so really experienced the 211 1st century congress -- 21st century congress from the inside. his focus as a member, i think it's fair to say, was maybe especially on economic policy. he served on the budget committee, on the finance committee, on the joint economic committee committee. and maybe most notably, on the senate banking committee where he rose to be the ranking republican, a role that a certainly put him very is regularly into contact with the financial regulators. maybe not always in the most pleasant ways, but always in ways that reflect on the subject we're taking up today, the question of the role of the agencies and their relationship to congress. and so it gives them a perspective that the i think we all can learn from as we start to think about this subject. senator toomey, first of all, thank you very much for being here. we're grateful. there are a lot of places we could start, but the maybe the place to jump in is the sort of perplexing reality that adam and i began with which is the overturning of chevron might be thought to be especially relevant to the

willing congress to restrict the power of administrative agencies in the executive branch if congress and the president are both in republican. >> i am not optimistic, no. no. i think frankly, that is part of the reason on the amendment >> we are going to take a short break and be back for next panel in a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] announcer: now from the same event, analysts from the american enterprise institute and the brookings institution discussing the impact of the supreme court's chevron ruling for the three branches of government and the possibility of more lawyers being hired by federal agencies for litigation purposes. [inaudible conversations] >> hello, everybody. we are going to get started with the next part of our gathering which will consist of two panels of experts. first implications for congress, and then for the administrative agencies. these will both be moderated by katie from brookings. let me turn things over to her. >> first implications for congress. and then for the administrative agencies. these will both be moderated by a kid from brookings. le

, do things differently in congress. our committee did not sit with democrats on one side and republicans on the other, we staggered our 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 clerk-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, they fundamentally changed how 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 reppo -- 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. they are not primary reform or camp

but as a result of the information that congress discovered during the investigation, congress passed the national security act of 1947. and this act did a major reorganization of the military branches and in national intelligence. so it created a the first permanent intelligence agency and it also reorganized all the military services to be under one department of defense. just before the united states entered world war two, the senate created the special committee to investigate the national defense program. this committee was was created to oversee billions of dollars in appropriations that congress had just made for war preparation. this committee was led by senator harry truman and of missouri, and it investigated reports of fraud and inefficient c in war preparation. so the committee uncovered numerous instances of corruption and mismanagement and profiteering. it set a standard for congressional oversight operations and was widely praised for its effective work, saving billions of dollars of taxpayer money. it also made senatorruman a national figure. the truman committee's inv

but as a result of the information that congress discovered during the investigation, congress passed the national security act of 1947. and this act did a major reorganization of the military branches and in national intelligence. so it created a the first permanent intelligence agency and it also reorganized all the military services to be under one department of defense. just before the united states entered world war two, the senate created the special committee to investigate the national defense program. this committee was was created to oversee billions of dollars in appropriations that congress had just made for war preparation. this committee was led by senator harry truman and of missouri, and it investigated reports of fraud and inefficient c in war preparation. so the committee uncovered numerous instances of corruption and mismanagement and profiteering. it set a standard for congressional oversight operations and was widely praised for its effective work, saving billions of dollars of taxpayer money. it also made senator truman a national figure. the truman committe's in

but as a result of the information that congress discovered during the investigation, congress passed the national security act of 1947. and this act did a major reorganization of the military branches and in national intelligence. so it created a the first permanent intelligence agency and it also reorganized all the military services to be under one department of defense. just before the united states entered world war two, the senate created the special committee to investigate the national defense program. this committee was was created to oversee billions of dollars in appropriations that congress had just made for war preparation. this committee was led by senator harry truman and of missouri, and it investigated reports of fraud and inefficient c in war preparation. so the committee uncovered numerous instances of corruption and mismanagement and profiteering. it set a standard for congressional oversight operations and was widely praised for its effective work, saving billions of dollars of taxpayer money. it also made senator truman a national figure. the truman committee's i

