senate is now a victim of all of that. you can keep a filibuster by putting the burden where it belongs and you will not see it on every single issue. i will make one other point. we changed the numbers from 60 to 50 on confirmation, but that does not mean there is no filibuster. it just means it only takes 50 votes instead of 60. you still need two days for the motion to ripen. now they have moved it toht debs over. if you have 1000utive nominatiou have got dozens on dozens of judges, you can block everything up for hour after hour. one of the things that also needs to be considered here, real reform of the nomination and confirmation process. >> all right. we going to take a break for coffee, and refresh. and we are going to come back to a few other ideas. thank you.

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■ >> we only have a few minutes. some of you have to run off to airplanes. i would like, i have a list of six■ things, change the housing allowance in conjunction with changing the schedule, either like derek said or 3-1, keep adjust the lunchrooms and have lunches which could be mo bipartisan and we had last night something about travel and

mission so they bipartisan, not individual, so people can get together, adjust the cloak rooms, change the seating at committees so it is not separated by party, get rid of the the aisle, somehow get the members to conjoin, and one of the questions for me is looking at most congresspeople, given the dysfunction and the fact that most people a meaningful life and do something of significance, i have to believe most people are not happy in that building. so the question is, why are we doing things? these do not sound hard to me. they do not sound impossible. they do not sound like, they are not structural reform of changing voting patterns primaries or the money

situation. this that might be different? [laughter] >> a few thoughts. i think my take away from working on the modernization committee is if you want things to work differently in congress, do things differently in congress. our committee did not sit with democrats on one side and republicanon seating. we sat on a big roundtable. we did something that was recommended by the committee, which was have joint staff. our services committee does that as well, i am not sure if others do, i think some may have come

some-type roles are bipartisan but we did not have staff with separate blue and red jerseys, just staff with congress jerseys. those changes were not cosmetic, th fow our committee worked. to some degree, i mentioned the scale issue, there is no guidebook on how to chair a committee. commerce past bipartisan legislation and to democrats and republicans selected a committee chair and we brought him in to see what some things you do to -- to run an effective committee that gets back to skill. i will mention a few small things the modernization committee recommended that i think could help on the margins. not primary reform or

campaign reform, just must -- but just a few things we recommended. one was the staffing, having bipartisan staffing or at least in scenting committees to have bipartisan staffing. then as an institution and doing bipartisan planning retreat. i have never been part of a successful exercise this did not start with. our modernizationommittee at the beginning of both congresses did have bipartisan planning retreats at the library of congress and we started with the icebreaker, why did you come to congress and how has it met or failed to meet your expectations? you would not know who was democrats and he was republicans but you are correct that morale was not high. people wanted to be part of a functional body. i think those exercises have

value. on top of that we recommended a couple of other things that could be part of a rules package . one was allowing their to be bipartisan lead sponsors of a bill. i worked on a bill and we literally flipped a coin to see who would be listed as lead sponsor. it is an easy thing to encourage working bipartisan -- and a bipartisan bill. we wrote the bill together and worked on it together and it was painful that one of the other had to be the lead name on the bill. one recommendation was something talked about a lot which is to enable and schedule oxford style debates on the floor of the house. we just had a group of members, right after the vacation of the chair, we had former speaker

mccarthy and ranking member himes and scott peters go to oxford and participate in a debate and afterwards they said it was really interesting and they feel like they came away from it having a different sort of view of one another. not all these issues are partisan. you could envision for an example in oxford style debate subject of ukraine aid and have democrats and republicans engaging one another in discussion and debate in a way i think right now does not happen in the institution. i think members might actually show up to that because it would be novel and i think americans might pay attention to it. those are some thoughts and things that could be part of a rules package that in and of themselves will not immediately change the norms but over times a lot of what our committee

proposed was things that over time could matter. for example, making sure when we do orientation that it is not what it has been for the last 20 years, largely an exercise in keeping the two sides from talking to each other but instead making it bipartisan and we proposed having a session on civility and collaboration during orientation. that has been implemented. it does not work overnight but i think over time, a lot of times i tell people we worked on this committee and people say wow, bang up job, it is doing great. [laughter] i spoke with the chaplain and she said, how messed up this place would be if we were

