now let me conclude my introductory time at the lectern

by introducing you all to phil and his two interlocutors, phil's a senior fellow here at aei previously, worked as a senior fellow at the r street institute and the brookings institution. he also, as a fellow on the house committee on the modernization of congress back in 2019, he earned his doctorate politics from princeton university and is the author of two books why congress and to the edge legality and the responses to 2008 financial crisis. seated at the far end, there is daniel lipinski dans a distinguished visiting fellow at the hoover institution and the pope, leo the 13th fellow on social thought, the university of dallas. he represented the third district of illinois in the us house of representative. from 2005 to 2021. his career quite distinguished. congressman lipinski earned a doctorate in political from duke university and the author of congressional communication, content and consequences in the

middle we have reid ribble the inaugural practitioner in residence in political science at the university of wisconsin green bay. he too served in congress and served well. he represented the eighth district district of wisconsin in the us of representatives from 2011 2017. and after retiring from the house, congressman served as the ceo of the national roofing contractors association for five years. with that, let me step away from the lectern and bring up our guest, phil wallach. oh, i just want to start by thanking everyone who braved the smoke today and is here in person. it's it's a real honor to have you all gathered together and to thank the american enterprise institute providing really such a wonderful professional home for me where i could this book i

want to start it off off by reading the epigraph, my book, which seems like a strange thing do but i really find it pretty inspirational helps give a sense of of of why i'm involved in this project so it comes from this book in defense of politics by bernard crick and goes like this boredom, established truths is a great enemy of free. so there are some in troubled times not to be clever and inventive in redefining things or to pretend to academic unconcern or scientific detachment, but simply to try to make old platitudes. pregnant politics like in the greek myth, can remain perpetually young strong and

lively. so as it can keep its feet firmly on the ground of mother earth. so crick is a great defender of as it as its thing and that's actually the very beginning of his book and not in the next paragraph. he goes on to say something about how we should think of politics. politics is too often regarded as a poor relation, inherently dependent and subsidiary. it is rarely praised as something with the life and character. its own politics is not religion, ethics, law, science, history or economics. it neither solves everything nor. is it present everywhere? and it does not. any one political doctrine such as conservatism, liberalism, socialism or nationalism, though it can contain elements of most of these things. politics is politics to be valued as itself, not. it is like or really is something else more respectable or peculiar politics is

politics. politics is often a dirty word in contemporary usage. it's an epithet. if something is political, that means it's bad. and part of my effort in writing this book is to rehabilitate the idea of politics as something that free people do and the best that we have to keep social peace in a context of profound differences between the people of country. we need to learn how to with difference and manage it and, regulate it and not hope that we can suppress it. pretend that it doesn't exist, and so a big theme of the book is, why congress is the place where we need to deal with difference why in the american constitutional system congress is really the one institution that that allows the many menace

of to have its say and to allow these different factions to come against each other and, hopefully in the process of, figuring out how to accommodate each other, actually produce policies and solutions for the challenges facing our country better than anything that one group would come up with. all on its own. so this is not a new idea. has, as the epigraph said, i don't don't pretend to any inventiveness really. this goes straight back to something most of you were taught in in civics class at some from madison and federalist number. so madison and his of the federalist papers hamilton jay are very with how are we going to make this country hang together because as the

constitution was in the balance they were worried that this young project the united states of america was not long for the world and they centrally concerned with the problem of how can we get this diverse republic full of people divided class interests regional interests creedal differences how can we get them also live together in relative harmony rather than falling to pieces and madison in federalist provides this very famous answer about the extended republic. he talks about having sufficient diversity of factions that they will essentially check each other and keep anyone from predominating and thereby make sure that we cannot have tyranny of the or or tyranny of of any

one group. and i won't go into that in detail because you've probably all heard that a million times suffice it to say, i think that madison's arguments in various ten are really more profound than they're given credit for. i think an awful of people in our current politics believe somehow we can suppress and that we we can deal with the fact that people disagree somehow making us all into one people who agrees on everything. i think madison's route is far more realistic and far more profound. but turning to practicalities, madison, pretty quickly found that it's not simply enough to put these factions in contact with each other and mix it up and hope everything turns out all right. and madison, in the second congress, became concerned.

that omits sort factional chaos, the sort of giant special interest of his day was was coming to predominate and. he worried about the bank of the united states and its allies specifically. and so madison as a member of congress wrote to his friend thomas jefferson and he said he worried that the stock jobbers were becoming the pretorian band of the government at once, its tool and its tyrant bribed by its largesse as and overdrawing it by clamors and combinations. however, they really had a lot of flair back then. so madison, that if there's not some kind of organization put on this factional interplay in in the congress that he's an active member of a leading member of that. it's going to just sort of open the door to predation by

interest. and so madison who worried so much about faction, is sort of a little bit ironically one of the fathers of political parties and helps to create the republican as a counterbalance to hamilton's party. the federalists in congress. and we shouldn't pretend that just made everything work out smoothly in and of itself. the 1790s were an exceptionally nasty decade of politics in history. but that's not my subject. i'm just going to sort of say we we see a situation where we we need to organize a faction in congress. but partizan organization introduces its own problems. let me fast forward about eight decades to another observer of congress that is the political