it's the congress that's that that authorizes the spending of not one dime can be spent unless congress appropriates the money for that activity. so congress has to have a role in foreign policy and in defense, and yet we've had president after president resisting congress's efforts to insert itself into decision making and to resist giving a full accounting and, being fully cooperative with oversight efforts. so you know that the iran-contra scandal and the investigations that followed were really a dramatic laying out of this conflict. and it's rare that public gets such a window into these machinations and these conflicts. did the public share the media's obsession with the iran contra affair? well, certainly for a while in the summer of 1987, i can just be personally, i was i was a college student and i had been been backpacking through europe and having, you know, pretty good time explore in a place i'd never been before. and i came back home in in june of 87, and these hearings were beginning. and i was like a lot of other people just wrapped, you know, with with these hearings an

the way we choose chief justice is governed by congress. there are many things congress governs. i am not saying it would not be difficult politically. somebody thought there was no it does some advantage to their side. i saw no constitutional barrier. i thought maybe there is a requirement to allow all people, senior and active justices, to sit on the original cases. other than that i think it is really a question we can take up in congress. >> christina and alicia you have looked at many cases, considerable case law making it clear that these kinds of jurisdiction changes and things can be done and have been done. many people say to me, what if the supreme court just struck down term limits done by statute? what do you think about that? >> i think that's a very real risk. especially, given today's supreme court. and i also think that whether this could be done through statute or required constitutional amendments will be a source of enormous controversy. even though there was widespread support for term limits on our commission there was disagreement about whether this required

but as a result of the information that congress discovered during the investigation, congress passed the national security act of 1947. and this act did a major reorganization of the military branches and in national intelligence. so it created a the first permanent intelligence agency and it also reorganized all the military services to be under one department of defense. just before the united states entered world war two, the senate created the special committee to investigate the national defense program. this committee was was created to oversee billions of dollars in appropriations that congress had just made for war preparation. this committee was led by senator harry truman and of missouri, and it investigated reports of fraud and inefficient c in war preparation. so the committee uncovered numerous instances of corruption and mismanagement and profiteering. it set a standard for congressional oversight operations and was widely praised for its effective work, saving billions of dollars of taxpayer money. it also made senator truman a nation figure. the truman committee's inv

the constitution gives congress the power toow legislate, but in order to do that congress needs information on what topics they could legislate on, what needs to be legislated about. and congress gets that information through investigations. so at any given time congress can be investigating, for example, if a law as being implemented as it was intended to, or the cause of a disaster, and it gathers information and uses that information to create new laws. one of our goals for this exhibit was for americans to be able to get a better understanding of the things that happen here in the capital, the things done by their representatives in congress. so because investigations are one of those things that congress does so regularly, we wanted to highlight that and wanted to show historical examples of congress investigating so that visitors can use that example to better understand what's going on right here in this building in the capital. so there are four main reasons why congress investigates. one is fact-finding. investigations can reveal the facts the things that happened and clarify what

butrs the efficacy of many membs of congress including norman men data congress passed the civil liberties of 1988. this act did issue an official government apology for the incarceration authorize the restitution payments for the survivors. so this letter right i here is a letter written by president george h.w. bush to one of the survivors of the incarceration camp. the letter is eight letter of apology and also include a statement. because the objects in this case relate to the investigation into domestic communism and the early 1950s debate centered joseph mccarthy of wisconsin. this is the period of the early cold war when there was an intense suspicion of domestic communists and number of members of congress who are attempting to influence a public opinion to be against domestic communists holdingin positions of influence and the united states government and in the country as a whole. said senator joseph mccarthy had given a speech claiming there were 205 known communists and the dent of state. an senate investigation found they were false. mccarthy handled the investigation.t when t

of congress. $840 million annual budget. 3100 employees. what's the focus? what does america get for that money? what america gets is a wonderful report entry and depository of all human knowledge and information. the library collects in information in 70 languages that collects. it's now up to 170 million items or half of that is in languages other than english. and we collect all types of things. one of the sessions, the library has a booth here at the festival is about free photographs and images that you can download that are free of copyright, like the first selfie, the first photo of harriet tubman. there are all of these wonderful things and ways to get information and inspiration. and so the library congress is the nation's library. i just see, i think stacks and stacks and stacks of hardback books. well, you're right about that. there are 836 miles of shelf that the library has. so, yes, the library has quite a few physical books, but it also has manuscript collections. the papers of 23 p

