Lee Hamilton Comments on Congress

Whatever Their Tone, We Need Town Hall Meetings

2010-04-29T10:49:00.000-04:00

The strident rhetoric and heated tone of recent congressional town-hall meetings has some people wondering whether they're getting out of hand. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says this is nothing new, and that "Whatever Their Tone, We Need Town Hall Meetings."

Years ago, when I was still in Congress, I pulled up one day to address a public meeting in a remote and very rural part of Indiana. The sheriff, a friend of mine, met me outside the small volunteer fire house where I was to speak. "The Ku Klux Klan is here in full regalia," he told me. "If you'd like, I'll keep them out of your meeting."

For just a second, I'll confess, I weighed his offer. But I was not in the business of trying to keep constituents out of public gatherings — even if they were in the KKK. No, I told my friend, the Klansmen could come in, as long as they removed their hoods. There's no place for anonymity in a public meeting, I said.

And so about twenty-five of them — hoodless — marched down the aisle made by the rickety folding chairs set up in the tiny firehouse and took their places in the front. Was this or was this not a Christian nation, they demanded. And what did I think about Jewish influence in Hollywood and on the media? I responded calmly, but their persistent overtones of anti-Semitism wore out the audience's patience. Eventually they left, and the meeting continued.

I've been thinking recently about that long-ago event as the temperature of congressional town meetings heats up. Media coverage of stormy public gatherings may give the impression that we've entered an especially fraught time for public discourse, but I can tell you that anyone who's been in public life for a while has seen plenty of fierce town-hall meetings. The challenge is not to avoid controversy; it's to make it productive. Here are some things I've learned over the years about how to do that:

First, you have to recognize that public meetings are crucial for members of Congress and other elected officials. They're where they can best gauge the intensity of public feeling, hear from ordinary citizens, and give people a chance to get to know firsthand their representative. Sometimes you have to square your shoulders before you head into a room where you know tempers are going to flare, but this is democracy at the retail level, and it's vital.

Often, raw emotions surface — a particular policy can affect people deeply, and they ought to hold strong views about it. The first rule if you're the official presiding over the meeting is to be unfailingly polite and let everyone speak—don't cut anyone off. The crowd will always start out sympathizing with friends and neighbors, even vociferous ones, but I've noticed that angry or long-winded speakers inevitably wear out their welcome, as the Klan members in Indiana did. In the end, most people come to meetings like these to listen and discuss, not hear someone else harangue them.

In some ways, the bigger challenge that a member of Congress faces is to draw out the people who don't speak easily, but who often have insightful things to say. Every meeting will have speakers seeking the limelight; the trick is to create a space where the more hesitant can feel comfortable saying what's on their minds, too.

Sometimes, it's hard to understand a question or comment; people don't always express themselves clearly. But it's important to try hard, and not simply brush someone off because he or she is inarticulate. Because when you do finally understand, you'll often be impressed by the common sense and pragmatism that often underlie people's concerns, no matter how angry or tongue-tied they appear to be.

Finally, meetings like these are a chance not only to educate the public, but also to be educated by it. Once, at an especially lively meeting over the Panama Canal treaties in the 1970s, I found myself — a supporter of the treaties — overwhelmed by the opposition in the room and not quite sure I would emerge from the meeting in one piece. A constituent I'd never met stood up and gave the most cogent argument for ratification I'd ever heard. Not only did the room quiet down, but I took those debating points back to Washington with me, duly reminded that there is great wisdom even in the most obscure corners of our country.

Over my years in Congress, I conducted hundreds, if not thousands, of town-hall meetings. Almost every time I came away with the feeling that this was precisely what I was meant to be doing — engaging with my constituents in a small part of the dialogue of democracy. Just as often, these meetings reinforced my confidence in the fairness, decency and judgment of the American people.

So as we look ahead to the next congressional recess, and no doubt to the next round of heated town-hall meetings, let's remember that they, too, help ensure that our representative democracy remains vibrant.

Audio Version

It's Time to Govern the Flow of Political Money

2010-04-27T09:19:00.001-04:00

The amount of money flowing through the system for congressional campaigns and lobbying has grown so enormous that it threatens Congress' ability to do its job right. This is why, says former Congressman Lee Hamilton, "It's Time To Govern The Flow Of Political Money."

There was a time when I believed that the best way to curtail the impact of money flowing into our political system was to monitor it. Make sure that campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures were reported quickly and accurately, I reasoned, and journalists and the American public could determine for themselves what they could tolerate.

Transparency is still needed. But the entire political system is now so swamped with cash — and lawmakers so overwhelmed by the need to raise it — that something more is clearly needed. Congress, the institution I know best, is in danger of drowning. It needs help. Americans dislike the idea of using taxpayer dollars to fund politicians' campaigns, but what Congress needs is pretty straightforward: It needs public financing of congressional campaigns.

The simple cost of running for office is ludicrous. I first ran for Congress 45 years ago, and spent $30,000 on that race. That was before the costs of television advertising, pollsters, consultants, web strategists, get-out-the-vote efforts and all the other mechanics of a modern campaign took off — it was even before most of them were considered essential. These days, the winners of House seats spend an average of $1.3 million on their campaigns (and that includes both competitive and noncompetitive races); on the Senate side, it's closer to $8 million.

Except for certain well-situated politicians, most of the people running for Congress are not raising this money at home. Instead, they're turning to wealthy donors in a few major metropolitan areas — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and, of course, Washington, D.C. In the last election cycle, in fact, contributions from those five cities, many of them aligned with one or another special interest jockeying for position on Capitol Hill, outweighed those from 36 states combined.

Although the rise of the Web as a fundraising tool has to some extent democratized political giving, that trend is still puny compared to the concentration of financial power in relatively few hands. In 2008, a few industry sectors — finance and real estate, lawyers and lobbyists, healthcare, communications, and energy and transportation — combined to provide $1.2 billion to federal candidates. Of all the funds raised by federal candidates, including candidates for president, less than 1 percent of Americans provided 80 percent of the money.

The effect of all this is apparent. Far too many Americans are now convinced that they count for very little in the political arena because their voices are drowned out at election time by heavy donors and in the legislative process by well-heeled special interests. In a poll conducted last year by the Center on Congress at Indiana University, over half the people surveyed believed that members of Congress pay closest attention to lobbyists; only 10 percent believed they listen to the folks back home.

This is understandable, especially if you look at giving patterns whenever Congress takes up legislation affecting a given industry. When a banking regulation bill starts moving on Capitol Hill, suddenly donations to key members of the banking committees skyrocket; when a health care bill is on the docket, the flow of money to key committee members is unstinting. These torrents of cash power widespread cynicism about our system.

The impact on Capitol Hill has been no more wholesome. Lawmakers are engulfed by the need to raise money, and by the political calculations they must inevitably make when weighing what big-time donors want. They spend many hours each week going to fundraisers or telephoning potential donors; given the need to raise some $15,000 every week for House seats (and more for the Senate), it's hardly surprising that they find themselves listening especially closely to those who can promise access to the financial spigot.

We often criticize Congress for its inefficiency, but its members certainly are efficient at vacuuming up contributions. Yet this fundraising treadmill makes it much more difficult for our elected representatives to do what we hired them to do: study and understand the complicated dilemmas facing our country, debate the policy alternatives, work with one another to forge common ground, and spend time listening to and speaking with their constituents. In other words, it has wrenched the political process completely off track. For both candidate and contributor, the money-hunting process is demeaning.

So it's time for us to consider some alternatives. In my view, this means moving toward the public funding of congressional campaigns, just as we do for presidential campaigns — perhaps requiring a mix of public and private funds.

When I propose this in public forums, I often feel lucky there aren't any pitchforks handy, because my irate listeners would certainly use them on me. But as a political scientist I know puts it: We already pay for congressional campaigns, we just label it "the national debt." Interests that donate to campaigns often get what they want from legislation, and we all pay for that; by comparison, public financing seems like a bargain. Until we get it, moneyed interests will command the playing field, and our political process — and our representative democracy — will be twisted beyond all sense.

Audio Version

You, Too, Should Care About What's Happening To Journalism

2010-04-21T15:29:00.001-04:00

The troubles besetting journalism are of great concern to politicians and journalists who care about the media's role in a representative democracy. But former Congressman Lee Hamilton says that "You, Too, Should Care About What's Happening to Journalism."

A central aspect of the art of politics in Washington is getting information to the American people. Determining what the White House, Congress and the people will focus on — and, just as important, what the content of debate will be — preoccupies politicians at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and legions of lobbyists, pundits, strategists and consultants.

One major institution looms large in all these people's calculations: the national media. Not only has it historically played a vital role in informing the people and focusing their attention on issues that need addressing, but also it has a considerable impact on how we talk about them. What we read in the newspapers, hear on the radio, and see on television or online helps to shape how public policy gets discussed.

The crosscurrents of reasoned discourse and angry outbursts that have characterized much of the debate on health care reform are a perfect illustration of how coverage by the mainstream media, the exhortations of talk radio hosts, and extreme theories spread through the blogosphere all combine to influence the dialogue of democracy.

You can find the crucial role that an independent media plays in a democracy in any basic journalism text. Unlike partisan commentators and bloggers, its first obligation is to the truth: to provide the basic information that a self-governing people relies on to make discerning judgments. This means that journalists have a heavy responsibility to check the facts and be accurate, since their fundamental role is to foster understanding of issues, players and government, not to stoke contempt or praise for them.

The press helps make representative democracy work. If it does its job, it maintains a healthy skepticism of those in power — and of those who seek to defeat them at the ballot box. It should perform vital oversight not only of government, but also of the special interests that seek to influence it. It should provide a forum for public dialogue. It should report comprehensively on issues in a manner that does not reduce them to simple sound bites. And it should strive to help readers, listeners and viewers understand what is significant and what is not.

Without a robust, independent and professionally competent media helping Americans understand our government and politics, and giving them the tools to make good judgments about them, our democracy will fail.

This historic role of the press is under siege today. In part, of course, it's being undermined by the sorry financial state that many newspapers and mainstream news programs find themselves in. But it is also being compromised by the blurring that has taken place in recent years between news and opinion, and. more destructively, between news and entertainment.

The media today is more anxious to comment on the news than it is to cover and report it. Hard news and reasoned analysis are foundering as the numbers of reporters shrink, Washington bureaus are slashed or abandoned altogether, and the space devoted to the basic informative aspects of journalism gives way to reporting about politics, polls, personalities and conflicts, rather than the substance of issues.

And what has come to dominate the public's attention instead? Feisty advocates for a particular point of view, belligerent personalities, and wordsmiths promoted for their cleverness and temerity. Television is a particular culprit here. Many interviewers on television now deem it a virtue to offer an avalanche of opinions and a trickle of facts, to prod for angry shouting matches, to exacerbate differences, and to book guests based on their partisanship, not their knowledge.

It has reached the point where people attempting to be fair, reasoned and discriminating on many television shows either give up or find themselves in the awkward position of being marginalized. The political center may be alive and well among Americans on the ground, but it is very hard to find on the air — when, for instance, was the last time you saw a program on abortion that wasn't all about the clash of pro-life and pro-choice advocates, rather than the more subtle views held by many Americans?

Moreover, I am amazed at how much airtime is spent interviewing pundits about their opinions, both informed and ill-informed, and how little time is spent investigating the facts or breaking stories not already covered in the print media.

All of this, of course, concerns both responsible journalists and those they cover. The relationship between decision-makers and the journalists who report on them is symbiotic. Journalists need newsmakers, but they also rely on politicians with a deep understanding of a given issue to help them explain it to the broader public. Likewise, politicians and policy-makers rely on journalists to help build public understanding by reporting in depth on the substance of issues, not just the politics and the personalities.

A world filled with partisan blogs and hyper-bloviating commentators can work to a politician's advantage, giving him or her the ability to stoke public support by appealing only to the faithful. But the travails besetting journalism today are alarming to those of us who believe that democracy is not simply a matter of mobilizing the masses; it is instead about searching for common ground among competing interests on difficult issues and then painstakingly building support for compromise and reasoned solutions.

All who believe in representative democracy must understand that what's happening in journalism today has huge consequences for the quality and vitality of our republic.

Audio Version

Members of Congress Need to Travel

2010-04-14T16:09:00.001-04:00

The recent brouhaha over congressional plans to buy new military jets for official travel has brought a new round of public criticism of congressional "junkets." Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says, on the contrary: "Members of Congress Need to Travel."

Spooked by the public outcry, the House of Representatives has cancelled its order for four new military jet aircraft that would have been used occasionally to ferry members of Congress around the world. Even so, you shouldn't expect for a minute that the next time you fly, your seatmate in coach will be some duly humbled congressman on a fact-finding mission.

For the most part, when members of Congress head overseas on government business, their experience is a bit different from travel as most of us know it. To begin with, there's no need to worry about schedules or wait at the ticket counter or fret about missing a flight because you're stuck in a security line. If you're flying courtesy of the government, the Air Force will have a plane waiting whenever you're ready to go. Someone picks you up at your house or on Capitol Hill and takes you to Andrews Air Force Base, where they seat you in a very nicely appointed VIP lounge with plenty of refreshments. At some point along the way, they also take charge of your bags; the next time you'll see them will be in your hotel room. You carry on board only those papers and belongings you need in flight.

In the air, members of Congress fly with more room and amenities than first class on commercial flights, with plenty of legroom, excellent meals and attentive service. There's usually a doctor on the flight, offering tips for staying healthy on long jaunts. Quite often, spouses are included in the trip, "for protocol purposes," as the phrase goes. At your destination, you're met by an embassy official who not only has all the details you'll need on your itinerary, but also a wealth of information on restaurants, entertainment (tickets available upon request), museums, and sightseeing, along with information on the politics, personalities, economy and culture of the country you're visiting.

It can sound a lot like one of those tours to exotic locales that colleges now arrange for alumni, except that the taxpayer is picking up much of the bill. And let me assure you, it's not a modest bill. A military plane costs an estimated $10,000 an hour to operate — and that's before you factor in the costs of the actual visit on the ground.

Given Americans' distaste for letting their public officials enjoy unusual privileges, you might be tempted to deride government-sponsored travel as a waste of time and money. But despite everything I've just described, I don't think it is.

The reason is that the alternative — privately sponsored travel — is worse. If a group with an interest in legislation is paying for a trip, it enjoys an extraordinary advantage, because it has those politicians' undivided attention and creates obligations to the group. If you control the transportation, then you control much of the official's itinerary. This is why Congress has sensibly changed the rules governing travel and begun to restrict privately sponsored trips.

And members of Congress do need to travel. Even now, many of these trips can hardly be considered junkets: They go to some pretty uncomfortable places, like Iraq and Afghanistan — where the projection of American power means that the bulk of Americans who travel there are the kind who pack an M-16 as an ordinary part of their luggage.

Members of Congress need to see places that our policies affect, whether they're in the glamorous capital cities of the world, in a war zone, in the developing world or even in Antarctica. There's no other way to understand fully what's at stake.

Members of Congress who travel to difficult spots around the world and try to learn first-hand how our policies and programs work (or don't work) on the ground should be commended, not criticized. Elected officials who don't travel are as much of a problem as those who abuse the privilege.

Don't get me wrong: There are certainly some members who vacation on the public dime. And there's no question that opportunities to keep expenses down on official trips should be a matter of course for Congress. Still, railing against all congressional travel isn't especially useful.

Instead, I believe, the process ought to be as transparent as possible. Every proposed trip should have a legislative purpose, its costs should be rigorously, fully and honestly disclosed, and the ethics committees in the House and Senate should be charged with ensuring that congressional travel privileges don't get abused. A detailed report of the trip with all the relevant information, findings and conclusions should be required. That way, Americans can be sure they're getting public-policy value for their money.

Audio Version

Congrees Needs a Five-Day Work Week

2010-04-06T09:13:00.001-04:00

Making Congress more effective does not necessarily require complicated reforms. In fact, a simple change would go a long way: "Congress Needs A Five-Day Work Week," suggests former Congressman Lee Hamilton.

Looking at ways to make Congress a stronger, more effective institution, it's easy for reformers to get dispirited by the sheer complexity of the task. How do you even begin to fix the budget process, or reduce the hold of campaign money on members' attention, or change the lopsided power equation between Congress and the White House? Yet there is one small improvement that Congress could put into effect right now that would go a long way toward making it a more successful body: extend the congressional work week.

I don't mean to suggest that members of Congress are sloughing off. Far from it: they work extremely hard. It's just that much of their work involves tasks other than legislating. Most of the year, they devote only three days a week to this fundamental responsibility; the rest of the time, they're raising money, giving speeches, politicking in the district, traveling on fact-finding visits, meeting with lobbyists and constituents, and attending to the myriad other responsibilities that contemporary members of Congress believe to be part of their job.

Only during the middle days of the week is their attention focused on the hard and often tedious work of crafting legislative language on difficult policy issues — the core, in the end, of their constitutional reason for being.

Even then, if you spend some time on Capitol Hill, you cannot help but be impressed by the frenzied pace that legislators maintain during the few days they're there. They rush from one committee hearing to another; they hold countless meetings with lobbyists or groups of constituents, interrupted by a quick dash to the floor for votes; they give speeches, spend much time with the media, attend receptions and fundraising events, and put out dozens of telephone calls. The members of Congress I meet generally seem very tired, and it's no wonder, given the schedule they keep.

Which is why I often think of a piece of advice I got from the great New York Times newsman James "Scotty" Reston shortly after I arrived in Congress in the mid-1960s. "Make sure," he told me, "that you take the time to put your feet up on the table, look out the window, and think." When I repeated this to some members of Congress recently, they just laughed — they recognized good advice when they heard it, but also recognized that getting even a few minutes to reflect at peace seems an impossibility these days.

The manic schedule that members of Congress maintain costs them more than the chance to get their thoughts in order. I would argue, in fact, that it hurts their ability to be effective as legislators. For the simple truth is that good legislating takes time. It demands the patient pursuit of consensus, the working through of alternatives, the ability to test ideas in debate, and a willingness to build the broad consensus that is necessary for effective legislation.

All of this is pretty much impossible if you usually devote only three — or three and a half — days a week to the work of the Congress. Many members don't have the opportunity to get to know one another well, and therefore to build the trust required to work across party and ideological lines. Time for debate and deliberation — key constitutional responsibilities — gets constrained.

The opportunities multiply for pursuing delaying tactics, playing against the clock, or, in the Senate, threatening a filibuster. Leaders have more leeway to circumvent good democratic process by cramming complex legislation into last-minute, must-pass legislative vehicles. The cramped congressional schedule, in other words, curtails the deliberative process and encourages the dysfunctional habits that the American people have come to identify with Congress.

This is why returning to a five-day work week on Capitol Hill, at least for three out of every four weeks, is so important.

I recognize that it is politically difficult to pull off — the jet airplane has made returning home to the district so easy that members of Congress feel they must do so every Thursday evening or risk alienating their constituents and the local media. But if they're interested in producing good legislation, there is no substitute for time spent doing so.

A longer work week in Washington would give them the chance to build the ties they need to work together, to craft legislation without constantly looking at the clock, to overcome the delaying tactics that have so frustrated policy-makers in recent years, and to make more rapid progress on the truly difficult issues that confront Congress with such regularity these days. It might even, every so often, give them a chance to put their feet up on the table, look out the window, and spend some time pondering what's best for the American people.

Audio Version

The Sotomayor Hearings Were Hardly Oversight

2010-03-24T15:14:00.001-04:00

One of Congress's most important oversight roles is thoroughly to examine presidential nominees who will be making U.S. policy. This includes Supreme Court nominees, and on this score, says former Congressman Lee Hamilton, "The Sotomayor Hearings Were Hardly 'Oversight.'"

Over four days of hearings into the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her 583 questions. Yet when they were done, we knew little more of importance than we did at the beginning.

To be sure, everyone did his or her job. Senators asked good questions about weighty issues facing this country, from gun rights to how far the executive branch can go in terrorism surveillance. Judge Sotomayor herself laid out the complex history and reasoning behind some notable Supreme Court decisions. Everything went smoothly, there were no headline-grabbing catastrophes, the Obama administration was pleased — in short, for the political establishment these were successful hearings.

Yet I found them singularly unsatisfying, and for a simple reason: despite senators' obvious preparation and repeated attempts to learn more about Judge Sotomayor's views, they failed to illuminate the things we really need to know about her.

This was in no small part due to Judge Sotomayor's masterful adherence to a formula perfected by several nominees before her, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alioto and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is an approach designed to advance an agenda shared by the nominee and the White House — to get confirmed with a minimum of fuss. It includes:
— avoiding direct responses to questions on legal issues while showing a firm command of the considerations involved;
— carefully articulating relevant precedent while declining to reveal how one feels about it;
— taking care to be unflappable and polite, answering each senator as if his or her question were the most important of the hearing;
— and claiming the high road of not answering abstract or hypothetical questions while construing as many questions as possible as falling into this category.

Above all, Judge Sotomayor — like any number of nominees before her — adhered to two myths that senators have historically been reluctant to puncture.

The first is that judges do not legislate from the bench. The truth is, judges of all persuasions do this all the time. When the law is not clear — and as a former member of Congress, I can tell you that a lot of legislation is not clear, because one of the ways Congress reaches consensus is by leaving language ambiguous — then a judge has to decide what it means. And that's making law.

The second myth was repeatedly cited by Judge Sotomayor. Intensely aware of the tricky partisan politics around her years-old "wise Latina" remark, she maintained that judges should not exercise personal discretion in deciding cases, only the precedent of the law. Yet judging is a complex process, and smart people apply the law differently based on their own experience and opinions. In other words, they use personal discretion. If they didn't, then every decision facing the Court would be decided 9-0.

Because the Senate Judiciary Committee was unable to break through these polite pretenses, the American people came away from the Sotomayor hearings with little idea of what kind of justice she will be, and in particular with few indications of how she would rule.

This makes little sense. The Supreme Court, whatever the official mythology, is one of the prime policy-making bodies in Washington; it makes law with every case it decides. As citizens of a democratic government, are we not entitled to know more about how a Justice Sotomayor would think about the cases before her?

To be sure, on questions she might be called upon to decide in short order, there might be legitimate cause to decline to answer questions. But that right should be exercised narrowly. On the whole, Americans would have been far better served had we been able to learn her positions on abortion, executive versus legislative power, gun rights, privacy, and a raft of other issues.

That, after all, is what legislative oversight is about, and it is why I am critical of the Senate's current process for deciding on a Supreme Court nomination. We need to know as much as possible about the people who will fill this vitally important role in the nation's policy-making apparatus. It is Congress's responsibility, as the arm of the federal government closest to the American people, to ensure that we do.

Instead, by allowing itself to be persuaded by the politically expedient argument that justice is blind, the Senate has merely ensured that up to the moment a new justice actually puts on the robes of the highest court in the land, the American people will be, too.

Audio Version

The Private Lives of Public Officials

2010-03-22T14:40:00.001-04:00

Looking at recent revelations about the private misconduct of a series of public officials, you might ask what the public response ought to be. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says that when it comes to the private lives of public officials, that decision is up to each of us individually.

As happens every so often, we have recently been through a spate of embarrassing reports about the lives of prominent public officials. Adulterous affairs by Nevada Senator John Ensign, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and former presidential candidate John Edwards, entanglements in prostitution by Louisiana Senator David Vitter and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer — these are just the latest in a long line of dismaying revelations about people in whom the American voters once put their trust.

Celebrities often disappoint. Baseball players use steroids; track stars and internationally known bicyclists enhance their performance with chemicals; entertainers slip into alcohol- or drug-induced misbehavior; ministers run away with their choir directors.

Politicians are no different, with actions that raise issues about their judgment, self-control, and basic integrity. They are public figures, but they are also all too human, with all the strengths and flaws that attach to the human condition.

The question, of course, is what do we do when their private lives go off the rails? And the answer, I'm afraid, is that there is no answer: Each of us can only respond according to his or her own lights.

I still remember, for instance, a single day in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal that beset the presidency of Bill Clinton. Two constituents of mine, both strong Clinton supporters, spoke publicly about their reactions. One commented that he still believed Clinton was a strong and effective president, whatever his personal behavior. The other declared that he was appalled by the whole affair and could never bring himself to support Clinton again. Both were intensely personal reactions.

Because there are no set rules when it comes to this sort of thing, there is also little consistency when it comes to the long-term results. Some politicians' careers have been undone or badly sidetracked — think of Spitzer, Edwards, or former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey — while others have suffered uncomplimentary attention for a few weeks and then picked up their careers where they left off.

In the end, a politician's fate often rests in the hands of the voters, who must use their own judgment about that politician's values, performance, and abilities. Voters tend to prefer politicians who share their values and signal that they'd make similar choices on ideological issues — indeed, the question of how much weight to place on character issues often depends on whether or not we agree on a politician's positions.

But if voters see hypocrisy — behavior that the politician in question would have been quick to condemn in others — they are less likely to be tolerant, and can be merciless.

There is another question that has to come up in such cases, and that is whether the misbehavior is truly personal, or instead threatens to bring discredit to the institution in which the politician serves. This is illustrated in the House of Representatives, where the official name of the committee overseeing members' behavior is not — despite its wide use — the "House Ethics Committee," but rather the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee. Its focus is less on ethical misconduct in general than on actions that relate to official conduct and that might undermine the integrity of the institution or affect a member's performance of his or her official duties.

A House member's extra-marital affair with a neighbor, for instance, would probably not lead to any formal committee involvement — in that case, the House would leave questions of punishment up to the voters back home. But a member's affair with a lobbyist, or with a paid member of the staff — and certainly with a congressional page — would lead to a much tougher look by the committee and the House as a whole. In some cases, important questions need to be investigated and answered: Was public money involved? Did a politician abuse his or her position of power? Were any laws broken?

This means that sometimes — rarely to be sure — the House or Senate takes action to remove the member from Congress. Yet other times he may leave because of actions taken by the courts. And sometimes he decides to resign from office midterm or not run for re-election.

Yet often the decision is left up to the voter, and in that case each of us will have to make our own judgments. We may be disappointed when a political leader's personal vulnerabilities or weaknesses come to light, but how that affects our willingness to support him or her is a deeply personal decision.

As voters, we're asked all the time to make decisions about politicians based on incomplete or insufficient information. When an elected official misbehaves, all we can do is to make the best decision we can, rooted in what we know about the case and our own personal reaction.

Audio Version

Congress Needs To Embrace Transparency

2010-03-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

Secrecy in government breeds cynicism. That is why, former Congressman Lee Hamilton says, "Congress Needs to Embrace Transparency."