scientist, wilson woodrow wilson, as a as a doctoral student at johns hopkins university, wrote a book that became probably the bestselling work of american political science in history and it's called congressional. most people remember it today, a famous pronouncement that congress in committee is congress at work. that's sort of the most famous. but wilson wasn't wasn't just writing a textbook. the book is quite polemical, and he's very concerned that the congress of his day was, again a place where special interests were predating on the american that all of deliberation was happening in committee behind closed doors. there were no open hearings at that time and that the committees would write legislation, which would promptly be signed into law after passing on the on the

house and senate floors without much real substantive debate. and we once again, a situation where the parties which will wilson thought were rather bankrupt in terms of their principles, are sort of running on fumes from the civil war, largely. and he worried that that basically leaving american politics. and wilson articulated very powerfully an alternative vision, very much different from madison's in federalist number ten, where madison was celebrating complexity and the multiple dissatisfaction as a solution to possible tyranny. wilson wants clean lines such that we can have accountability and he believed that what we needed was the can deal with faction in internally and then

can present the american people with a clean choice. and at election time, the american will decide they will charge one of these parties which given a clear message with governing the country, and then that that that party should be given a chance to implement its agenda and pay attention to the to the finer details of administration. it's remarkable the extent to which wilson's prescriptions actually got followed in the decades after he wrote well before he ever emerged as a major political figure in his own right in the 1880s and 1890. as we move toward system of very strong partizan control of of the house under speaker reed known as czar reed and his successor in the in the first decade of the 20th century was one of the most colorful figures american history really who i

wish was not such an obscurity today joseph gurney cannon known as boss cannon and he was somebody who was raised in the sort of wild of western indiana in the 1840s. but here he a dominant figure in the first decade of the 20th century. he always had a cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth and he sort of played his hayseed nature as a way of dealing with the press. but he was a very shrewd political operator and became the dominant figure in washington for a time. and if i can i need a clicker. there's a clicker somewhere. thank you okay? i've got i'm not showing you a slide show, but have this one political cartoon, which is practically my favorite part of the whole book. and this is a cartoon and the

caption of it, i better get it right. the caption says. uh, the house in session, according the minority point of view, that's what's in the script up at the top there and i'm not sure for those for those viewers online and on c-span in case you can't see it i'll just describe picture this is joseph gurney presiding over the chamber of the and he says the gentleman illinois is recognized that's him. the gentleman from illinois is him and the house is full of him it's full of dozens and dozens or scores and scores of carbon copies. joseph gurney cannon such that the house in session consists of doing what mr. cannon wants wants so we followed wilson's advice to a remarkable degree and we ended in this situation

where we a dominant party with a pretty clear agenda, very clear differences between the party. after the election of 1896, right where we have william mckinley in and william jennings and cannon is sort of for the business orthodoxy the day and he's dominant figure but that comes with the problem of sort of stifling orthodoxy. this is the time of the second industrial revolution, very rapid social change and. we congress can't keep up when things are just joseph gurney cannon trying to say how things should be and eventually he faces a seminal moment in. congress, an insurgency from progressive republicans, his party who who bolt and join forces with the democrats, overthrow his dominance. he had been presiding over the rules committee. in addition to being the

speaker. and he's stripped of that power and soon enough things are blown open. congress operates on a very different principle for many decades, a sacrosanct seniority principle where committee become the real power centers rather than the speaker. and that's a decentralized of congress. so the book tries to give a sense that congress is a place with a long history. it's a place where there have been vicissitudes and in trying to deal with this problem of action, trying to make sense of how we can play factions off against each other in productive ways. we sometimes end up in a in a land like this where have stifling orthodoxy. other times we end up feeling like the place has become kind of a decentralized, chaotic mess. and we need to start to re-impose some order, perhaps through centralization. so that's all i wanted to show for my picture show.

i'm just going to gesture up really most of the chapters of the book, but i wanted to get that basic concepts idea out there. i'm sure we'll have a lot of time to talk about contemporary politics in the discussion, but the the main part of the book sort of goes from. the 1970s to today and looks how we've gotten from a place that was in the 1970s became a radically decentralized chamber to today it's a place dominated by very cannon like figures at least very recently maybe things today are changing and we'll talk about that. but it's a place where centralized leadership has called the shots to remarkable degree and structured the agenda and a sense that we don't really have a very interesting interplay of factions. we have to clusters of factions who know how to yell at each

other and insult each other and always know how to work together, except when they absolutely have to when to be fair then and then they do. the argument of the book is that we're in a moment the stifling orthodoxies are enforced by these centralized leaders. really give our politics a sense of not being adequate to the challenges of the moment, which are very real, and they tend to push elsewhere in our government, power abhors a vacuum. and if congress doesn't act, the executive branch largely picks up the slack and. unfortunately, the executive branch is not a good place to represent the men of this country. we end up with profound problems when we try to have agency bureaucrats solve all our problems through creative interpretation of old statutes. we really need to continue to renew our sense of

self-government, take ownership for happens what the federal government does and the best way for us to do that is to feel like we trust the members that we send to congress and we believe in the process by which they mix it up with each other and work out accommodation and find solutions they won't always be pretty solutions. they won't even always be good laws. my argument is not that if we empowered congress and got it to be a more assertive branch, it would always do the right thing that would be a crazy argument make. i don't believe that, but overall, why? because by investing in the political process, by investing in this ideal of self-government, that's how we renew our commitment. being a free people. that's how we secure social peace better than any other way know. and that's really how our system is meant to function, how, you know, we need to make the choice for madisonian politics once

again in order. i to keep our country from falling to pieces. so i'll leave it at that and look forward to the discussion. thanks. well, thank you, phil. for start with congressman lipinski. phil spoke of congress and i think we could say especially the house as being a place supposed be a bunch of diverse interests being piled into the same forum and then having to work things out amongst themselves, which, as phil hinted, can go two basic ways, either they cancel each other out and nothing happens, or they somehow bargain out a compromise that enough of them can live with.

