washington today for a fast-paced report of the stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime. just tell your smart speaker, play c-sn radio. c-span, powered by cable. announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. announcer: comcast support c-span as a public service, along with these other televisi providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. announcer: washington journal continues. host: the day before the beginning of the 118th congress, we are joined by the author of the forthcoming book "why congress" said to be released

this spring from oxford university press. explain first the title of your book. there is no? in the title. -- there is no question mark in the title. guest: so many people are so skeptical of the institution at this point. and have framework, congress is absolutely vital to a representative democracy functioning well. it has to be a place where we go to work through some of the nations thorniest problems. the book is really to give that big picture justification, to look at some instances in the past where it really worked well, and helping the nation through its most difficult problems rather than exacerbating them as so many people feel it does today. host: go back to the original "why congress."

what was the reason? why did we vest legislative powers with this branch of government? guest: it is a really long prehistory for legislative government. i do a little bit of going back to mid-evil england to think about why parliament emerged in the first place. it was not an intentional founding. but the government emerged because it was useful for helping the english people work through some difficult problems, useful for the kings to look different voices have a say in working out these problems rather than just trying to dictate everything. in american history, the colonial assembly kind of began as the most important places for making decisions by virtue of the fact that the king was across the ocean.

by the time the independent legislature just seemed naturally to be the site of government. certainly will be established for constitution, we were doing it in part to get a stronger executive ranch, a stronger congress. the articles of confederation were too weak for many of the difficult problems of the 1780's. congress, it is the first bridge for a reason. the framers just assumed that it was going to be the center of decision-making. host: the center of decision-making made up by people whose expertise is vote-getting/ these are experts at pacific issues that the country is facing. guest: right. it seemed like a pretty different thing. it was considered rather untoward to go out seeking votes actively.

it was considered an aristocracy of merit. the members of the community are the ones that you send to washington, the trusted members of the community. they had to meet with the trusted representatives from all the other sections of the country. that was really the vision. figuring out ways that we could have trusted representatives work out these problems is really a central tap check -- challenge of our time because so many people have so much distrust for the institution today. host: when are those times in modern history that you think congress worked really well? guest: one chapter of the book is about world war ii. when people talk about american policy during world war ii, most people dry blank. what did congress really do? what it shows is that there are a lot of really good challenges on the home front.

by turning the american economy into a giant war machine. congress really was the place where we figured out how to work through these difficulties. the massive inflation, the rationing. that is really something in the bones of america, the need to see what the government is doing as fair. not just as right or wrong, but fair. congress was the one religious worker the difficult issues. our going to deal with the challenges caused the inflation? how are we going to make sure that the military isn't heading war profiteering? they therefore got the american people to trust the war effort much more. host: and how were they able to

do that? guest: right. ". that is the central virtue of multiple congress. congress has many members and they can openly fight with each other. sometimes that sounds scary to people. sounds like everyone should just figure out a way to get along. we are all americans, we should somehow come together. but congress lets people fight out in the open. listen to what they are saying and take each other seriously. that kind of open deliberation, you might think in the middle of work time, we get rid of that. we get rid of that, but no, that is what we were fighting a war for, to stay a free country. practicing free politics helped us. completely different from how the soviet union was figuring out a way through, you know,

where there was massive repression. it was -- worked for them but we are glad it was not our way. our way is to practice free politics, even in the most difficult times. host: "click is what made congress work so well in world war ii. is it not open conflict in that building these days? guest: it is very much not open. we have heavily structured partisan conflict today. we have leaders in both parties, in recent years, who have had a strong grip on the agenda and a really strong grip on members of their party saying, we need to pull together and toe the party line. that is how we will frame the next election for us. we he did not work across party lines much because mainly we need to focus on making the other party look bad. and you have seen a pretty much in the house.

they used to be open rules for debating legislation and those have pretty much disappeared. everything that comes to the floor is tightly managed by their leadership, often put together by leadership rather than in the committees. that limits the sense we are having an open debate where people can create unpredictable coalitions, right? strange bedfellows, politics makes strange bedfellows -- a key value of congress, but it has not been doing that in recent years. really, you just, on the most important things you see the republicans sticking together and democrats sticking together. host: explain regular order and when was the last time we had a regular order. guest: it is the idea that legislation ought to be carefully worked up through deliberation and committees,

then brought to the floor and debated more on the floor with a chance of members to offer amendments. then final you voted upon by the whole chamber. and, you know, the details are debatable, but we have seen a gradual decline of regular order in both chambers. we have seen more and more bills, instead, worked out by the leadership. and then brought to votes with little opportunity for real debate or amendment the disadvantages, -- and the disadvantages are we do not get that same sense of open deliberation. we may miss things because they do not get a chance to percolate through the system. and it changes the incentives for members. if you are a backbencher, there was a sense that you could have a real impact on legislation through my committee work. i should become a policy expert,