The word "transparency" has been much in vogue on Capitol Hill lately. The stimulus package contained unprecedented requirements for tracking where and how federal dollars are spent. Some members of Congress have openly been pushing the National Security Agency to account for its surveillance of U.S. citizens' emails. President Obama's plans for revamping financial regulation have brought renewed calls for greater openness on the part of the Federal Reserve, one of the most habitually opaque institutions in Washington.

These are refreshing developments. A big part of Congress' role in our democracy is to ensure that the executive branch carries out its responsibilities to the American people in plain sight — or, at least, as openly as the demands of national security permit.

The presumption in a free society is that government will operate in the light of day, allowing its actions to be gauged and assessed, and its decision-makers to be held accountable to the American people. There are limits, of course, especially when it comes to national security, but secrecy is too often used as an excuse to cloak positions that politicians don't want to reveal, or mistakes that bureaucrats would rather cover up, or simply to avoid accountability for actions that wouldn't stand up to public scrutiny.

I don't mean to suggest that transparency is always called for, but the institutions of our government function better when they do so visibly, rather than in the shadows.

This goes especially for Congress. On the whole, it has a better record of openness than the executive branch, but it's "the people's branch" — it ought to do better. Over the last few decades it has made some significant strides on this score: putting television cameras in the House and Senate chambers and in committee hearings; requiring recorded votes both on the floor and in committee; opening up conference committees; moving — at least in the House of Representatives — to make campaign filings more easily available, and requiring more information from lobbyists.

All of this makes legislators more accountable to the people who elect them and more accessible to the various stakeholders who will be affected by legislation.

Yet openness in Congress is a work in progress, not a done deal. Increasingly, for instance, important legislation is being put together by just a few leading members, sometimes without amendments or full-on debate being allowed. The drive to open conference committees has had the unforeseen side effect of making them less important — the leadership of both houses often cooperates, now, to sidestep them so that deals can be struck in private.

While the 110th Congress took the important step of making individual members' responsibility for particular earmarks more transparent, it is still too hard to find out whether officers of companies benefiting from those earmarks made campaign contributions to the members who sponsored them.

And although Congress has tried to strengthen the disclosures required of lobbyists, it has been less assertive about enforcing them — according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a sample group of lobbyists failed to document fully their activities in more than half the disclosure reports they filed, as required by law.

While secrecy breeds problems for government as a whole, I believe it is especially problematic for Congress. It makes ordinary Americans more cynical, limits the access of stakeholders, and permits members to avoid accountability for their actions and cut corners they shouldn't cut. In other words, it creates both political problems for Congress — as measured by lack of trust in the institution — and makes legislation less responsive than it would be if it were openly created and debated.

As a member of Congress, I often encountered a troubling lack of confidence in the American people on the part of both executive-branch officials and my congressional colleagues. They believed that it was fine for them to know things that most Americans didn't. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times: "Trust me; I know." This is fine for troop movements, but in most cases I believe they underestimated the sophistication and good judgment of the American people. "Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe," Abraham Lincoln once said.

And while I thoroughly agree with him, I would add one point: If it is the responsibility of Congress and the White House to hold themselves to high standards of transparency, it is equally the responsibility of voters and media to demand openness and accountability of their government.

Audio Version

Why Congress Needs Institutionalists

2010-03-09T10:20:00.001-05:00

In these politicized times, it's getting harder to find members of Congress who put the interests of the institution they serve first Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says this is troubling, and explains "Why Congress Needs Institutionalists."

It takes all kinds of people to make the U.S. Congress work. The ambitious and the laid-back, loners and consensus-builders, partisans and aisle-crossers — all have their place. In these highly politicized times, though, there's one type who is particularly valuable: the institutionalist.

This means pretty much what it sounds like: a member who puts the institution of Congress first. Who welcomes responsibility for making it work; who pushes his or her colleagues to fulfill their constitutional obligations; who respects the role and history of Congress in forging this country's history.

Institutionalists generally tend to be more senior members of Congress, whose years on Capitol Hill not only give them an appreciation for the accomplishments of the legislators who came before them, but also help them put in perspective all the other considerations that compete for a younger member's attention, like partisanship, power, relations with the White House, and the regular task of getting re-elected.

For what an institutionalist values above all else is the role that Congress plays in making our representative democracy viable. It should not be merely a body of elected officials, each pursuing his or her own goals or banding together to advance one political party's interests. Rather, Congress has a set of responsibilities laid out in the Constitution and developed over the 220 years of its existence that enable it to serve as the place where the American people come closest to touching their national government.

To do what's required of it, Congress must function as a deliberative and democratic body; work as both a partner and a critic of the presidency; protect itself against inevitable pressure from the White House to let the President set the agenda in all things; and engage constantly in the search for remedies to the challenges that beset our country. These things don't just happen on their own. They require members of Congress to tend to the body in which they serve.

All too often, though, both incumbents and challengers these days run against the Congress, taking delight in criticizing it and hoping to make themselves look good as a result; this public disdain for the institution makes it much harder to play a constructive role in building on what's right about the place.

The traditions of Congress — rules about how legislation should be handled, how debate takes place, how controversy gets channeled through layers of committees so a productive conversation can take place — evolved because of a simple insight: democracy is a process, not the most expeditious means to a result. Congressional conventions embody certain values, such as fairness, the importance of deliberation, and a bedrock concern for building consensus instead of riding roughshod over the concerns of the minority or throwing wrenches into the plans of the majority.

Fairness and deliberation and consensus-seeking have not been noticeable priorities in Congress of late. Over the last couple of decades, concern for how Congress functions as an institution has increasingly taken a back seat to other priorities: party-building, fundraising, the centralization of power in the leadership's hands, making certain that members can take four days every week to get home and campaign. This has all taken a visible toll on relations among members of Congress, and it has also diminished the institution itself. It has become less fair, less deliberative, and — with some exceptions — less concerned with finding consensus among its diverse parts.

This is why it is so crucial that there be members of Congress whose chief goal is to strengthen it. Anyone with an appreciation for the accomplishments of Congresses past — from the GI Bill to the creation of the land-grant colleges to the interstate highway system to Medicare, Medicaid and the civil rights legislation of the 1960s — can't help but see value in an institution capable of making this a better nation.

Institutionalists in Congress are often seen by their peers as slightly quirky nags, consumed with the trifles of process or precedent while the more important work of fighting against the opposition or slamming legislation through at all costs goes ahead. But of course, they've got it backward. It's the institutionalists who have the nation's best interests at heart, because they understand the role that Congress plays in sustaining a functioning democracy and making the country work.

Audio Version

Is Fixing Congressional Procedure A Lost Cause?

2010-03-03T15:59:00.000-05:00

Changes in how Congress operates have made it a less open, fair and democratic institution. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton worries that it may now be too late to change, and wonders, "Is Fixing Congressional Procedure A Lost Cause?"

Four years ago, the Democratic minority on the Rules Committee of the U.S. House — the body that oversees legislative process for that side of the Capitol — issued a lengthy report excoriating the Republican majority for abandoning "procedural fairness" and "democratic accountability." The House leadership of the time, it charged, had essentially shut down debate and boxed the minority out of any meaningful participation in congressional life.

Last year, the Republicans on the committee — now in the minority themselves — responded with a similar broadside. They accused the new Democratic majority, in the words of their report's subtitle, of abandoning "its promises of openness and civility." "The record demonstrates," they went on to say, that Congress under the Democrats "has actually been more closed than any in history."

This exchange may seem to be an obscure front in the usual partisan warfare on Capitol Hill, but there is something more fundamental going on than simple partisanship. There is, I believe, a generational shift that has taken place in Congress that raises the question of whether the deliberation, openness and fairness that most Americans would want to see in their premier legislative body are receding out of reach.

Simply put, the rules have become a tool of the leadership in both parties to pursue their goals — and there are very few members of Congress who still remember when they instead guaranteed the right of ordinary members to engage in open debate and to affect the course of legislation. Each side seems to recognize this now only when it is in the minority.

The body of rules that members of Congress like to refer to as "the regular order" evolved over time for a reason. It performed a balancing act: on the one hand, allowing any member a chance to participate in debate and legislation, and on the other, seeking to rein in and channel the determination of ambitious politicians to have their say. In doing this, the rules sought to preserve Congress' essential nature as the place where Americans' representatives could bring their various points of view — regional, ideological, moral, and parochial — and work to reconcile them as they grappled with promoting the national interest.

But gradually, beginning under Democratic majorities in the 1980s and accelerating under the Republican majority of the 1990s, the leadership — especially in the House — began to experiment with interpreting the rules to maximize its power. It did so in part because it wanted to banish uncertainty — the unforeseen amendment, the chance that a floor debate might change minds — and in part because the close partisan divide of the last couple of decades has raised the stakes in every vote, redoubling the determination of the majority to avoid politically uncomfortable votes arranged by the minority.

The paths the leadership took seem technical. It used the Rules Committee, stacked with loyalists, to limit the ability of members to debate or amend legislation. It found ways to bypass the general committee structure entirely and have bills considered only under conditions — and with amendments — of its own choosing. It began to rely on huge omnibus bills that are impossible for members to read through, let alone analyze and debate, before they're voted on. It limited the ability of conference committees between the House and Senate to depart from the script laid out in advance by leaders in both chambers.

The upshot, however, is not at all technical. Power is now concentrated in the hands of the leadership and its allies. Actual debate — debate in which the legislative outcome is uncertain — is largely a thing of the past. Legislative maneuvering is aimed less at affecting policy than at affecting elections. The divide between the majority and the minority — not just as partisan bodies, but as individuals serving in Congress together — is deepened by mutual unhappiness over how the other side behaves.

This is not healthy for Congress, and it is certainly not healthy for the American people, who deserve policies that are openly debated and fairly pursued. So I worry that with every passing year, it is getting harder to undo the changes of the past couple of decades. For most members of Congress now, the current state of affairs is "the regular order," and the earlier era isn't even a memory.

Change is unlikely to be driven from within; it will only happen, I believe, if enough members of the public come to see the disconnect between how Congress runs itself day-to-day, and our ideals for a representative democracy that is worthy of the name.

Audio Version

What It Means To Be A Representative

2010-02-23T09:24:00.001-05:00

One of the hardest jobs of an elected representative is learning how to represent a diverse constituency. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton explains "What It Means To Be A Representative."

Compared to what it looked like a couple of decades ago, Congress today is a far more representative body. It's true that, as Congressional Quarterly recently pointed out, the House and Senate are still "populated mainly by wealthy white men with advanced degrees and backgrounds in law and business." Yet Capitol Hill undeniably looks more like the American people than in the past.

It has more women than ever before, for instance — 90 all told. It has a mix of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans. It has its first member of Vietnamese descent, and it's likely that its ethnic diversity will grow with each election. It has members who grew up in families with very little, and members who have never known a day of want.

Yet "representation" in Congress takes place at two levels. The first is what most people think of when they talk about how well Congress reflects the nation, the sort of tallying by category I've done above: gender, ethnic or racial background, and the like. The less common, but no less important, way of looking at it has to do with how well individual members actually represent their districts or states: not in terms of their looks or background, but in terms of their actions.

One of the most memorable aspects of the years I spent as a representative in Congress was the astounding cross-section of people I met in my district. I'm hard-pressed to think of another job that could have exposed me to such an array of classes, occupations, racial and ethnic backgrounds, political philosophies, and cultural preferences. Districts and states vary, of course, and some are more homogeneous than others. Yet there isn't a constituency in the country that doesn't call on its member of Congress to reach out to people of wildly different backgrounds and outlook.

This is not always easy. We all instinctively like or dislike people, in part based on the snap judgments we make when we first meet or even see them. Yet that is a burden the best politicians learn to get over quickly, and not just because they want to get elected.

For in the end, the job of representative isn't just to speak for the people with whom one feels comfortable. It's to strive to understand and represent everyone in a constituency. This is, interestingly enough, one of the more bracing aspects of the job: you invariably learn something about ways of looking at the world from people who think differently from you; you also learn that, for the most part, their motives are as sincere as your own. As it happens, this is all good training for being a legislator: listening to other points of view and searching for common ground is part and parcel of being effective in Washington.

Still, paying close attention to the diverse views of a constituency is one of the most difficult aspects of the job. The challenge, of course, is how to reconcile all those conflicting views with one another. As an elected representative, you often ask yourself what your obligation should be to people who don't agree with you — a good many of whom will probably be working to defeat you in the next election. Clearly, you can't violate your own core beliefs; nor can you hope to give voice to every nuance you find in your district. As a representative, though, you can work hard to understand them better; you can search for points they have in common with one another and with you; you can explain why you differ from them; and you can strive at least to acknowledge the positions you do respect, even if you don't agree with them.

Just as important, you can make sure that you never let policy disagreements get in the way of the rest of the job — making sure lost Social Security checks get found, veterans' benefits get paid, and other ways of running interference with the federal bureaucracy are pursued.

As a politician, you quickly learn that it's impossible to satisfy everyone. There will always be someone in a crowd who, when you approach, refuses to shake your hand.

Yet your job, both as a politician and as a representative, isn't to satisfy everyone: it's to satisfy most people. It's to listen carefully, carry what you hear back home to Washington and express it, explain what you hear in Washington to people back home, and, more than anything else, allow the small slice of the American people you represent to feel that there is someone in Washington doing his or her level best to give them a voice.

Audio Version

In Congress, Change Is A Constant

2010-02-19T12:47:00.002-05:00

Congress may not seem to change much from year to year, but in fact it is an evolving institution, and not always for the better, says former Congressman Lee Hamilton.

We think of Congress as immutable, a steadfast presence in American life since its first session in 1789. The inspiration we draw from the dome of the Capitol, the pull of a congressional hearing we know will change the course of history, the lofty statements on the floor of the House or Senate — these were as much a part of our grandparents' time as they are of ours.

Yet after watching Congress carefully for nearly 45 years, I am struck as much by how it has changed as by how much has endured. In everything from where power lies and how it is wielded, to the procedures for running the institution, to how members like to operate, the Congress today is a different body from the one I joined in 1965.

The most significant change has been its steady yielding of power to the White House. Our democracy was built on the core notion that the Congress, the President, and the judiciary would serve to check and balance one another. Yet there is no question today where the national agenda — from budget-making to the use of force — gets set. In deferring so often to the President, I believe, Congress has become a much less powerful actor in the American system of government than the founders intended and a well-functioning representative democracy requires.

Power within Congress has shifted, too. The leadership — especially the majority leadership in both houses — has consolidated its hold on the institution with ever larger staffs and budgets, making it harder for other voices to be heard. Not coincidentally, the influence of campaign money, and therefore of those who raise it and those who determine where it will be spent, has taken on vastly greater importance than it held four decades ago. So, too, has the presence and influence of lobbyists, leading many Americans to feel that they have no real voice in the policy-making process.

Even so, Americans' relationship with Congress has changed in many ways for the better. Though the average member of Congress represents about 200,000 more people today than he or she did in the 1960s, Congress today better reflects the diversity of America. It includes more women, more members of racial and ethnic minorities, more people with different backgrounds. Congress is also a more open institution: Its proceedings are televised, its votes are widely published, its activities — especially in this day of instant communications — more readily scrutinized.

Still, this openness has its drawbacks. Televising congressional hearings and debate has led to more grandstanding and greater use of celebrities by advocacy groups hoping to draw attention, diminishing the quality of deliberation and most likely contributing to a rise in partisanship as members play to their political bases.

There are other dynamics at work, such as the declining competitiveness of congressional districts, work schedules that provide members fewer opportunities to get to know one another, and the overall weakening of the political center in the U.S., but the results are striking to someone who knew Congress four decades ago: It is more open, but also less civil, less friendly, and more intensely political now.

It is also more pressured. Congress confronts issues of a complexity that was unimaginable a few decades ago: global warming, terrorism, cyberwarfare, the spread of nuclear weapons, a vastly more complex and interwoven global economy. It must also respond to an electorate and a set of special interests that see much more at stake in its actions than they did when I arrived and are skillful at pressing those interests on legislators.

Where the general attitude toward Washington once was "get off my back," now there is intense pressure on Congress to "get government on my side," whether through tax breaks, subsidies, or regulatory favoritism.

So it's hardly surprising that Congress now operates differently, short-circuiting the "regular order," relying on omnibus funding bills, and compressing the work week as leaders seek to control the outcome and avoid drawn-out debate. This has fed a drop in deliberation and in the quality of congressional debate, creating a more frenetic, less thoughtful and systematic body. To be sure, individual members can still lead their colleagues on both sides of the aisle through a thorough consideration of one issue or another, but those instances stand out as exceptions now, not the rule.

In other words, Congress may still be our indispensable institution, the place that makes this country a representative democracy, but it also an institution that continues to evolve, in ways both good and bad. It is under great stress at a time of national need. The challenge is to make it work better. Our representative democracy depends on it.

Audio Version

Can Congress Cope With The Communications Age?

2010-02-03T14:22:00.005-05:00

The communications revolution has presented Congress with an ironic problem: how to ensure that messages to and from constituents get heard. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton wonders, "Can Congress Cope With The Communications Age?"

When I first came to Congress in the 1960s, dialogue between members of Congress and their constituents was straightforward. Every so often, a lawmaker would get interviewed on radio or television. Many sent monthly newsletters to the folks back home. They responded to letters, fielded and made telephone calls, and met as often as possible with the people who had sent them to Washington. It was by no means a perfect system — unless they made extraordinary efforts, legislators were often in touch with a smaller cross-section of the population than they should have been — but it worked tolerably well and was readily managed.

Today, something very like the opposite situation prevails: lawmakers are deluged by e-mail messages from constituents and grassroots lobbying campaigns; they can be in touch with millions of people at the press of a "send" button or via a quick upload to YouTube; they can blog about their experiences on the floor of the House, hold videoconferences or telephone town meetings with people back home, and Twitter their thoughts to followers any time of the day or night.

The technology allowing communications between ordinary Americans and their elected representatives, in other words, is superb. Yet for all the words that flow back and forth between Capitol Hill and the country at large, it's not at all clear how much actual dialogue is taking place.

Part of this is a function of sheer volume. As the Congressional Management Foundation wrote in a 2008 report after surveying ordinary citizens and lawmakers and their staffs about their use of the Internet, "[T]echnological developments have been so rapid that neither citizens and the organizers of grassroots advocacy campaigns (the senders) nor congressional offices (the receivers) have learned to use it in ways that facilitate truly effective communications between citizens and Members of Congress. As a result, while more messages are being sent to Congress, it seems less actual communication is occurring."

The survey found that no one is happy with the situation: Hill staffers feel overwhelmed, while almost half the people who wrote to Congress and received a reply were dissatisfied with the response and almost two-thirds believed their representatives "were not interested in what they have to say."

Let's be clear about what's at stake here. A representative democracy depends on the give-and-take between lawmakers and those they represent. When that discourse breaks down — whether it's because high-rolling campaign donors drown out ordinary voters, or because changing technology overwhelms the ability of congressional offices to understand and represent public sentiment adequately — then it threatens the legitimacy of the system.

This presents a true challenge for Congress. Where the White House under President Obama has shown that it can use the Internet and social networking tools to mobilize a political base, it is largely a one-way street; no one expects a quick reply from the President to a letter or a text message. Congress is different. It is the tribune of the American people and we treat it accordingly: we not only expect two-way communications, we need them. That's how the system is supposed to work.

In this period of transition to the new technologies, there are some promising signs. A few members of Congress have learned to make effective use of blogs, Facebook and even Twitter to stay in touch with constituents; the House and Senate both have channels on YouTube now, and though they're mostly filled with the equivalent of video press releases, I have no doubt that legislators will figure out more compelling ways to use them. Meanwhile, the Congressional Management Foundation, after a decade of study, is working to convene congressional staff and grassroots advocates to develop ways to aggregate, verify, and manage online communications, so that Capitol Hill doesn't find itself so engulfed by citizens' messages that it tunes them out.

In the end, adapting to new communications technology will require work on both sides of the equation. Members of Congress will need to develop the tools that allow them to manage immense volumes of "mail," and let constituents know the best and most effective ways of passing along their thoughts. Voters who want to have an impact will need to pay attention, and not just assume that sending a quick email or filling out a form provided by their favorite advocacy group will command attention.

In the age of instant communications, in other words, it's not just the volume of words but the quality of the communication that matters.

Audio Version

Even In An Economic Crisis, Follow The Money

2009-04-30T09:43:00.001-04:00

Recently, Newsweek looked at Federal Election Commission records and made an intriguing discovery. The political action committees of five major recipients of federal bank bailout money, it found, made some $85,000 in campaign contributions in January and February, mostly to members of Congress sitting on the committees that oversee their industry.

Quite naturally, the magazine uncovered some squeamishness about the notion that taxpayer dollars meant to resolve the credit crisis are instead being used to influence Congress. "The last thing I want to do is wake up one morning and see our PAC check being burned on C-SPAN," one bank lobbyist said. Even so, some banks are making the contributions, and lawmakers are accepting them.

And why not? This is how business gets done in Washington. In an illuminating, full-page chart, The New York Times recently illustrated the ties between captains of finance and members of Congress in 2007-2008: PAC donations in the millions of dollars from various Wall Street firms, and a web of lines showing personal donations that snaked from their CEOs to various influential lawmakers.

The same could be done with other industries. When prescription drug coverage provisions come up in Congress, big pharmaceutical companies blanket the capital with their presence and their cash. When defense procurement issues come up, military contractors — and their money — are everywhere you turn. On any given issue, in other words, interests with money line up to show Congress how much they care.

In his new book on the chase for political cash, So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government, longtime Washington Post editor Robert Kaiser tells a story about the late John Stennis, the legendary Senator from Mississippi. In 1982, running for his seventh term, Stennis found himself in a tough race, and was urged by his consultants to raise money from the defense industry he oversaw from his perches on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees. "Would that be proper?" Stennis responded. "Sir, I hold life and death over those companies. I don't think it would be proper for me to take money from them."

By the time Senator Stennis uttered those words, Washington was already changing; expressing that sentiment today would immediately get you written off as hopelessly naïve. The political process runs on people and organized interests with money: politicians need it in order to get elected; donors use it to try to get favorable legislation. And everyone knows how the game is played: legislators raise money from the industries that come under the purview of their committees, while donors contribute to those who wield the most influence over their interests and don't waste their resources on politicians who are irrelevant.

It is not at all clear what we can do about this. I don't fault politicians for raising money to run for re-election. How do you fund a multi-million dollar campaign without such contributions? Yet whether they want to admit it or not, accepting that money puts them under some obligation to donors.
We cannot eliminate money in politics, if for no other reason than that doing so would threaten this nation's obligation to protect free speech. Those who contribute to campaigns have a right to do so to promote their interests. I do wonder, however, who contributes to the common good. We want to make sure we have a system that allows everyone — not just the well-heeled — to express their views to their representatives and have those views treated with equal consideration.

I think the chase for money — demeaning to both candidate and contributor — has gotten so far out of hand that it is beginning to threaten representative democracy itself. And though we still haven't figured out a cure, that's not a reason to stop trying to find one.

One step in the right direction is to ensure real-time transparency of donations, so that as they come in, the public can learn about them. This already happens in the U.S. House, where donations must be filed and made available electronically. Astoundingly, though, the Senate has been dragging its heels on even this modest reform — when what we really need goes further: a system that gives the voter, with the click of a few computer keys, instant access to charts that line up contributions to members with their votes and earmarks. This is only difficult politically, not technologically. If Congress wants to restore public confidence in its actions, that's the direction it needs to head.

Audio Version

Is Congress Up To The Task Before It?

2009-04-23T12:33:00.001-04:00

I arrived in Congress in 1965, just as President Lyndon Johnson's transformation of the U.S. government was getting under way. It was an extraordinary time, as LBJ sent up to Capitol Hill his proposals for Medicare, Medicaid, aid to elementary and secondary education, the Voting Rights Act, and a host of other bills that reshaped Washington and its place in the nation's life. The United States was a different country by the time Congress finished.

We are at a juncture that may be as far-reaching and no less dramatic. With the economic crisis as a backdrop, President Obama has sent to Capitol Hill a budget that places the government more thoroughly in American life than at any time in the past three decades, and eschews the anti-tax, anti-regulatory approach to public policy that has generally predominated in recent decades. The White House has put Congress on notice that it intends to reform the health-care system, make fundamental improvements to public education, and remake national energy policy. These changes are necessary, it contends, to keep the U.S. economy strong and prosperous.

There is an important difference in the approaches taken by the two presidents, Johnson and Obama. Enjoying the momentum built by his landslide victory in the 1964 elections, Johnson gave Congress specific proposals, like the Medicaid bill and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He told Congress precisely what he wanted and then helped shape its response.

President Obama, on the other hand, has given Congress the goals he wants to pursue and the concepts he intends to support, then left it up to lawmakers to craft the fine print. As the New York Times put it recently, he is "taking a gamble in outsourcing the drafting of his agenda's details" to Congress.

This is not just a leap of faith on the President's part, however. Given the recent past, it also presents Congress with an exacting test of its ability to function effectively and produce policies that serve the American people well.

Congress has a history of not dealing well with the big issues. Now it's presented with a budget and a presidential agenda that offer no letup in big issues. Its challenge is two-fold: to act at a time of crisis and in an economy that's being reshaped by the day; and, despite the pressure to act quickly, to act in a manner that allows for the deliberation and consensus-building that uphold the democratic process.

How it will respond remains an open question. No sooner had the President's plans landed on Capitol Hill than legislators of both parties and powerful interest groups declared this or that provision badly flawed, seeming to reject the President's proposals without open-minded consideration and debate. Meanwhile, there is a strong likelihood that the leadership, as it has done far too often in recent years, will choose to deal with the issues before it by bundling them into omnibus legislation that permits very little deliberation and requires an up-or-down vote on a bill of gigantic size and complexity. This may be efficient, but it is hardly democratic.

Congress has been given an extraordinary opportunity to live up to its constitutional responsibilities and to function effectively in the national interest. While its public standing has been improving of late, it remains damaged by the perception its members care more about catering to donors, playing partisan games, and putting in a three- or four-day workweek than they do about tackling the nation's toughest challenges in a reasoned, comprehensive, and fair way.

Now, at a time when Americans are closely tuned in to events in Washington, Congress is being asked by the President to address a far-reaching agenda. It can do so by reviving the tradition of open debate that enlightens the American people and allows its members to weigh the questions before them as they develop consensus, or it can give in to its recent habits of procedural expediency and partisan tactics. The test for Congress is clear. Let's hope it chooses wisely.