it can then move on to the next chamber. was that happening when? you were in congress. was that happening much a lot? not much at all. what was your experience? well, let me let me start with phil read the wrap. let me read this from distinguish academic and public servant. what the blurb on the back of the book. well, few would claim that the contemporary congress is uniting the nation, solving our most vexing problems. why congress lays out a convincing case that this is exactly what the institution was designed to do, has done in the past and do once again. and let me tell you, as we all know, it's not doing that right. i was so many different thoughts come to mind as as it's filled with speaking. and i unfortunately way, way too many when i was thinking they wouldn't ever that we do that

cartoon they sure do with nancy pelosi now that would have been that would have been absolutely perfect perfect but i've i've said the biggest change that i've seen i studied congress before. i ran for congress as a political scientist in the biggest change that think has happened over the last few decades. it used to be after every election, federal election, every two years, everyone in washington house members, senators would look around, say, okay, who has majority the house? who is the majority in the senate? who controls white house? what can we do over next year and a half together? what can we work on the betterment of the country before we fight it out in the next next election? today after the election, every two years, what happens? everyone looks around who controls what and says, what can we do in next two years? so our party can get control of

everything in shoved down the throats the other side exactly what we what this is how congress is supposed to operate. congress is as i was coming over here, i saw a tweet representing scott perry was asked today about have they resolve impasse right now the house is stuck freedom some members freedom blocked the rule on some bill that all the republicans wanted us out there. scott perry has that been resolved and he says it doesn't matter that much that was that was just a messaging bill and the person tweeted a steak sherman's said well that's all the house is doing right now i've argued that's what the house done since 2011. the house has taken itself out of two large extent, legislating and big problem is, is phil is

we're really congress is supposed to take all these ideas from the diverse country and i mean this book is just really incredible. it's the book i wish i have written. i'm glad phil had to put all of the work in to do it. he did a better job than i probably would have, but this is why it's so important. but i think so few people understand this what the role of congress is supposed to it's supposed to be representative who, come in, bring the views of their constituents to washington, the constitution set up congress to debate, deliberate come to some conciliation. and it is not doing that. now, some may say, well, that's just because the country is so split. that's part of the reason. but congress was meant to end. it can as phil says in this book, it could help bring the

country together if we actually represent and as founders do their job of having just it's either a red way or a blue and there's no choices. individual members don't get to have too much of a say in it. we're just trying to if if we're in the minority we don't want to we're not trying to have a say want to shame the other side so we can win the next election. i remember i'll tell one story and then i'll, i'll let reed give it. the two of us could go for a long time, so i shut myself up here. best illustration of this one of the best 2013 government shutdown october of 2013. there is a group of that was a member of the bipartisan problem solvers caucus we were there's a group of us getting together democrats republicans throwing what can we possibly put forward that helped get us out of, you know, get the government funded

again? are are and you know, we understood that the republicans that sort of painted themselves in a corner this house republicans said, get rid of affordable care act or, you know, government doesn't get funded and we're trying to figure out some way through this and some of the democratic members, not me, because leadership knew they couldn't really sway as to independent back story here from my democratic. yeah i got a call from leadership that stopped trying to do this. we don't want the government essentially message we don't want the government because this makes republicans look really bad. and we don't want to help them get of this problem. and that was just the illustrative of the way things are now. what happened? republicans finally got something done open government. they did look bad, but then affordable care act, obamacare

website crashed and then it all it all flipped to the other side. but that's so much of what the house, especially senate works a little bit. but that's what the house is about. messaging that just takes away the people's voice and that's that that my certainly my my experience. how about you read your experience, did you see these diverse interests working out things one another? did they have the space to do that or was it primarily of a red shirt versus blue shirts scrum? it depends on who in the congress were speaking. dan and spoke frequently, became very good friends when i was there, but i tell you, it was something very, i guess, informed a lot of my thinking in congress. i was there for four months and i had never served in political office before being elected, even though my good buddy here tossed group of they were

elected in 2011 under the bus a second ago that was me. but the reality was i was sitting with scott rachel who was a car dealer. i was a roofing contractor by trade. we were both business people and we're sitting in the chamber for votes and. scott leaned over me and said, hey, have you met any democrats yet? we've been there three months and committee meetings. you go and you get sequestered all the republicans go in their room. all the democrats go in their room, and there's no discussion between the and i said. no, i haven't met any. he said, well, why don't we go meet some? and i said, i think a good idea. you go over they're all sitting over there. so just pick one and i'll pick one and we'll go out to dinner. and that's what we did and i went over there, i introduce to congressman jim cooper and scott introduced himself, congressman kurt schrader went out to dinner and it was curious about the dinner. i want to figure out how liberals. think i just didn't understand