and i will have a chance to be truly impactful that way. now, if you have a sense a bill will never come to the floor anyway, that it will just go through the speaker's office, then you think, well, my committee work does not seem so important. and really the only way i can make an impact is to go on social media in to try to raise my national profile, working outside of the legislative process instead. so that is one of the central dilemmas of our congress today. host: let me go to page 171 of your book. descriptions of our congress as completely dysfunctionalre hyperbolic. matt iglesias has dubbed it a secret congress because of how lileress coverage it receives. committees do not deliberate. statues are still work up. and there are on the buses.

and problems get solved with relatively little drama. most of the hundreds of laws that congress passes each year continue to be bipartisan. guest: that is important. the less it gets media coverage, the more likely it is that secret congress gets to work its magic and workup bills that will not ever getting a lot of media attention. you will see them getting passed on c-span, of course, but from the major media outlets, they'll mostly get ignored or backpage coverage or whatever. we do not have a completely dysfunctional congress. it's a little bit of a well-kept secret that there's plenty of things that get worked through, veterans issues for example. a lot of legislation trying to make the va health system work well, that stuff still works -- the committees are functioning

in a bipartisan manner. so, in terms of the hyper partisanship, things could be worse. and certainly the last congress, the 117th congress, showed ability to work out bipartisan compromises, mostly originating in the senate. but things took a bit of a turn for the better in the last congress. host: philip wallach is our guest, the book is "why congress." no question on that title. it's "why congress." he is taking your questions and comments. you can do so on the phone lines. democrats at 202-748-8000. republicans at 202-748-8001. independents at 202-748-8002. i want to come back to the folks who are working behind the scenes on the bill.

a newspaper on capitol hill had a list each year, i do not know if they have done it recently, but there were courses in congress -- were courses in congress versus the show horses. what are those in congressional terms? guest: it is an old term. it has been kicked around since the middle of the 20th-century the century, probably longer than that. and the idea is that there are some members who want to put their heads down and work on the details of legislation. and really get in the nitty-gritty. and they are not always the ones trying to get on tv. they are not always the ones with ambitions to be president someday. they want to represent their constituents. they want to become policy matter specialists. and they want to have an impact in that way. those are the work horses. the show horses are the ones who

see their time in congress as a way to get more famous, as a way of establishing a national brand for themselves. who aren't always thinking about their own state or district, first or foremost. the way congress has evolved, it has really favored the show horses. fundraising has become much more nationally oriented. a lot of members are raising money from all over the country, rather than just from folks in their district. that means they need to create something that appeals to people across the country, rather than a am doing a good job representing my district. as i said before about the committees, it is a big difference that the work horse'' main avenue for impact used to be the committee. and they have much less sense in recent years that the investment in that work will pay off.

so part of the point in my book is a call to the work horses to say that you can organize on behalf of the ability of work horses to have an impact. you can make congress work differently than it has today. it has worked differently in the past. host: it could jupiter for the hill, on this program in the past, he wrote a column at the end of 2021, and the title "the last of the work horses." "bob dole was the last of the were courses -- work horses. when bob michael ran against -- he was dubbed the work horse versus the show horse. they tend to stumble when it comes to their tv appearances but they shine when it comes to producing legislative compliments. dole had a sharp wit.

he was good at putting deals together and making the government work effectively, which endeared him to the few who care about that kind of thing." he talked about dole as the last of the work horses. are there any still on capitol hill and who are they? guest: there are. they are not the most famous members, generally. they are the people making the committees hum along. certainly, it is a well-known thing that the appropriations committees remain extremely influential. so, one thing to do if you want to be a work horse and create a career on capitol hill where your influence is going to accrue over the years, is to try to get yourself onto the appropriations committee or armed services committee, also, a plays like that where eventually you will be a subcommittee chairman or ranking member. there is a lot of important work that gets done there, where you

will end up allocating billions of dollars, right? how many people can say they do that at their job? so, if people want to know who the work horses are, they should look at the chart for the appropriations committee. that makes a big difference. sometimes we see that there are three parties, appropriators, immigrants into republicans because they have set a culture of their own -- democrats and republicans, because they have set a culture of their own. they take pride in their responsibly as stewards of the public. host: philip wallach is a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. we are talking about his book "why congress." we have plenty of calls for you. this is joe for democrats. good morning. caller: happy new year, john.