Audio Version

Conference Committees Fade, Democracy Suffers

2009-04-21T11:22:00.001-04:00

In the official record, you'll find that the economic stimulus package recently passed by Congress was drawn up by a conference committee — a bipartisan group of House members and Senators who sat down together to wrangle over its fine print. In truth, nothing like this took place.

To be sure, a conference committee met, as is supposed to happen when legislation passed by the House differs from the version passed by the Senate. But it was more for show than for actual debate and deliberation.

Instead, like much legislation over the last decade and a half, the final version of the stimulus bill was pieced together behind closed doors by a handful of lawmakers. Then it was put to a vote before their colleagues could conceivably read the whole thing, let alone digest its implications. As Slate Magazine's John Dickerson put it, "the stimulus deal was so opaque even the people negotiating it weren't in on what was in it."

This may be par for the course in Washington now, but it's hard to argue our democracy has benefited as a result. Of all the various procedures developed by a maturing Congress over the last couple of centuries, conference committees were once seen as perhaps the most important step in passing legislation. They were where House members and senators, Democrats and Republicans, all came together to draft final language, strike compromises, deliberate face to face, and reach agreement on all aspects of a bill before sending a measure to the President.

In essence, they were where the very idea of representative democracy was put into practice, bringing regions, interests, ideologies, and attitudes toward legislating together in one room so they could find common ground.

But the conference committee appears to be dying. As Congressional Quarterly reported in January, there were 62 conference committees in 1993-94, and only 10 in 2007-8. Measures last year to reform electronic surveillance policy, bail out the finance industry, deal with the nation's foreclosure crisis, and fund the federal government all passed without a regular conference committee.

Instead, about 80 percent of laws now are made by one chamber of Congress simply adopting the version passed by the other. Others are so tightly controlled by the leadership that — as with the stimulus package — they're the result of a conference in name only. Because bills that come out of conference can only receive an up or down vote on the floor — there is no chance for amendment — this puts considerable power into the hands of the majority leadership. Especially when, as has happened from time to time, the majority leadership neglects to tell the minority that a conference committee is even meeting.

This certainly makes for expeditious legislating, but at the cost of deliberation, bicameralism, transparency, and basic fairness. It means that debate and compromise get short-circuited. It means that the approaches unique to each chamber — the Senate's tradition of careful rumination, the House's tendency to reflect the urgencies of the moment — have no chance to be balanced against one another. It means that it is almost impossible for ordinary lawmakers, let along the general public, to understand how a measure was put together and what's in it. And it means that most members, especially if they are in the minority party, get cut out of the process.

This trend is not just bad news for the basic values Congress is supposed to represent, it damages Congress' performance as well. Members learn a great deal about the art of legislating in a well-run conference committee. They have to bargain, accommodate one another's needs, listen carefully to arguments, try different approaches, search for consensus, reconcile differences. In a sense, conference committees offer the chance to hone the political arts and values that democracy requests of its elected officials.

By the same token, the move to bypass conference committees has allowed negotiations and the crafting of bills to take place solely within the majority party, under the auspices of the House speaker and the Senate majority leader. The result has been legislation that tends to be less comprehensive, less accommodating to the legitimate concerns of the other side, more partisan, and more irritating to those excluded from the process. A major reason for the frustration of legislators is that they feel left out of this decision-making process.

When rank-and-file members of Congress press for a return to "the regular order," they are talking in part about restoring the conference committee to its rightful place. And that is because they recognize that the institution they serve — and the Americans they represent — are being harmed by the leadership's willingness to sidestep the conference tradition in the name of power and convenience.

Audio Version

Effective Oversight Requires Effective Press

2009-02-17T10:08:00.002-05:00

These are extraordinary political and economic times, and even from a distance you can sense the animation on Capitol Hill as Congress debates President Obama's stimulus package, weighs his executive-branch appointments, and responds to his various initiatives.

You can feel the same intensity in the Washington press corps, as it works to keep a rapt public briefed on the ins and outs of the capital's daily workings. Yet as capable a job as it's doing right now, we should all be worried about what happens with the press in upcoming months.

I say this because reporters in Washington bear great responsibility in our democracy at the moment. Both Congress and the White House are in the hands of the same political party, which is almost certain to magnify an already troubling long-term trend: congressional deference to White House authority, especially on budgetary and foreign-policy issues. We saw the pernicious effect of this during the first six years of the previous administration, when a Republican Congress failed in its oversight role of a Republican president.

Now, although the policy particulars are different with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president, the results could very well turn out the same: A Congress that defers to the president is, unfortunately, a Congress that is prone to be passive in the oversight of his administration, which can lead to ineffective government performance, unresponsive bureaucracy, and wasteful spending. A few legislators will conduct tough oversight, but the likelihood is high that most will not.

This means that the watchdogs of the press will be needed more than ever to delve into the federal government's nooks and crannies, analyze its performance, make sure that programs are implemented as intended, explore the shadows where officials often feel most comfortable operating, and make sure that both the American people and members of Congress understand what the government is doing in their name.

The public's dependence on the press, however, couldn't come at a more challenging time. Almost every day now brings word of newspaper cutbacks — in space for news, in reporters, and in the resources that can be devoted to research, investigation and reporting. News organizations from Gannett to the Tribune Company to Cox Communications have been laying off and shrinking, with the result that newspapers large and small are trimming or even closing their Washington bureaus, a trend that has been echoed at state capitols around the country.
Inevitably, this means that the breadth of news we can get about our governments, both federal and state, is shrinking, too.

This is not to say that the volume of political and policy news has shrunk — not with niche cable channels, the blogosphere, the websites of organizations devoted to particular issues, and a press corps that, despite its travails, remains determined to cover Washington. Nor do I mean to suggest that we don't get solid investigative work out of the DC press corps any longer. It was the Washington Post, for instance, that reported on the CIA's secret interrogation sites for suspected terrorists and on mismanagement at the Smithsonian Institution. It was The New York Times that broke the story about the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

And it was a politics-and-policy website, Talking Points Memo, that led the press corps in detailing the Justice Department's politically motivated firing of U.S. attorneys. Moreover, the not-for-profit effort, ProPublica, shows promise as a source of serious investigative reporting down the road.

Still, the federal government is immense, and over the years most of the press corps had already given up paying close, detailed attention to the inner workings of various departments, from Agriculture to Housing and Urban Development. This is the kind of coverage that requires patient digging, months of work, detailed knowledge of the arcana of federal policy, sophisticated databases, cultivation of sources and diligent followup of whistleblowers.

I have no doubt that a handful of media outlets will continue to devote time and resources to investigating big stories, but in an era when the very existence of newspapers is coming into question and a successful business model for sustaining potent news organizations hasn't yet emerged, will even they bother to assign reporters to sniff out problems in the administration of far-flung federal programs?

The plain truth is, representative democracy depends on robust oversight of the activities of federal officials. It ought to be part of the daily business of Congress, and the daily concern of the media. When one is politically disinclined to press as hard as it ought, and the other is financially hampered in its ability to do so, every American ought to be concerned.

Audio Version

In Congress, First Impressions Matter

2009-02-03T14:36:00.001-05:00

The start of a new Congress is a time of hope for great accomplishments. For new members, though, it is also when they lay the groundwork for their careers on Capitol Hill. New members face a lot of difficult decisions early on, and their political reputations — both in Washington and at home — will be shaped by how they make them.

This is partly because first impressions linger on Capitol Hill. Will a new member be a legislator or a limelight-seeking showboater? Will he or she focus on work inside Congress — drafting legislation and helping to shape strategy on policy — or on becoming known outside the institution? People in Congress watch one another closely, as does the press, and they begin to make judgments early; negative impressions can be very hard to overcome.

The challenge, of course, is that being an effective member of Congress requires an astounding variety of skills, which also have to be learned early on. So if you were just starting up on Capitol Hill, what should you be doing? There are two arenas to focus on — inside Congress, and back in the district — and here's my advice for both.

First, get to know your colleagues — both chambers, both parties. Attend social events, get together after work, do your best to be approachable and helpful. Personal relationships matter in Congress because they can help overcome ideological and political differences. You will be astounded by the number of times you ask your colleagues for help.

Second, learn the rules of parliamentary procedure, because you'll need them if you want to be effective. Get to know House or Senate officers, such as the parliamentarian — they can help enormously if you let them. And while you're studying, pay close attention to the ethics rules in your chamber and then follow them; you'll save yourself and your staff much heartburn later.

Third, work hard to get the best committee assignment you can for your district or state. Embrace its workload: attend meetings, be prepared, ask tough questions of witnesses, prepare amendments that will make legislation better. Let your colleagues know you are a serious legislator by picking an issue and championing it. Get to know as much as you possibly can about the bills you vote on — if you can get your colleagues coming to you for information or advice on bills, you're halfway to building a solid reputation.

You can go the rest of the way by being thoughtful toward your colleagues. So, fourth, don't be a know-it-all or have a solution for every problem, and be informed, rational and reasonable. Support your leadership when you can and tell them early when you can't. You have to be true to yourself and your district — your leaders expect that. But they don't like to be surprised by an unexpected vote against their position.

Fifth, hire an excellent staff. They are indispensable to your work. No matter how much you bone up on issues, there's always more to learn; they can help you. And if you want to win re-election, make sure you have top-notch aides for constituent service. A good staff will make you a better member of Congress.

Sixth, don't ever forget your constituents. You work for them. Without their support, you'll end up back home permanently.

So, seventh, you have to develop a strategy for communicating with them. A lot of Americans feel as though their representatives in Washington don't hear them and aren't interested — so the time-honored newsletter home isn't enough. Think about how you'll use the Web, social-networking tools, publicity, and your own visits to the district to reach as many people as possible and hear what they have to say. Travel home frequently: you simply cannot learn enough about your district or state, or get to know too many constituents.

Eighth, pick a few projects back home that have broad support, and begin working hard to get them approved. Small triumphs early build confidence and support.

Ninth, if you're in the House, plan now on how to get re-elected. Start raising money for your next campaign and think about staff and themes now. Two years is not a lot of time, and if you want to be effective in Congress, you'll need to win re-election. More than once.

Finally, there's one other constituency you need to keep in mind: your family. I've seen more than one promising political career founder on the rocks of domestic discord. Take some time off to be with your spouse and children and to recharge yourself. It may surprise you after all the fine treatment you get as you travel around Capitol Hill and your district, but the world will muddle by without you for a few days.

Audio Version

Good Communication Anchors Our Democracy

2009-01-22T09:38:00.003-05:00

Shortly before the turn of the year, I got a look at some polling numbers that brought me up short. They suggest that our representative democracy has a great deal of work to do.

Every year, the Center on Congress at Indiana University polls about a thousand people across the country to gauge their attitudes toward, and experiences with, members of Congress. Our most recent survey looked into the relationship between constituents and their representatives.

It found a few encouraging signs: Almost half the respondents had contacted their representatives in Washington during the past two years, for instance, while 58 percent had read their members' newsletters and two-thirds of those had found this material useful. So there is some life in the "dialogue" between key players in our representative democracy.

Yet there was also sobering news. A full 68 percent of the respondents indicated that they don't believe members of Congress care what people like them think. And when asked whom members of Congress listen to most carefully, they turned even more cynical. Only 10 percent thought members of Congress pay the closest attention to people back home; 38 percent indicated party leaders; and over half, 51 percent, said they're convinced members of Congress listen above all to lobbyists.

These are dismaying figures. The very heart of our democracy is the relationship between voters and the men and women who represent them. Our system depends on the ability of voters to convey to their representatives what's on their minds, on the ability of representatives to explain to voters the choices that confront them, and on the care with which each listens to what the other has to say.

If voters don't believe they're being listened to — or, just as important, if they don't trust what their representatives are telling them — then a key piece of our political system needs rebuilding.

What I find especially intriguing about these poll results is that members of Congress do spend a lot of time and effort trying to reach out to constituents. They maintain staffs devoted solely to carrying on the correspondence that goes naturally with the job; they send out newsletters and e-mails explaining their positions; they meet with constituents in Washington, and travel home frequently for open houses and community gatherings. Even so, this recent poll suggests that none of this is as effective as politicians would like to believe.

I suspect that a large part of this has to do with perception on both sides. Many House members — the federal representatives closest to the people — come from essentially uncompetitive districts. They really do not have to listen to all of their constituents, only to a small fraction of them; nor do they have to campaign hard every two years, giving them less incentive to work tirelessly to be in touch with every strand of thought within their district.

It's not that members deliberately ignore particular constituencies, but I know from experience that it's very easy to believe that you're meeting a lot of people as you travel around your district, when in fact you're actually just seeing the same people over and over again. You might visit a given community five or ten times over the course of a year, but if you look back and ask yourself whom you actually saw, you'll find it's often the same people: the news media, the party hierarchy and activists, the movers and shakers. You're not actually reaching deep into the community.

Similarly, many voters satisfy themselves with very limited exposure to their representatives: the occasional letter or e-mail; a glance at a newsletter; whatever they read in the press, see on the news, or hear about on talk radio. They don't take the extra steps to acquaint themselves with their representatives' votes or positions, much less seek out chances to talk with them face to face. So it becomes easy to buy into the national story line that Congress has grown distant from the people and is bought and paid for by special interests.

In brief, the quality of the dialogue between voter and representative is nowhere close to what it should be.

I am hopeful that new technology will eventually play a helpful role here, particularly for reaching younger voters. Members of Congress are — slowly — learning to make use of social networking sites, online communities such as Second Life, YouTube and other forms of new media to expand both their own outreach and the range of constituents with whom they can interact.

But fixing the problem will take time and effort by voters and elected officials alike. It will require a recognition that good communications takes more work than we'd thought — that members of Congress need to take the time to reach beyond the circles in which they usually travel, and that for a voter, being an active citizen means engaging one's representatives, not just passively hearing about them.

The payoff should be significant: more trust on both sides, more faith on the part of ordinary Americans that the system isn't stacked against them, and a more vibrant representative democracy.

Audio Version

Congress Needs Proper Leadership

2009-01-15T10:56:00.001-05:00

As Congress moves beyond last November's elections and turns its attention to governing, it has to perform one of the toughest pivots in American politics. Governing is much more difficult than campaigning. After going at it hammer and tongs in congressional races, Democrats and Republicans now have a branch of government to run and policy to produce. Switching priorities to put the country and the institution of Congress ahead of politics can be a stretch for members.

The key to whether they succeed, enabling Congress to reach its potential as a representative body more equal in weight to the presidency, will be the congressional leadership. Its members set the tone of the Congress: They can act as stewards of its institutional strength, integrity, and effectiveness, or squander its potential.

They signal how much weight they'll attach to ethical behavior and tough ethics enforcement, and can make or break legislation designed to further it. They determine whether cooperation across party lines will be the order of the day, a rarity, or out of the question. They decide how the budget is to be put together. Above all, they craft the congressional agenda and determine whether it's going to be used merely to score political points or to respond in good faith to challenges facing our nation.

Leaders are the ones in a position to determine which issues will come forward for consideration, and which will be set aside; what oversight will be done and what ignored; what will get the media spotlight and what will remain in the shadows; which programs will be included in appropriations bills and which won't.

They have enormous power, in other words, over both the substance and the style of Congress. And they are the ones who largely determine whether Congress will become a stronger partner in our representative democracy or defer to the president to take the lead.

In some periods, as during the Great Society era during the 1960s, Congress was highly regarded because it was seen as addressing the key problems facing the country. There were significant accomplishments amid bipartisan cooperation, if not collegiality. Other periods have seen a breakdown on both fronts. And still others may produce a less productive record on legislation, but still be marked by an overall respect for Congress's integrity as an institution.

When House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Minority Leader Bob Michel squared off in public debate during the 1980s, for instance, it was only after intense but congenial discussions over how each of their caucuses viewed a measure; they would give a ringing speech on the floor to rally their troops, but in almost every case each man knew how the vote would turn out. They knew how to work with one another to assure that Congress lived up to its constitutional responsibilities, while remaining true to their political responsibilities.

Leaders must be held principally responsible for the performance of the Congress. If the institution is not performing well under stress - if it is ignoring proper budget process, sidestepping tough issues, not disciplining wayward members, or deferring excessively to the president and neglecting its constitutional role - that is a failure of congressional leadership. Often, leaders are quick to blame the opposition for standing in the way of progress, and sometimes that's legitimate; frequently, though, it's because the leaders failed to work well together, putting political advantage over legislative solutions.

Over the last few decades, the leaders' responsibility for Congress's performance has grown measurably greater. This is because their power has, too: Leaders of both parties have worked to increase their budgets and concentrate power in their offices. Their staffs have grown - where a speaker or minority leader might once have turned for policy advice to the chairs of particular committees, they now have their own advisors on energy or foreign policy or the economy.

And they have changed the process, most notably with the budget, to favor themselves. When spending priorities were put together by the various committees, rank-and-file members knew, in detail, what was in the budget and they had significant input into its contents. Now, Congress often acts by omnibus bill, which puts enormous power in the hands of a few leaders and their staff.

This is not a favorable trend. The increasing concentration of power in the leaders diminishes the role of other members and distorts representative democracy. Congress derives its legitimacy and authority from its members, who represent the American people in all their diversity. This is why the Framers put Congress first in the Constitution. When that multitude of voices is ignored or weakened, it is hard to see how Congress will ever be able to assert its standing as a separate, independent, and forceful branch of government.

Audio Version

Whoever Is President, An Administration Needs Oversight

2008-12-08T14:12:00.003-05:00

I'm as interested as the next person in all the excitement about how Washington will work with Barack Obama in the White House, but there's an important question that's been missing. It has to do not so much with the new President as with the new Congress, and it should be high on every attentive citizen's list of concerns: Will Congress live up to its responsibility to exercise robust oversight over the new administration?

This is especially important given the Democratic label that President Obama and the majorities in the House and Senate will share. Over the last two years, particularly in the House, Democrats began to delve into the activities and record of the current Republican administration. Once their own party controls the White House this will be harder to do, for obvious partisan reasons: There's a natural inclination to avoid inquiries that might seem to undermine the President or give ammunition to his political adversaries.

It is vital that congressional leaders set that concern aside, for the simple reason that vigorous congressional oversight of the administration - any administration - is necessary for our government to function properly.

This is, of course, what Congress under our system of government is supposed to do - to put the national interest first by holding the President and his administration accountable for their actions. It is Congress's responsibility, in other words, to ensure that the country is functioning properly and our laws are working as intended; that they are achieving the purpose Congress envisioned when it passed them; that resources are being used effectively and efficiently; and that executive authority is being exercised properly and in keeping with the laws and values that govern it.

Congress failed miserably at this task during most of the last eight years, and even with stepped-up scrutiny since the 2006 elections, it has fallen well short of the ideal, with unfortunate results: Witness its failure to explore vigorously administration plans to deal with the threats to the American economy.

Robust oversight need not be adversarial. Indeed, if Presidents understand Congress's constitutional role, they will see its activities as helpful. Constructive oversight brings fresh eyes and insightful questions to policy-making and its implementation. The plain fact is that the executive branch tends to wear blinkers: Its members are there in support of the President, and they are often reluctant to cast critical judgments on his decisions or on the implementation of policy.

This last point is particularly important, since Americans have in recent years lost confidence in the federal government not just because of the policies it pursued, but because of its failure to act effectively, whether in Iraq or in helping Louisiana and Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina. A Congress that is functioning properly would turn administration officials into regular visitors to Capitol Hill, quiz them relentlessly, and make them explain their policy decisions and how they are implementing federal programs.

So what would effective oversight look like? Congress has several tools for holding federal agencies accountable, including periodic reauthorization, personal visits by members or staff, review by the Government Accountability Office or inspectors general, subpoenas, hearings, investigations, and reports from the executive branch to Congress. The point is to make oversight a part of the daily business of Capitol Hill, and to make it as bipartisan as possible.

There will certainly be times when the Democratic and Republican leaders of particular committees disagree, but they should be able to sit down at the beginning of a new Congress and agree on the bulk of the committee's oversight agenda. Even more important, for oversight really to work, members must receive a clear message from the congressional leadership of both parties that it is a priority and that it will be done in a bipartisan, systematic, coordinated way.

For in the end, oversight is not about politics, it's about the institutional responsibility that Congress bears to ensure that the federal government is serving the American people's interests. This is even more important in this day and age, as newspapers shrink their Washington bureaus and, with them, their investigative abilities.

In 1787, John Adams wrote of what were to become the House, the Senate and the presidency, "Without three divisions of power, stationed to watch each other, and compare each other's conduct with the laws, it will be impossible that the laws should at all times preserve their authority and govern all men." It is as true today as it was 221 years ago, and the start of a new administration and a new Congress is exactly the moment for our leaders to recommit to that ideal.

Audio Version

Congress, Too, Can Set The Agenda

2008-12-05T13:32:00.002-05:00

Once he is sworn in on January 20, our new president will command all eyes. After a long campaign in which he and his rival traded policy prescriptions and accusations about their respective flaws, the country will be anxious to see the White House's agenda. Congress, it seems safe to say, will be an afterthought, its views given weight only insofar as they might hinder or abet the president's plans.

And really, why should they matter? The 435 House members and 35 senators who ran in November's elections present a cacophony of views — they're liberal and conservative, from large states and small, representing every conceivable kind of American voter. It's impossible for them to speak with one voice or with the institutional heft to be found at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Moreover, Congress long ago abandoned the practice of trying to put forward its own plans, and Americans have certainly lost the habit of looking to it for leadership. Even Congressional Quarterly, a magazine whose reason for being is to parse every nuance of life on Capitol Hill, carried a cover story a month before the election entitled, “11 Issues for the Next President.” It said, “The winner of the Nov. 4 election will face the most difficult roster of top–tier issues in a generation while trying to restore the country's faith in its government.” On everything from the economy to taxes, energy, and our nation's infrastructure needs, it suggested, Congress would be left to react, not to create.

While this picture certainly fits our national expectations, there are two problems with it: It's not how things are supposed to be; and it's not healthy for the United States.

The Constitution sets out a very clear expectation that Congress and the president are to be colleagues — equals — in determining the course of the country. And there is a compelling reason for this. The very forces that make it difficult for Congress to speak with one voice, especially its members' closeness to the diverse constituencies from which they hail, also provide Congress with a fine–textured understanding of national concerns and sentiment.

Better than any other part of the federal government, Congress reflects the regional, ideological, economic and cultural diversity of the United States.

This is crucial to crafting good policy, policy that is consistent, relevant, and sustainable over the long term. Such policy springs not from a single opinion about what's needed, but from sharp analysis and civil dialogue among people with different points of view, values, and experiences.

Congress, in other words, is as indispensable an actor in laying out a national policy agenda as is the president.

That it has chosen not to play that role in recent decades — with a few exceptions, like last year's boost in the minimum wage — has turned it into a reactive body with very little control over the policy debate; he who sets the agenda, after all, controls the discussion and usually the results, and recent presidents have been extremely forceful about putting forth both a domestic and foreign agenda. It has been politically easier for members of Congress to let the president take the lead, especially since it is very hard work to craft an agenda that a majority of both houses can agree upon.

Given this history and the degeneration of Congress's policy–crafting muscles, it seems unreasonable to expect that Congress will suddenly set about advancing its own agenda for every problem, foreign and domestic, that assails us. Yet surely it's in a position to act more forcefully than in the recent past. If it wishes to fulfill its constitutional role and rebuild its standing as an institution that commands the respect of the American people — and, more important, earns legitimacy as a branch of government — it should certainly start to put forward initiatives to which the president can respond.

Congress needs to be a more assertive presence in Washington generally, even if it does it piecemeal rather than in a comprehensive way, and it certainly needs to flex its policy–making muscles more frequently than it does now.

How might it do so? I'd suggest that the party caucuses in each house — that is, the meetings at which Democrats and Republicans gather to work on their own marching orders — would be the appropriate place to start. Democrats in Congress ought to see it as their responsibility to put forward their own agenda for the nation, even if it's only in a few arenas; so should Republicans. The parties might even find some common ground. And in the debates over what these agendas should be, and then the conversation with the White House as they're moved forward, Congress might just find its own voice. That would be a good thing not only for its members, but for us all.

Audio Version

The Decision To Go To War

2008-12-02T11:40:00.003-05:00

As Congress struggled to stave off financial meltdown recently, it was hard to imagine that it could ever face a more serious issue. Yet from time to time it does: when it ponders whether or not to send young Americans to war.

Watching the gyrations on Capitol Hill over the economic bailout, I couldn't help but reflect that while there was great uncertainty about how Congress would respond to the economic crisis — Would it side with the White House plan? Would it modify the plan or try to come up with an alternative of its own? — there is rarely uncertainty about war. If the President wants it, he gets it.

Our nation has long argued over whether this is how things should be. To my mind, the Constitution seems clear on the subject, stating in Article I, Section 8, that “Congress shall have power...to declare War.” Yet it also refers to the President as “Commander in Chief,” and in the ambiguity left by those two phrases it has seeded an ongoing political debate over how much right Congress has to tie the President's hands when it comes to the commitment of troops abroad. The courts, recognizing a political morass, have steered clear of the subject, leaving it to Congress and the White House to sort things out, and by and large not settling the question of which branch may exercise which powers.

Since World War II, the White House has prevailed. Harry Truman contended he didn't need congressional approval to fight in Korea. Congress sat on the sidelines for the invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s, and made only modest steps to assert itself when U.S. troops got involved in Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, and the Balkans in the mid–1990s. It willingly gave its go–ahead to the Vietnam War and the two wars in Iraq, turning power completely over to the President to do as he wished.

In essence, for over a half–century Congress has been content to act as an afterthought, rather than the President's equal when it comes to war–making. It has left the question of when to go to war up to the President.

The political reasons for this abdication of responsibility are straightforward. Committing U.S. troops to battle is a high–stakes move, and members of Congress would rather not have to make that decision themselves. It is far easier simply to let the President do it, then give him credit if he called it right and condemn him if he didn't. Moreover, the American people have a history of siding overwhelmingly with presidents who make the call for war; standing in the way is politically risky for any member of Congress — except in hindsight, as the current war in Iraq and the earlier war in Vietnam have demonstrated. None of this was what the Framers envisioned. The Constitution was drafted at a time of deep distrust of monarchy and, indeed, all forms of concentrated power. No single person, our founders believed, should have the responsibility for making the gravest decision a president can make: whether to send young men (and, now, women) into battle.