it. we turned out we picked two of the most moderate members in the chamber. you. and so it was a total fluke that that happened. but but we became we became really friends. congress functioned in what a good friend of mine another member of congress told me, called it a pyramid of power. and everybody is working to climb up on top of the pyramid at the very top of that pyramid is the speaker of the house. and right below the speaker of the house are the majority leaders and in majority, minority whip. they're there and then directly below them are the committee chairmen. but i would i would even say directly below the whip, the majority and minority leaders. it's really the staff directors of the committees. then below them, the committee, then below them are the legislative directors on your and then at the bottom of the pyramid is everybody else, all the members. we had no power whatsoever. everything was driven from the top and i was in the majority the whole time. speaker john boehner was the speaker and he he basically governed the republican using

the hastert rule and the hastert rule was nothing will come to the floor of the house unless he's got the majority of the majority supporting it at that point, it can move forward. however, when brian became speaker, i don't think this was deliberate. i think it was nature of what had happened in in the members that were sent there. it pretty much got to a point where. nothing came to the floor unless we could pass it on our so unless we had 218 republican votes, we didn't want to basically get anybody mad. and so nothing nothing could have happened without that. so what that meant then was that everything was directed from the top and we had less power in that case. and so i'm struck by the congress unwillingness to jealously invite, guard their authority. article one of the constitution, they are very willing to that authority off to a president. and two recent examples would be

the the us senate under president trump controlled by republicans and. they just all kind of rolled over when when president trump didn't want us bothered going through the process. advise and consent for cabinet positions. so trump just made up a bunch of acting secretaries and the senate just kind of rolled over on their back like puppies and waited trump to pat him there. the tommy and they just let him do whatever he wanted. and today you've got the similar things going on with president biden just, you know, deciding, well, we're going to issue $20 billion of of credits to student. i'm just going to forget it. and the congress got all the power, the purse, but they just refuse to hold on to and protect and guard their power. and it damages institution. and so i think to to get back where the congress was actually a representative body doing the work the american people want. they're going to have to see that power back from the from the executive branch, even when

it's their guy or gal in the white house, they've got to be able to say no, it's nice that nice. nice. mr. president or madam president, that you've got this opinion. but we'll let you know when we send legislation, if you like it signed, if you don't veto it and we'll we'll take it from there. but they're just to protect their own authority. it's a it's discouraging to to be there watching unfold. yeah. i should say that, you know i'm old enough to remember the carter presidency. i mean you had a democratic congress, you had a democratic president. but congress would often just openly contemptuous of the white house and was contemptuous of it. and they fought amongst themselves frequently with the republicans sitting on the side, kind of watching the whole the spectacle, and that these days rare. and that's what i would turn to you felt because this issue of congress giving up authority, the constitution says it has james madison probably be a bit perplexed by this.

you know, much of his to some degree involves the kind of low motives of human beings wanting to hold and wield as part of what the separation of power system, you know, working is. people want to guard the power that they have by virtue of being in the branch. yeah, that's as we all know delegation giving away a power to wield power has become allies. what why do members do that i mean, isn't power fun like why would they want to use it? yeah, the ambition counteracting ambition depends on sort of this individual sense of drive. and it has to be drive to do something, thus take the responsibility onto yourself than just ambition to be seen. that's where a lot of ambitions are channeled these days and it can't just be ambition to help your party win the next

election. right. that's that's that's really the thing that dominates our our current political moment is the sense that oh, well, it really is so important for my party to win the next election. the ambition. let's get our party in the white house where there exercise having the sort of real power in the system and we'll take it from there and we'll will cheer cheer them on they when we have the real power and we'll try to slow the other guys down, they have it and yeah, i guess it's a source of hope for me because i think that, you know, dan and reed are not so unusual in feeling a lot of frustrations. just how useless members congress can feel sometimes. right. i think it's a very widely shared sense and the who get elected to congress are talented people. i don't think it's just a matter of we have all the wrong people to office and there are some

something morally or in any other way defect of about them. so i think people do feel frustrate it and they wish they could be more involved in a meaningful legislate process where they are helping to find sort of strange bedfellows across aisle and making things happen. but they're willing at the same time to sit back and listen their leaders, when their leaders tell them no that's really not so helpful for really important thing of winning the next election. and so part of the point of this book is just a plea to the members themselves. the book ends with with an open letter to members of congress and pretty much just says, hey, aren't you ambitious? don't don't you want to get something done for this country? isn't isn't this trend of kind of played out? haven't we had enough of the current political moment and a sense that kind of exhausted its possibilities? don't you want to be a part of mixing it up and solving the

country's problems in a more, you know, active way? you know, don't you want to be something more than a glorified telemarketer as was i know one of your former colleagues described the job and i do think a lot of members really do want that. and so i'm hopeful that they can you know, i'm hopeful that they can draw some inspiration from the history of their own institution to know that the congress has on very different operative principles has been organized in different ways to help that kind of lawmaking happen in the past and certainly could at this point as well. so i want to go back to congressman lipinski. this image of the house not being the place where interests are able to work out themselves, of being very driven from the top down is a structural issue primarily can be fixed by altering the internal rules and

structure of the chamber. is that a partizanship? what it it is driven by partizanship? it's driven by the divide in in country. but it is reinforce by the rules and the committee and modernization of congress. one of the things that i'd actually originally had the bill to create that were hoping to open things up at the beginning of this congress of some the freedom caucus members. i had an op in washington post saying you know they're talking about we need to open this up. we want to say more of a say in what's going on. we don't want just this to be top down. and i said, this is good. this is something that is interesting that they felt that,