happy new year, philip. host: what is your question or comment? caller: we are talking about the book, "why congress." partisan politics, it seems to me it has been a bigger problem in the last half a dozen years, and it seems to continue. when i think about when we vote for in the senate and president, everybody gets to vote. you walk in, make a vote, you do not have to share who you voted for. i realize that congressmen and his senate representatives are elected by constituents who are supposed to represent the towns, cities, the states they come from. but what happens is you have hundreds of senators and member trying to get the same thing passed. it seems to get caught up in partisan politics. the other part i noticed is many times when a big bill comes up,

100% of republicans will vote one way and 100% of the democrats will vote another way. i know they could not possibly all believe in their party line, but they seem to vote their party line because they feel like they have to, because the leader of the party says you have to vote this way. or republicans, they are all scared donald trump will trash their reputation and they will not get reelected. why not introduce an opportunity, maybe not on all bills, but big bills, or 25% of each party can vote anonymously. not the same 25%, it would change each vote, but that would allow politicians to vote their conscience or what is good for america, not just their party leader or their individual constituents. that way more legislation would get through, i think. my guess is both impeachments against donald trump, plenty of

republicans knew he was guilty and they probably would've voted for impeachment, and we would not be dealing with the mess we are still dealing with. i'm just wondering about your thoughts on my suggestion. host: we will take your suggestion. guest: it is an insightful question. i think that you are -- that your basic claim that members would vote instinctively if it is anonymous is totally fair. that being said, representative government is all about accountability to the voters in the end. and that means if voters do not know how their representatives are even voting, that's sort of a basic accountability problem or deficit built into the system. so, you know, we have to consider that value as well as we think about the where this institution operates. now before the mid 1970's,

a lot of what the house did was consider things in the committee of the whole, which is a way that the house can reorganize itself to operate in an informal manner. and the committee used to vote a lot without recording who loaded how. -- voted how. so important decision to get made without members' names attached to their votes. advocates of open government, of sunshine as an antidote to corruption, thought that was terrible. they thought that this is an outrage. we need to be able to hold representatives accountable. so they pushed to get rid of that. and the house got rid of that. this was in the mid-70's. since the advent of electronic voting, also around that time, it's very easy to keep? everybody's vote and attach it

to their name. it does not cost time anymore. they used to have to take roll calls by voice. it was a much more laborious process. so, i think that it is quite a cultural norm at this point to have everybody's name attached to their vote. i do think that most americans share your sensibility, enough for there to be a real push for that change. most people feel like they need to hold their representatives accountable. so i will leave it at that. host: david on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. if i sound like i have a cold it is because i do. my question is about the $1.7 trillion spending package just recently passed, but nobody read. can republicans, if they take over the house, refuse to fund it?

can they say we are not going to borrow money for the junk in it. we are not going to fund it. we will fund but we need to to run the government and that is it. if you go in a grocery store with your kids and they throw stuff in the cart, you put it back on the shelf if you cannot afford to pay for things. guest: the bill is now law. so the money is appropriated. it's more like you already checked out from the store and there is not a clear return policy. they could pass another law to try to claw back some of the money, but it would be highly irregular. and i do not expect that to happen. i think the most important focus is to look to the next appropriations a cycle. we do this every year. if republicans are determined to spend less, they have got control of the house now.

they can drive a hard bargain with their counterparts in the senate and for the president biden and his administration. and they can look to reduce spending going forward. i think that is much more likely. host: once we get into the cycle of big omnibus bills at the end of the funding deadline and up against a government shutdown, when did we get away from that regular order of appropriations process and why? guest: it is not like we crossed a bridge one year to another. it's been a gradual evolution roughly from the mid-80's to the present. yeah, as you said, we are very dependent on omnibus bills that come up against the end of the session or against people's christmas breaks, the ultimate leverage here on capitol hill. and -- host: would the early

congresses know what an omnibus bill was? guest: yes, it might be easier to pass two issues together instead of separately, that is your basic bargaining. but the idea you want everything together into put it into this must pass a thing where the government shuts down if you do not pass it, that is much more modern. we did not have government shutdowns until the 1980's. there was a different interpretation of the spending law before that where the government carried on as if nothing was happening, if the appropriated money did not come in on schedule. so, the modern extended government shutdowns create the leverage for these must pass bills. and, yeah, more and more leaders have found it convenient to operate by dumping things in there operate by dumping things. the caller mentioned, how could

anybody have time to read it? all of the different parts of the bill did not come out of nowhere. they worked through committees. some were well known. some may have come out of nowhere. and it is hard to monitor such a giant bill. but, you know, the members in the end, it is up to them. they can vote down bills. if they say, we cannot legislate in this way anymore, i will only vote for things if they are not packaged into monstrosities, then we could see a new paradigm emerge. it's up to the members. it's not like it was a straight party line vote. we had significant bipartisan support, especially in the senate, for that bill. that is the way things work today. people have grown accustomed to it on the hill, even if citizens find it unreasonable.