While 2008 is not 1789, and the world is a very different, more dangerous place than when the country was founded, I find myself in basic agreement with the founders. In our representative democracy, it is Congress — not the President — that gives voice to the concerns of ordinary Americans. Yet from war–making to the budget to setting the national agenda, Congress in recent decades has been all too willing to take a back seat to presidential authority. It has lost the skills and the political will that would allow it to be a co–equal branch of government.

So while it is too much to expect that, when it comes to the profound issue of war, Congress will suddenly start re–asserting itself in a major way, I don't think it's too much to ask it to start rebuilding its competence as a consultative body. Simply put, presidents should consult widely, surely beyond their closest advisors and especially with Congress, before they make the decision to go to war. If the President is determined to send Americans into battle, there is very little anyone can do to stop him. But ensuring that members of Congress and others can ask hard questions before the final decision is made at least offers a chance for wise and cool heads to weigh the risks, and for national policy–makers to proceed without blinkers on.

In the end, the calculation is simple. Going to war is the most important decision a government can make, because it means that young people will die. That decision ought not be made by one person, even if that person is the President of the United States.

Audio Version

The Ten Commandments of Citizenship

2008-11-24T15:05:00.003-05:00

This presidential election, if you believe the polls and the rhetoric, is about change in Washington. Both candidates promise it, while voters clamor for it. It is the cause of the moment.

Yet I have news for you: Change in Washington won't happen, and certainly can't be sustained, without change in the country at large. For the point is not to overthrow the system, it's to make it function properly. Government does not fix itself. Only a citizenry that is engaged in our democracy to an extent far greater than in recent decades can help to heal our system. To get change in Washington, in other words, it has to begin with you.

Since being a responsible citizen takes commitment, here are some precepts to follow if you want to be effective — what I call the “Ten Commandments of Citizenship”:

Vote. This is the most basic step democracy asks of us. Don't buy the argument that it doesn't matter. Every election offers real choices about the direction we want our towns, states and country to take. By voting, you not only select the officials who will run the government, you suggest the direction government policy should take and reaffirm your support for a representative democracy.

Be informed. To be a knowledgeable voter, you need to know what candidates actually stand for, not just what their ads or their opponents' ads say. Read about the issues that confront your community and our nation as a whole. Our government simply does not work well if its citizens are ill–informed.

Communicate with your representatives. Representative democracy is a dialogue between elected officials and citizens — that dialogue lies at the heart of our system. Legislators and executives can't do their job well if they don't understand their constituents' concerns, and we can't understand them if we don't know their views and why they hold them.

Participate in groups that share your views and can advance your interests. This one's simple: In a democracy, people tend to be more effective when they work together rather than acting as individuals. You can be sure that almost every issue you care about has one or more organizations devoted to it. By joining and working with the ones you think best reflect your views, you amplify your beliefs and strengthen the dialogue of democracy.

Get involved locally to improve your community. You know more about your community's strengths and weaknesses than anyone living outside it. Identify its problems and work to correct them. Involvement is the best antidote I know to cynicism.

Educate your family, and make sure that local schools are educating students, about their responsibilities as citizens. As a society, we're not as good as we should be at encouraging young people to get involved in political life. Too many young people — and even many adults — do not understand how our government and political system work and why it is important for them to be contributing citizens.

Understand that we must work to build consensus in a huge, diverse country. In pretty much every way you can think of, ours is an astoundingly mixed nation of people, with wildly divergent views on most issues and a constantly growing population. This means we have to work through our differences not by hammering on the other side, but by bringing people together through the arts of dialogue, accommodation, compromise, and consensus–building.

Understand that our representative democracy works slowly. There's a reason for this: it is so that all sides can be heard, and so that we avoid the costly mistakes produced by haste. Our Founders understood this 220 years ago, and it's even more vital now, when issues are vastly more complex and the entire world is closely connected.

Understand that our system is not perfect, but has served the nation well. Democracy is a process designed to give people a voice in how they are governed. It's not perfect — far too many people feel voiceless, and polls in recent years suggest that unsettling numbers believe the system is broken. And our system offers no guarantee that you'll get what you want. Yet it is also true that it provides every individual an opportunity to be heard and to work to achieve his or her objectives, and it has served our nation well for over two centuries.

Understand that our system is not self–perpetuating; it demands our involvement to survive. Just because it has worked in the past does not mean we will have a free and successful country in the future. Lincoln's challenge is still urgent: whether this nation so conceived can long endure. Being a good citizen isn't something one does just for the heck of it; it's critical to the success of our nation.

Audio Version

Why Ethics Should Matter to Congress

2008-11-20T11:31:00.003-05:00

Congress will never regain the faith of ordinary Americans until members of Congress win their trust. This appears to be a long way off.

I see no other way to read the results of a recent poll by the Center on Congress at Indiana University. When it asked 1,000 people whether members of Congress are “honest people of good character,” a rather stunning 42 percent said that most are not. Asked to grade Congress on holding its members to high ethical standards, 75 percent gave it either a D or an F.

This dismal view of members' integrity — and of their interest in upholding the institution's integrity — is especially striking given the importance the general public places on it. Asked which characteristic they consider to be most critical in a member of Congress, respondents to the poll rated honesty as by far the most important, surpassing a member's positions on issues, religious convictions, good judgment, or ability to get things done.

Given the weight the public places on honesty, you'd think that members of Congress would be falling all over themselves to demonstrate they can put their houses in order. Yet the ethics committees of both the House and the Senate have been far too supine in recent years, even as an array of scandals hit their institutions.

Over a dozen members of Congress have come under federal investigation for everything from improper ties with lobbyists to bribery to using their influence for personal benefit. Recently, various members of Congress have been accused of getting special deals on their housing and of abusing the earmark process. Few outside observers would say that congressional ethics enforcement has worked, a sentiment shared by the general public. Too often the standard pursued by congressional leaders has been, “Is it legal?”: They have turned the Criminal Division of the Justice Department into the main ethics enforcer on Capitol Hill.

Passing judgment on one's colleagues is hard, there's no question about that. Not only do members of Congress depend on one another to be effective, and so try not to alienate one another, but they feel an entirely natural reluctance to judge the ethics of their peers in public.

This is a big reason for the one promising step taken by the House — but not the Senate — on this front: the establishment of an outside review board to investigate ethics complaints. This committee, made up of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans who are not sitting House members, will have the authority to look into complaints about misconduct, dismiss frivolous or politically motivated accusations, and recommend sanctions.

As with many things on Capitol Hill, the proof will be in the implementation. The new review board does not have subpoena power, and at least one of its Democrats and one of its Republicans have to agree that an investigation has merit before it can move forward — a recipe that could lead to partisan stalemate. Moreover, once an investigation starts, the board needs to have credible power to conduct its inquiries, a professional and impartial staff, and the political and financial resources to give it heft. We haven't yet seen whether it will.

The fact that Congress has to look for help from an outside panel is disappointing, indicating that by itself it is unable to police its own members. But it is also a recognition of the political reality that the congressional ethics process has in recent decades become highly politicized.

Too often, complaints of impropriety were made not to strengthen the institution or uphold its integrity, but to weaken a political opponent and drive a member from office with ethics attacks when substantive attacks on his or her record didn't work. When I was in the House, some of the “ethics and corruption” charges made against the leaders of both parties were accurate, some were greatly exaggerated, and some were simply false. The politicization of the ethics process was getting out of control.

One of the core goals of this outside commission is to reduce the political misuse of the ethics process, and that is certainly needed. Not punishing ethical misconduct has weakened the institution, but so has the misuse of the ethics process by members of both parties for purely political purposes. Both bring discredit on the institution and both contribute to the low opinion people have of members' integrity.

Americans want members of Congress to avoid actual and apparent wrongdoing; they want them to act always to reflect credit on the institution. That basic standard of good conduct needs to be vigorously and fairly enforced. Anything less will continue to undercut Congress's already imperiled legitimacy.

Audio Version

Why Holding the Majority Matters

2008-11-17T14:05:00.003-05:00

This is where some members of the minority party in the House can get relegated when they want to host a gathering for constituents or visitors. Members of the majority might instead get the meeting rooms that showcase the grandeur of Congress — the elegant ones just off the House floor in the Capitol, with high ceilings, plush carpets, and rich wood paneling.When you see news stories over the next few months about which party is likely to emerge from the November elections with a majority in Congress, keep one thing in mind: the basement. You might think that congressional leaders care most about the ability that majority status gives them to set the agenda, and you're probably right; but rest assured that they're also thinking about the gloomy corridors underneath the various House office buildings on Capitol Hill.

I tell you this because it helps to explain why members of Congress behave as they do when control of their chamber is at stake. Sure, being in the minority means losing the House or Senate leadership, committee chairmanships, and the opportunity to set and to advance a party's agenda. But that's just the start of it. The difference between being the majority party and the minority party is so great that in many ways you're talking about two very different experiences of Congress for their respective members. This is one reason the intense partisanship we've seen on Capitol Hill for well over a decade now has such a sharp edge to it.

Party status affects pretty much everything. The majority not only gets nicer spaces and meeting rooms, it also gets to determine which members and staff will go on overseas fact-finding trips, and enjoys all sorts of little perks that make life on Capitol Hill more pleasant. And on congressional committees, the majority often takes two-thirds to three-fourths of the budget and will have three times the number of staff as the minority, so a shift in party control can be traumatic for those suddenly in the minority.

Then, of course, there are the substantive differences. In the House, for instance, the leadership of the majority party controls the legislative agenda entirely. It decides not only which issues will be taken up, but also how they can be debated, whether amendments will be allowed, and how the matter will be handled on the House floor. If it wished, it could — and on occasion does — prevent the minority party from offering even a single amendment to important bills brought up on the floor during the session.

The rules are somewhat less lopsided in the Senate, though the minority there often gets less of a chance to shape legislation — or even attach its members' names to legislation — than it does simply to block a bill entirely.

The result of all this is two-fold: In a closely divided Congress, the stakes in each election are enormous, not simply in terms of which policies and philosophies will prevail, but what legislative life will be like afterward for members of each party; and this in turn feeds an atmosphere of partisanship and mistrust, and makes it harder to cooperate across the aisle, simply because neither party wants to give the other even the remotest advantage.

Americans may be tired of the partisanship they've seen on Capitol Hill, but it's worth knowing that there are some basic institutional forces at work that make it difficult to overcome.

None of this is to say that lessening partisanship is impossible — just that it won't happen without a concerted effort by the majority and minority in both houses of Congress to behave in ways that make the vast gulf in potential power and perquisites somewhat narrower.

How the majority treats the minority, and vice versa, is hugely important in terms of setting the atmosphere and tone on Capitol Hill. As things stand at the moment, each side tries to manipulate the process to set up votes with an eye toward gaining a partisan advantage to enable them to win another seat or two, rather than producing good legislation. This can only be changed by a wholesale shift in attitude on the part of both parties.

For the majority's part, this means being aware that it sets the tone, and that consulting with members of the minority party — treating them fairly, as colleagues and not as enemies — should be a normal part of doing business. Equally important, the minority has a responsibility not to gum up the works by taking advantage of arcane rules of procedure or trying to turn every iota of legislative business to its political advantage.

The tone overall ought to be one of mutual respect and fairness, ruled by a constant awareness that Congress is there to serve the American people and to make the country work, not to offer an arena for conferring on one party or the other a political advantage. Only then can the people who serve in Congress free themselves from the institutional forces that, of late, have made it such an unpleasant place for many of them to serve.

Audio Version

Are the People Prepared?

2008-08-31T01:02:00.000-04:00

Every presidential election year, I'm struck by a basic imbalance in media coverage. A great deal of time, space and attention go to what we can expect from the candidates — on their policy stances, their strengths and weaknesses, their frame of mind at any given moment. Given that voters are called upon to judge these politicians' fitness for the highest office in the land, this is understandable.

Yet I can't help but think that something is missing. This kind of wall–to–wall coverage sends a message that the candidates and their personal qualities are all that matter to our government, which isn't true.

There's another half of the equation: the American people. Far too little gets written or broadcast about our role in making this democracy work. We ask the candidates whether they're prepared for their responsibilities. We need to ask the same thing of the American people.

Because we have the oldest enduring republic and an ever–robust public discourse, it's easy to forget that our system needs constant tending by the people most invested in its success — Americans in general. It depends on broad participation in the political process — participation that goes well beyond simply voting. It depends on an active belief in accommodation and compromise, not the winner–take–all single–mindedness that has come to characterize political culture of late. And perhaps above all else, it depends on a widespread understanding that our system of government gives us all an opportunity to achieve what we want by following paths defined and limited by our Constitution; it does not guarantee that we'll get what we want.

Yet Americans too often have unrealistic expectations of what government can achieve. Ours is not a perfect system. It works slowly, sometimes frustratingly so. Issues that bedevil society — a failing health–care system, for example, or a poorly performing economy — might not be adequately addressed for years, as the various interests involved hammer at each other in Washington. An astoundingly diverse nation, each fragment of it with its own beliefs about what is right and wrong, must find a way of forging an agreement on appropriate policy.

This is hard work, and just because Congress and the President don't produce exactly what we want when we think it's needed does not mean the system is broken, dysfunctional or even unrepresentative.

To some extent, a more thorough civic education would be helpful here, both in school and afterward. Many Americans' knowledge of basic concepts — the need for a balance of powers at the federal level, or the crucial role compromise plays in making the system work — is weaker than it ought to be. Debate and consultation across ideological and party lines, which are how we reach common ground and sustainable solutions, are one of our strengths, not a weakness. Public tolerance for them is crucial.

A firm grounding in the fundamentals of American democracy would also build an understanding — and expectation — within the electorate that final consensus in our system can only come about after extensive deliberation and the input of many different points of view. These are what produce policy that addresses the needs of our people, not the sound bites and spin that Americans too often confuse these days for civic discourse.

One thing that strikes me often as I meet with people around the country is that as unhappy as people get with the President or Congress or the Supreme Court, they don't stand up and say, “I don't support the Constitution.” There is an inbred respect for our constitutional structure. The challenge for ordinary citizens is to make it work.

This is a challenge for every generation. Our system does not function on automatic pilot. Just because it has worked in the past does not mean we will have a free and successful country in the future. To achieve this, we need a citizenry that not only participates actively, but that expects and encourages each of its members to do so. We need debate, deliberation, accommodation, a healthy system of checks and balances, thoroughgoing representation of all voices in the halls of power, and an electorate willing to hold those in power to account when they stray from these basic constitutional principles.

So, during this election season it's all well and good to inquire aggressively about how well the candidates are prepared for public office. But remember also to turn the inquiry inward and ask how well we are prepared for the obligations of citizenship.

There is no replacement in our system for accepting the responsibility that comes with being an American to help make our system work. It requires skill, patience, and above all an appreciation for the gift given us by our predecessors and a determination not to squander its legacy.

Audio Version

To Govern Well, Return to the Basics

2008-07-23T16:51:00.002-04:00

We are at a profoundly unsettled time in our nation's history, with over two-thirds of Americans professing in surveys that they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. They are partly reflecting concerns of the moment - the Iraq war, high gas prices, our economic travails - but polling also shows a more deep-seated dismay at the track our political system has taken.

Our politics is fragmented and often mean-spirited. Americans are disappointed by a sense that we lack unity and national purpose. They are disillusioned by a political leadership that has failed to instill these things, and many believe they and their concerns are unrepresented in the halls of power. Faith in our system is ailing.

So while out on the hustings the talk is mostly of policy - what to do about the economy or our standing in the world or our dysfunctional health-care system - there is a more fundamental conversation that ought to be happening, as well: If we are to fix our government so it works competently, effectively, and democratically, how should we go about it? What would it take not only to revive our system, but also our people's faith in it?

My answer may seem odd, given how badly askew most Americans believe things have gotten: Rather than "fix" our representative government, we need to let it function as designed. We have to return to the basics of our constitutional system, understanding and appreciating its intent and contemplating how this might apply to our vastly changed circumstances today.

It's worth remembering that the basic operating manual for our government was written some 220 years ago, when we were a much smaller, less complicated, less diverse nation, when communications and events moved much more slowly, and when the sheer breadth and scope of challenges facing the government - while hardly minor - were more manageable. If anything, it's remarkable that our system continues to work even reasonably well.

Still, things are out of whack. Too much power has come to rest in the president's hands, and it needs to be spread more widely again - the "balance of power" should be observed in actuality, not merely in seventh-grade civics class. As Alexander Hamilton said at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, "Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give power to the few, they will oppress the many. Both therefore ought to have power, that each may defend itself against the other."

We also need to accept that there will inevitably be conflict - our system presupposes it - but that winning political battles is not the highest good; rather, resolving conflict within the confines of the Constitution and according to democratic principles trumps the victory-at-all-costs mentality that has been so prevalent in recent years. Compromise and accommodation, especially in a nation with so many varied interests at play, are the key to policy success and political legitimacy.

This, in turn, means tolerating and encouraging lively debate and thorough deliberation - both in Washington and among a population that seems to be losing the habit of listening to those with whom we disagree. For lawmakers and Americans in general to accept the results of political compromise, they have to feel they've been represented in the discussion.

All of which is to say that what our Founders knew, and tried to ensure, was that in governance, the means are more important than the end. The process matters more than the result, in part because a legitimate process is the only way to ensure that those in government collectively focus on the common good, and in part because resolving our policy dilemmas requires a focused and functioning representative government.

Yet even if all these things happen, restoring Americans' faith in the system will require one other thing: patience. While our government needs to respond to the demands of its citizens, under our system the response is typically slow because it's meant to be slow.

Our government was not designed to respond to every passing fancy of the people, but rather to give judicious consideration to the nation's needs. Nor can it solve all of our problems. Our representatives may strive to sort out the hopes, desires, and dreams of the American people, and to come up with the best solutions they can, but the plain fact is that some problems are so difficult and our perspectives so varied that only stalemate is possible.

Our expectations, in other words, need to be high but realistic. We should expect a government that encourages cohesion and political stability, and safeguards individual freedom, prosperity, and peace. If it can do that, then the fact that it can't resolve every problem we confront will come to seem a tolerable imperfection, rather than the dismaying infirmity that so many Americans believe it to be today.

Audio Version

A Disastrous Budget Process

2008-07-16T09:57:00.002-04:00

Congress has slipped into uncharted and dangerous waters this summer. According to the rule books, this should be a time when the federal budget gets scrutinized and pieced together by a broad array of congressional committees and members on the floor. The last time Congress actually played by these rules for all of its spending bills was 14 years ago. This year, it's barely even trying.

To be sure, both the House and the Senate passed a budget resolution in June, the first time since 2000 that they've adopted this formal guide to what lies ahead in an election year. This may be a small sign of growing dedication to the regular budget process, but it is still just a blueprint for spending, not the actual decisions to spend.

Setting the actual appropriations for the year looks much less promising. The Democratic leadership in Congress does not want a repeat of last year's budget "negotiations," in which they felt the White House essentially refused to negotiate. Since the White House is once again showing little sign that it is willing to find common ground, the Democratic leadership has signaled that it is comfortable waiting until next year for a new President, and possibly more Democratic seats in the House and Senate.

What seems to be a momentary standoff, though, is in fact a symptom of true political illness. Congress has lost the institutional ability to follow an orderly budget process. As a result it has undermined its own committees, shunted most of its members to the policy sidelines, failed to maintain the constitutional balance of powers, condemned the people who administer federal programs to season after season of uncertainty, and eroded the consensus-building, transparency, and accountability that keep our democracy vital.

Preparing the budget and setting the spending lies at the heart of what Congress does. It is how the Congress puts its stamp on the federal government. So its failure to adhere to effective process weakens it as an institution and weakens the country.

What should the process look like? As it evolved over many decades, it came to involve hearings and consultations by a multitude of committees, which would "authorize" spending by the federal agencies and departments for which they were responsible. Then appropriations subcommittees and the full appropriations committees would take up the task of actually approving the money to be spent, before sending separate bills for the various federal departments to the floor.

It was an orderly process that gave committee members a chance to examine the operations of the federal government and allowed ordinary House and Senate members to debate and amend the appropriations bills at several steps along the way. In other words, it promoted deliberation and the democratic give-and-take essential to a free society.

These days, we're lucky if there's more than one bill. The massive omnibus bills that Congress has gotten into the habit of passing wreak havoc with good governance and the democratic process. By shoving the entire budget into a single measure comprising thousands of pages, the leadership makes it virtually impossible for members of Congress to read through - let alone understand - what they're being asked to vote on; undercuts members' ability to ask hard questions and offer policy alternatives, represent their constituents, or file amendments; and makes planning ahead nearly impossible for everyone from the people who administer federal heating assistance to local school boards to federal contractors.

So why does Congress bypass transparency and accountability for a secretive and undemocratic form of policy-making bedlam? As the Congressional Quarterly Weekly put it not long ago, "There is a growing realization these days that the most powerful forces in the process - the congressional majority leadership, appropriators in both parties, the outside advocates who focus on spending-bill line items, and the president - actually stand to benefit."

The leadership likes it, of course, because it focuses power in their hands; same with members of the appropriations committees, who find it easier to slip language into the bill behind closed doors. Lobbyists much prefer to focus on just a handful of members out of the limelight. And when the president needs to negotiate with only a few people on a single measure, his power is much greater than if his representatives are trying to juggle a multiplicity of members and bills. The only losers seem to be ordinary members of Congress and the American people.

There is a simple solution to all this. It's called "the regular order." For many years, Congress took up individual appropriations bills, debated them, and passed them on time. That process evolved for a reason: It safeguarded public discourse, enhanced congressional oversight, and buttressed the vital role Congress plays in forging consensus among diverse regions and constituencies.

If Congress wants to remain relevant and legitimate in these challenging times, it can start by reviving its disciplined approach to budgeting.

Audio Version

How Do We Reduce Partisanship?

2008-06-16T09:49:00.002-04:00

There are times when Congress and much of the political class in Washington remind me of a child who can’t resist sneaking a handful of cookies from the jar: They know that too much partisanship is getting them in trouble, but they can’t help themselves. Politicians want one more maneuver to make the other side look bad; one more hunk of red meat tossed to the party’s base; one more legislative stand-off to show their partisans they mean what they say. Then they’ll reckon with the public’s clear preference for political leaders who know how to work together.

I know that politics is a contact sport, and hard-hitting partisan competition is unavoidable, even desirable. It offers clear choices and different approaches to solving our problems, and it enhances the accountability of those in power when the other side is willing to point out weaknesses in their thinking or their performance.

Still, the country at large yearns for less polarization these days, and believes that partisan engagement has gone too far. Even Washington insiders acknowledge that the extreme partisanship of recent years has made it more difficult to govern productively, leading more often to stalemate than to policy advances. They go to great oratorical lengths to deplore how partisan the institution has become. Acknowledging the problem, though, is easier than knowing what to do about it.

For it’s a tough one. As a nation, we remain closely divided in our political philosophies. The upshot in Congress is that party leaders assess each bill for how it will help or hurt chances to pick up seats; the lens through which they see legislation too often has to do with power, not effective policy making.

So what can we do? The first step, I believe, rests with American voters. However slowly, Congress responds to what its members hear back home. A drumbeat of dislike for mean-spirited partisanship and insistence on working through differences will eventually get through. Members of Congress must be held responsible for the kind of institution they inhabit.

There’s a tougher nut to crack, too, which has to do with rebuilding the strength of the dormant center in American politics. On this front, there are any number of steps that might make little difference alone, but together could add up to a sea change in how Washington operates.

One of them is already happening: the rise of the internet for fundraising. The ability to go over the heads of well-heeled special interests and fund a campaign through the small donations of ordinary Americans has the potential to rewrite political candidates’ loyalties once they’re in office. The less financial influence wielded by groups with a specific cause, the better the chance that our essential moderation as a nation will get reflected in Washington.

Equally important is a growing restlessness with how congressional districts get drawn. For the most part, district maps are designed by state legislatures, which often defer to the wishes of their congressional delegations. Somehow, these maps nearly always produce safe districts for one party or the other, instead of competitive districts that would produce candidates adept at forging coalitions of independents and moderates of both parties. Turning redistricting over to independent commissions charged with crafting districts based on commonality of interest and geographic compactness, rather than partisan affiliation, may not be a panacea, but it would make a difference.

There is work to be done on Capitol Hill, too, though it might not seem like work: Legislators need to get to know one another. It is hard to attack someone you know well. Yet the congressional schedule — constant travel back home to meet with constituents, the need to raise money, the pressures of campaigning — keeps members of Congress and their families out of Washington, away from their colleagues, and far less likely to find time for forging friendships across partisan lines.

It’s also important for members of Congress to look deliberately for issues that hold the hope of successful bipartisanship. Our nation’s need for investment in its aging infrastructure — its roads, bridges, and transportation networks — offers one such possibility. It’s not a partisan issue; it’s a good governance issue.

Then, once Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have come together to resolve a few problems like this, they may come to understand what ordinary Americans have known for some time: that the only way to solve our really tough problems — health care, energy independence, the rise of terrorism, the challenges posed by globalization — is to work together as a nation. In a nation as closely divided as ours, political leaders who know how to emphasize the common purpose — rather than their own party’s monopoly on the truth — will ultimately be the ones to lead us from our current partisan morass.

Audio Version

Build Consensus Even When It's Hard

2008-05-21T08:59:00.002-04:00

If you believe, as I do, that building consensus among competing factions is the only way to tackle the persistent challenges that threaten to hamstring our nation, then you have to be prepared to deal with one hard truth: It's extraordinarily difficult to do.

The diversity of public opinion, the intense partisanship of recent years, media coverage that thrives on division - all this and more makes hammering out agreement on difficult issues seem a Herculean task.

Yet Americans want their elected leaders to work across party lines. Over the past year or so, I've been asked on any number of occasions how two groups on which I served, the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, managed to encourage men and women with partisan commitments to produce forward-looking policy ideas on two highly charged issues. We did this in spite of a truly venomous partisan atmosphere in Washington and our keen awareness that powerful interests had much at stake in what we'd end up saying.

Admittedly, both groups were far less complicated than the Congress or a state legislature, where consensus has to be built on scores of issues, not just one. Yet the core principles of consensus-building, I believe, apply no matter how large the body.