not trying. [laughter] so it is a slow burn impact. >> those are great and the importance of the orientations, wherever they are held, is they are very technical. it was a mistake for republicans to somehow think these are indoctrination's because they are very technical about how to get things done and i have been congressional staff, congressional council and worked in administration before they came so i was familiar but for those coming in bold, it was very helpful and the relationships are very helpful. i want to give a shout to david rubenstein because one thing he did while we were, i do not know if they still go on but there were quarterly dinners at the library of congress that were incredible infants where he

would out -- events where he would always invite a speaker to talk about their book, but it would be a presidential historian and the library of congress would bring out all these documents for us to look at related to the book. and the meal was even related to a book about kennedy, it would be a meal featuring things from that time. so you were really immersed and felt a reverence for the institution. it was bipartisan and you were sitting at a table with your colleagues for an evening where you were immersed in the institution, talking, and everyone would comment -- everyone would comeening there s really something where you were learning, listening, and engaging with your colleagues so all of these things where you are building those relationships i think are the most importance. >> i'm going to throw out a

really radical idea and i know it will never be■@ voted on but the pay for a member of the house of representatives on a member of the senate has not changed 2009. in that 15 years, the cost of living in washington, d.c., this is an official numbers, it is bonkers. unless you were lucky enough to represent a neighboring county where you could go home every night, you had to rent a place here. now have probably hundreds of staffers who are making more than members. derek, you are retiring. you can do this without paying a political price. can you offer an amendment to raise pay? i he a feeling the reason mike

gallagher is leaving because he is only making $174,0 we did a s was a topic. we spoke about the challenges of making ends meet with disabilities and challenges. i think reticence has been that there is a sense members will pay a political price for it, it would take a vote. to some degree, right now we take a vote to suspend our cost of living adjustment every year. we write that into the spending bill. that is a choice. congress could choose not to do that. 3xallowing the current law to be enacted. the other thing worth

considering is, when we talk about budget and spending bills, it is always through the lens of no budget, no pay, no budget, a recess. congress does not like hitting itself of the stake and when it does, decides to stop. so even when it does something like sequestration, it suspends it because it is stupid. the other angle is the caret. if congress passes the spending bill on time, we will not have the cost of living adjustment. because then people will feel like they are getting something out of congress. that would be an angle to do. to say if congress does its job, it will follow the law and members of congress will get a cost-of-living adjustment. a changing of the incentives might be worthy of discussion

but in the absence of that, congress will give itself a pay raise never because it is too unpopular with the american people. >> you could make a housing adjustment. housing allowance. >> and we did. the house has done that. it is not a pretty young but basically functions a lot like one. -- it is not a per diem but basically functions a lot like one. >> you would need a fairly large percentage of your pay to cover just housing costs. cheme of the federal government, it is change in the

sofa. peanuts. >> the fundamental issue here, we need better quality people wanting to be in congress. pay is a key factor, one of many. my law students will eache $500,000 more per year then a 30 year member of congress, and that is in their first job leaving law school. for the average american, these are extraordinarily high large sums of money hard to justify. but some of the best people in america were in congress and they wanted to be in congress and the barriers to, you cannot have a stock portfolio, you lose all your privacy, we have been made -- we have been willing to make that sacrifice but when i tried to recruit

candidates, they look at me like i am crazy. they care about our country but not enough to serve, and tt is a killer decision because so many of the best members of coreer are choosing to leave. right here is a casualty list of the 118th congress. it's a nightmare list filled with the best people serving. how do you get people to love political science. wh thome, they look for the clos on the ballot and they want to see fewer clowns. they want good people on the ballot and they know that good people don't do this. people feel sorry for me in the rotary club and say i am sorry that you had to do this all those years.