we'll see if they change course. host: this is bill, an independent. caller: how are you? i have a question about the oath of office that elected officials take. i would like to know, is there any history as to what happens to folks who violate that oath of office, the both to the constitution? and is there any way the supreme court would ever get involved with something like that, especially with all of the corruption and all the things coming out? just from the hunter biden laptop this could be very interesting. host: let me read the oath of office that members take. this from the senate website. "i solemnly swear or affirm i will defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic. that i will bear allegiance to the same.

that i take this obligation freely without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which i am about to enter, so help me god." guest: that comes straight out of the constitution. it's been there all along. and the caller from new jersey asked, you know, if somebody violates that oath, could the judiciary step in and do something about it? the short answer is no. each chamber is able to police itself. the constitution says it's the judge of its own rules, who gets to be a member or not. so, each chamber has the ability to expel members with a two thirds vote of the membership, if i'm not mistaken. and they can throw members out. and create a vacancy.

that will have to be dealt with by the district or state, according to established law. but that is for the legislators themselves. that is one of these instances where, you know, the separation of powers in each branch to control its own affairs to some degree and it gives each branch a check over the other branches. in this case it is members of congress policing themselves. they have to decide if violations of the oath are serious enough to warrant expulsion. host: about 40 minutes until the end of our program. philip wallach is sticking around with us to answer questions as we talk about congress ahead of the convening of the 118th congress, tomorrow, and in just about 27 hours. if you want to join the conversation, democrats should call 202-748-8000.

republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. host: barbara in massachusetts, a democrat. good morning. caller: just a spectacular program this morning. this guest and professor barker before him have been awesome. have them back together sometime. they have been fabulous. there was a caller, the man with a 25% solution -- i want to offer a tweak to his solution. he is suggesting that 25% of the 435 congresspeople get the opportunity on a rotating basis to have their votes be anonymous. so then the objection to that, what he spelled out, what if we have the 25% solution but then after they voted anonymously, the 25%, if they wanted they

could go on the record and declare their vote. as he intelligently said, the caller, we have been told repeatedly that there were senators who would have voted for the trumpet impeachment if it had been anonymous. then this 25% on each individual vote could either come forward and say what they did or remain anonymous every time. so that way we could get this kind of conscience vote in there, yet break the stranglehold of the partisan nose counters. i hope that makes that clear. and i to say one more thing, just give me a second. everybody knows making a mountain out of a mobile, making a big issue out of a small issue. the reverse is making a small issue out of a big issue. so, i think where we are at right now is we have solved a lot of our problems and we are down to the really, really hard

ones, like abortion, the climate, the budget. so, i am thinking that we should have, as we say in judaism, some compassion that we are dealing with the most difficult challenging issues. and that we do have a congress that just passed the most incredible things like the chips act. and other big pieces of legislation that went through on climate, just unprecedented. so the show horses have had their day, but the work forces are still getting it done. with creative thinkers like these guests you have, your host and myself, we could create some new memes. thank you so much. guest: thank you, barbara. so, i'm interested that barbara brought back joe from massachusetts's idea about the 25% who get the anonymously. the 25% seems peculiar to me.

not sure why you would have only a portion get to exercise this privilege at any given time. but in any case, i think that the basic issues still remain -- do voters deserve to know how their representatives vote or don't they? i think that most americans' instinct would become a yes they do. barbara put in a bad word for partisan nose counters. i understand that, i certainly share that impulse myself. but let me put in a good word for them. parties exist to organize coalitions together. and at their best, parties really help organize the conflict in american politics, to make it more understandable, trackable, and they have some real virtues in that way.