Congress certainly understood this in the past. Many times over the years, it has worked in a cooperative way to build consensus behind major legislation. The GI Bill, the Marshall Plan, welfare reform in the 1990s - all took considerable bipartisan legwork to pass. As political scientist Paul Light concluded in his recent book about America's 50 greatest legislative achievements over the past half-century, these accomplishments "reflect a stunning level of bipartisan commitment."

Greatness in policy-making, in other words, requires great effort in consensus-building.

To begin with, it's crucial to work cooperatively, rather than confrontationally. It was clear from the start that in order to do our work well, both the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group would have to delve into arenas that were politically touchy for the White House. Rather than trying to bludgeon the administration into submitting information we needed, however, we kept lines of communication open and spent many hours in dialogue with them; we understood their concerns for national security and the prerogatives of the presidency, and wanted to make sure they grasped our determination to fulfill our mandates by having access to key officials and documents.

Some of Congress' greatest achievements have unrolled in the same fashion: by members working closely with one another and with the White House to craft legislation that took into account the concerns of all involved.

Our commissions also came to understand something that veteran members of Congress already know: it helps enormously to find informal ways of getting together. This takes an investment of time that lawmakers these days often feel they don't have, yet it pays big dividends. It is pretty hard to get and stay mad at someone when you know them well. Building a rapport allows people to surmount tensions that might otherwise derail them. They let humor defuse sticky arguments, and build a respect for one another that ensures that disagreements will focus on the issues at hand, not on party interests.

These relationships also encourage lawmakers, commission members and any other group of people considering policy options to take the time they need for vigorous debate - in other words, to deliberate carefully and build consensus methodically.

Perhaps the most important step, though, is to focus on facts. The facts of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath, the facts of what was taking place in Iraq - these were neither ideological nor partisan. By agreeing on what had happened, we could deliberate fruitfully on our recommendations and sidestep arguments about whether the Clinton and Bush administrations had done enough to combat terrorism, or which past U.S. policies deserved support or condemnation. In a city where partisanship is as much part of the atmosphere as nitrogen and oxygen, this was an invigorating move. Focusing on the facts may not guarantee agreement, but it enhances the prospects of reaching agreement.

In the end, building consensus is straightforward. Work cooperatively, not confrontationally. Look at your colleagues as colleagues, not political adversaries. Agree on facts before you apply your ideology to policy. Take ample time to understand different views and deliberate on where you're going. Search for areas of agreement, and do not exaggerate areas of disagreement. Get people focused on the national interest, not on partisan advantage. And decide from the get-go that you're going to reach an agreement, not use disagreement to score political points.

I believe Americans are starved for just this sort of approach. Let us hope that our elected leaders are ready to give it a try.

Audio Version

The Political Skill We Need Most

2008-05-09T12:04:00.001-04:00

In challenging and divided times, it is imperative to find consensus-builders. Americans want results from Washington on the important issues before the country. Making progress on these issues means hammering out solutions that can command broad support, and we need the politicians who can do it.

Our country is closely divided ideologically, with political parties and their adherents ready to scrap over every vote at the polls and every issue that comes before the Congress. Yet if we are to tackle the welter of daunting challenges we face, it will only be because political leaders manage to overcome the forces that divide us. In the current political environment, narrow legislative majorities do not build sustainable policies - solutions that enjoy support among the population at large, and legitimacy among the array of policy-makers who must sign off on them and administrators who must enact them.

Still, as great as the need might be, building consensus on Capitol Hill is about the toughest, most thankless job in politics right now.

To begin with, the sheer number and complexity of the issues we face means that it is hard for any single politician to devote the sustained time and attention it takes to gather facts and opinions about a problem, listen to the concerns of the various interests involved, spend time discoursing with colleagues who have opposing views, work with them to find steps they can agree upon, bring in other politicians and interest groups to form a supportive coalition, and then build majority support in Congress.

Pelted with the Iraq war, concerns about the readiness of the US military, constituents losing their homes, a crisis in financial-industry regulation, failing national infrastructure, a global food crisis, an unsustainable health-care system and a plethora of other issues, lawmakers can barely manage to keep abreast of them all, let alone work to find broad-based solutions.

When they do focus on a particular problem, the politics quickly becomes tangled. Because our country is so diverse in so many different ways, it is rare to find solid majorities in favor of a given approach, either nationally or among a legislator's constituents. For instance, public opinion may support the notion that man-made climate change is real and that governments need to address it, but that's where the agreement ends - and where lawmakers' work begins. Building majority support for an approach to this problem is tough work.

Moreover, public opinion is hardly the only thing a politician needs to keep in mind. Washington is full of skilled and often well-funded lobbyists whose job is to make sure their points of view are vigorously represented at all stages of the legislative process. Because the stakes are so high and so much money is at risk on most issues, legislators often find themselves pulled in half-a-dozen different directions, making consensus even more difficult to forge.

All of this can be overcome, but it takes time, care, and a fundamental willingness on the part of legislative leaders and their followers to achieve it. All of these are in short supply right now. Members' schedules are so full that the chance for thoughtful deliberation is rare; simply put, there's precious little time for the extended conversations and interplay of ideas that produce compromise and agreement.

Nor is there much desire. Years of partisan wrangling and tit-for-tat political maneuvering have left Democrats and Republicans wary of one another, unwilling to share credit, always searching for ways to discredit the other side, and interested more in avoiding blame for problems than in setting aside their disagreements to work together on a solution.

And because conflict is more intriguing than harmony, the media often play up and even exaggerate disagreements, setting up an environment that makes it harder for policy antagonists to bridge their differences.

I don't mean by any of this to imply that building consensus has always been and will always be the appropriate approach to making policy. When I first arrived in Congress, when Lyndon Johnson was President and his Great Society was being formulated, he and his party had the votes in Congress and widespread political backing among voters to enact in a matter of weeks Medicare, federal aid to education and the like. They didn't need to build consensus.

Now, however, we live in vastly different times. Narrow congressional majorities, stark political divisions, the echo-chamber of partisanship, the huge stakes that attend every battle for power - all make it very difficult, if not impossible, to enact responsible and lasting policies by overwhelming the opposition. Building consensus may be difficult, but in today's political environment it is the only realistic course.

Audio Version

Rebuilding Congress

2008-05-01T13:21:00.002-04:00

With their promise of new energy on Capitol Hill, congressional elections are always a time for hope. This year's contests will be especially significant, for Congress is listing and the nation desperately needs it to right itself. No single issue is the problem; it's Congress itself. The people we elect in November to fill the House and Senate chambers next January will need to set about not just doing the people's business, but fixing the institution so that they can do the people's business.

At some level, Americans understand this. The overwhelmingly negative polling numbers that Congress has been putting up recently may be fed in part by issues such as Iraq and the economy, but more generally they reflect widespread disappointment and scanty confidence in the institutions of government. People are discouraged by the lack of progress they see on the big issues we face as a nation. They're tired of excessive partisanship. And they're especially dismayed by political leaders who seem, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to lead.

Congress is under great stress, then - in its internal dealings, its relations with the executive branch, and its legitimacy in the eyes of the American public. It needs renovating.

Its first charge ought to be to reassert itself as a robust and vigorous institution, comparable in strength and initiative to the President. Our system relies on creative tension between a strong Congress and a strong President for the simple reason that different opinions and approaches, forthrightly stated and creatively resolved, produce the best policy. This is why Congress' willingness to yield war-making authority to the President has not served this country well; issues of life, death and entanglements abroad need thoroughgoing debate, not deference to the President in the name of patriotism.

Similarly, Congress' penchant over the past several years for letting the President largely set the budget has allowed it to sidestep responsibility for laying out and vetting the basic blueprint of government.

Congress has of late made some progress on overseeing the executive branch and holding it more accountable for its actions. This is promising, for oversight is the best means of determining whether federal programs are working as intended or whether there's misconduct on the part of bureaucrats and political appointees.

But Congress needs to get even tougher. Effective oversight is not just a matter of looking at a few programs; it needs to be part and parcel of Congress' activities, especially in the routine reauthorization process that Congress has by and large abandoned. The continuing resolutions and massive "omnibus" spending bills that Congress relies on these days don't offer the chance to probe the nooks and crannies of federal agencies; they allow the executive branch to escape scrutiny, and weaken not just Congress, but the President and the nation.

This is one reason why a return to what Capitol Hill veterans call "the regular order" is crucial - taking up one appropriations bill at a time, holding hearings that investigate issues carefully, letting the diverse voices represented in Congress be heard, allowing full and fair debate on the most controversial issues, and voting on all of the major issues. The traditional, deliberative process may seem plodding, but it is how Congress assures openness and its own legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Americans - who worry, often rightly, that shortcuts or closed doors hide decisions that wouldn't bear public scrutiny.

To be sure, even an open process can be hijacked by rank partisanship or by members determined to gum it up for their own purposes. There's no easy answer to this. In part, the solution lies with voters, who need to make clear at the ballot box that they value civility and a willingness to work on behalf of common sense and the common good.

In part, it lies with thoroughgoing ethics reform: Congress has made a start over the last year, but too many members still fail to understand how their low institutional standing stems from public mistrust. Congress must insist that all of its members reflect credit on the institution, as the basic code of conduct requires.

In the end, though, perhaps the most important answer lies with a recognition that at this point in our history, with the nation politically divided in the face of fundamental threats to its well-being and its standing in the world, it is the job of the Congress to try to forge consensus and national unity behind solutions to problems.

It showed it could do so with its recent economic stimulus package, although compared with the very tough decisions still facing our national leadership, cutting taxes was relatively easy.

Perhaps, in the end, it won't be able to muster a consensus on Iraq or reshaping financial regulation or combating climate change. Even so, the American people expect it to try, and when they go to the polls this November, that hope will go with them.

Audio Version

How to Understand Congress

2008-04-17T12:20:00.002-04:00

A paradox comes into sharp relief each election year around this time: Americans in general look down on Congress, but tend to like their own representatives. Most years, in fact, some 98 percent of incumbents running again get re-elected. So why is it that we like the people who inhabit the institution when they're back home in the district, but have little patience for them when they're doing what we elected them to do?

I don't have a complete answer to this conundrum, but I do have a suggestion. Understanding the institution might help explain why it behaves the way it does - and why people you vote for act as they do when they get to Washington.

The first thing to remember about Congress is that it is a highly representative body. This may seem like a cliché, but think for a moment what it means to fulfill the Founders' intention that the people's voices be heard in the halls of government. It means that farmers in Iowa and ranchers in Montana, laborers in Boston, shrimping families in Louisiana, hotel maids in Los Angeles, doctors and lawyers in Minnesota and Georgia - all these and millions of others have someone in Congress who can speak for them. The full diversity of this country's beliefs, concerns, and desires gets funneled to Capitol Hill.

This makes arriving at a political consensus supremely difficult - yet it also guarantees our freedom. It means that, at least in the ideal, Congress acts with the authority that comes from representing the American people.

Congress is also our most accessible branch. You cannot call a Supreme Court justice or secretary of defense to complain about U.S. policy or lodge a grievance. Yet you'll get a response from your congressman or senator. And legislators spend much of each week striving to stay in touch with their districts or states: traveling home for long weekends; hosting call-in shows; meeting both in Washington and at home with their constituents. They know what the people they represent are thinking.

You wouldn't want to change either of these characteristics, but when you combine them with a third - the fact that Congress is designed to be a deliberative body - you can understand why the institution often seems to drag its feet.

We've got a lot of differences in this country - regional, ethnic, and economic - and issues like taxes, health care, or guns don't lend themselves easily to compromise. People often complain about the process, but do we really want a system where laws are pushed through before consensus is reached? Or that lacks legislative speed bumps to ensure that multiple views get heard and Americans' rights are safeguarded? This is why Congress usually deals with issues incrementally rather than resolving them all at once. Its members have to practice the art of deliberation.

This is especially so because Congress is an extraordinarily political body. I mean this in both the unattractive and the appealing aspects of "political."

On the one hand, its members often sway too readily with the currents of public opinion; pay too close attention to the desires of donors; and support or derail legislation for reasons that have little to do with its merits, and much to do with politics. Yet politics as practiced in Congress also entails working hard to understand the concerns of myriad people and interests, bridging differences with an eye toward finding common ground, and building a consensus about how to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

This is why it's so important that Congress fulfill its constitutional mandate as an independent and coequal branch of government - because it plays a role that the executive doesn't and the courts aren't supposed to. It is the only institution in our federal government charged with listening to the American people, sorting through our needs and interests, and applying both what it hears and its members' own views to the issues of the day.

It is an indispensable check on the power of the presidency, and by virtue of its procedures and legislative hurdles, it is a check on the power of runaway majorities and the passions of the moment. That is exactly what the Founders envisioned.

I don't mean in any way to whitewash the problems that burden Congress at the moment - from the power of moneyed interests to the excessive partisanship. Yet in the end, our Founders understood that the fundamental purpose of the Congress is to help maintain freedom in the land, and to search for a remedy for the challenges confronting the country. That is what Congress is about. If you understand this, then you understand that the messiness we find so frustrating about Congress may be what it has to go through to deliver on its promise.

Audio Version

What We Owe Our Young People

2008-04-08T13:08:00.003-04:00

You cannot step into an American community today without finding a lively conversation about educating our children. How to boost math and science learning, whether our schoolchildren are reading and writing enough, what constitutes a "quality" education - all of this figures in the national schooling debate and its thousands of local echoes.

Yet with all respect, I believe this debate is missing a fundamental piece: a recognition that a well-rounded education includes the civic virtues. We owe our young people not just a solid grounding in math, science, English and a foreign language, but also an education in democratic citizenship, because in all too many places they're not getting it. Too many youth lack a basic understanding of our representative democracy, and we reap the sour fruit of this in many Americans' disengagement and lost opportunities to contribute to our society.

What would a decent civic education look like? It begins, I think, with a robust account of the American story: the full, unvarnished history of our successes and failures, our ideals and the human flaws that jeopardize them, our progress over the centuries and the detours we've taken along the way. That is the best way to learn how crucial the involvement of ordinary citizens has been in setting the course of our history. It is also the best way to gain an appreciation for how deeply experimental our system remains, with basic questions about the use and allocation of power that were present at the beginning still in play.

Indeed, understanding that we continue to evolve as a nation, I'm convinced, is the strongest spur not just to participating in local and national civic life, but to appreciating the skills democracy imposes on us: consensus-building, compromise, civility, and rational discourse. The only way to learn them intimately, of course, is through experience: the hard but rewarding work of face-to-face engagement with political leaders and our fellow citizens. But learning how crucial they are to making our system work, both in the trenches and at every level of government - that is something our schools can teach.

So, too, we need to teach that citizenship carries with it certain responsibilities: staying informed, volunteering, speaking out, asking questions, writing letters, signing petitions, joining organizations, finding common ground on contentious issues, working in ways small and large to improve our neighborhoods and communities and to enrich the quality of life for all citizens.

Civic education can help young people feel a part of something larger than themselves by connecting them to the splendid traditions of American democratic involvement, and by showing them how to make the most of their talents to leave their communities better places than they found them.

Withholding civic education, on the other hand, means denying the people who will build our future the means to help them do so. The 21st century is bringing with it some very tough challenges: terrorism; nuclear proliferation; declining energy resources; global warming; a rapidly changing economy; competition from China, India, and nations still emerging as global players; immigration; new diseases; fundamental questions of governance. Our young people cannot hope to be successful in confronting those challenges if they have no idea how to get along together in an open and democratic society.

In the end, then, a good civic education has to include not just history and the skills demanded by democracy, but the qualities that undergird collaboration and engagement:
* mutual respect, so that results of lasting consequence can be achieved;
* tolerance, so that our citizens know how to navigate a diverse world and to value differences rather than fear them;
* deliberation and consultation, so that open debate can lead us to consensus rather than conflict;
* empathy, so that we can understand the worries and motivations of others;
* civility, so that we can disagree and still find common ground;
* humility, so that we keep in mind that we might be wrong and are open to learning from others;
* honesty, so that our common deliberations are open and straightforward;
* and resolve, so that we can overcome setbacks and surmount challenges.

These are not matters for classroom education alone, of course. For the most important quality a democracy must possess is the ability to transmit its needs and values through the experience of participating in it. Our families, our communities, our political system as a whole - all serve as teachers.

We adults have been given the great opportunity of political freedom, and we have a heavy obligation to pass on the knowledge of where it came from and how to sustain it. But teaching our civic virtues has to start somewhere, and I would argue that a key place is in our schools.

Audio Version

You Need to Understand Lobbying

2008-04-03T16:30:00.001-04:00

When news stories about questionable doings on Capitol Hill appear these days, more often than not they involve lobbyists. Think of the Jack Abramoff affair and its many spinoffs, or the ruckus over the New York Times story about John McCain and his dealings with one particular lobbyist. Small wonder that many Americans continue to think of lobbyists as little more than back-room influence peddlers.

The truth, though, is rather different. Most lobbyists are hard-working professionals who understand how to navigate the political process, gain access to lawmakers and key executive-branch officials, and build a strategy to achieve their legislative goals. Whether or not you like the prominent place they occupy in our system, lobbyists have become such an integral part of how our government operates that you can't really understand Washington unless you also understand the role they play in it.

Let's start with the basics. Lobbying is a huge business. There are roughly 30,000 registered lobbyists, but that does not include the marketers, public relations experts, pollsters, support personnel and others who back up their work. One lobbying expert, American University government professor James Thurber, puts the total number of people involved in lobbying at 261,000.

This army of people - whose activities, remember, are aimed at influencing just 535 members of Congress and a relative handful of federal officials - cost and spend several billion dollars each year. At least one company spent more than $1 billion in lobbying activities last year, at the federal and state levels.

A good lobbyist can make four or five times what a legislator or high-ranking official earns, and there's a reason for this. Groups with interests in Washington pay big money for the lobbyists they hire because if they're successful, the payoffs can be huge: subsidies for business; tax breaks for corporations and industries; immunity from lawsuits or even from laws their competitors must obey.

Regardless of which party controls the White House or Capitol Hill, it has become clear to pretty much every interest imaginable in recent years that Washington can stack the deck in its favor or tilt the field against it, and the lobbying workload has soared as a result. In a very real sense, lobbyists have become intermediaries between Washington and the organizations that represent the vast diversity of people, beliefs, and interests in our society.

Even without the occasional scandal, Americans tend to be skeptical about this development. They see lobbyists as agents of special interests who get privileged access to decision-makers, in part by buying it through campaign contributions. There's truth to this. Many Washington lobbyists are active in raising money and support for candidates who back their positions; they make hard-headed judgments about who will most strongly support their industries or causes and hence get their cash. And lobbyists undoubtedly get the chance to press their cases on Capitol Hill with access that your average farmer or teacher can only envy.

Yet the reality is more complicated than "special interests" overwhelming "the public interest." Lobbyists deal in facts - the best of them know that what lawmakers want is straightforward, understandable, and accurate information on a given issue. So on any tough policy matter, which will inevitably find Americans coming down on every side of the issue, all the various interests will be armed with good arguments that make the strongest possible case for their position. While it's too simplistic to say that they cancel one another out, this does mean that they serve an invaluable purpose in helping members of Congress understand an issue and, perhaps even more important, to understand how various constituencies view it.

This suggests a responsibility on the part of public officials who are being lobbied. It is their job not simply to be passive recipients of arguments and information, but to sort through it, and in particular to understand that it comes with a point of view - to listen carefully, in other words, but also remember that a lobbyist presents only one side of a complex issue. The skillful lobbyist, of course, will identify his or her position with the broader public good, but an equally skillful politician understands how to separate the wheat from the rhetorical chaff.

At the same time, ordinary voters should remember that they have one attribute that a member of Congress prizes highly: a vote. For all the campaign contributions they hand out and access they enjoy, lobbyists don't actually have the final say on whether a member of Congress gets re-elected; that's up to the folks back home. Which is why transparency - strict reporting laws on campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures, with easy access to that information for reporters and ordinary Americans - is so important.

For in the end, the voters have to judge whether a member of Congress has allowed lobbyists' arguments and contributions to outweigh the interests of his or her constituents and of the public at large. If so, that's what the voting booth is for.

Audio Version

Congress Should Fix Its Budget Habits

2008-03-07T12:41:00.001-05:00

No sooner had President Bush proposed his final federal budget than commentators began suggesting it had no chance of passing Congress. Since the most noteworthy point about the President's budget is that it would spend the astonishing sum of $3.1 trillion and raise the annual federal deficit to $407 billion, you'd almost think that Congress was standing up for fiscal discipline.

I only wish it were true. Actually, members of Congress don't want the anxiety that comes with responsibility for the nation's fiscal health. While they are finally showing some willingness to challenge the President, if they hold true to form they won't come up with a detailed and well–analyzed alternative; instead, they'll just pass a “continuing resolution” to keep the funds flowing while they wait for the next President.

If so, they will have given up the chance to present an independent congressional vision for the country. The budget may be complex and unwieldy — this year's budget documents clock in at 2,200 pages — but it sets the government's priorities. It is the single most important document the U.S. government produces. The power of the purse given to Congress by the Constitution, in other words, is Capitol Hill's power to check the President's direction and suggest a different one.

Clearly, the nation wants this. Everywhere I go, people tell me that Congress must reassert its authority, and I agree. The budget is precisely the place to do so.

For too long, Congress has shrugged at its own power and thereby ceded it to the White House. Year after year, it has voted to spend more and tax less, and then it decries deficit spending. It has been unable to finish the appropriations bills that lay out its own priorities on time, and so has routinely passed continuing resolutions or omnibus bills rather than the carefully crafted budgets of a generation ago. The result is bad for the government and worse for the federal balance of power, since the budgetary agenda–setting that takes place is basically the President's.

To be sure, Congress has made some progress toward cutting back on “earmarks,” and is to be commended for this. But eliminating an earmark doesn't eliminate the spending, only how it is allocated. Against the backdrop of Congress' far more costly habit of passing unaffordable entitlement spending and equally unaffordable tax cuts, it's only the tiniest of steps.

No Congress that really cared about fiscal responsibility would raise spending and cut revenues as Congress has habitually done. Our current deficits are unsustainable. They threaten us with potentially crippling dependence on other countries, and impose heavy bills for current spending on our children and grandchildren. Yet when Congress focuses on reform, it tends to look at questions of process: Should it cap spending on Medicare? Should it change to a biennial budget cycle? Should it give the President a line–item veto or expand his rescission authority? Should it return to its Clinton–era “pay as you go” rules, which required it to find the money for spending proposals?

While some of these may be helpful — the “pay–go” rules did, indeed, impose a measure of fiscal discipline on Congress — the truth is that none of them produces sound fiscal and budgetary policy, and some give even more power to the President. The fundamental money issues facing Congress don't have to do with process, they have to do with hard choices. Simply put, Congress has to make sound fiscal decisions.

Why does this matter? Partly, of course, it's the issue itself. The budget is not now, and has not been for years, in fundamental balance. Isn't there someone in Washington who is uncomfortable with a $400 billion deficit that our grandchildren will be paying off? Unfortunately, most Americans do not seem bothered by the fiscal irresponsibility. This just imposes an additional burden on Congress. Not only must it take on runaway federal spending and seek to control health–care costs, social security, national security spending, and other generous programs, it must also tell the American people how serious the problem is, insist that deficits do matter, and work in a bipartisan way to achieve a balanced budget.

Just as important, getting control of the budget and behaving like the fiscal stewards our Founders envisioned is the first step Congress must take if it is to be a co–equal branch of government. As long as it allows the power of the purse to lie elsewhere and pretends it's just along for the ride, Congress' claim to independence will ring hollow.

Audio Version

Look For Candidates Who Respect the Congress

2008-03-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

You might not have noticed, given the media's fascination with the presidential campaign, but there are 435 U.S. House contests and 35 U.S. Senate races taking place this year. These are important elections, for even more reasons than you might be hearing about. Indeed, unless I miss my guess, the candidates and press in those many contests are barely talking about one of the most important issues we face: the role of Congress itself.

The litany of matters worrying Americans and absorbing the attention of congressional candidates is, of course, long and complex: the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the challenges posed by Iran, the state of American public education, climate change, a long-term energy policy, immigration.... Not surprisingly, many voters want to hear how Congress can protect them from financial ruin or how candidates propose to keep America strong. They're less interested in how Congress functions.

Yet unless Congress learns how to reassert its constitutional responsibility to be the President's equal in policy-making, the progress voters yearn to see on all those issues will be much harder to come by. This is why, as you listen to the various House and Senate candidates campaigning for your vote, I hope you'll pay attention not only to what they say about the economy or Iraq, but also to how they talk about Congress itself.

It's been the habit both of incumbents and their challengers in recent years to run for Congress by running against the Congress. They criticize its profligate spending or its do-nothing ways or its shoddy ethics or the undue influence of money and lobbyists. These are all choice targets, and they have their place in the campaign debate, but you have to wonder how long this denigration of Congress can continue before Americans lose their faith in representative democracy.

There's another path, and that's to recognize that Congress is flawed but that, as an institution, it needs upholding and shoring up, not stigmatizing. A robust, functional, and assertive Congress is crucial to making our system work.

It needs to be able to keep an eye on the executive branch, advance an agenda based on its members' understanding of what the country needs, police its members' behavior, be the place where the cross-currents roiling the American community meet in constructive debate, and in general play the muscular role our Founders envisioned for it in policy-making.

It cannot do any of these things if it is filled with politicians who are adept at making themselves look good and the Congress look bad, or who care little about its institutional powers.

I've noticed something interesting as I have moved around the country in recent months: a lot of people seem to have caught on to this. They express disappointment that Congress for decades has allowed the White House to dominate it. They fret that the expansion of presidential power sought by the Bush administration has gone too far, and are bewildered by Congress' timidity in pushing its own powers. This is an extremely promising development - if it translates into an electorate willing to look carefully at how congressional candidates propose to set Congress back on track, and it begins to wake up Congress as a whole.

For make no mistake, this is not just a matter of political theory or a topic for a good speech on the importance of constitutional checks and balances. It has to be practiced in the day-to-day workings of Capitol Hill.

If you ask candidates whether they are in favor of reasserting congressional authority, the answer will almost certainly be yes. But that's not enough. What you want to know is whether they'll be aggressive in shaping the federal budget; whether they believe Congress has a strong voice, along with the President's, in declaring war or pursuing military intervention overseas; whether they'll work with their colleagues to develop and fight for Congress's own agenda, and not simply respond to the President's; whether they see that getting Congress's ethical house in order is crucial to building its institutional strength, not just a matter of political expediency; whether they understand that Congress must be a truly deliberative and consensus-building body, not a place where the majority ramrods its wishes through without debate; and whether they understand that violating longstanding and fair procedure - by passing sprawling, multi-topic omnibus bills, for instance - merely hands the President more power.