well, they want more of a say and somehow they're going to have more control. i don't think quite understand that. but i'm all for opening up in the problem solvers caucus. we were always trying to do that. we in 20 after 2018 election, democrats got the majority in the house and problem solvers caucus had agreed on some rule changes that we were going to demand. whoever whichever party had won the majority in 2018 election, there's going to be a new no matter what paul ryan was said he was going to step down and we said we're going to demand that are some rule changes. open it up to more bipartisan to change the rules, open up to more bipartisan and lawmaking and unfortunately, our we didn't we made a few small changes but it's tough it's really tough at that time almost everyone knew

what nancy pelosi was eventually going to be speaker. i don't want to upset nancy. so we got some small things out. so let's partially the the rules lot of it is look i'm sure i would assume those members that this past week said we're not going to pass a rule you need in order to consider legislation on the floor you need to pass a rule generally majority party votes for the rule it's it says know this bill will come up. this is how much debate time itself many amendments if any normally a majority vote all votes for minority vote against it. 11 republicans said we're not going to vote for this. we're upset that we that we didn't have enough input on the debt ceiling. and so that they stopped that from from moving forward. so and i forgot my point where i was going, that one. well, can i pick it up?

yeah, go ahead. i'm glad you had a look in your eye. you ready? i just want to say, you know, it's there's this point about, the freedom caucus folks, and the kind of blowing the chamber open. i agree. liked an awful lot of of the rhetoric from some of those folks back january. but it has to be in service of coalition building and the principle has to be persuasion. you actually have to imagine reaching out to your colleagues and meeting them where they stand and convincing them that they won't they should do business with. you i think that the strange of these folks want to blow the floor open, have more of a chance, have their say on the floor to offer amendments on the floor. and i'm all for but really for congress to sort of get its mojo back, it needs to embrace its role. the legislation legislature that makes laws and you make laws by assembling majority laws.

and so, you know, i think the question i've had is, you know, how do we get the moderate to feel more organized such that they're the ones making demands and assembling in the service, assembling these coalitions? whether the speaker is so happy about it or not. and, you know, the problem solvers caucus has done some very good work in that regard. but but in some ways, i find the group less assertive than i wish it was they're less willing to yield their votes in opposition to stop something for sure because in most of the problem solvers are more pragmatic than ideologues and so they're just different group people and one of my favorite words in the the entire u.s. constitution is also one of the smallest ones. so word all so first word of the first article, the first section of the constitution, all pretty inclusive word, all legislative powers here in granted shall be

vested or entrusted in the congress of the united states, which will consist of a senate house of representative so all the legislative that that our founders bestowed that they granted here in in constitution was given to this body the congress and. they had to wrestle between the states and the people. the of representatives and the senate to come up with some type of agreement. there never was idea that the president is going to write legislation and say, because i got voted by all the people you have to do this not even remotely where. the founders were at intellectually or, they didn't want the country to run that way because. the revolution itself was an opposition to a monarchy, to a power. in fact, john quincy adams, after he served president back and served in the house of representatives can you imagine a president today lowering to to serve in the house of representatives. but that's where the power resided in the earliest days and

congress has just they've they've not embraced this at all and i agree with what two just said regarding some of the rules changes. but the one rule change that they needed they didn't push for and is that you needed wrest power away from committee because if don't arrest power from committee chairmen and chairmen are subject to the speaker. the speaker still got too much power. and the way you rest power away from committee chairmen by having committee chairmen selected by the members of the committee because then that then that chairman would be beholden to the members of the committee rather than the speaker who selects and the significant change they could have made is done. and then you would to devolve power back to the members and that great wisdom, the crowd that you speak of in your book could emerge. but right. the the the, the citizens that are represented by kevin mccarthy in california those

citizens the wisdom of that crowd has way say and the wisdom of the crowd in northeast wisconsin none and that's where this whole idea the wisdom of the breaks down because those members were the proxy they're the vote. they're to say here's what northeast wisconsin or here's what dan city, illinois feels about this or that this is what the citizens say about this or that. and then they place their card in the machine and vote. and that's the way that the wisdom of the crowd can emerge through this elected body and begin to be heard again. but that could stop because everything is being driven by the top one, one thing to say what anyone who is in this room watches this. if there's one thing besides reading book that i want you to take out of this, if you don't know it congress is article one of the constitution is you start

out all legislative power there. i don't think most americans that or understand that they think the president is the the leader of everything the president is supposed to make policy for the country, supposed to make laws for the policy. and i mean the wisdom of i've gone back in the last couple of years and looked at federalist papers, just the wisdom of, oh, you know, the men who wrote the constitution. and this idea is a vast, very diverse country, even at the time of the founding, it was a diverse country. how do we keep people together there? well, everyone needs feel like they are that they have a voice. their representative and i go back to there are not just two ways of thinking there's not a red way in a blue way. there's a lot of diversity across the country in the eye. we need those voices to come in

and this is a diversity. i mean think you could paint this as a diversity issue is we're not hearing all the different voices across the country and that's that's the way it was meant to be. i would i would teach classes at high school level, you know, you know, schools would invite you to come in as a member of congress, talk about how congress works. and i would take this high school class and i would say today we're going to create a house and senate in here and we're to vote on where we're going to launch. and we would divide the room up and then they would have deliberate and come to a conclusion where they were going to go to lunch that day, except as they were deliberating, i would walk around and they'd give somebody a card and the card said, i'm shellfish, allergic and another card might say, i got an allergy to peanuts. and i go around, i would i would basically sabotage it to try to show that the diversity, the diversity all had to be brought into consideration to get to a conclusion.