so, partisan discipline right now does seem at an extreme to me, but we should not be quick to say that partisan discipline is all bad. there's reasons why we like well functioning political parties and that help their members get on the same page. now, the other part of what barbara said was about just how hard a lot of the problems we confront are. and i think that is an important point. on the other hand, to me that is all the more reason we need to pursue this more open model of conflict, where we need to let everyone have their say. we need to have it out with each other. on immigration, for example, congress has not ignored immigration by any means over the last decade and a half. but it has not passed much important legislation on it. instead we have done the important changes through

executive branch action, like the daca program. and quite of the problem has been that we have tried, we have ended up trying to impose certain structure from the leadership on what or how the immigration debate can proceed. if it does not work, we get nothing. and that means we've had a hard time bringing on a board of skeptics who are worried about illegal immigration and think that past legislation has duped them into thinking legislation will happen when it wasn't. there are deep trust moments there. the way we have to proceed through those problems is to say, ok, let's actually sit down and bargain with you. we know that you are a hard no on a lot of things, what could you say yes to? we need to build up from there and that kind of open ended,

multi-factional negotiation has not really been happening lately. host: another good example of that, go back -- you talked about world war ii, when open conflict worked in congress. what is another example? guest: another example in my book as civil rights. that's a difficult challenge. as we came to the middle of the 20th century, this is an issue that has been, you know, struggled with all the way since the civil war, for the nation's whole history, really. how do we get desegregation to happen without a revolution or civil war? that was such a massive social change. the way it worked was by working through the process in congress. in the end, you built this huge coalition for change that included pretty much everyone except the white southerners. but they respected the process

that ultimately delivered the legislation in 1964 and 1965. they were against those laws, but at the end of the day they said, well, u.s. about a massive coalition that beat us. all we can do is live with the results. that's kind of a refreshing difference from the tone of today's politics, where often times you say, the other side won because they cheated into be will find ways to nullify where they did. we will say it was totally ill illegitimate to start with. ther a differente' -- there's a different model where you work on building broader coalitions from the start and earn more legitimacy as a result. host: a republican on the line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to thank the author.

i got in early on the call. host: go ahead. caller: ok. well, maybe this is off topic, but i want to mention that when i think we passed the constitutional amendment to allow senators to be voted on by their state, rather than having the state legislature and governor appointed senators, i think that brought a tremendous amount of money that the senators would have to raise. and think that that has really made a change for the worse. it seems like everything lately

passed in the constitutional amendments to change the constitution has been detrimental. wouldn't you say the congress under nancy pelosi was the most partisan and kind of dictate tarot -- dictatorial in the united states? can you imagine the leadership smirking behind the president publicly after the president's speech? i just think that we have got to take into account that fact that maybe we should have term limits. that would be the change in the constitution. but i'm wondering what you think about term limits? guest: there is a lot there, cornelia.

i will take it in reverse order. the term limits, from time immemorial some people feel that having members that do not stick around in washington will make the place work better. i'm very skeptical of that idea. i think that we gain a lot from members who invest in expertise and how the system works. who invest in expertise in particular areas. some of the most effective work courses are those who stick around for a long time. to me, that would be a net loss. the voters are the ultimate term limit. if they are sticking -- if they are sick of their member, they can get rid of them. now you said, we think the house under nancy pelosi was the most partisan ever? american history is long. we have got other good contenders for that title.

if you go back to the 1880's and 1890's, you had speaker reid, who is known as tsar reid at the time. or in the first decade of the 20th century, his boss, joseph cannon. there were some strict party control, very strict discipline from members of parties back then. and very centralized, dominant control. and numbers got fed up with it. they pushed things in a different direction. when we look to the 117th congress, it certainly was very highly partisan. by the measures of political science, to sort of analyze how much members clump together when they will, those were at all time high levels. certainly at those levels of

1880's of colorization in the two parties. and i think centralized control of the speaker's office is a trend, and i think that nancy pelosi ruled with an iron fist. that is a fair characterization. where things will go from here is a real question. there is no more speaker pelosi. that part of american history has come to an end. we are seeing a fight among republicans right now as to how they want the house to offer it. part of what is at stake is the fight over whether kevin mccarthy will become speaker or not is how will the house operate. will he be a republican nancy pelosi, controlling everything out of the speaker's office, or will he do things differently? so, we will see how it goes. there's people who want things to work differently, so perhaps they will win out. and finally camille asked about the 17th amendment to the constitution, which got senators

directly elected instead of eight elected by their respective state legislatures -- instead of elected by their respective state legislatures. it is a case where what voters want most. a lot of states were giving the voters the choice, even before the amendment. they had moved of popular elections, doing whatever the people wanted. the norm shifted where people thought that people should get to choose their senators directly, and the constitutional amendment followed and locked that into place. so, it is another case where maybe the alternative had some attractive things about it. having state legislators have a voice in the national government would make some sense, but it is hard to imagine a popular movement back to that, back to that way of doing things. host: thomas reed, a republican