the constitution gives congress the power to legislate but in order to do that congress needsn information on what topics i can legislate on and what needs to be legislated about and congress gets that information so at any given time congress can be investigating for example if a law is being implemented as it was intended to or the cause of the disaster and it gathers information and uses that information to create results. one of our goals for this exhibit was for americans to be able to get a better understanding of the things that happened here in the capitol,th the things done by their representatives in congress. so because investigations are one of those things that congress does so regularly we wanted to highlight that and we wanted to show historical examples of congress investigating so they can use that example to better understand what's going on here at the capitol. so there are four main reasons why congress investigates. one is fact-finding. investigations can reveal the facts of things that happen and in clarify what happens and why. another reason is oversight. congressio

what is congress not doing? most people would answer, i think, that it's not passing the legislation they think is essential. it's not acting on entitlement reform or climate change, whatever you take to be the crucial challenge of the moment. that's the common view, but i think it's a mistaken view of what's wrong with the constitution. what congress is failing to do enable cross partisan, and enable us to act together when we don't think alike. it has enormous implications, people that are frustrated with congress's failure to move legislation rather than the failure to advance some idea of cohesion tend to call for things like eliminating super majority requirements like the senate filibuster or further empowering and centralizing power in the leaders in both houses. they have in mind something more like parliamentary government as a model what it is we're missing, but that kind of model i think is not ultimately likely to lead to durable legislation in the system and undermine the capacity of our politics to

people are writing to congress, calling on congress. blacks and whites, pleading for help around that. the violence that's taking place. and so in particular over the franchise and the vote is where congress sees that they can intercede and so congress is going to pass a series of enforcement acts. the third being the ku klux klan act all around this idea of, you know, trying to find some way to federalize, if you will, these violations on southern's civil rights and political rights, in particular, black southerners, civil and political rights. and one way that they're going to do that is they're going to form the department of justice, which the department of justice initial one of their initial ideas is to actually investigate this this violence in this klan activity is to investigate terrorist organizations and congress very quickly realizes that they cannot ignore the reports that the department of justice is coming up with. and so they decide that they're going to create a commission to organize and investigate what's happening in

we had 34 members of congress attend the first fixed congress meeting i cannot get 34 members of congress to show up to see taylor smith what that tells you is. [laughter] okay maybe i could, maybe i could. [laughter] the reality is the appetite by members of congress to see the institution bettered is substantial. that is good news. the fact that you have folks who actually care. now, one challenge as i see it is something i think we should thinkin about between now and md september. the voices of both academics and former members of congress could be substantial come mid september in challenging the leadership of both parties to some changes. for example you could envision former members and academics saying hey, how about these rules changes that have already been recommended by the select committee we don't know which party will be in the majority or the minority. challenging both parties to allow things like dual sponsorship. to allow things like a bipartisan planning retreats. to recommend something that modernization committee recommended which is to have some space in the capitol

congress is cumbersome.f we asked to have every congressperson become an expert to make a regulation that the experts have made, then there would be no regulations. people pretty much like regulations to prevent dumping of cancer-causing chemicals from a business that is doing that to make money. i could say more, but i will keep it brief. host: thank you. guest: thanks. i wish he would have been at a hearing about two weeks ago, and i had a chance to testify. you would be surprised, there is a lot of support -- you would not want to hear me say it, but forgiving more resources to congress to develop the right kind of expertise -- but for giving more resources to congress to develop the right kind of expertise as opposed to having delegated powers for agencies and having them at arms length. there is the congressional office of regulatory analysis, or cora, being explored, rooted in earlier bipartisan regulations. in the past, it involved regulatory budgeting, small-business relief, unfunded mandates reform.