well someone had to do it, why don't you do it? founding partners were in state legislature and cared and that was part of their public service obligation and today now they do not serve and 98% of americans have never given a dollar to any federal candidate in any race. they do not care. 2% participate but that is not a representative slice of the population so we have to stopvoe apathy and contribution apathy because the big money coming in is not coming from the vast majority of americans. >> i promised myself i would get this and i do not know if this is the most logical time but we have another thing to better. that is that we are entering a time, we are already in it, of incredibly rapid change. i spoke with a top person at

microsoft a few years ago and she said at that point that will experience 250 years of change. ai will be a lot of that. we not only have to figure out how to fix what is broken, we have to figure out how to adapt it to a world that is changing faster than any of us can anticipate. fred, i know you still have people come in to talk about transportation of the future. i suggest we have a caucus of the future where we bring in speakers to talk about what we are dealing with because we are legislating in an environment where we see nothing change most of the time and instead we need congress to start focusing on the future in a way where there

is no particular issue separating republicans and democrats, but talking about anticipation. >> don buyer is getting a masters at george mason out in ai. he will be the only member of congress who has any idea. [laughter] >> in recruiting people, it does not have to be a lifetime of doing it. our founders often were legislators who went in and then laughed because it is hard to think about doing it, my husband is a teacher and i was the primary breadwinner so earlier in my life when my kids were young i could not afford to do this, was losing money the entire time i was in government. so i think when we are talking to people about doing it, regardless of if we adjust pay, having people think about doing this only for a time, five comey 10 years, eight -- five years,

10 years, they do not have to think about this being the only thing they are doing in their life and instead doing it and then going and doing something else. but getting talented people in here, seeing what it is like, people from a lot of different walks of life is important because then when they take that experience to the next job, it is helpful to have a more diverse group of people in here, regardless of salary, having a different group of people in here would be great. >> as i look at who is here, i'm the only one who voted for the pay raise in 1989. [laughter] >> i voted for it. >> were you there? >> a $40,000 pay raise. >> it was a tough vote. i was a deputy whip. my other deputy whip was denny

hastert who also said he would vote for it, and then [laughter] he took the easy course. but i took holy shit for it for a while. i had a primary with a state senator who wanted to only have lincoln douglas debates on only that topic. [laughter] was dutch. [laughter] it was a hard vote. and wel adjustment on the practice where you could keep campaign money for yourself , and to his credit, he voted for it and served another term but it was really hard. not having it for families is

really tough. this is an expensive place. that vote has been around now for 15 years and no cost of the living adjustment and we have city managers and a lot of folks make a lot more and in this job, if you do it right, it is a 24/7 drive. -- job. >> we did not delink general pace so in the military the generals and admirals are stuck in our level and that creates increasing tension on them. >> there are atbj least two members on l.a. county board of supervisors because in part i think they make 75,000 more than members of congress. one retired 2018, the district

director is now chief of staff at■ a san diego county board of supervisors and is making $60,000 more than now. >> car thefts in d.c.. [laughter] >> i voted for the very last pay raise and it was raised as an issue in every race i ran in a democratic primary in a district with all federal employees every year got a cost-of-living increase. but i do think when you look at the composition of the congress, pay becomes a barrier because people like me come in a single mother, getting ready to send her child to college, if i had lived anywhere else, there is no way i would have been able to serve in congress. it would have been unaffordable

to do that. so pay becomes a structural barrier when it comes to looking at who is serving on who has the opportunity. >> we only have a few minutes left. i want to start with john and go around. on reform and what we can do proactively to actually make some of this happen. and then i will give all of you an assignment because i am ad we you. [laughter] >> listening to all of this, abie there should bex some presidential level commission to recommend changes to congress where the recommendations come from the highest possible entity

so there is not congress trying to take advantage, because that would be the perception in terms of pay raises and so forth. it gives everybody up the offer. it's the only thing -- a offer. --bu -- buffer. it's the only thing i can think of to make some of these changes easier to do. not easy, but easier. >> my suggestions are more radical. i think in the house the discharge petition has to be used more frequently than is now the case and i think that would certainly get the attention of leadership. and regarding gerrymandering, which is a skin issue in the country -- significant issue in the country, i would hope we continue to work on that. i'm not sure the supreme court decision is the last word. membership changes and a future supreme court might actually consider that significant

gerrymandering as being unconstitutional. >> returning to my original point, i hope this past weekend will not just be a moment, it will be the moment where things change to improve and i think what determines that is who was elected and the character of those involved. so it depends on people so i think everyone needs to register to vote and be very active and engaged and involved, leaving party aside for one and really just getting gauged -- engaged and i hope on the intelligence front, i think congress is more active in looking at misinformation that is infiltrating our own congress because we see it abroad, we see it here, russia is getting misinformation into our congress and i think that is very