from maine, here is a story about a book written about the former speaker. the most important politician you have never heard of, thomas reed was a larger-than-life speaker of the house during america's turbulent gilded age. he brought the position to prominence and forever changed the house of representatives. what more should people know about tsar reed? guest: he is a fascinating figure. he roasted dominating partisan politics. and then ultimately lost his power because of breaking with his party over the spanish-american war, which he opposed. but, you know, he came to a house where there was sort of a filibuster there. host: in the house? guest: in the house. it was not called that, but the disappearing forum was the

problem. if the members of the minority did not want a bill to be voted on, they would -- themselves from the chamber. there was not a norm of 435 members being there all the time. the total number was actually less back then. but having all of the members there at once was unusual. so if the minority all walked out, there was a chance at there would not be a forum for doing business. and that would leave the majority party unable to do what it wanted. so the speaker figured out a way to -- he would literally bar the doors and stop members from leaving the chamber. host: a fire hazard these days. guest: [laughter] i do not think he was too concerned about that. he was known as somebody who made it possible for the republican party to work its will at that time. and made a big difference in

centralizing power in the house. host: on filibusters, what is your view of the modern filibuster and its use in the senate? guest: the way that we talk about them today, not even related to anything that people have to do on the floor, it is related to the sense and that everything is going to be subjected to a motion, and to pass that you will need 60 senators. so, for most things, budget reconciliation being a very important exception, but for most things we will act like we need 60 votes. and so, to me that the parts from the spirit -- departs from the spirit of the way filibusters have functioned in the past, where it was a thing that brought everything to a halt and focused attention on an

issue. it gave us a chance to have grand debates about an issue in a way that contemporary filibusters do not enable. so, i would say that there are some healthy features of having a 60 vote requirement. i think it does bring partisan cooperation where we would not get otherwise. if you look at the infrastructure bill, that is a good example. but it has become so much part of the furniture there, it no longer serves its intended function of really allowing the senate to be this place of grand debates. they do not really, you know -- no offense, but when we tune into c-span most of the time we expect to be bored by the legislative proceedings these days. not the regular programming, of course. but so much of what happens on

both floors today seems like killing time. and really the senate, especially, is supposed to be the greatest debating society on earth. and it does not live up to that these days. so i would like to see reforms to the filibuster that would help it be more in that vein. host: 20 minutes left. philip wallach is joining us in that time. he is the author of "why congress." it will be released this spring from oxford university press. he is a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. and you can find him on twitter. call in to join the conversation. a caller out of lakeland, florida. an independent. caller: good morning. i got a plan for congress. this is wonderful. praise be for having philip wallach here.

i have a masters degree in organizational development. i want the new speaker to bring in a team of organizational development consultants, because their purpose is to work with organizations to help them reach their purpose of what they are supposed to do. i want them to bring in a team of bipartisan agreement, on the team of organizational consultants, and then i wanted that congressmen to go on camping trips. these organizers would have these camping trips where the congressman can get away from the pressure of phones, computers, and sit around campfires and get the problems assaulted for this country so that the end of 2023 we will dance and sing with the glee that congress has functioned this year. what is your reaction? host: i guarantee if we can get cameras at camp congress,

c-span would send the cameras. guest: no, that would defeat the whole purpose. it's a great question. you are not the only one to think along these lines. there are some specialists in mediation, organization and alternative dispute resolution -- all kind of experts find their way to capitol hill and offer advice to congress. they are over there. on the camping trips front, there have been bipartisan congressional retreats in the past. they have gone by the wayside at the moment, but there's so movement to bring them back. that is something that the select committee on the modernization of congress talked about. and encouraged. i think it is a good idea. i for the members to see others across the aisle as a real human

beings, who have real concerns and are being faithful representatives of their constituents rather than ideologues or servants of special interests, that's something that is healthy and makes a difference to the culture on capitol hill. host: on the cameras, was it a good idea to bring cameras to congress in 1979? guest: i think that cameras change everything. people act differently on camera than off-camera. i certainly know when you get members together for committee meetings that are not public sessions, that are just happening in back rooms with no public presence, they operate a lot differently. members speak to each other differently, there is less posturing and a lot less, uh, name-calling. and members are interested in each other. generally the people who are

elected to congress are sociable people, they are people people and they like to get along. if you lock them in a room and tell them to work things out, they may do that more than you might think. host: the speaker read plan. -- reed plan. [laughter] guest: cameras on capitol hill changed the culture, for sure. it changed how people used floor time. and i think that there is a lot of -- to how the evolution has gone. host: the book is "why congress." what is your feeling about cameras in the supreme court? guest: i think that they know what will happen if they let them in, in that news shows will be looking for soundbites. and may be justices will start to feel the pull of,if i gave a good enough soundbite, then i