If they get all this, even if you disagree on a few policy issues, I hope you'll consider voting for them. If they're oblivious and seem unconcerned about Congress' loss of power, then it's worth asking whether they really understand our constitutional system of separate and co-equal branches of government and the need to revive Congress's vigor and dynamism.

Audio Version

Young Must Learn How Democracy Works

2008-02-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

If by chance you have visited a presidential campaign headquarters, you might have noticed one of the more striking aspects of the various campaigns: how young their foot-soldiers are. You see them in the background at campaign headquarters, or standing alongside the wall at a debate or rally, or accompanying candidates out on the stump.

Young people - college students, those not long out of college, even some high-school students - play a central role in the behind-the-scenes work of a presidential campaign because, apart from the candidates themselves, only the young have the energy for the exhausting hours that must be put into a campaign at this level.

I can't help contrasting this picture with what I've often seen when sitting on the stage at some local political event and looking out at the crowd: mostly older people. The fact is, at the local and state levels, the people who make the political system work are getting older.

The parties' precinct committee chairs, the poll workers, the election judges, the convention delegates, those who fill the chairs at political functions - in short, the people who oil the machinery of a representative democracy - are for the most part middle-aged or beyond. I hope you'll understand that I'm not being ageist when I say this is not a healthy state of affairs.

Our system depends for its vitality on a continuous stream of young people getting involved in it, and not just in presidential election years. It's not simply the mechanics of politics that benefits from energy, new blood and fresh perspectives, it's democracy itself.

Our civic life cannot be whole if the ideas and perspectives of students and young adults are missing from political campaigns, or from grassroots efforts to change a policy or get a new traffic light, or from the boards and commissions that oversee various aspects of community affairs.

Just as important, young people who don't take part in politics are missing a vital education in the complexities of their communities and in how to develop the skills that a vibrant democracy demands from its citizens.

The truth is, as a society we're not especially good at encouraging young people to become involved in political life. Anne Colby, a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching who has studied the political engagement of students at colleges and universities around the country, found that they are much more likely to be involved in community service efforts than in politics.

This may be, she argues, because that's what they know. In high school and college, she notes, students "are offered a great wealth of opportunities to do community service but they perceive very few opportunities and little encouragement to become politically involved." The result is that politics seems like foreign territory, while community service "has become almost as familiar as going to school."

It is good that students in high school and beyond are being shown how to contribute to their communities. And I certainly can understand why teachers might be reluctant to encourage students to become involved in the potentially controversial work of backing a political candidate or cause. It is far safer to direct someone to go help out the local food bank than, say, the Democratic or Republican candidate for Congress.

Yet if we define "contribute to the community" narrowly, leaving out politics, then we deprive our students of exposure to the issues and mechanisms that drive the nation's political life, as well as the diversity of people and communities that politics would encourage them to meet.

Moreover, as elementary and middle schools de-emphasize social studies in their efforts to meet federal and state testing requirements in math, reading and writing, you have to wonder how students will get the education in democracy that buttresses their ability to participate as adults in our democracy. As former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and former Colorado Governor Roy Romer put it in a 2006 op-ed column, "Most young people today simply do not have an adequate understanding of how our government and political system work, and they are thus not well prepared to participate as citizens."

There are some ambitious efforts to counter this state of affairs. As part of our work at the Center on Congress, we partner with the Center for Civic Education and the National Conference of State Legislatures to promote a sustained commitment to civics instruction from kindergarten through college. Justice O'Connor is spearheading a program to teach middle-school students about the judiciary and government in general. Former Congressman Abner Mikva has created a program giving students in the Chicago Public Schools a chance to volunteer for political campaigns, work as election judges at polling places, learn how to advocate for policy change, and develop leadership skills in addressing issues affecting their own schools.

And election officials across the country are backing state efforts to lower the minimum age for poll workers to 16, which would give young people a firsthand view of how elections run while tapping their expertise with technology.

As creative and vital as these and other projects may be, the vacuum they're trying to address is enormous. What we need is a cultural change in our schools and our communities that sees an adequate civic education as being every bit as important as math and reading, and that encourages students to participate in the everyday life of our political system. There is no better way of ensuring that our democracy remains healthy from one generation to the next.

Audio Version

Politicians Need To Find A Balance

2008-01-29T11:37:00.001-05:00

For most of my career I've been a firm believer in the political arts, first as a member of Congress and now as an observer of politicians. The ability to read the mood of an electorate, an aptitude for building consensus among competing interests, a gift for finding just the right tack for eliciting people's agreement - these talents are indispensable to making Congress and our democracy work.

Yet lately I've wondered whether politics as we practice it today is working as well as it should. In some ways, politicians are acting too much like politicians for the country's good.

To understand this, let's step back for a moment and remember the difference between a representative democracy, which is the system we live in, and a straight-out, direct democracy. As it is now, we elect people to represent us and to make decisions about the issues confronting us that, ideally, will make ours a better and stronger nation. If we lived in a pure democracy, we'd be making those decisions ourselves.

Any politician will tell you there is a great deal of wisdom and common sense to be found in the American electorate. Yet we live in a representative democracy for a reason: the men who designed our system wanted to reserve a place for deliberation, study, and thoroughgoing argument. They worried that popular majorities could be swayed by the passions of the moment or by sheer self-interest, rather than by carefully reasoned debate about where the best interests of the country might lie.

Fast-forward to today, and you'll notice that while we still live in a representative democracy, our representatives too often seem to be guided by polls of their constituents or by the desires of the interests with which they most closely identify.

There are times when it seems as though the one thing our system was designed to ensure - that our representatives would think hardest about what's good for the country as they weigh the issues before them - is the last thing on their minds.

Indeed, politicians appear to be obsessed with every nuance of public opinion and the needs and desires of the various interests that fund their campaigns. True, it's how they get elected and then re-elected, but it also sets up an unhealthy political dynamic. Those running for office tend to advance policy ideas that promise them electoral victory; they give answers that are carefully calibrated to appeal to the politics of the moment, pushing the country's long-term interests aside; and so they give in to partisanship and give less attention to negotiation, bargaining, and compromise.

American voters, accustomed to having politicians cater to their desires, let their personal interests dictate the kind of government they want to see and so become ever more dependent on Washington while professing to despise politicians for pandering to them.

Surely we can do better.

What we need are politicians who understand their responsibility both to reflect the popular will and to educate and lead the public - who, in essence, recognize that in a representative democracy, the people elect them to use their judgment and steer by their own convictions.

Good politicians see their job as building consensus for pragmatic and effective policies through deliberation and accommodation; they are not simple weather vanes, shifting this way or that according to the views contained in the latest polls or the advice of their favorite political consultant.

We hear much today in politics about the search for "authenticity" in political candidates; this, I believe, is a reflection of Americans' desire for political leaders who understand that while good leadership begins with listening, it cannot end there.

Getting the balance right between reflecting the views of the American people and allowing for the judgment and skill of the elected representative is difficult. But it is hard for me to imagine that a politician who focuses on what is best for our country can go too far wrong. A clash of enlightened politicians who are determined to find remedies that serve the public good will almost certainly produce better policy than politicians who view their job as mirroring the latest polls or the positions of special-interest constituencies. The challenge for American voters is to know the difference, and reward the former rather than the latter.

Audio Version

Congress Must Assert Itself

2008-01-15T11:45:00.000-05:00

To the casual observer, Congress must seem unusually pushy these days. Its Democratic majority is tussling with the White House over the budget. Senators are investigating the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes. The House Oversight Committee has accused the White House of systematically impeding scientific inquiry into global warming. And hearings into past administration behavior - from wiretaps to doings at the Justice Department - continue. Aren't those politicians on Capitol Hill going a little overboard, you might wonder?

The short answer is: no. Not even close.

This is not a partisan comment about Democrats and Republicans. It's about the relationship between Capitol Hill and the White House, and how important it is to our system that each - the presidency and the Congress - be a strong and vibrant institution.

To understand why, let's start with the vision for our democracy as laid out in the Constitution. What the Founders sought above all was balance - between large states and small, minority rights and majority rule, the executive power and the legislative.

To keep the President from becoming too powerful, they not only created an equally powerful Congress, they explicitly gave it authority - to declare war, to enact taxes, to set the budgetary agenda - designed to ensure that consultation, debate, and the voices of the American people would all have a prominent place in the halls of power.

They did not want an unchecked Congress. They believed that the interaction between two powerful branches of government would be broadly responsive to the people, and the balance between each branch would produce better policy.

Yet over the last few decades, on issue after issue, Congress has slowly but inexorably ceded its constitutionally mandated responsibilities to the President. Presidents of both parties have sought and encouraged this trend, although it has accelerated under President Bush, who has pursued a definition of executive power more all-encompassing than that of any of his predecessors.

Perhaps the most vivid example of this overall shift in power lies in the weightiest decision a government has to make: whether to go to war against another country. The Constitution unequivocally grants this authority to Congress, and it does so for a reason - our Founders wanted the decision to be made not by one person, but by many.

In case after case since the Korean conflict, however, Congress has essentially handed off war-making power to the President, and presidents have been only too eager to accept it. The constitutional injunction - the Congress shall have the power to declare war - has become a nullity. In the popular mind as well as in practice, war has become a presidential prerogative.

Similarly, Congress has over the last few decades grown increasingly sluggish when it comes to budgeting - that is, creating the basic blueprint for what our government will do. Not only has it ceded the initiative to the President, who submits the budget while Congress merely responds, but it has repeatedly failed to come up with its own clear vision for government spending; the President determines well over 90 percent of the federal budget year after year, while Congress gets to tinker on the margins.

And only four times in the last 30 years has Congress passed all its appropriations bills on time, which greatly strengthens the President's hand, as is apparent at the end of every budget year.

War and the budget are not the only arenas in which Congress has effectively relinquished its agenda-setting role. On everything from the fight against terror to international trade to protecting the environment, and a host of other issues, the President and executive branch have become the driving forces in American governance. Congress, though not entirely supine, has been content to let the President take the political heat for actually leading.

To be sure, the world our nation faces is vastly different from the one our Founders confronted or could even envision in 1789. In a difficult world, an increase in presidential power is appropriate. But a timid Congress is not. A Congress that reasserts its prerogatives as a co-equal branch of government, that insists on robust oversight of the executive branch, that sets its own agenda as well as responds to the agenda of the President, that exercises the powers given it by our Constitution when it comes to declaring war and deciding how the government will spend its money - this would not be a Congress that weakens the President, but rather one that strengthens our democracy.

All it would take would be for members of Congress to muster the political will and confidence to do what their office requires them to do: uphold and defend the Constitution.

Audio Version

Why Politics Is So Partisan

2008-01-10T11:19:00.000-05:00

On the whole, Americans want their politicians to hew to the political center and govern with a healthy dose of pragmatism. Yet we live in the most bitterly partisan era in memory, when the dominant voices in both parties are more ideological and less willing to compromise, and the politics they practice too often is a mean-spirited, take-no-prisoners enterprise.

How could this gap between Americans' moderate inclinations and their leaders' tendentious zeal have grown so large?

A large part of the answer lies in long-term social changes that have weakened the political center. We may be moderate in the aggregate, but those who involve themselves in political life often give strength to the extremes.

Take the shift over the past generation in how we view the government. When I entered national politics in the 1960s, the prevailing attitude toward the federal government was that it had its place in life, but that place was fairly limited. "Keep the government off my back" was the sentiment I heard most frequently.

These days, people want help: a subsidy here, a tax break there, a program or a grant targeted to their needs. They come streaming into Washington to state their case.

That is a huge attitudinal shift, and it has intensified our politics and raised the stakes in Congress. A change in wording, even a comma inserted or deleted, can mean millions or billions of dollars to one group over another. Small wonder that lobbying has become a huge and lucrative industry inside the Beltway: With so much at stake, fighting as hard as one can on Capitol Hill and in the electoral arena is a matter of simple self-interest.

Outside Washington, the constituencies that make up "we, the people" have become ever more sharply etched. Ethnic minorities are far more of a presence in politics than they were a generation ago, as they scramble to move up the economic ladder and speak with a louder voice in the political arena.

Special-interest voters — environmentalists, NRA backers, abortion-rights advocates, religious conservatives — have become more firmly self-identified, rousable by cause groups, and catered to by politicians.

And as economic inequality grows, it raises the political temperature. Those who are doing well fight harder to keep what they have or tilt the game a bit more in their favor, while those treading water or living in fear of losing what they've got must scramble desperately for whatever political purchase they can find. All of this raises the nation's political intensity.

Confronted by all this, politicians and party leaders have moved away from the old values of compromise, accommodation and civility, to reap whatever advantage they can from political division. This starts at the very top. Most past presidents believed in using their office to expand their political base; President Bush, on the other hand, has governed so as to appeal to his base, and for the last seven years that approach has been echoed on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Legislative tactics these days lean far more toward excluding the minority than toward seeking ways to work with all members. This makes Congress an increasingly angry place, as the current minority chafes under its restrictions and the majority still sees red over slights it suffered when it was in the minority.

Along with the frenetic pace of life in Congress, this has made it much harder for members to develop personal relationships across the aisle; they see one another less as colleagues than as partisan adversaries. They worry less about how Congress might carry out its constitutional responsibilities and more about how to pick up a few votes. All of this is magnified by a national media that thrives on highlighting the battles between politicians.

The key question, of course, is whether this is bound to continue. Are we condemned to live in a country whose center cannot hold?

The answer, I think, is two-fold. Our politicians like to talk bi-partisanship, but they are the ones ultimately responsible for the polarization of the process. They've profited from the partisan system: in campaign contributions, the assiduous attention of lobbyists, and the increased power of their partisan bases as Americans in the center get turned off and abandon political involvement altogether. Nothing will change until our politicians change.

And how will this happen? I take great hope from the fact that the bulk of the electorate simply wants to see the challenges that confront them — and us, as a nation — addressed pragmatically. They want common-sense approaches, not ideologically driven ones. They want to see politicians striving to find common ground, not dwelling on their differences, and working for the common good, not promoting special interests. Eventually, if it's repeated often and firmly enough, that message will get through to our political leaders.

Audio Version

Why Not Try Genuine Consultation?

2008-01-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

Congress and President Bush often do not see eye to eye, but does Washington need to be paralyzed as a result? Two recent dramas - a face-off over appropriations measures and Congress's failure to override the President's veto of children's health insurance legislation - bring that question into prominence.

In the first instance, the President vetoed a series of water projects passed by Congress, only to see his veto resoundingly overridden in both the House and the Senate; he then vetoed another appropriations bill, and threatens more such actions in the future. The conflict over the Democratic majority's bid to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, which has so far been blocked by the White House, also continues.

Disagreements over policy between the White House and Congress are inevitable. But they need not end in these all-or-nothing battles, which too often result in nothing accomplished to advance public policy. Governing well is not about hammering at the other side until it relents; it's about working hard to find whatever common ground is possible. Real consultation and negotiation between Congress and the White House is scarce, at least for now.

In the case of children's health legislation, members of Congress from both parties worked throughout the spring and summer to craft a bill that could become law with the President's signature, only to see it attacked by the President before they had even finished. White House aides contend that the Democratic majority is interested only in scoring political points in next year's elections; members of Congress counter that the White House has never truly engaged with them to create a measure the President could sign.

Meanwhile, as the appropriations process wears on, further stalemates are in the offing. Democrats may have won their override on the water projects bill, but that was low-hanging fruit, since even the most fiscally conservative member of Congress would have a hard time opposing money for a badly needed project back home. Future measures will be much harder to enact.

Facing the prospect of a continued standstill in Washington, both sides might want to take a step back and think about what running the country entails. It's possible that relations between this President and this Congress are so noxious they'll be unable to govern, but I'd like to suggest that with both sides' poll standings at record lows, it can't hurt to consider the American people's obvious hunger for progress.

The key point about governing and consultation between the two branches of government is that it has to be a sincere effort to consult and work with the other branch in the decision-making process. It doesn't work for the President and his advisers to call the congressional leadership in, announce a decision that has already been made, and call that "consultation." It's equally unproductive for a congressional majority to gamble that it will be rewarded in the court of electoral opinion for excluding White House input into its bills.

To bridge the differences, there must be a very strong will to succeed. What's needed is a process that creates an ongoing relationship - not just one created to deal with an immediate crisis - that builds trust among the various players, recognizes there are always alternatives in policy disputes, and allows key negotiators to sit down and talk long before decisions are made.

This works not just to both sides' political advantage, it usually produces better policy for the American people. I'm reminded, for instance, of the intensive negotiations between Secretary of State George Marshall and Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan that produced the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of postwar Europe, despite the general state of suspicion between the Republican-held Congress and Democratic President Harry S Truman's White House.

Or President George H. W. Bush's efforts to convince a dubious Congress to allocate large amounts of financial aid to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after the fall of communism; rather than try to bludgeon Congress into going along, he involved Congress in designing the aid programs. Or the long, tedious, contentious discussion on just about any major piece of legislation, from welfare reform to Medicare to aid to education, that has characterized our advances in public policy.

By its nature, Congress represents the American people's diversity and articulates their concerns. Faced with a Congress controlled by the opposition, a President cannot get what he wants by flexing his muscle alone, but he can knit together a majority to generate public support. And only rarely can Congress hope to enact policy over the President's veto; it cannot change the course of American policy without him.

So the two branches need to work with, not against, one another if they're to govern effectively. Consultation is hardly a confession of political weakness: It's a pragmatic recognition that in our system, the two branches need to talk to one another. If they can't, they produce only stalemate in Washington and public disgust in the country at large. Surely, the President and the leadership in Congress want to leave a better legacy than that.

Audio Version

The Path to Good Citizenship

2008-01-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

"My job is to make the country work, and help it to come together." I don't remember the name of the young woman who said that, but I certainly remember the circumstances. It was at a high school in the southern Indiana congressional district I once represented. As a member of Congress, you get asked regularly to speak at high schools, and I always tried to comply.

I also tried to meet with small groups of students beforehand to talk about what being an American meant to them. I was especially interested in how they saw the responsibilities of citizenship - and in particular, whether they saw dimensions to it that went beyond simply voting.

It has been a while since I made visits like these. Those young people have grown up and, I'm sure, forgotten our conversations. I still think about their comments, however. I do not want to suggest they were typical; indeed they were not. That's one reason their statements have stayed with me for years. Then, too, they were so young - most of them couldn't even vote - yet displayed none of the disconnection or apathy that we so commonly attribute to teenagers.

Some, for instance, were focused on their own road forward. "My job is for me to become the best I can be," one student said, while another added, "Mine is to overcome all the obstacles, and succeed." Both reflected not only the opportunities this country affords its residents, but the obligation this imposes on us to take advantage of them despite the challenges we sometimes encounter. "My job is to have a good, decent, hard-working family," said another - a purely personal goal, in one sense, but a boon to society in another.

Other students thought of their responsibilities in what amounted to moral terms. "My responsibility is to do the right thing, always," one told me, while another was determined "to respect everyone, get along with them, treat them decently, work with them, and try to help them." This emphasis on integrity and generosity of spirit acknowledged that how we behave toward others is also a part of good citizenship - that sometimes, doing the right thing can reverberate throughout a community.

Much of the time, the young people I spoke with thought of citizenship in broad terms. They'd obviously pondered what it meant to be a citizen of their own towns, their nation or even the world. They talked about "making my town and my neighborhood better, and improving them in any way I can," as one put it. They spoke about having "been given a marvelous country, and it is our job to pass it on better than we found it."

They talked, too, about their responsibility as U.S. citizens to promote this country's strengths elsewhere: "My job," one said, "is to help keep the country free - and to share that freedom with others." And they saw a role for themselves not just in political terms, but in environmental ones, speaking of their obligation to "protect the earth: the water, soil and air," as one said.

These sentiments were often couched in simple terms, but they expressed complex ideas. In particular, they took it as a given that part of being a citizen is building on the strengths or doing all one can to reverse the shortfalls of the communities and the nation they lived in.

Not only did their comments show real insight into our democracy, they brought home a crucial point: There is no single path to good citizenship. These students all saw different ways of being a citizen, and I don't think it's over-reaching to say that our country thrives because it gives us all the chance to interpret our place in it in our own fashion. Those who work hard and focus on raising a family or on becoming experts in their field contribute just as surely as those who tutor in schools, organize rallies to fight some injustice or volunteer to protect U.S. interests abroad. Indeed, as a society we depend on multiple interpretations of what makes for good citizenship.

Every time I left one of these high-school gatherings, I felt reinvigorated and reassured. For what came home to me time after time as I talked with those students was that we would face a grim future indeed if they weren't thinking about citizenship at all.

Audio Version

Debate Is Good For Our System

2007-12-20T12:27:00.000-05:00

We certainly have a quarrelsome Congress. In recent weeks its members have been arguing about funding children's health insurance, whether to assert that the Turks committed World War I-era genocide against the Armenians, and what sort of energy policy should guide the nation. Then there's the ongoing issue of the Iraq war, the constant debate over how to fix our health care system, and any number of other dustups and outright policy brawls that seem to take place every time you look in on a committee room or chamber on Capitol Hill.

A lot of people don't like this. Pretty much every time I address an audience, someone complains, "I'm sick and tired of all the bickering. Those guys are always fighting." And everyone around will nod.

Most people are uncomfortable with disagreement and debate. As individuals, this is fine; but as citizens, I would argue that we should not only get used to it, we should be pleased by it. It has been a constant in American politics, and let us hope it always will be.

Extensive debate is written into the very structure of our congressional system. At every level, from subcommittees through committees to the floor of each chamber and then to the conference committees that bring members from each house of Congress together, there is the presumption of discussion, debate, disagreement and even argument. Our Founders understood the importance of conflict in the system, both as a way for all views to be represented, and as a process for building common ground among them.

For the fundamental fact of our democracy is that Americans, despite all that unites us, nonetheless have much that divides us: different philosophies, different prospects in life, different backgrounds, different communities, different ways to define what is in our self-interest, what is in our community's interest, and what is in our nation's best interest.

It's true that these divisions can be exacerbated by special interests, the media, and politicians all seeking to exploit them to their own ends, but that doesn't mean the initial differences don't exist. They do. And it is Congress's job to sort through them as it strives to find the majorities it needs to move forward on legislation. If there weren't conflict, Congress wouldn't be doing its job.

There are certainly times when the conflict built into our system gets out of hand, and the people involved become mean-spirited or angry. But overall, disputation and debate are not a weakness of our democracy, they're a strength. They lead to better, more sustainable decisions. They help to build majority support for a proposal. And they are part of how we talk to one another as we search for common ground.

Let me give you an example. Over the years in Washington, there has been much discussion about whether the nation ought to have a single director of national intelligence. I was initially quite skeptical about the value of reorganizing our intelligence community to impose such a position. Then, however, I served as co-chair of the 9/11 Commission. We had long, sometimes very pointed debates about how our intelligence system was working, and by the end I'd come to the conclusion that the only way to obtain the sharing of intelligence information our country needs was to centralize authority in a single directorate. In other words, I changed my mind because of our debates.

The same thing is constantly taking place in Congress. Some issues are extremely difficult to resolve. They take years of wrangling, arguing, and debate simply for members to find enough common ground so they can move forward. It helps to look past the often messy process and judge Congress by the end results. The minimum-wage bill that passed earlier this year; how best to shape our homeland security system; how to structure children's health insurance - all of these have been subject to heartfelt and sometimes quite contentious disputes over the years, but in the end, Congress reaches a conclusion and we move on.

Indeed, I believe that we are stronger for the sometimes difficult road Congress has to travel as it searches for solutions to the challenges that confront us. For a strong debate means that all sides get a chance to be heard and have their arguments weighed. It means that there is less chance that power will be concentrated to the point of stifling our voices. Keep in mind that the most efficient and conflict-free political system is a dictatorship.

So let's not expect Congress to be free of disagreement and contention. The better approach is to manage the debate so it is civil, inclusive, serious and constructive. Yes, Congress sometimes has trouble managing itself, but that is a far better problem than if our system allowed for no conflict at all.

Audio Version

This Is A Good Time To Talk To Politicians

2007-12-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

With the 2008 elections a bit over a year away, you're probably already girding for an onslaught of advertising, campaign pitches and telephone calls. But here's a thought I hope has also occurred to you: Turnabout is fair play. This is a perfect time for you to seek the attention of people who are going to be asking for your vote, so that you can tell them what's on your mind and how you hope to be represented.

There's a simple truth about election campaigns that you should remember. The closer they get to the moment when voters go to the polls, the less flexible they become. By next spring, candidates will have made up their minds about what issues they're going to stress and what they think will resonate with the electorate. The campaigns themselves will have become much more about tactics, strategy and responding to events, and much less about listening.

That hasn't happened yet. At the moment, in the fall before an election year, the candidates truly want to know what you're thinking - and as someone who ran in 34 elections over the years, let me assure you that they really are paying attention.

Why is this? For one thing, as an election approaches, anybody who wants to be a candidate - this includes incumbents and challengers alike - is trying to gauge the mood of the electorate.

They want to know what people think about specific issues, of course: their views on the Iraq War, or how we should be confronting our broken health-care system, or whether No Child Left Behind should be renewed.

But even more important, they want to get a sense of how voters are feeling about the direction of the country, the politicians who represent them, the role of government in their lives. They want to know whether voters are angry or contented, generally pleased with their representatives or determined to clean house, willing to put their confidence in a party or leery of Democrats and Republicans alike.

And they want to plumb the reasons behind that mood, whether they can do anything about it, and whether they can come up with proposals that might either help assuage or give expression to what they're hearing from voters.

This is not pandering. It's how our system is supposed to work. Elections are how we make sure our concerns get reflected in Washington, and the only way to do this is to express them to politicians who are stumping for our votes and see how they respond.

Likewise, exchanges on the stump allow politicians to test their own ideas, articulate their beliefs and proposals, and in general gauge the response to notions that might eventually become themes for their campaigns - and beyond. This is the time when the two-way conversation that lies at the heart of our democracy is at its loosest and most free-flowing.

In this cynical age, I suppose, there are plenty of people who think that politicians, especially once they get elected, listen only to lobbyists and big-time contributors and are uninterested in what ordinary people have to say. The truth is, though, politicians understand all too well that most lobbyists and big-time contributors don't vote for them. Their constituents do.