dangerous and we have to battle that aggressively throughout the year. >> two very different things. one, i think we should consider is structure where we take some of the amazing work derek and his colleagues did, other commonsense ideas we are talking about here, and have congress set up, i do not know about a prestiwe are in article one bodt set up a structure where recommendations come to congress where we would have to affirmatively vote down and that would take effect absent that. secondly, differently, it has been mentioned but not talked about a lot, whether you look at dold trump as a cause or effect, our democracy is really hanging by a thread and i have

hopes that if we can move beyond this moment and there could be two parties that are really both more about policy again, i think when we get back to that there will be a real opening to do some democratic hygiene work together to make the process work more effectively. so i have hope in that regard if we can survive this moment. >> i think we should n lwhen i k i did on energy and commerce, i went with diana and the two of us, i think we were there for one hour. we fielded questions and it was so how do we get more of that? as i look at the problem solvers congress -- caucus and what tom did in starting met and later my work, the really was the trust.

i told paul kane earlier, i personally gave money to tom suozzi. i got to know him there. he i the type of member, particularly on the democratic side, that you want to work with. he is honest, hard-working, he knows he has to be bipartisan, we have this divided government and how do we make it work? we had an incredible trip to germany earlier this month. six former members, and we were on the same page on almost everything. we got along well, we encouraged young folks to participate, something many of us did in our own district. so we find that sheet of music that ends up with bipartisanship to get things done, knowing that next congress, it will be divided government, it will be so close,

this will be here for a while so we better get it figured out. derek, thank you for your work. your work today but really all the things you did, we are going to miss you. you can be part of the former members soon. >> i agree with everything in this discussion. great ideas. you are setting the tone with this meeting. convene existing members in an off the record, off-site forum and challenge them. in the room, have them do a simple exercise. take the opposing position. you are a republican, we want you to argue for the democrat position. that will foster that trust conversation and respect conversation. i love that institution with all my heart. i love my country even more. to the point that has been

raised here, the institution is at a point of extreme difficulty. for it to function, we need the silent majority of people, the 80 million people who are like, are you kidding me, at of 300 million people, these are the two candidates for president? we need to harness that power and give them a pulpit and give them a voice here. one last point wemestic issues e causing internal politics in but to barbara's point, do not underestimate our adversaries in this geopolitical repositioning that is occurring with china, russia, north korea, iran, that is a real threat and it is getting worse each day. maybe i am the eternal optimist. maybe america will wake up and that will be the unifying force, enough is enough, we need to

protect ourselves and democracy and the u.s. and i am hoping that will inspire the bettors to step forward and serveheir country. >> when i was a kid there was a show on pbs called can this marriage be saved. i think about that when i think about the institution. my family used to camp andes ont of the capital when i was younger and i never would have thought i would work in that institution. it is worth saving. norm and i were talking at the break that some of the ideas we discussed are at the 30,000 foot level. they are big things to change, whether it is in the constitution or even in congressional rules. some things are small things that can make a different.

we did not get here overnight. so i hope we consider the tiny things we can do, whether it is in building relationships, creating an environment where republicans and democrats can come together and get to know each other, and then that allows us this space to work on the big changes, the real structural changes that will make a difference in the institution. >> the only thing i would add is i think congress needs to aggressively reclaim its institutional prerogatives. i think that for too long it has been surrendering authority to the executive branch and the courts. last night at dinner i mentioned one very specific example and both parties are guilty of this. when donald trump wanted to divert $3.5 billion in military

construction funds to pay for the border wall, you can debate if policy is bad, but there is nowhere in congress to do such a thing. every member needs to stand up for the institution. instead, they surrendered to det cancellation. hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt forgiven without the vote of the congress. /i can go through numerous examples of congress basically neutering itself over the years. some say it has been going on since lincoln, others since franklin roosevelt. but congress has been losing authority to the judicial and executive branches of government and congress needs to focus on that. i suspect me -- i suspect we might want to think about having a serious compensation commission, someone to come up with some serious

recommendations on how members should be compensating -- compensated, housing allowance, try to depoliticize it if possible. those are a few quick ideas. >> we are blessed to live in the greatest country of the world but it is more fragile than people think and we should never take it for granted. i am hopeful the energetic moderates in this room will be contagious and that existing members will feel some of that energy, but especially folks back home that make all the decisions. they are our bosses. one thing to talk about is the effect of cameras on the body that changes the institution. perhaps c-span itself changed the institution. the institutions that work are