get to go on all the national news shows tonight. it changes things for the actors. i can understand why the justices themselves have resisted that trend. and i think that my prediction is that they will continue to resist it, until people are literally banging down their doors demanding it. the released the audio pretty promptly these days. or you can read the arguments. they have gone right up to that but they know if there's tv clips, everything changes. i think they are right. to my mind, giving members of congress more opportunities to be with each other away from cameras, may be even away from their staffers, that's fall to the good of making the institution produce the use of strange bedfellows that we really need. host: i will point out that this

network has pushed for cameras in the courts for a long time, and will continue to do so. you can see the history of this network and its interaction with the supreme court available on our website at c-span.org. 15 minutes left with philip wallach. ray out of syracuse, new york, a republican. caller: good morning. it almost seems like all the conversation is coming up to the point i wanted to make, that is we have had several people calling in about tweaking a cumbersome government system with our congress. for example, having a certain percentage vote where we do not know who is voting, how they are voting, and this is -- i understand where that comes from, but it is a frustration.

but i personally at my age, i am 66, i find when i start feeling that we watching what is going on in congress, i try to keep in mind the history and why we became the republic that we are now. and not just us, but other governments around the world. if you boiled it all down, what we really did was we formed a system of government that wouldn't give us everything we want, but it gives us the most important thing -- it keeps us from killing each other. that is what caused us to have a war. and that is what causes us to fight hard, and made us willing to settle the war and come to some agreement.

we did not want to kill each other anymore. so, we cannot be tweaking things to make everything perfect. that is not here on earth, that a summer else, in my opinion. the idea that we can't -- somewhere else, in my opinion. the idea that we can tweak goes in the wrong direction. our government is a big hammer that has been made to keep us from killing each other. guest: i think that that is a wise comment. that's sort of an underrated aspect of america's political system that we take for granted the absence of political violence. january 6 made a lot of us take a little bit less for granted. keeping people from coming to blows, figuring out a way to live with each other, those may sound like trivial things to some, but in the grand course of human history most places, most

times, people have not figured out. so having our system of government where we do not get everything we want, we get what we need. we get what we can all live with. that's very important. and so, i think -- i agree with your sense that maybe we should be careful of doing too many big innovations that change our system entirely because maybe we will lose that fundamental core purpose. you are right to be skeptical for that reason. that said, our system has operated in and a lot of different ways throughout history. it does not mean one thing, it is a living, dynamic system. and a lot of how congress operates depends on how the members want it to operate, what they put into the rules of their respective chambers. and what kind of unanimous

consent agreement they will allow in the senate. these things are always live issues. how will they chambers function? how will we figure out how to live with each other rather than coming to blows? there is not a formula in the constitution itself, so the legislators have to figure that out. that is what they will be doing tomorrow when a new congress starts. host: what is the most interesting rules change you are watching for tomorrow? guest: well, i think there is a lot of attention being paid rightly to the question about the motion to vacate the chair, basically a way that members can revote on who the speaker can be. under republicans in the john boehner era, the rule was any republican that insists on -- could be bringing that motion to the floor and the house

would've moved on it. it gave every republican a lot of leverage to make demands on the speaker. and it's part of what drove speaker boehner to retire when he did, although from's side he always thought he would win that vote but he also thought it would be awkward for a lot of republicans. so the question now is, should we bring that back with a one member threshold? or has been talked about now as being a five member threshold. that is kevin mccarthy's current offer right now, entertaining the idea of maybe one member again. under nancy pelosi it was a very different. i believe that they made it the majority of the democratic caucus would've had to support such a motion for it to be made. so that was taken out of play. that's a question of just how

powerful the speaker is, how much leverage the different sub-factions of each party have within it. that's sort of central to the question of how the house is organizing itself. i think we have to watch that. and we have to see then how it will be used. it's one thing to say that you can invoke this motion, it's another thing to actually do it and try to install a different speaker in the middle of congress. there's the question, when people using their leverage? what do they want exactly? what are they not being given? that is not always so clear today. host: less than 10 minutes left with philip wallach the book, "why congress." if you want to join, democrats should call 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002.

