wave of openness makes things worse , we tell ourselves that the answer is even more publicity , transparency and openness still . No contrary evidence makes any impression . Seems like everything 's open -- except our minds . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Frum .
In '50s and '60s , landmark bills were passed through secret deals , David Frum says . Reforms of the 1970s resulted in much more transparency , he says . The Reagan administration was a different story : it's been called