one of which is defined congress -- defend congress. think everything you say about the shell game aspect of the administrative state is true. congress gets credit forits two bites at the apple. it gets to take credit for broad, high-minded statute like protecting endangered species and gets to rail against the bureaucrats when they fill in the details. the house did pass the rains act at least once. there has been movement towards national emergency's reform and framework statutes that, you know, flip the default setting of american government back to the rules don't go into effect unless they are passed by congress. it's clearly not enough but there's been more movement in that direction then we've seen in a long time. the second thing i do not want to do is, you know, throw a wrench into the idea of mass layoffs of bureaucrats, because it's an idea that sounds very attractive. but don't you run into, you know, if your plan is to do much of this by executive fiat, don't you kind of run into a major questions type problem? for instance

what has congress done during this time? the congressional research service cut all the institutional report that would help make congress a better place.ce finally electoral college norm has the right idea it's getting to be a crisis. we did a piece of research a little while ago in the brookings archives showing how at the turn of the last century the distribution of the american population was such that having two senators for every state and requiring onee congressperson wasn't a bad idea and it didn't create distortion but the population moved and the density arere really dramatic in the sht answer that i always get when peoplesa say what was wrong with the electoral college and why did it happen i say the agricultural t rep -- the middle of the country. we are not representing modern america. i say those briefings to bear in mind as we go forward. >> bill hoagland for many years he was the republican staff director of the senate budget committee. >> thankte you and the senate staffer for many years and i very much enjo

congress is for most of congress to want to change. right. so that's not that many people. we we know them. we go to them with phil wallach's book and we give them the book and say, this is what you should do. now, tell me what you think about that. why don't you do that? it's still going to take time. and i think that the the kind of socialization of a set of ideas about what congress is for is going to be the work of the coming years on that front. but i do think it is achievable and i actually think that socializing, that kind of idea, you know, i wouldn't overestimate what you could do on that front in two years, but i would not underestimate what you can do in ten years because congress changes fast for good and bad. there's almost no one there now who was there in 2000. and so all the people who are there now probably not going to be there in 20 years. and with the work we have to do, if we know what we're trying to persuade them of, is persuasive work for a couple of hundred people. i think we should try. i think the takeaway there is that congressmen change fast, bu

congress punts. congress doesn't help. congress sort of gives him some ambiguous responses, leaves it in his hands and he handles it for grant. as a as we were just talking about grant tax back and forth and zigzags depending on what congress is giving at any point. sometimes gives him power with the enforcement act. sometimes congress takes it away when they de-fund the military and start mustering people out. grant doesn't try to go his way. he doesn't try to keep the military in the field. he doesn't try to use funds from another to pay for things he says. all right. that's the will of the people i to respect that and taft to the same extent is trying to work very carefully with congress and of course with the courts some of the best for taft respecting separation of powers is, of course with the supreme court and the 16th amendment, with the personal income tax that congress had initially wanted to check the supreme decision ruling, personal income tax, unconstitutional. 1895 congress wanted to respond with a law diffe

congress is for most of congress to want to change. right. so that's not that many people.we know them. we go to them with phil wallach's book and we give them the book and say, this is what you should do. now, tell me what you think about that. why don't you do that? it's still going to take time. and i think that the the kind of socialization of a set of ideas about what congress is for is going to be the work of the coming years on that front. but i do think it is achievable and i actually think that socializing, that kind of idea, you know, i wouldn't overestimate what you could do on that front in two years, but i would not underestimate what you can do in ten years because congress changes fast for good and bad. there's almost no one there now who was there in 2000. and so all the people who are there now probably not going to be there in 20 years. and with the work we have to do, if we know what we're trying to persuade them of, is persuasive work for a couple of hundred people. i think we should try. i think the takeaway there is that congressmen change fast, but re

something is wrong with congress. it's not to find people who think that and there's even a kind of bipartisan community. congressional reformers in washington phil wallach and kevin kosar and i are often the token conservatives in a lot of these conversations. but beneath what seems like agreement at the beginnings of those conversations agreement that congress is dysfunctional. there's a very profound disagreement about what function it is failing to perform what is congress not doing. most people would answer i think that it's not passing the legislation they think is essential. it's not acting entitlement reform or climate change or whatever you take to be the crucial challenge of the moment. that is the common view, but i think that it's a mistaken view of what's wrong with the institution. it seems me that what congress is failing to do is not so much advance my policy but enable cross partizan. what is failing to do is enable us to act together when we don't think alike. and that difference actually some enormo

