john haskell. also a political scientist, who has written the author of books -- who has written books such as "fundamentally flawed." he also wrote a textbook on congress -- "congress in context." to my left my colleague at the , bipartisan policy center is next. he is also a scholar at the woodrow wilson institute for scholars. he has a long history on capitol hill as a staff director of the house rules committee and a staffer on the house rules committee for many years. both in the minority and a little bit in the majority. he also ran the congress project at the wilson center for many years. and he thinks and writes about congress as well, including his book "congress of the people." then, to sarah binder, who is both a scholar at the brookings institution, as well as a professor at george washington university on politics. she is one of our experts on numerous things, including the workings of the senate and and the confirmation process and other topics. what we are going to do today -- i am g

thank you and i would like to be joined by john haskell, who is the person committed to bringing this print to fruition. john: i second what colleen said and we appreciate the opportunity to discuss the committee print, not just with this distinguished group of panelists, but also, we are here to hear your questions. any criticisms of the print should be directed generically to john. our objective with "the evolving congress" was to provide perspective on the debate about the evolving institution. we wanted people to get the context right. in my view, the authors of the print -- there were 29 people involved, all analysts that crs -- they all did a great job of getting the context right. speaking intelligently discussing intelligently potential reforms. i will do a brief summary of what i think they achieved. i think they made at least three key contributions. first of all we reminded people in the print that high levels of partisanship in congress are more the norm in u.s. history than the post world war ii period of compromise and consensus. as an aside i think it is amusing and int

i want to talk about john haskell's earlier point. many of us look at this through a framework that the party system has changed dramatically. the party system is more polarized. we have had that in past times, but all of the political beliefs were not in one party or another, they were across one party. people worry that we are stuck. that it is a tough time. we are not going to get out of this. you gave a hint there is a new path. a thought the party system has changed. i will throw it open to all of you, are we in this era with polarized political parties where therefore congress is in a tough mind? or, are there are hints of where congress maybe going or the party system maybe changing where we move out of the paradigm we are all talking about. john haskell: i -- dawn: i think we have the lowest approval ratings and so on. i think public opinion does influence and pressure members into new ways of doing things or just doing things, so that is what i would contribute. >> the political balance sheet might not the all about the tight

so thank you and now i would like to be joined by john haskell, who was the person responsible for bringing this print to fruition. >> of course, i second what colleen said, and we appreciate the opportunity to discuss the committee print. not just with the distinguished group of panelists we have, but also we're eager to hear your questions. i do request that any criticisms of the print be directed to john and i'll defer to the organizers of the panel. our objective with the evolving congress was to provide perspective optn the debates of the functioning of the institution. in other words, we wanted people to get the context right. in my view the authors of the print, there were 29 people involved in writing the print, all analysts at crs did an excellent job at that, getting the context right. a kickoff to speaking intelligently, discussing intelligently. potential reforms. i'm going to do a brief summary of what i think they achieved. i'm leaving out a lot. i think they made at least three key contributions. first of all, we reminded people in the print that high levels of partisanship i

where i met brilliant political scientist who bush lent to read the manuscript but something that john haskelltee thereof three obstacles to do the job. number one filibuster. number two seniority system of the southerners dominating the system and number three house rules committee to the southern democrats resulting the ties so this is the apocalypse but fast-forward ted years the cloture rule was changed from two-thirds of the 60 votes the rules committee the speaker was now nominating members rather than going through the steering committee and the seniority system was dismantled with three members being ousted that said the caucus would now vote rather than have them elevated so in between 65 pin 75 that they produce something so then it covers the chapters with a committee below rights that they could override the chairman with more open meetings but there was the cabochon that but there is a lot of transparency reforms taking place that political scientists have written over and over but a lot of this was going on in the house. but that things have changed dramatically to cover the rule