and it didn't the strength of that diversity that actually if congress is allowed to to it emerge could be something extraordinarily powerful today. but they've got to allow it that means they must give up power themselves and give it back to you all. so i want to double back to this issue that everyone's hit upon about recent speaker ers being so powerful in. we got to an audience question that came in on this very topic a speaker just, a single person in a chamber of hundred and 35. how this person so powerful what's the sources of the power who would to take that one would want to start. oh yeah. who wants to start in that one. oh you you want to. i can tell you my take on it. sure. i i think members like it that way. so when can when you when you

observe continued dysfunction in any in a business in a congress in a marriage if you continue to observe dysfunction, you have to ask the question, who's winning as a result of this dysfunction? and then you can identify the dysfunction exists when you relinquish power to somebody else when the congress relinquished it to the present, when members were linked to the speaker they have someone to blame when they go home and they can say, man was fighting against this, but i got stopped by the i was fighting for this, but the president would let us. but i'm going to be there fighting for you tomorrow. and you've got somebody to they get to they get to carry the weight of any bad decision. and i think members like that i think they want to be protected as opposed to wanting to actually hold the power that was rightful the right that they're the rightful heirs of that power based on the electorate that sent them there.

i don't think they wanted the old the old observation about legislative politics is politicians either want to claim or they want to shift blame. and to claim credit, you at least have engage in a credible amount of action to be able to say that you achieve something, whereas you're suggesting blame shifting, but it seems a lot easier. you just sit back and say, well, i tried the forces in congress to take is the no vote. you can win reelection every single year and vote no on everything and i, i want to add to that because that i think there is some truth to that. and a lot of people lay that is the primary reason why members of congress give up so they can't can't get blamed. they could shift blame. i don't, i also think that in especially them coming out of the democratic party, it's just the idea talked about how democrats republicans don't mix

this idea that we have our party has all the answers and members in and first of all a lot of members who come in the new members get elected. they don't know anything different. it's been this way many years. they don't know how to they don't even think of the idea that i'm going to come in and actually be able participate in this legislative they're thinking, i got to look at i'm here for the team and there's so much of that i'm here for for the team. and if the leader of the team says, well, you've to follow along and you say, okay, i'm all right, i'm here for the you know, we got to get because we need to defeat the evil other side. and you're told, well, if you don't go along, that evil other side can win. we all need to stay together or else the evil other side could could win. and that's part of it. some members don't even know

what they could possibly in being a legislator and some it is peak speakers are a heck of a lot of power and when you get the idea that if i want anything done here, i need to is like, you guys, i got to go to king or queen. and if they will grant, if they will do something that i want to get done, i can go home and take credit. i need to go to them. i need to get them to, make it happen. and therefore i can't cross them in any way. i better follow along until i get my chance to ask for my favor from from the monarch. i think that's also part of of what's going on. i think both of both of your answers explain a lot about sort of the stickiness of the current moment. but i guess, again i take some hope from the longer history of, the place because i think to some extent those forces are

always at work. and i think it's within the realm of possibilities for members to sort of feel like this threat is played out to at some point feel like being the good partizan team player is just not worth it anymore because your own party has gotten so twisted up in its own sort, self-defense rather than actually solving the people's and doing the people's work. and so i think, you know, politics, congressional politics is kind of it's gotten kind, boring, right? i mean, the debt ceiling fight, that's that's exciting in a certain kind of way. but actually, if you know how to watch, it was pretty pretty darn predictable and pretty boring and something that happens 100% of the time is likely to happen. the media does its to turn this into a good story but it's it's

so predictable and it's so sterile and it not going to it's not going to solve our problem. it's not going to produce anything. if you if you really feel like it's important that we up with some novel solutions to the problems facing the country. congress can be an engine of that. it really is a better place be an engine of that than the executive branch. the executive branch is not really cut out for creativity. it's cut out for executing the laws that are already on the books and so congress, you know, think of a think an issue like immigration, which is of the chapters a sort of case study in my book, there's some such a widespread sense that our immigration system broken in so many different ways and an awful lot of common sense feeling, like we ought to be able to make a deal, we ought to be able to make a deal that does something about the border and the problem

the problem with our immigration courts being so blocked up and that something for all these people stuck in this legal gray world, there are so many different aspects of it. and it's it's just waiting for congress to pass a law. and we all kind of know that in sometimes but we've all up on it and we're hoping that somehow the president can use some covid statute to make it all work out even though no nobody really believes that that's going to work too well. congress is engages in ways of helping them cover up for the ways he's sort of fudging the statutory powers so the need is there the chance to break things open and come up with solutions in congress. is there. we just need we need some people to show some bravery, show some willingness to to realized holding on to their office is not the most important.