the case to take congresses for most of congress to want to pay change. not that many people. we know them, we go to them with the book and give them the book and said this is what you should do. now tell me what you think about that? why don't you do that? it's going to take time and i think the socialization of a set of ideas about what congress is for, is going to be the work of the coming years on that front. but i do think it is achievable. i think socializing that kind of idea, i would not overestimate what you could do on that front in two years. i would not underestimate what you can do in 10 years. congress changes fast for good and bad. there's almost no one there now who was there in 2000. until all the people are there now probably not going to be there in 20 years. the work we have to do for you know what we are trying to persuade them of his persuasive at work for a couple hundred people. i think we should try. click the take away there is a congressman change fast but read slow. in the back. yes. sure yes. >> exactly but really appreciate a

trump care about congress. he couldn't get things through congress. congress is so divided between republicans and democrats, it's very easy to block things so as no surprise, anyone here congress is dysfunctional and trump that. and so in order to get things done, trump just started acting by using executive orders to get what do you want it done? and when you use executive, the only person who matters is donald trump. he wouldn't let his agencies do anything. he wouldn't let his cabinet officials do anything. he did everything on his own, which means that the thousands or tens of thousands of lobbies in dc were all of a sudden irrelevant because only trump mattered. the machine kind of ground a halt, right? i think if congress doesn't matter, then lobbying congress is is useless. yeah. so what did matter, though, was knowing trump and trump was such an outside order when he came to dc, the nominee in dc knew him. there's a handful of people who had worked on his campaign or raise money for him, who became a top lobbyist. and one of them was a guy na

and what's referred to as agency non-acquiescence and congress has a lot to say about that and congressmake choices about venue predictions. the clean air act were all chosen the d.c. circuit so there's never circuit. their other agencies were it's a blend so the national labor relations board some statutes where you only sue the regional court. congress makes those choices and doing so knowing that one of the trade-offs there is -- and the last thing i will say there's something out there that affects uniformity which is the practice of universal they cater issued by an injunction under the administrative procedures act which pushes against the laws in different places. this is a whole separate panel. i don't believe universal is provided for in the procedure i cannot think district courts should be able to prevent enforcement of an agency rule nationwide as congress has expressly given courts the authority but that is the norm now and that makes regional variation much less likely because the judges in seattle or new york or wherever and can resolve that question for the nation. i'm l

trying to fix congress from within. which is harder than trying to fix it from the outside. >> thanks. i want to start by echoing the comment about scheduling, the calendar. pre-covid, the house was in session 66 travel days and 55 full days. by and large committees don't meet on travel days. the average member's done 5.4 committees and subcommittees. so you are packing all those committee meetings into the 55 full days members are there. the mass does not work -- the math does not work. jumping from committee to committee, parachuting in to give a five-minute spiel and running to your next committee. that is bad for legislating and relationship development. you are not there to hear the ideas of your colleagues or defend your ideas, just give a speech that you can then throw up on social media. the only way to fix the math, two things the modernization committee proposed and one thing that we did not -- the one we didn't is you could reduce the number of committees people serve on. we did not recommend that. we did rec

[cheers and applause] and i'm in my freshman if term many congress. going away little by little, so please bear with me. but i appreciate you all having me here today. you know, i got involved in politics when i was 15 years old for one simple reason, i didn't want to get shot in school. i went to -- i'm a drummer. i went to an art as middle school. yep. i went to the an arts middle school and high school. you've seen high school musical, i presume? if. [applause] yeah? it's kind of like that except it's mainly black people and latinos. so, like, spicy high school musical. and we had no sports. the jazz band was, like, the football team. so i was the jazz band drum everything you know? before every concert, my best friends and i would go to this restaurant across the street, load up on ton of junk food p. we're there eating, this silence falls across the restaurant, and we look at the television screen s and we see that somebody walked into an elementary school in newtown, connecticut, and murdered 20 children and 6 teachers. now, i was adopted at bir

there's all kinds of incentives to push it into the new congress, and a new congress >> mike mccord, when my otherng bosses, is a duty comp, his favorite way to do it is the cumulative time we've spent understeer. up to five years now. my weight which will illustrate, in the last 31 years it's only been seven times without the appropriations in new congress. that's not so bad. the only problem is in the first 20 years it was once and in the last 11 years it was seven. that was terrifying to me to realize we would and might a new era. hopefully that's over and hopefully we now have greater riddick ability, although yeah, i don't think it's going to be before the presidential electio election. >> let's see if there are the questions in the room. i've got one that always like to ask. if congress suddenly came to you and said hey, we've got some more money. we want to give it to the navy. if you had one more dollar where would you put it in this budget? >> nobody ever asked me that question. i'm always like know, you can have a marginal dollar that's going here. the secretary is very cle