There are any number of ways to get in touch with the people who represent you, or would like to. You can certainly write a letter, send emails, or make a phone call. Yet my own belief is that the most effective way to get your views across is in person - over a cup of coffee, in a respectful exchange at a campaign event, by dropping by a candidate's office or when he or she is out campaigning and rings your doorbell, even in a quick conversation in a café where a candidate happens to show up.

That's why these next few months are so important. The candidates are listening for what you have to say right now. Let them know.

Audio Version

Some Kind Words for Politicians

2007-12-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

It feels like an almost weekly occurrence now. Something happens on Capitol Hill — the debate over our way out of Iraq, for instance — and before you know it, commentators are wrinkling their noses about politicians.

I’ve spent the better part of my life among politicians, and I know their shortcomings. Some of them engage in so much spin they lose sight of the truth; many stretch the bounds of what it takes to win an election, or they cater, if not pander, to influential or well-heeled interest groups; pretty much all of them spend a lot of time in a demeaning chase after campaign funds. There have also been plenty of examples of politicians who let the country and their constituents down, going to jail for corruption or resigning because of misbehavior you wouldn’t want your children reading about. I grant the critics all of that.

Yet here’s what I remember as well: My very first year in Congress, I voted in favor of creating Medicare. That program was crafted by politicians, and in the decades since then it has helped countless older Americans get much-needed health care. Was that an ignoble thing? Should the GI Bill, the creation of the land-grant college system, the interstate highway system or other landmarks of congressional action ignite our disdain because they were shaped by politicians? Should we be excoriating those pols on Capitol Hill for voting every year to back research into disease, or for funding the national parks, or for looking over the executive branch’s shoulder to be sure it acts in a way that does justice to Americans’ expectations?

My point is not that politics is filled with selfless, honorable individuals heading for sainthood. Like any profession, it has its good practitioners and its bad. But it is time to temper public scorn for politicians with a little reality.

The simple truth is, some of our greatest national heroes were politicians — think of the example George Washington set as our first president, or of Abraham Lincoln. This nation would have long since come apart at the seams without the skills of political leaders. Today, in a country so filled with diversity and the clamor of loud and insistent voices, without the ability of politicians at every level to listen to all those voices, find areas of common interest, look for creative solutions, forge compromise and convince their constituents to move forward, our daily lives would be far more chaotic and we could even confront anarchy.

The few who misbehave draw headlines and attention, but my experience is that most politicians are well-intentioned, hard-working people who are trying to do what they perceive to be in the best interests of their communities and the nation. They can be an ambitious, hard-driving, energetic breed, but my view is that it is possible to live greatly, even nobly, in politics — and many politicians do.

They do it in small, everyday ways, by helping people resolve problems that might mean little to others — a lost Social Security check, a missing relative overseas, a dangerous intersection nearby — or by guiding them through bureaucratic systems they need help negotiating.

They do it in bigger ways, by trying to educate their constituents about the issues that confront us and crafting legislation to deal with them. And they do it in perhaps the most important way imaginable, by trying to create and maintain a political and social environment that is secure, safe, free and stable, one in which all of us can pursue our own interests.

“I must study politics and war,” John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, “that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy…[and] give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music…” At their best, that is what politicians do. They sustain the framework in which Americans go about their lives and do their best to improve it, so that our children and grandchildren can thrive.

Sure, go ahead and heap scorn on politicians, and say they pursue a less-than-noble profession. But from time to time, let’s also remember to thank the many who carry on their difficult work with skill, integrity, and deep concern for the common good.

Audio Version

Why Isn’t Congress More Efficient?

2007-12-07T11:39:00.000-05:00

There are any number of reasons the public standing of the United States Congress rests at historic lows. Chief among them, I believe, is the widespread conviction that Congress simply can’t get much worthwhile done: not on Iraq, not on health care, not on any of the myriad issues that perplex and trouble the average American.

Wander into any conversation on the topic and you’ll get an earful about why this is so: too much partisanship; too much arguing for argument’s sake; too many special interests; too much political division in the country. One thing you’re unlikely to hear, though, is the mundane but inarguable truth that Congress simply isn’t set up to be efficient. It moves by inches for a very good reason — it was designed for deliberation, not speed.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There really is too much destructive partisanship on Capitol Hill. There are too many people in Congress who confuse their party’s talking points for productive debate. Capitol Hill can find itself so hemmed in by lobbyists and the expectations of campaign donors that progress becomes impossible. And when the country is up for grabs with divided government and a near-even split in the Congress, making progress is tough.

Yet it is also true that by its very nature, Congress is inefficient — and though we might be disappointed sometimes that it can’t act faster, in general we’re better off as a result.

Think about how Congress was designed by our Founders. They wanted to ensure that the body was representative of the American people, and that it provided a forum for reasoned exploration of the issues besetting the nation — in other words, they wanted reflection and deliberation before action. So they created the Senate and the House, which not only provide two different means of representing the country, but also require that everything happen twice.

Each piece of legislation must move through subcommittees and committees in both houses, must go through both rules committees, must be debated on the floor of both chambers, must go through a conference committee and get final approval in both chambers, and then must go before the President. This is an arduous trek for a bill, and it makes for an endless variety of ways in which legislation can be amended or stopped outright. It also, however, provides an opportunity to consider thoroughly the implications and potential effects of each potential law.

Beyond its structure, Congress is an immensely complex institution. Power there is dispersed — to leadership, to committee chairs and ranking minority members, to members acknowledged to be experts in a particular field, to especially successful fundraisers. Then the Senate adds a layer of complexity: There, the ability to filibuster a measure means that effectively it takes 60 votes, not a simple majority, to pass legislation on controversial topics. This is an extremely high bar.

Moreover, Congress’ very representativeness is at once its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. This is now such a diverse nation that the assumptions about public policy prevailing in a congressional district in Utah or Mississippi will be very different, if not diametrically opposite, from those you’d find in Los Angeles or much of New England. Congress is where those varied points of view must grapple with one another, and where all the many private interests at play in the country, those with money and those with nothing but moral suasion, get their say. Every member is impressed with the sheer number and intensity of the lobbyists.

It’s hardly surprising that it can take a while to sort all this out, especially in the House, whose members must stand for election every two years and who therefore are always keenly attuned to the political calendar.

To get a sense of what can happen when Congress does act speedily, look no further than the law authorizing National Security Agency surveillance that was passed just before the August recess. It was only after the bill had been signed into law that many members of Congress learned they’d given the NSA much more expansive warrantless surveillance powers than they’d believed. Likewise, recall the shock of members when they learned that in just its first decade the Medicare prescription bill was going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than they’d been led to believe. These bills were hurried through Congress at such a pace that they never got the detailed consideration they needed.

The truth is, Congress deals with the toughest issues in the country. Its job is to understand them thoroughly, weigh the beliefs and interests of an astounding variety of Americans, and consider carefully how to move forward. Passion and speed are not conducive to good legislation; on the whole, we want to use the brakes on the process provided by the Constitution and by congressional structure.

The next time you complain about the sluggishness of Congress, think about it. It’s not all bad.

Audio Version

We Need Candidates With Good Judgment

2007-12-05T15:16:00.000-05:00

All over the country, political candidates, consultants, reporters, campaign volunteers, and politically active citizens are pondering a single question: What do voters want in a candidate? Will voters be motivated in next year's elections by issues, personalities or some intangible mix of qualities in the candidates they're considering?

Every voter makes up his or her mind differently, of course, but my suspicion has always been that most voters weigh a mix of considerations; the true "single-issue voter" is rare. To be sure, they want to know candidates' stands on the issues they care about — how they articulate them and what they consider most important. They also want to get a sense of the candidates' overall vision and where they want to take us as a nation, how they see the role of the federal government at home and whether they propose a muscular or more restrained foreign policy.

They look for less tangible things as well, qualities that would make them comfortable with a candidate. Voters generally want a sense that a candidate knows why he or she is running for office — and in particular, that it has to do with a desire to accomplish goals or to improve the common good, rather than simply to slake some personal ambition.

Voters also want to feel good about a candidate's values, intelligence, and sensitivity to their concerns. This is why candidates who are masters of statistics and dense policy arguments sometimes leave voters cold, while candidates who can present a compelling "story" attract attention and support.

Over the years, poll after poll has suggested that voters put "integrity" and personal honesty at the top of their requirements in a candidate. My sense is that other concerns come higher. If voters like what a politician stands for or find some deeper personal connection, they can forgive a lot: Witness the re-election of Richard Nixon in 1972 or the high poll numbers Bill Clinton enjoyed despite questions about his personal conduct.

One such consideration, generally dismissed by pundits but clearly embraced by voters, is simple likability. Americans want to feel at ease with the person they're voting for. And while they won't admit it, at least not to pollsters, they take physical attractiveness into account, as a string of handsome presidents in the television age — John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, both Bushes, Bill Clinton — suggests.

But I have always thought that perhaps the most important trait in a political leader is invisible, or at least difficult to discern ahead of time: sound judgment. It often gets confused for intelligence, but intelligent people can misjudge affairs if they're led astray by ideology, dogmatic thinking, or even good intentions.

On the other hand, you can often tell if candidates lack good judgment: If they are unable to be wary of their own passions, inclined to dismiss other views, unsuspecting of the information they receive, or unwilling to admit that their views might be wrong, then it's a good bet they will mishandle people, events and the difficult situations that confront our nation regularly.

A great deal is at stake in this regard. Historians note, for instance, that while George Washington was neither a good speaker nor a scintillating intellect, he possessed very good judgment about people and events. The course of our nation's history would surely have been different had he been otherwise.

Good political judgment calls for a keen sense of what will work and what won't in a given set of circumstances, and what the best means might be to achieve policy goals — in essence, it requires that leaders see the world as it is, not as they would like it to be. It demands great insight into others: who is competent and who is not, who will speak the truth to them and who will not, whom to believe and whom not to believe, who will persevere and who will fold.

It demands equally keen insight into complex situations and events, and an ability to discern possibilities for progress that others might miss. Finally, it requires a keen sense of what can be accomplished given the personalities and events in play: when to compromise, when to yield, and when to stand firm.

It is probably expecting too much that voters will be able to see all this as they go about choosing whom to vote for. But we can certainly hope they will try.

Audio Version

Why Is Congress So Partisan?

2007-12-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

Early in my career in the U.S. House, I trekked over to the Senate side one day to watch a debate between Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater, two of the great ideological warriors of the era. I don’t recall the issue, but I do remember the heat they generated as they went at each other hammer and tongs. They were knowledgeable, passionate, and deeply committed to their vastly different points of view.

I remember just as keenly what happened after they’d tried to eviscerate each other rhetorically: They joked together as they left the floor, heading off to have a drink.

I have a hard time imagining such a scene in today’s Washington, where a moment of camaraderie like that might be viewed with deep suspicion, as though personal friendship somehow undercuts ideological integrity. In the intensely partisan atmosphere that reigns today on Capitol Hill, it is much less common for two legislators to pursue their beliefs with such intensity of purpose, yet remain fast friends or work together when their interests coincide.

Americans of all stripes have noticed this, too, and they don’t like it. The partisanship that divides Congress, and its members’ apparent inability to transcend their divisions, is one important reason the institution’s public standing is at historic depths.

How did we get here? In part, the answers lie in a series of long-term political trends that have converged to create this current unhappy mood.

For one thing, computers have enabled state legislators — or members of Congress eager to dictate to them — to draw congressional district lines that create safely Democratic or Republican districts. The result is that politicians running for the U.S. House don’t have to appeal to the center to win, they need to appeal to the core of their parties’ supporters.

This has happened at the same time that the parties themselves have moved toward their ideological extremes, pushed by the interest groups that fund and try to influence them. As members become spokesmen for particular points of view, their positions take on a harder edge, since they are playing to potential campaign funders or to an interest group whose supporters’ votes they need at election time. The upshot is that moderate Democrats and Republicans are the exception in office these days, not the rule.

The sad truth, though, is that the electorate, too, is divided, which manifests itself at the moment in a Congress that is narrowly controlled by one party and faces a President of the other. Over the last decade, each party has been struggling to become the majority party, and so every vote on Capitol Hill has taken on heavily partisan implications, since the leadership hopes that by taking the position it does — and forcefully encouraging rank-and-file members to go along — it will pick up a few extra seats at the next election. This invites partisan struggle.

These political trends have been cemented by changes within Congress. If it is hard to find moderates there, it is even harder to find institutionalists — people who worry about the role of Congress as a separate and independent branch of government and who focus on strengthening Congress as an institution. Preoccupation with partisanship and political calculation erodes Congress’ role as a deliberative body; “debate” these days is generally two sets of talking points hammering at each other, rather than a genuine effort to reach consensus on the best course for the American people to follow.

Even something as mundane as the congressional schedule now works in favor of partisanship. As their time on Capitol Hill has come to focus on committee hearings, floor debate and other opportunities for confrontation, and as their weekends now are often taken up with travel back to their states to meet with constituents, members of Congress in recent years have found far fewer opportunities to develop the kinds of friendships that cross party lines — and that produced such close friends as Humphrey and Goldwater.

These are all deep-seated trends, and they are not easy to reverse. My hope, oddly enough, lies in the low standing Congress currently enjoys. For all its faults, it does respond to public pressure, and if enough Americans let their members know that they’re unhappy with the intense partisanship they see, change will come.

Perhaps it will be a move in some states to abandon partisan redistricting and move to some more neutral way of drawing lines; perhaps it will simply be a change in attitude and a greater emphasis on Capitol Hill on careful deliberation and comity, or greater respect for the institution of the Congress. Whatever the case, even little moves in the right direction would be an improvement over the situation as it stands today.

Audio Version

A Good Office Can Breed Congressional Success

2007-11-30T11:48:00.000-05:00

If you pay attention to the news or watch C-SPAN, you’ve no doubt got a pretty good idea of what members of Congress do. They work as legislators, serve on committees, negotiate policy with the White House, keep tabs on executive-branch agencies, argue for local concerns in Washington, and help constituents caught in the federal bureaucracy.

What you won't have noticed, though, is one of their most important but least visible jobs: running their offices.

This seems too petty to mention, right? Why should it matter whether a politician knows how to sort through software options, budget for stationery, or write a formal staff evaluation?

In truth, though, how a member sets up his or her office says a great deal about what he or she intends to accomplish on Capitol Hill. Moreover, a well-run office can amplify a member's natural abilities, while a poorly run office only hampers his or her ambitions.

This is because the nature of Congress itself has changed in two fundamental ways over the past few decades.

It used to be that a member's staff would be filled with political types — campaign staffers who had helped him get elected, precinct workers, county party chairs; in effect, a job on Capitol Hill or in a district office was a form of patronage. These days, however, the work of a congressman has become so demanding in so many different ways — understanding complex policy dilemmas, using technology, knowing the ins and outs of the federal bureaucracy — that he or she needs knowledgeable and skillful people in staff positions. Without them, it’s impossible to do an effective job.

Just as important, the trend over the past three decades on Capitol Hill has been toward a decentralized power structure that leaves responsibility for individual members' success much more directly in their own hands. As the Congressional Management Foundation wrote recently in its management guide for new members of Congress, "Whereas years ago power bases, or fiefdoms, could be bestowed from above, now they must be won through individual effort and savvy."

No member of Congress truly acts alone, however; he or she needs the support of a competent and well-trained staff to be successful.

This is why, though it doesn't hold a candle to the rest of the federal government, Capitol Hill contains a surprisingly large bureaucracy — with some 15,000 personal and committee staff. Each of the 435 House members' individual offices averages 15 staff members, with a payroll of about $1.3 million;
each of the 100 Senate offices averages 35 staffers, with a payroll ranging from $2.7 million to $4.3 million, depending on the population of the state in question.

The jobs range from receptionist — the first person a constituent, lobbyist or fellow member of Congress typically encounters — to the case workers who handle problems for individual constituents, to the legislative aides responsible for mastering the arcana of federal policy, to specialists in information technology, public relations specialists, speechwriters, correspondents responsible for answering the hundreds or thousands of letters and emails a member gets each week, and, of course, an overall administrator.

In structuring these operations, a member has an astounding number of decisions to make. Massive amounts of information — about federal policy, the state of the world, district events, constituents' lives and concerns, requests for speeches, demands by the party leadership — flow through a congressional office every day; so how does that information get boiled down, written up, and communicated? Who makes the complicated scheduling decisions about who a member should meet with and what meetings the member should attend? What will the information technology system — the member's website, connections to congressional networks, a correspondence management system, PDAs and Blackberrys for staffers — consist of? How will you budget for salaries, technology, stationery, furniture, and so on?

In some ways, though, the most difficult decisions don't have to do with the day-to-day running of the office, but with how to express political priorities in the way the office is set up.

Members of Congress have great freedom to define themselves as politicians and as representatives. Some members, either because their position is politically precarious or because their interests lie in that direction, decide to focus on constituent service and maintaining close ties to the home district; inevitably, they will opt to spend more on case workers and on well-staffed district offices.

Other members want to focus on specific legislative priorities in Washington, so while they will maintain district offices — every House member and Senator has them — they'll use their limited resources to buttress their ability to shape and affect policy.

Of course, being responsive to constituent needs at home and legislating in Washington run parallel; most members of Congress will tell you that their legislative concerns are shaped by what they hear back home from their constituents. Still, looking carefully at how members of Congress choose to run their operations can tell you a lot about their priorities, how they will approach their time in office, and how likely they are to succeed at it.
With all the expertise and specialization required in jobs across the country today, I sometimes think that members of Congress are among the few generalists left. They must be legislators, representatives, advocates, educators, public officials, and politicians. Now you can add to that list, they have to be pretty accomplished office managers, too.

Audio Version

Shaping Policy is Hard Work

2007-11-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

You can interpret the Senate's recent rejection of the immigration reform compromise several ways.

You might see it as a political response to intense anti-immigrant pressure from talk radio and a slice of the heartland. You might consider it "an enormous failure that borders on dereliction of duty," as one Florida newspaper editorialized.

Or you might, as I do, count it an especially convincing example of just how difficult it can be to create sound public policy.

As the subject comes up at the courthouse-square café or over cards at the VFW hall or in conversation at church, many Americans no doubt are shaking their heads over the fact that, once again, Congress failed to act when it needed to do so.

Yet those exchanges themselves illustrate the problem. For some, illegal immigration is a scourge that must be dealt with harshly; for others, it's a fact of life that requires us to integrate millions of people into our society; for still others, immigration presents an opportunity to build an economy for the 21st century.

All these points of view were present in the Senate debate. And you can find equally diverse, passionately held beliefs whenever Congress takes up the most pressing issues facing us today: Iraq, health care, energy policy, global warming. It is Congress' job to find a way past those differences, to forge legislation that serves the national interest, meets the desires of the American people, and allows Americans whose views diverge sharply to find common ground. It’s frustrating when it fails. But let's not pretend that it's easy.

The issues Congress is being asked to confront are extraordinarily difficult and they come at its members with such great rapidity that the time to consider them carefully seems an unaffordable luxury. Sometimes, as with global warming, there's a consensus as to the nature of the problem but no agreement at all — either on Capitol Hill or in the country at large — on how to proceed.

Sometimes, as with health care or immigration, there's not even agreement on what the problem is, only that there is a problem.

For our political leaders, sorting through all this is immensely complicated. Some issues are highly technical and demand detailed study; others have so many moving parts that it's hard to master them in their entirety. And while Washington is filled with entrenched interest groups that may contribute to understanding the fine points of any given issue, they will inevitably fight hard when their interests are at stake.

If discerning where the national interest lies is difficult, so is trying to figure out where the American people stand on any given issue.

The truth is, our opinions are often fuzzy — more a gut sense than a finely nuanced argument — and changeable. Crafting legislation that will be accepted by 300 million people, or even a majority of them, is a gargantuan challenge. This is one reason many members of Congress would rather put off dealing with tough issues, and it is why it takes extraordinary political leadership to come up with a solution that can command a majority in Congress and support from most Americans.

It gets even harder when you take into account the process that legislation must pass through. Our system was designed by its framers to move slowly — to cool passions, to prevent a rash response, to keep the majority from trampling the interests of the minority. Letting it work can be immensely frustrating, especially when movement bogs down over the specific wording of a measure or a seemingly trivial point.

But the measured pace of change is also a gift, allowing legislators to examine an issue from all sides, understand its intricacies, look for unforeseen and unintended consequences, build consensus on Capitol Hill, create support in the country at large, and educate the American people as to what they're doing and why.

When they can't, our tendency is either to blame the politicians, assigning them all sorts of malign motives, or to blame the system itself. What we forget is that there are genuine, deeply held political differences that have to be resolved. It's hard work, and it demands strong leadership, patience, and an abundance of good will.

The road to producing good results can be fraught and difficult, yet I'm reminded of Gerald Ford's comment when he became President after Richard Nixon's resignation: "The Constitution works," he said. It does. We might not always enjoy the troubles that assail us along its path, but in the end we move past the difficulty of the moment, achieve at least a few victories, and, refreshed, square our shoulders to face the next challenge.

Audio Version

Our Future Depends on Improving the Public Dialogue

2007-11-21T09:27:00.000-05:00

Wherever I go these days, people want to talk about how much trouble we have talking reasonably to one another about current public policy challenges. The quality of the public dialogue, they say — our ability to reason with one another and to sort through issues — is lamentable.

Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, decries the decline of public discourse. In my view, he’s hit a nerve.

And for good reason. Our political system is riddled with problems: cynicism and low voter turnout; intense partisanship; the outsized influence of money. But if Americans feel that we can’t even set about fixing them because we’re incapable of holding a discussion that isn’t distorted by spin, misleading studies, media manipulation, 10-second sound bites, and accusations of suspect motives, then we’ve got a really serious problem.

It doesn’t just affect efforts to reform the political system, of course. Woodrow Wilson once said, “I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.” What was true in the early decades of the 20th century is even more true today. The complexity of the problems we confront, from how to handle our role in the world to how to fix our health care system to what to do about public education, demands that Americans of different beliefs and perspectives think together about what to do. No one individual or small group can know all there is to know.

Yet we suffer from a poor and superficial imitation of debate, often the equivalent of playground name-calling, rather than the deep exploration of challenges and their potential solutions that the times call for.

Our electronic media, in particular, is drawn by the quick-and-easy. You are far likelier to learn about a candidate’s debate style, mannerisms, attire or expensive haircut than you are his or her ideas about fixing our health care system.

Yet in the end, I believe we have no one to blame but ourselves. Living in a democracy takes work, and if we want to enjoy its fruits, we have to labor a bit to prepare them.

I’m sometimes disappointed by how ready we Americans are to believe polls and studies and the assertions of those in authority, rather than to gather information, think for ourselves, and make discriminating judgments. If we want the quality of public dialogue to improve, then it’s up to us to improve it and let our political leaders know we will no longer let them get away with offering inadequate solutions to difficult problems.

We can do this in several ways:

— First, pay attention to reason and fact, not propaganda and half-truths. Don’t accept an assertion of fact on its face. Obtain your information from a variety of sources.

— Don’t let yourself be diverted by fluff. We love the clutter of celebrity lives, gossip and the extraneous details of politics, but letting them dominate our attention has a real cost. This country has made serious mistakes over the last decade in no small part because we were distracted by the diversions we wanted to pay attention to, rather than focused on the issues we needed to pay attention to.

— Listen to the experts, but make up your own mind. As the psalm says, “Put not your trust in princes.”

— Do not attack the motivations of adversaries. Give them the respect of speaking to the merits of their arguments.

— Try to take a step back from ideology. Listen carefully to different sides in a debate, be prepared to see the logic in what people of different viewpoints have to say, and above all look for pragmatic approaches that work, not ideologically rigid approaches that don’t comport with the real world.

Many Americans have simply checked out of the debate, and many others who do participate ignore these precepts. Among the great gifts of living in this country is the right to speak out, but that right carries with it a responsibility. All of us have the responsibility to work to increase the quality of the public dialogue. The future of our country is on the line.

Audio Version

There’s Still Much Room For Improvement In Congress

2007-11-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

In the run-up to last year's elections, critics of the House of Representatives and its leadership articulated three broad concerns.

First, they believed Congress had abandoned its constitutionally mandated role overseeing the conduct of the Executive Branch.

Second, they contended the GOP leadership had allowed lobbyists and their money to become too powerful.

Third, they condemned the majority for trampling on the right of the Democratic minority to offer meaningful alternatives in legislation and debate.

Now, as we approach the mid-point of the Democrats' first year back in control, it seems an apt moment to gauge how well the new majority is performing on all three fronts.

The short answer is: some improvement, but still only fair.

While the House has once again become a force on oversight and made some progress on lobbying and ethics reform, it's still got a long way to go in restoring balance to its internal procedures.

Oversight: If you've been keeping up with the news, you know that Congress has already significantly expanded its oversight of the Executive Branch — on everything from the Iraq War to its hearings on the U.S. attorney firings. It is holding the White House and Cabinet officials accountable for their actions and decisions, and as a result enhancing Americans' ability to judge their government's actions.

This is a vital improvement to our democracy, which does not function well if those in power go unquestioned.

Lobbying: The House has also moved productively — though not as thoroughly as it ought to have done — on lobbying reform. The Abramoff scandals and corruption charges against several former members of Congress not only brought the institution itself into disrepute, they also sapped Americans' trust that the system could function fairly on behalf of ordinary citizens. Democrats' promises of full-scale ethics reform were key to their win last fall.

The lobby reform bill passed recently by the House is certainly an improvement, but it hardly knocks the ball out of the park. The House failed to create an independent office to investigate allegations of ethical improprieties; it also watered down a proposal that was in the initial version of the bill requiring that two years pass before a retiring House member be allowed to lobby his or her former colleagues.

And though it did require disclosure of lobbyists' "bundling" of campaign contributions, that measure will undoubtedly face a stiff headwind in the House-Senate conference on the bill.

So while the House may be moving in the right direction on ethics issues, it has not yet lived up to Americans' expectations of a complete turnaround from what came before.

Fair procedures: The Democratic majority, which controls the terms of debate and sets the parameters for considering legislation on the floor, often seems to forget how damaging mistreatment of the minority can be. It has sent far too many bills to the floor without allowing amendments, it has toyed with some of the most egregious of the previous Republican majority's violation of House norms — such as holding open floor votes beyond the normal time limit so that the leadership can twist arms — and most recently it considered changing the rules to disallow the so-called "motion to recommit," one of the few tools the House minority can use to get its point across.