and i mean, dan and dan, somebody who had the courage of his and suffer the consequences for it, unfortunately. but you know, that wasn't i don't think you feel all that much regret about that. no. and we need we people to think actually doing the people's work is more important that than that being having a sense of being an obedient player. i also think that strategic cli though on immigration, republicans are basically taking posture that they will not anything on immigration until they do border security. don't talk about any of this other stuff until. the border is secure. then we'll talk about these other things. the problem with that from a tactical is there's nothing to trade with the other big comprehensive bills allow you to put in things that both sides hate. and that's really what the magic in writing legislation and in

big things is. you've got to enough that each side gives up something so that each side can get something. but when you narrow in just so one single thing they border, you're not going to get anything else. it just makes it virtually impossible to move it. they need there need to be more comprehensive in how they think. so tactically can do something big like immigration reform. so my question about the speaker pivot away from that, but i it's very interesting that in part the you know, we know the speaker has formal powers. you know what what's going to get voted upon. well, speaker is going to have a lot to do with that sits on the rules committee. well speaker is going to have a lot of sway there but also a lot of the power comes from simply other legislators thinking the speaker has power or simply giving power away. now, my last question before we do the audience questions is to ask each of you you've lamented about the state of congress. what can be done to fix it, and

i want to start with you, dan. then read, then fill. you should never start with on a question like that, looking for something looking for hope. i many years thinking this this has to get better this has to return to working. i came in in 2005 and i think still is second bush term we're starting something still got done there were some things done in a bipartisan way after 2008 election. president obama gets elected the republicans to me at that point the republicans became much more partizan. i call it a sectarian where you just it's the team in just hate the other side we can't even talk to them much less compromise them. and then 2016, president trump gets elected, go off and at that same direction our, i wondered, there was a time in 2013, 2014

where i said i keep saying things have to get better and i finally quit saying things need to get better. i'm glad i said before donald trump was was. you need we've we've seen it phil talk about in the book we've seen historically there have been revolts members get tired of this and there's a revolt. the problem now that i see is more members are more concerned about losing a primary than losing the general election. so they're in and who has the power in the primaries it's the more extreme members, more extreme voters, your party. i certainly know this myself and that's where the activists are. that's where the workers and the primary campaigns from small dollar donation earns. i tell you, try giving small dollar donations when you're not saying, oh, the world is going to end.

if you don't send me five, ten, $20. it's look, donald trump raised most from dollar donors than anyone in history has. that's a a major problem. and i would guess that these members 11 republican members republicans rule this week i would guess i don't know if true that they went home and heard from their active how did you let this happen how did you let terrible deal happen you need to do and i thought well what can we do. oh well we'll now that we're we're not going to go along, we're we're we're not going to we're not going to play along. and this is what we're going to do is vote this rule on a bill that we want we want passed, but we need to show it because our the activist the people who we are really listening to, calling for this when it change, i don't know. very quickly, i remember in december of of 2020, all this

talk about is the in voting to certify the electors in each state. i remember a called problem solvers caucus and were republican members who were saying i just the phone doesn't stop ringing people are protesting outside my office. they're all saying you have to vote no on and i mean, they felt that and i, i usually never would ever in my 16 years suggested to member what they should do. but i said look you there's a time you have to be willing to stand up and say i'm willing lose my job over this because this is this is so important. and i thought maybe would you know, i, i sort of felt like to some extent i did. they were just so they're like this is probably it. if i if i vote for the, you

know, certify electors, that's it. and they're listening to the very vocal minority. but they have a sway. and that's that's thing that how do we get away from that? how do we get. you know, human nature doesn't change how do we get members who are to say, i think this in fact, what they're doing, it's not just they're saving themselves. they also you also buy into we have the answers and my party has the answers in all the answers. and those are things that somehow have to be broken. i don't have the answer to that. so i'm one of the two of you. does. yeah. i don't think there's a good answer. i never been more fearful for the republic than am in this time. i thought typically it was a crisis where you see congress to function, whether it's a civil war, war one or two. you saw the congress really emerging and become very, very

effective. i actually thought january six would have been a triggering event in the history of the country. the first time that we we lack a peaceful transfer of power, that that would have been an event that would have caused people to pause. but the speed at which misinformation and disinformation can move through through internet today is shocking and profoundly damaging. i, and i confess, to you and i wish it wasn't so much this that i went into congress a bit cynical. i ran because i was cynical and i left congress more cynical than what i went in the that we have right now is is the american people must do a better job at selecting and promoting leaders. and then and then holding their feet to the fire lead. and we need a president who is willing to to actually use moral hazard to force the congress to to the president must relinquish its own power and force the

congress to moral hazard, to do their work. and i think that's i think that's ultimately what it'll take that'll probably be triggered by some crisis moment in country. but if i had a solution. i will say this the committee on modernization was a really first step that only works in the house wasn't working in the senate didn't do it. but if we could just get the to function normally again, that would be helpful. i think they came up with some really good ideas and. so but i've hundreds of audiences since i left, i'll frequently ask a question, how many of you would give the congress of the united an approval rating above 25%? in our tell you, i hardly ever see a hand go up and that tells you that people are by congress the striking disconnect however and the decent send at all the fact that they keep reelecting their own member. they hate the congress, but they love their person person. now, phil, the professional.

what do you do? well, the book with with three scenarios which are, i think some of the more fun chapters of the book. they start with dispatches from from the future written by observers in 2039 the 250th birthday of congress. looking back and thinking where the institution has gotten to by then and the three scenarios are called decrepitude the rubber stamp and revival and i have to admit the first two chapters of the of that set of three were a lot easier to write than the third one. it serves doesn't require too much imagination to imagine congress getting hollowed out, even more than it is today. we should emphasize congress, is not a completely broken place by. any stretch of the imagination, some some good things still happen there. and those things could get more screwed up than they are today.