like gyms where r-arizona -- where there are no cameras. the cloakroom's come up which should be bipartisan, there were no cameras. those are the places where people have off the record sessions. this is whate debate. because people are terrified of the video image that might haunt them for the rest of their of context. but sometimes it isisspeaking by a member. that happens in real life. we have to look at the effect of media as a shield and sword in our democracy and sometimes peopac home are using these images to destroy instead of to preserve the greatest country of the world. >> i want to add one thiwe alwam

the separation of powers but i feel we have evolved to a separation of parties. whatever party the president is, the party in congress feels they must do everything to protect their president, regardless of if they think the president is right or wrong. i think that has had a bad effect on congress. it has added to the weakening of the institution. there have to be issues where they say these are our responsibilities, our prerogatives is the constitution and we have to stick together. it is not a republican the-democrat thing. it is aongress-president thing. >> let me give you some good news and then some challenges. on the good news, modernization

committee without a lot of fanfare or pretension on social media past 202 recommendations with the goal of making congress work better for the american people. one third are implemented, the other third are in the process of implementation. at significant. community project funding, those restoration and reforms were proposed by the select committee on the modernization of congress. delinking of staff paid a member pay was a recommendation by our committee. the staff academy providing professional development opportunities to help members of staff get better at their jobs was a recommendation. having a bipartisan orientation process for the first time in a couple of decades was the recommendation of our committee. so quietly, some positive things

have happened and i think we should recognize that is progress. secondly, charlie's come in d tx congress caucus. we had our kickoff meeting and it was about restoring congress and article one. nick edwards and a group of academics undertook what they called the article one initiative to talk about the power of oversight. we have 34 members of congress attend that first meeting. i can't get 34 members of congress to show up to see taylor swift. [laughter] [laughter] the reality is the appetite by members of congress to see the institution bettered is substantial, and that is good news. the fact that you have people who care.

one challenge as i see it is something i think we should think about between■s now and md september. the voices of academics and former members of congress could be substantial from mid-september in challenging the leadership of both pes to change. you could envision former members and academics saying, how about these roles changes that have already been recommended when we do not know which party will be in the , challenging both parties to allow things like dual sponsorship, bipartisan planning retreats, recommend having space in the capital where both sides can engage each other outside the lens of-span cameras. you could envision that by

mid-september suggesting to the leadership of both parties a different congressional calendar we are members of congress would be there more and we can deflate -- t conflict committee hearing so we can get back to legislating. engage the leadership of both parties. academics in particular should think about■p how to offer training for members of congress to get better at their jobs and do things like strategic negotiation and teaching them how to manage a staff and fred upton should teach a class or do some of the stuff barbara mentioned. most members of congress do not come with knowledge of foreign policy or know how to deal with disinformation.

those are skills and there is a huge opportunity to help members get better at their jobs. the final thing i will say is we can do all of these things and i still think we will not be challenged until we address primaries, gerrymandering, and money in politics. in the absence of action it will be difficult to see the type of progress i tnk americans deserve and demand. >> thank you all. i think we have a full set. one thing■[■ this meeting has convinced me is that here in washington we will launch an initiative on fixing congress, to which all of you are construct did already. -- conscripted already. one thing we will try to do is make progress over the next year but also one year from now,

april 2025, we will hold a meeting again here. it will be reconfigured a little bit because i will ask each of you to bring a sitting member of congress, preferably you will bring someone from the other party to come who you think would be inclined to have an open mind about reforming. it might be that by september, every republican here and wants derek -- maybe derek will have his way by mid september and all of these reforms and role changes will happen. [laughter] i am not that optimistic, so i am hoping that we can make some progress on thinking through what a package would look like and how we might think about advancing it. so we are going to stay in touch with you, that is promise number one. we will launch an initiative and get you involved.

and number three, we will have a meeting again next year. we will keep you informed and make sure you have plenty of lead time you can get someone to come in with you who is a sitting member to try to have a slightly broader, not a broader range discussion but broader in terms of how to get it done. so i want to thank you all for taking last night and today and giving this some good thought. i think it has been incredibly productive. have a good evening and a good weekend. thank you. [applause] >> i will put in a good word at carries zero weight. [laughter]

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