dave, a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. quickly, this is one of the best programs i've ever heard on c-span, so thank you for your clarity and historical perspective and depth of knowledge. and it makes me wonder why most of us as a society do not know, will never have your depth of knowledge on this, but we should be much more well-versed on the mechanism of government we participate in and not autopilot this stuff. a lot of the stuff you're talking about i have not considered, and there is probably more. but this idea about how we vote with some conscious, but not really -- i'm not being cynical, but realistic. to the point, thank you for your depth of knowledge. and reminder to everybody listening that this is a process we should all be participating in and know what the mechanisms are, and know how we fit in this

process. guest: thank you for the comment. i will say that one of the reasons the presidency is such a, such a magnet of attention, i feel it people know more about the presidents and presidency. it's easier to know about. it's more focal. there's one guy who lives in the white house. and you can psychology eyes him -- can psychologize him. the national media focuses so much on the president. b congress isu -- but congress is harder to know about. with 435 members at any given time. not even members of the institution know everything going on there. it is harder to tell stories about congress. that is part of why i wrote the book, to give a story about congress that talks about how it

sometimes is a key institution in helping the nation hold together. host: let's talk about one more of those stories on congress and the covid-19 response. page two of one, "asmpresse sive as they were, it came at a conch as covid spread. congress essentially excused itself, feeling to give serious consideration to any legislation that would address tes vaccines, mask weang. americans found thselves with no good way to argue over the burdens as we coronted this trade-off, and our country nearly fell to pieces. we needed leadership and they gave us cash." guest: i think that the covid policymaking was a good example of how our contemporary system operates a lot of the time. some people think that congress

can pass anything, but that is not happened in covid. it passed bills that got trillions out the door very fast. it did that by having leaders in both parties cut deals with each other, and push the bills through with really remarkably little deliberation. and on some, i would say that was probably a good thing, to help our economy from falling into a tailspin during a really difficult time, to get a lot of the medical research efforts going really strong. they did a lot of good with those bills. but at the same time, we really never had a grand national debate about how we should be living with covid. when it is responding to an emergency in a matter of weeks, ok. you have to act quickly, without much debate. but covid is something we have been living with for years now and we have never had a proper debate.

we end up falling back on cliches about who is following the science, as if that is the only question, when there are serious trade-offs involved on how we will balance the risks of living with this disease. and, we do not have any replacement for congress if congress does not do that. sort of fights on social media. guess what, they do not resolve anything and they are not going to lead towards a compromised mindset. nobody has to compromise on social media. but our representatives should feel the pressure to compromise and work through issues, to say what can i give you for exchange on what i care about? let's take each other's concerns seriously and work from there. to my mind my that did not happen with covid. it is a shame. we have these massive institutional failures. and how much reform have we

gotten? none, basically. host: you end the book with an open letter to congress. explain why. guest: well, it fits nicely with dave's question. most americans are not highly tuned into questions of government organization, and frankly they are not going to be. it feels a little bit in the weeds, however you want to say it. but we are not going to get a grassroots movement for having congress operate differently, in my opinion. we need members themselves to say that this institution is not working the way that we want i to. so my open letter is addressed to them to say, the way this institution is now is making american politics angrier and worse. and it is up to you to make your institution work, to make

american politics more compromise oriented and less heated. more light, less heat. that is not without sort of beyond imagining. we could imagine congress working differently before because it has. let's do it again. i'm cautiously optimistic. i think that the speaker fight is actually very healthy for asking fundamental questions about what kind of institution we want the house to be. i think that the most likely scenarios have to involve a faction that feels it has a desire not being addressed. and maybe you can think of that as sort of hardline anti-immigration people who are the most frustrated bunch today and that they feel like the institution is not addressing their concerns. that could be a productive engine for evolution. we have to seek. i have expected things to change

the past few cycles, and it hasn't. party leaders are really good at dividing and keeping their teams together. i'm impressed with how much party discipline mitch mcconnell and nancy pelosi, especially, have achieved in recent years. but nothing lasts forever. congress has a tendency to swing from one way of operating to another. so, i am cautiously optimistic. host: philip wallach is a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. his book "why congress" will be out this spring from oxford university press. you can see his work online. >> the new 118th congress continues on tuesday at noon eastern for the first time in two years. they will return as a divided government.

republicans will control the house of representatives while democrats will control the senate by a full majority. the new representatives are younger compared to the age of the previous session. and more diverse with a record number of women serving, including women of color. new congress, new leaders. watch the opening day of the 118th congress, tuesday at noon eastern, live on c-span and c-span2. also on c-span now, our free mobile app or online at c-span.org. >> house republicans have leased their rules package for the 1 congress. the house gop lear vin mccarthy offered key concessions including a motion to vatehe

chair, which would force a vote on relieving the speaker. it would requireover the house to force a vote of no-confidence. e quirement that all bills beosted 72 hours before final vote, and the creation of a special panel to investigate "weaponization" of the federal government. a vote on rules package would tace only after the house elects a speaker. for more ition, go to the house rules committee website. announcer: c-span now is a free mobile app, featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington, live and on-demand. keep up with live screens of

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