you know. and so the revival chapter. yeah, i kind of agree it kind of seems like we need a real shock to the system to cause this kind of revolt, to cause this kind of willingness to shake things up. because as long as as long as things sort of stay within lines that we're familiar with today, members are going to keep making the same choices. so that's a hard reality to face. but, you know, if i was going to offer some reforms on the margin which i'm certainly willing to do, i do think devolving power to the committees is isn't thing to do. and i like the idea that we floated before of having members elect their own. i also just like idea of guaranteeing committees floor time part of the problem today is if you make yourself a diligent workhorse in a committee and make yourself a policy expert and.

work on writing really good bills with your fellow members. they may not actually go anywhere. they may not even be considered by your own chamber low enough, let alone have a chance to become law so. the more we could do to actually guarantee that, hey, if you're willing to go be a workhorse in congress, if you're willing to put in the time and write good legislation, not hard subjects, you're to at least have a chance to get it passed into law. that would be a very healthy change in to get some people with ambition realize that they can make something of those ambitions as legislate leaders and not just as performers who who use their perches in congress to get attention all right the time we have left let's go to audience questions gentlemen in the front row. so thank you very much for the microphones coming to you. excellent. thank you very much. my name is tom doan. i worked in the senate for ten years in the 1970s and then

worked around both houses as leading different organizations afterwards. i'm a product of the cold war and the vietnam war, and i saw things coming apart right in front of our eyes when members didn't want to harm, the executive to push the button if they had to incoming missiles, whatever required to stave off the soviet union in doing i also watched particularly in the senate i spent ten years there. the this the authorizing committees giving up power and the appropriators particularly starting with the house therefore became kingmakers afterwards. at least that's how i led different organizations you will to deal with members. so phil i look forward to reading you because i agreed so much to your opening. but we all love madison, all

love whoever helped. but then again, 74, like the vietnam war, gingrich's role. can you expand some? i could go on here, but i don't. that's chapter four and five of the book. so crack a crack it open. and i should mention two members here in person books are on that table for you. it's for you to take. so please, please help yourselves when. we break. i will say that in in that in that era that you mentioned, when there was such a profound loss of trust in government, there was a chance i for the legislature to sort rise in people's estimation and. so a famous book that i like very much was written in 1980 called the decline and resurgence of congress. so seen seventies as a time of resurgence for the institution

in large part because of watergate and the ways that vietnam led people to be suspicious. the executive. and so looking on this, the era when you worked the senate, it was actually it was a very exciting time in terms of ambition, reshaping the place, really a lot of a lot of energy in the halls of congress. but i'd say, unfortunately, they they kind of they didn't they didn't succeed in sort of settling on a model that would really take advantage of congress's distinctive institute or capacities specifically you sort of a shift from legislation to oversight in the seventies and a sense it wasn't always so important whether you passed the laws you could just hold the subcommittee and there were a huge proliferation of subcommittees with staff this time and they did a lot of

checking. exactly, yeah. and so i think they they created the carter administration kind of a sense that congress was just a big mess and cacophony, is the word that i use in my chapter title. that sort of left a problem to be solved. but unfortunately, we didn't we didn't try to solve it with the madisonian logic. we, we turned to the wilsonian logic more and more from the mid 1980s onward. and people people who are frustrated with congress, like a young newt gingrich, they brought a very wilsonian sensibility to american politics. they did not believe in the congress as a place of factional competition, really. newt gingrich from from his very campaign in the mid seventies was saying congress is a corrupt, terrible, we need to take the brooms, clean out the stables. and when when he and he relentlessly campaigned against

the institution and even when he became the speaker of the house, he was in a sense oriented against the coalition building of congress. and he very much came in, in a wilsonian way. we have a mandate from the people. we gave them the contract with america. we won the midterms. president clinton only won because of ross perot. time to do what the republicans want. after all those decades of doing what? doing things the democratic way. and he never he didn't really have legislative sensibilities. my argument in the book he he was not a coalition builder disposition and he tried to smash a lot things through without much regard for even what the senate would think of it, let alone how he would get president clinton on board. he just sort of expected that his moment had arrived and would work out and, you know, the puzzle to me is that model was really not that successful in in, you know, republicans in the

mid nineties did not roll the great society. that was their ambition and they failed. welfare reform is the signal where they were. they got something important passed, but by and large, their just failed. but nevertheless, the gingrich model has stuck. and, you know if you look at the idea of of centralized house leadership, of running things from their hip pocket, that was gingrich's idea it was the idea of jim wright who had relentlessly hounded out of office. in 1988. and, you know. i think we need we need to get away from this of thinking. i think the part of the book's ambition is to try to there is another way of thinking about institution. we need to get away from this wilsonian. everything is going to be decided in the elections mentality. frankly, elections just can't carry that much weight. there were 37 when i was in congress for 37 committees and subcommittee that had authority

in some way over health care, 37 so they each could write rules and offer legislate action on health care. but they were all, in their own silos. and so it's no wonder that this thing all comes unglued. and and so i did radical thing the republicans were in control. i was a republican. so in the rules we were setting up the rules for the 115th congress. i offered a rule change to create a committee on care, but that would remove the ability these 37 other committees to do fundraising in the health care industry. you would have thought that the whole world was going to come. it's the single biggest expense federal government has. when you had medicare and medicaid and all the va benefits, everything that church run health care and no single source or single place where experts can reside aid and deal with one of the most important issues for the american people today. well, i regret to inform you all that we've hit the 75th minute,

but me say this for those you who braved the smog, feel free to stick around afterwards. everyone's going to be here and we're happy to chat. for those of you who are watching there, thank you for tuning in. and if we can, can we please get a round of applause? our panel.