Mourning Dick Cheney — What His Funeral Revealed About the State of the U.S. House

It was an otherwise ordinary Thursday in Washington, until contrasts made the moment painfully clear. While former President Donald Trump publicly threatened to "execute" Democrats and posted a message urging critics to "Hang Them," members of Congress were locked in internecine fights. At Washington’s National Cathedral, an unlikely group — Anthony Fauci, Rachel Maddow, Ken Mehlman and James Carville — sat together to honor the life of Dick Cheney.

Funeral, Legacy and a Troubled Chamber

Cheney, who died earlier this month after years of heart trouble and a transplant that allowed him to see his grandchildren reach adulthood, would likely have been dismayed by the spectacle in the chamber he loved. His funeral came in the first full week the House returned from a 54-day absence following a government shutdown. Instead of focusing on legislation, lawmakers spent the new session mounting censure and expulsion efforts — three individual disapproval measures compared with a single vote on a major bill.

The brief bipartisan vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files offered a rare assertion of congressional authority. Otherwise, the reopening underscored a deeper rot: partisan targeting and intra-party reprisals have displaced steady legislative work, and the House’s role as a co-equal branch looks diminished.

Signs of Institutional Decline

Republicans control the House and the presidency, yet the chamber’s output has been dominated by discipline and spectacle rather than governing. A bipartisan proposal to raise the threshold for censure — meant, its sponsors say, to "raise the level of sanity in the House" — speaks to lawmakers’ own awareness of the problem. Part of the slowdown traces to policy priorities being locked into large omnibus packages, but even accounting for that, few would call this a productive year.

"I say that as a jealous guardian of the legislative branch of government," House Speaker Mike Johnson said, cheerleading a presidential legal position he said he favored — a remark that many observers found ironic given Congress's diminished posture.

Sen. John Thune, who once served in the House, summed it up plainly: "It’s a different era." The comment echoed through a sanctuary filled with older Republicans and Democrats who attended the funeral out of respect for the Cheney family and for the institution.

Remembering Cheney

The eulogies emphasized the steadier elements of Cheney’s life: father, grandfather, boss and long-time public servant. Colleagues from his years as Wyoming’s lone representative (1979–1989) — and figures who later rose higher — were present. Even former President George W. Bush, recalling his lone House defeat in 1978, paid wry tribute: "The Republican wave didn’t reach West Texas that year," he said, noting Cheney’s unbeaten record.

Speakers described Cheney’s intellect and curiosity: a college dropout who worked on power lines by day and read Churchill by night, a man who arrived at public events with newspapers, The Economist and a book in hand. As Bush put it, he was "a serious man." That seriousness felt conspicuously scarce amid today’s partisan theatrics.

Family, Duty and a Moment of Grace

Liz Cheney, his eldest daughter and the former congresswoman, recalled these quieter, formative scenes: museum trips with a father who read every plaque aloud, and later, shared visits to historic battlefields. Her refusal to reconcile with Trump after January 6 cost her politically in 2022, but she argued then, and at the funeral, for seriousness and fidelity to the Constitution over party loyalty.

After the service, in a moment that captured duty over partisan rancor, Liz Cheney paused to embrace Nancy Pelosi — a quiet gesture between two mothers and two House families who rose to leadership from opposite sides of the aisle.

What Remains

The funeral was not an invitation to uncritical nostalgia: Cheney's career and policy choices deserve full scrutiny. But the event underscored a broader truth: the House once populated by studious, institutional-minded lawmakers has changed. A handful of members still embody that ethic, but many seem headed for statewide office or private life rather than long House careers. Whether the chamber can recover its role as a deliberative, co-equal branch remains an open question.