what does congress do? the second reason why it is not clear even in the absence of a clear opinion, where congress has delegated power to the agency to fill in gaps and resolve ambiguity -- and the courts to have to respect that. the majority says we are not going to presume that any ambiguity is for the agency to decide. we are not going to make his presumption that chevron made, but it we look at a statute and say congress to delegate this power to the agency, the court will respect that. it is clear from the court's analysis of this is a statutory decision, not a constitutional one. the majority gives examples of this. it says for example, congress says to the agency do whatever is reasonable or appropriate in a particular area. it says that is a delegation to the agency. it is not expecting the court to decide what is reasonable or appropriate, and there are a number of other examples the court gave us, so a lot of action in the future is going to be a kind of delegations overlooking that? what kind of

because congress can fix that. we could still say that c2 doesn't perform the massive dragnet function that the government submits. >> thank you. >> ms. barrett? >> i have a question about the phrase in c1, do you agree specific intent with the intent to impair -- what is your view about how that parenthetical applie to c2 if at all? do you think that intent requirement carries over? >> corruptly intent requirement? >> not corruptly. with the intent to impair the objects integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. >> yes, we do. we think that's the object of the overarching mens raya. >> c2 would awfully oddly than otherwise, obsucts, impedes any official preedings for use in an official proceeding. that will be a position of how it would read? >> i think that's right. it's awkward. there's no doubt it's an awkward statute. if you do the operation that i talked about earlier, we're goc to use otherwise to replacehe verbs and the nouns in c1 then the statute makes perfect sense. with respect to inte

we did recommend congress there should not be a congress where you are in for more travel days and full days. type has much as i find alaska airlines people to be like zero we should be in session more and the proposal willie r. pfister propose was a truly gone, two week off but it actually means you can see more and you are in your district more. itit simply means you have fewer travel events. the other thing we recommended and i think this is really important is to desjarlais -- the deconflicted schedule by having block scheduling. every high school in america has figured it out but you should not be able to have, to be on onto committees that meet on the same time -- at the same time and again the bipartisan policy center put out a very thoughtful proposal for how you can do the scheduling. it would require committee chairs in the room it would require c committee chairs to nt be able to schedule a hearing whatever they want. and i will say finally we did roll out congress is rolled out a committee deconfliction tool where as a chair you could at the very least say if i want to sched

the library of congress and national book festival.nd greeting to those of you are watching online and on c-span. the theme of this year's festival is booked to build us up. this is reflected in the distinguished author lineup reflects the diversity of voices throughout the nation and illustrates how reading can connect people. this is the national book festival 24th year it remains one of the preeminent literary events of the united states. as the largest library in the world the library of congress has a special opportunity to champion reading and literacy. this weekend we welcome a acclaimed group of authors to write nation's capitol to celebrate the importance of books in our lives. we are excited to be with many of you tomorrow in the tens of thousands of book lovers who join us in person and those who will participate. there are so many moments i look forward to at the national book festival. like seeing giddy fans huddled together after missing a favorite author. a child's eyes widen at brighton after listening to storytime. our

[laughter] he began covering congress way back in 1985. and now, he is the chief washington correspondent for the new york times who regularly delivers very insightful commentary and analysis of the institution at the other side of the window. his book is called "confirmation bias." it explores the 30 year war at the j shape ideology -- war to shape the ideology of the court system. one of the few things americans agree about is that congress has broken and has been broken for some time. he was a collaborator and they wrote their book, the broken branch, way back in 2006 and a decade later, norman tom came up with an updated version. in 2016, the titled -- it's even worse than it looks. i think norm would agree, it's only been downhill since then. you generally hear two sets of explanations for this dysfunction. the most common one that you hear from the members, at least in public, is that it's all the fight of the -- all the fault of the other party. our party wants to get things done. it's those other guys who are unreasonable and who a