Internal procedures can seem like unbearably arcane issues, of little import to most Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth. The goal in the House — the most representative institution our nation possesses — is to create a process that is fair and that allows the nation's business to be done, while also letting the minority present an alternative policy, have it debated fully, and then see it voted up or down. The way the majority uses the rules is a basic test of that fairness; if it quashes the minority's ability ever to have its alternatives heard, it flunks.

Now, the House minority bears a share of responsibility, too. If its members are constantly playing little games to score political points, rather than developing serious policy alternatives, then it, too, shares the blame for undercutting the civility and fairness necessary for the House to work.

As congressional scholar Norman Ornstein put it not long ago, "If the minority uses the opportunity to offer amendments to exploit cynically the opening for political purposes...it soon will lose its moral high ground for objecting to majority restrictions on debate and amendments." So far, neither Democrats nor Republicans have covered themselves with glory on this front.

The House ought to be a beacon of open, deliberative and thoroughgoing debate, an institution that truly represents the diversity and fair-minded decency of ordinary Americans. Let us encourage our representatives to make Congress an institution we can all point to with pride.

Audio Version

Citizenship is Hard Work

2007-11-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

I've heard a great deal from citizens over the years about what they expect from their elected representatives. Now I'd like to tell you what one former politician, at least, expects of citizens.

With each passing year, I become more impressed with the obligations and responsibilities that our form of democracy places upon ordinary people. To put it plainly, our nation depends for its health on the active engagement of its citizens. As Adlai Stevenson once said in a speech at Princeton, "Our government demands, it depends upon, the care and the devotion of the people."

This is a remarkably concise summation of a truth that many people who hold public office come to appreciate — that while the burdens placed on elected officials in a representative democracy may often seem heavy, they are merely a distillation of those we ask our citizens to shoulder.

For in order to select their representatives carefully and wisely, and then to hold them to account for their behavior in office, voters must be able to judge difficult issues and their solutions, weigh complex arguments, and identify problems that need addressing.

They must have some understanding of the intricacies of the problems confronting the nation and be able to respond to the rapidity with which the biggest evolve — problems such as war, a changing economy, global warming, the health care crisis.

And citizens must have a dose of critical attitude toward their leaders — the skeptical frame of mind that will help them fairly evaluate those in office without forfeiting their belief in the system as a whole.

This is asking a lot. It means studying the issues, seeking out all sorts of points of view, talking to friends and acquaintances about the crises of the day. It means being open to having one's mind changed as new information comes in, having a fundamental respect for facts, and being able to weigh what's reasoned and unreasonable in the arguments one hears.

Above all, the engaged citizen must be open to compromise, to appreciate that conflicting interests are just part of our society and that resolving conflicts allows our nation to function and move forward.

We live in a diverse and complex society, and it's inevitable that your fellow citizens are going to see things differently from you. A lot is at stake in how this gets dealt with. In the end, for citizens no less than for politicians, finding healthy and constructive ways to resolve our differences is crucial for a functioning democracy.

If what I've just described sounds like the set of qualities you should expect in an elected representative, rather than in your fellow citizens, there's good reason. Despite what the more cynical political commentators would have you believe, there are no walls that separate Capitol Hill from the rest of the nation. The success of a representative democracy rests in citizens' ability to make discriminating judgments, both about whom they wish to represent them and about how they want to be represented. The conclusions they come to then feed into the political system, whether at election time or through the day-to-day exchange of ideas and concerns between politicians and citizens.

So, at heart, our system relies on citizens making the effort to do the work we also expect of political leaders: to develop a "civic temperament" that allows them to grapple constructively with people of differing opinions, and above all to educate themselves on the issues of the day.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," Thomas Jefferson once wrote to a friend. Our first duties may be to our families and our immediate communities, but our freedom depends on the willingness of ordinary citizens to devote time, attention, and effort to the public interest as well.

Audio Version

What Politics Should Be About

2007-11-07T09:59:00.000-05:00

Over the years, I've met with a lot of high-school and college students, and there's one question they come up with time after time: What, they want to know, is politics really about?

Having spent a good part of my life in the trenches, I long ago arrived at an answer that I thought reflected reality and was sufficiently cynical to make me believable. Politics, I would tell them, is about power: getting it, keeping it, and using it to advance one's agenda.

At least, that's what I said until I ran across a comment by the eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who died recently. He had a different, and far more useful, answer. Politics is about "the search for remedy," he said.

We live at a time when such a belief seems outdated and hopelessly earnest. Americans have watched their politicians over the years with increasing skepticism, and come to the belief that politics is about anything but an honest effort to resolve the issues that confront us. It's about personal egos. It's about enriching oneself. It's about winning elections or wielding power for its own sake.

What's disheartening is that politicians themselves have contributed to this abandonment of sincerity. Often they — and especially their consultants — talk about politics as a highly technical and fascinating game whose largest purpose is to experience the thrill of victory. In one of this year's gubernatorial primaries, there's a leading candidate whose advertising ends in the tagline, "The only Republican who can win in November." Don't get me wrong; electability is hardly irrelevant to a primary voter. But should it be the chief thing we look for in a political leader?

What Schlesinger invited us to do was to search beneath the definitions we've given politics over the years, and to find an underlying purpose. All those "abouts" you hear now — it's about ego, it's about money, it's about power — are partly true, or at least, true in certain cases. But they're inadequate when it comes to describing what politics in a democracy is truly about: It's how we wrestle with and try to resolve the challenges that confront us.

To see why this is so important, think for a moment about some of the tremendously difficult issues we face. There is a constant barrage in Washington right now of finger-pointing and ex post facto analysis of what went wrong in Iraq. These have their place, if only because we should learn from our mistakes, but seen through the lens of Schlesinger's formulation they are political sideshows. The real challenge is to devise a remedy to the situation at hand that can be embraced and implemented by a divided government. That is what true politicians are spending their time on.

So, too, with our health care system. There hasn't been an all-out effort to tackle the many issues that assail it since the failure of the Clinton plan more than a decade ago. The result is that the system has grown more expensive, more wasteful, and less helpful to growing numbers of Americans. It is a situation that calls for politics at its best, an honest and concerted effort to find a remedy that is not only fair and lasting, but also can win the support of a diverse nation.

You'll notice that in both these examples I've added something to Schlesinger's phrase: that solutions have to be pragmatic and broadly acceptable. If politics at heart is a means to an end — the end being an actual fix to a problem — then it is not just about the search for an answer, but about making that answer work.

This means that the best politicians don't just dream up policy solutions regardless of context: They also think about how those solutions would work in the real world; they think about the forces that can help them and those that can block them; and perhaps above all, they think about how to build the broadest consensus possible behind their solutions, so that they have a realistic chance of taking root and flourishing.

Our next national election is a year and a half away. But as politicians start competing for your attention, I'd ask you to keep Schlesinger in mind. Are the people in front of you interested in constructive problem-solving? Can they engage wholeheartedly in "the search for remedy"? If so, they deserve our praise. If not, perhaps they — and we — would be better off if they spent some time out of office, contemplating what politics should really be about.

Audio Version

For Good Or Ill, Congress Needs Time To Do Its Work System

2007-05-01T08:30:00.000-04:00

When it comes to policy, Americans are an impatient people. We see a problem — the war in Iraq or our failing health care system — and want it resolved as soon as possible. Our expectations for quick action are at their highest when we vote for change in the Congress. So it's no surprise that many Americans wonder why, after making their preferences on Iraq clear last November, it is taking Congress so long to act.

As the Capitol Hill wrestling match over the war suggests, Congress is not especially suited to radical or immediate change. It took seven years of effort, after all, before Congress finally cut off funding for the Vietnam War — and by the time it acted, there were no longer U.S. troops stationed there.

The plain truth is that Congress is comfortable with incrementalism, not speed.

It is not immediately clear why this should be so. Aren't members of Congress there to represent the American people? And if Americans use their votes in congressional elections to register discontent or promote a change in policy, shouldn't that be reflected quickly in the Senate and House chambers?

One way to think about this might be to remember your trips to a video store to rent a movie. On your own, you can choose pretty quickly. Go with one other person and, inevitably, it takes longer. And if you go with a couple of friends or family members, you can be there for a half hour arguing over your choices.

So imagine what happens when 535 members of Congress — each representing a different constituency, each with his or her own opinions, each attuned to different voices in this diverse, multi-faceted nation of ours — have to grapple with issues as complex as war, our health care system, the tax code or the perilous state of our fiscal health.

Forging an approach that can command a majority of votes takes creativity, flexibility, persuasion, horse-trading and, above all, time. It may require year after year of effort before legislation can make it out of a committee, let alone pass on both the Senate and House floors and be signed into law by the President.

This explains, in part, why Congress tends to react to problems or to the President's initiatives, rather than instigating fundamental change on its own. Every so often it can muster the will to rewrite how the United States behaves — as it did in the 1980s when it opted for sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa over the objections of President Ronald Reagan. For the most part, however, Congress prefers to tackle small slices of a large problem, rather than the entire problem at once.

So we get health coverage for children in low-income families, or an expansion of prescription coverage for seniors, rather than a comprehensive remake of our health-care system or a basic rewrite of the Medicare laws.

We get tinkering every year with the tax code, rather than such radical measures as moving to a so-called "flat tax" or closing for once and all the loopholes that special interests have won over the years.

And we see a series of legislative initiatives on Iraq — first a nonbinding resolution, then a bid to enact some limits in a supplemental appropriations bill, then a focus on the defense appropriations bill, and then attempts to use other legislative vehicles to change the federal government's approach toward the war.

As frustrating as all this can be to Americans who want change right away, this gradual approach often serves the nation well. It allows the diverse and often conflicting views of the body politic to be heard and, generally, incorporated into the final product. In economic affairs, it promotes the economy's stability, rather than forcing major changes and their unintended consequences through the system.

There is a risk to incrementalism, though: that the problem you're trying to address grows faster than your ability to get your arms around it.

That's what appears to be happening in health care; since the failure of the Clinton health plan in the early 1990s, the system seems only to have careened closer to the brink of unworkability. And it may be what is happening with the ever-expanding debt that our government is amassing, a habit that economic experts agree has the potential to be disastrous.

It takes a lot to overcome Congress' preference for tackling issues piece by piece, but it's not impossible. Eventually, when basic problems go unchecked, they balloon to the point where public patience with incrementalism wears thin.

This happened during the Clinton years with welfare reform, it is taking place now with the war in Iraq, it shows signs of occurring in health care and it is bound to happen should our chronic fiscal indebtedness cause widespread economic hardship.

Faced with enough pressure, Congress can face up to fundamental problems and act on them. Whether it feels that pressure, though, is up to the American people.

Audio Version

Our Leaders Must Find A Balance on Iraq

2007-04-24T09:56:00.000-04:00

As Congress asserts itself on the war in Iraq, the White House has responded with irritation. The stalemate between these two branches of government is good neither for the Congress nor the White House, and it is certainly no good for the country.

The Bush Administration's verdict on the recently passed House and Senate Iraq supplemental spending bills was swift and stern. One White House spokesman said, "You've got to ask yourself, why go through this long, drawn-out exercise of going and wheeling and cajoling and trying to buy votes within your own party when, in fact, you know it's not going to go anywhere?" Another said, "I think the founders of our nation had great foresight in realizing that it would be better to have one commander in chief managing a war, rather than 535 generals on Capitol Hill trying to do the same."

Yet the founders of our nation never envisioned an unfettered president making unilateral decisions about American lives and military power. They did indeed make the president the commander in chief, but they gave to Congress the responsibility for declaring war, for making rules governing our land and naval forces, for overseeing policy, and — of course — the ability to fund war or to cease funding it. In other words, they set up a constitutional balance of powers that requires cooperation between both branches of government.

It is hard to find any recognition of this constitutionally mandated cooperation in the White House's recent comments. The President and the leaders of Congress seem unwilling to seek the genuine consultation and pragmatic accommodation necessary to avoid stalemate and produce a more sustainable policy. Instead, each branch views the other as an obstacle to be overcome.

This is a shame. If treated with the respect required by the Constitution, Congress could play a constructive role in forging a responsible way forward in Iraq. Those 535 members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, are the politicians in Washington who have to reckon in an immediate way with the toll this war is taking on our nation. They listen to their constituents' anger and heartfelt doubts; they go to the funerals of men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; they field calls from anguished parents with sons and daughters in harm's way; they visit the veterans' facilities where wounded troops confront the fact that their lives will never be the same.

Congress shouldn't call all the shots just because it has its ear to the ground. The President is, and should be, the chief actor in the conduct of American foreign policy. But Congress can and should serve as an essential resource and participant in policymaking.

Congress represents beliefs found in every American community. And the American people have the war in Iraq figured out — they want Iraqis to take responsibility for their future; they want U.S. forces to leave Iraq, but they want them to leave responsibly; they want to protect U.S. interests in the Middle East. In many ways, ordinary Americans have been ahead of their political leadership in coming to grips with the situation in Iraq.

The war is an American dilemma, not a partisan one or solely a presidential one. We are not going to succeed in charting a responsible transition out of Iraq if the President and Congress are constantly at odds. The President must respect the constitutional role of Congress and its understanding of public opinion. Congress needs to find a balance between responsible criticism and responsible cooperation, supporting the President when it can and opposing him when it feels it must.

The differences between the President and the Congress are real. But consultation, not confrontation, is the best way to work them out. In the absence of consultation, relations between the President and the Congress become poisonous. Charges and counter-charges dominate the political discourse. Both sides divert their energies toward political battles, rather than policymaking. Americans lose confidence in their government. Meanwhile, Americans continue to serve and die in Iraq.

The plain fact is that for nearly two years President Bush will have to deal with a Democratic-controlled Congress, while Congress will have to deal with President Bush. Our political leaders have failed the American people on Iraq. If they cannot build bridges between their positions and respect one another's constitutional roles, neither side will succeed, our policy will suffer, and another sorrowful chapter will be added to the history of the Iraq War.

Audio Version

Members of Congress Should Vote Their Consciences More Often

2007-03-21T11:52:00.000-04:00

Around the time Congress convened this year, a Republican member of the House reflected to a newspaper reporter that there was a silver lining to the party's new minority status. "You're freer to vote your conscience," the legislator explained.

It was a revealing comment — not about being a Republican, but because it offered a glimpse into the fact that members of Congress often feel unable to vote the way they'd really like.

Decision-making on Capitol Hill is a perpetual wrestling match, with members' own instincts, analysis and judgment pitted against a daunting array of other claimants to their vote.

This is especially true when they're in the majority, and so feel some responsibility to help their leadership govern, or when they share a party label with the President and want to help him look in control. Sometimes their inclinations run in tandem, but sometimes they don't, which explains why some Republicans are feeling a sudden sense of liberation these days, while some Democrats feel more constrained than they did a year ago.

Republicans and Democrats alike also listen to important campaign contributors; to community leaders whom they rely on for guidance; and, of course, to their constituents, who more than anyone else have a claim to their representatives' attention.

All of these, as worthwhile as their views may be, can stand in the way of voting one's conscience.

There are some people who go to Congress precisely because they want to be loyal party members or support their president or vote as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal or conservative. For them, there's nothing especially complicated about deciding how to cast their votes.

But I would venture that the majority of Senators and House members find voting to be a sometimes agonizing effort at sifting through competing demands, including the demands of their own inner compass.

Imagine, for example, being a Republican House member faced with the non-binding resolution condemning the President's handling of the war in Iraq. Many of them were deeply torn, miserably unhappy with the war but equally unhappy at the prospect of voting against the White House and their party leadership. However they voted, it was not an easy decision.

Legislators often resolve these conflicts by acting as they deem the occasion warrants — sometimes as an agent of their constituents' will, sometimes as party leaders demand, sometimes in consultation with residents of their district but exercising their own judgment, and sometimes according to the dictates of their own conscience.

This last approach is exactly the one that the British statesman Edmund Burke took up in his famous "Speech to the Electors of Bristol" in 1774. An elected representative, he argued, owes his constituents "his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience," and ought not sacrifice them "to any man, or to any set of men living." Indeed, Burke went on, "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

Most members of Congress, I think, would agree with Burke. Their jobs, after all, consist — or, at least, ought to consist — of studying the issues before them, weighing the alternatives, and thinking through the consequences of each. And I know, from my own experience and that of others, that at the end of a career on Capitol Hill, a member feels proudest of those votes, speeches, and times he or she has acted according to conscience and done the right thing in the face of countervailing pressures.

There is a message in this, one that I think the Founders would endorse: that a representative democracy works best when representatives act according to their best judgment. Anything else constrains the Congress from giving full consideration to the collective wisdom and experience of its members. Shakespeare, I think, said it best in Hamlet:

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

That's good advice for living, and splendid advice for anyone hoping to do the best job he or she can in Congress. It might even give us better government.

Audio Version

Why Things Get Complicated In Congress

2007-03-08T09:17:00.000-05:00

At this moment, in a small-town café, VFW hall or church basement somewhere, someone is shaking his head and saying, "You know, it's really simple, if Congress would just…." Maybe he and his friends are talking about the Iraq War or tax reform or farm subsidies: Whatever the topic, they pretty much agree that our representatives on Capitol Hill are needlessly muddying the waters.

At least, that's what I take from a recent poll of public attitudes toward Congress. In it, half the people surveyed said they thought Congress has difficulty arriving at decisions because its members just like to argue, not because they represent different points of view or the issues are intrinsically complicated.

So I thought it might be useful to look at an issue Congress is working on right now — the new farm bill — to see why it sometimes takes a while to sort things through on Capitol Hill. It's a perfect example of how, once different regional interests and lobbying groups come into play, matters quickly become very complex.

Farm bills have always been large, but they used to be pretty straightforward. Every few years, members of the agriculture committees would sit down with lobbyists representing corn, wheat, soybean, cotton, rice and dairy interests and deal out billions of dollars in subsidies.

This year, however, things are very different. In part, this is because the range of agricultural interests that want to have an impact on federal farm policy has grown. Farmers who raise vegetables, fruits, nuts or other specialty crops, for instance, want the federal government to spend more on research and marketing programs, and to buy more of their goods for use in school lunch programs.

This will certainly resonate in a country more attuned than ever to the benefits of healthy eating, but it may also run afoul of traditional commodity producers such as corn and soybean farmers, who worry that the more that is spent on fruits and vegetables, the less will be spent on them.

Meanwhile, other interests that you might not think of as "agricultural" also have joined the fray.

The American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association want the government more involved in improving school lunches and promoting healthy foods. The ethanol industry, of course, wants to keep the subsidies it was able to win in previous years; on the other hand, livestock producers and food processors believe that earlier federal programs promoting ethanol have caused corn prices to rise, and they have announced they will fight them this year.

A range of groups interested in farmland conservation, from Ducks Unlimited to the Nature Conservancy, are banding together to have the Agriculture Department enroll more land in conservation programs. The Humane Society and other animal protection groups are lobbying for regulations to improve conditions for livestock.

Now, there's plenty to shake one's head about in this. The sheer amount of money spent lobbying on the farm bill is enormous. And it can get a little disheartening watching farmers, agricultural enterprises, and others who extol free markets scrap for the biggest share possible of federal largesse. Today, agriculture is one of the most subsidized industries in America. When so much money is at stake — more than $20 billion was spent on farm programs last year — you can see why so many different people might want to get involved.

And the truth is, all these different lobbying groups represent a pretty decent slice of America, from farmers in Iowa to ranchers in Montana to vegetable growers in New Jersey to hunters, environmentalists and animal-lovers all over the country. They inform members of Congress about what's important to them and, by extension, to the people — often ordinary Americans — who care about their issues.

The problem with lobbying is not the extent and variety of lobbyists, it's the willingness of members of Congress to let a few well-heeled interests amass more clout than everyone else, sometimes forgetting the interests of taxpayers and consumers.

Yet it's also inescapable that, when a lot of lobbyists and interest groups get involved in a piece of legislation, it will take time to sort it all out. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. It means that members of Congress are listening to the country at large and doing what politicians ought to do — seek common ground among competing interests and make hard decisions about how to share limited resources. The problems come when Congress allows all these interests to tie it in knots that can't be undone.

So the next time you hear someone say that Congress could get more done if its members stopped listening to themselves talk so much, tell them it's not so simple. There are a lot of people who want to get in a word on Capitol Hill, and more than a few dollars out of it. As frustrating as it can be sometimes, that's a lot better than a system in which the only voices members of Congress hear are their own.

Audio Version

In Congress, Courtesy Matters

2007-02-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

When Congress convened in January, those who were watching got treated to a small but revealing moment: As John Boehner, the new minority leader of the House, was handing the House gavel over to incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he looked out at the assembled members and told them, "Be nice."

It might have sounded like a jocular and insignificant point, but if Congress follows any single admonition this year, I hope it's that one.

In truth, it shouldn't even need saying. For an individual legislator, cultivating congenial relationships with other legislators ought to be a matter of habit. In order to get anything done, especially if it involves legislation, you have to work constantly to line up support, convince others that what you want to accomplish matters, and make it clear that you're worth listening to. Even if others don't agree with your goals, they'll still respect your efforts and at least listen to your arguments.

But being nice — and especially, treating others fairly — is at the moment as much a group imperative as it is wise personal custom. Congress has just emerged from an extended period in which fairness and decent treatment of others were too often banished, and it created a toxic environment on Capitol Hill.

The new Democratic majority has an opportunity to freshen the atmosphere, and every American has a stake in whether or not they make good on that chance.

For if there's any single lesson to be gleaned from the Republican takeover after the 1994 elections or the Democrats' this year, it is that the manner in which a majority wields power has enormous consequences.

If members of the minority party lose on issues of policy but believe that the process was a fair one, they might be frustrated, but they'll abide by the results.

If, on the other hand, they feel constantly slighted, ignored, shut out of the legislative process and treated overall as if they have nothing to contribute to the national dialogue, they will seethe with resentment. They will do everything in their power to frustrate the majority. And, the vicissitudes of politics being what they are, they will eventually be put back in a position of power.

Which is why I was somewhat disconcerted to see that the new Democratic majority in the House, which certainly understands the sting of unfair treatment, has on occasion yielded to the temptation of its newfound power to shut down Republican participation. It did so during the vaunted "first one hundred hours," barring Republican amendments to the package of bills it had prepared in order to make good on Democrats' campaign promises.

This was neither a good precedent nor, as it happens, all that necessary: Having passed its bills in a hurry, the House now has to sit around and wait for the Senate to act. It also cost it the benefits of legislative vetting that a robust debate offers — as Democrats discovered when it became clear that the wording of a proposed ethics law forbidding members from flying in private planes meant that those who were pilots could not fly their own aircraft.

Then House Democrats did it again, preparing a budget to keep the government running for the rest of the fiscal year that allowed no GOP amendments. Again, there were arguments to be made defending their actions: Time was short, and leading Democrats pointed out that the entire exercise would have been unnecessary had the GOP-dominated Congress acted on such a measure last year.

But let's be honest: The majority can always come up with reasons for taking shortcuts that allow it to act. That's not the point. The point is that in our democracy, the process is every bit as important as the legislation it produces. Fairness and trust should be the coin of the realm.

Congress represents everyone, not just those who voted for members who happen to form the majority. Allowing the regular order of hearings, amendments and debate to flourish — with fair restrictions to keep it wieldy, if necessary — would go a very long way to healing the scars of the last few years and make it less likely that Capitol Hill will return soon to the ugly bitterness that cost it so much public good will and led to legislative stalemate.

Audio Version

To Reform Congress, Shine A Light On It

2007-02-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

Watching Congress tackle reform has been interesting and even uplifting, but in the end I find myself oddly disappointed. Our representatives on Capitol Hill may be missing an important opportunity to bring real and lasting change to an institution that sorely needs it.

Reducing the influence of lobbyists on legislation and banning most (but not all) privately funded travel for members of Congress may help end the abuses that so repelled American voters last year. But the more I look at the problems of recent years — the lackadaisical attitude toward ethics enforcement, the legislative shortcuts, the outsized influence of special interests, the secret earmarks, the poisonous partisanship, the pernicious influence of mountains of cash on the system, the playing field tilted in favor of incumbents — the more I am persuaded that one fundamental reform addresses many of them: sunshine.

My thinking is simple. The more exposed members of Congress feel, the less likely it is we will see the misconduct and institutional shortcomings that led to this year's reform effort. Congress belongs, in the end, to the American people, and behavior that can't stand the light of day has no place there.

Michael Klein and Ellen Miller, who run an organization devoted to increasing the "transparency" of government, put it this way in a recent commentary: "Why focus on transparency? Because a major cause of voter mistrust is a feeling special interests are served by those who do their bidding in the belief they will not be detected. The best cure for this is increasing transparency and thus the risk of detection."

I am not quite as devoted as they are to the belief that everything a member of Congress does should be public. Politics, after all, depends on the willingness of its practitioners to compromise for the common good in ways they might be reluctant to do if a camera were focused on them all the time. And certainly some national security matters need to be handled in private.

Still, there is much that could be made public that has either been hidden or is so inaccessible that it might as well be. Campaign donations and lobbying expenses, for instance, should promptly be published online and made easily searchable, so that we know right away who is financing whom and to what end. Similarly, there is no legitimate reason for keeping the sponsors of earmarks or their intended beneficiaries under wraps.

And this is an era when pretty much anything that can be caught by a camera makes it quickly onto YouTube. Shouldn't House and Senate meetings — especially floor action and committee and subcommittee hearings — be viewable online as well? I see no reason why the public shouldn't be able to look over its representatives' shoulders as they go about their legislative work. It is, after all, the public's business.

You'll notice a theme here. New technology — especially the Web, high bandwidth, and the search revolution sparked by Google — makes possible a degree of scrutiny that would have been inconceivable even 15 years ago.

Without making a special trip to Washington or scouring some obscure federal office for a buried report, we could know immediately which special interests fund the campaigns of specific members or devote millions of dollars to buying access (if not more) to members of Congress.

We could know right away when a member attaches an innocuous-seeming amendment to a bill that happens to benefit a prime campaign contributor. We could watch markup and oversight sessions as they take place. We could see when legislative shortcuts are taken, and when amendments and debate on bills are curbed. We could quickly learn which members are serious and competent in looking into every nook and cranny of the federal government, and which members are merely engaged in "show time."

We could, in other words, make it far easier to hold Congress and its members accountable for actions that affect us all. Democracy, after all, is a process, not a result; Americans need to see that process.

This change will not be easy. Members of Congress resist making their doings more public, not because they have any nefarious purposes in mind, but because it's more comfortable and easier for them out of the public eye. So if there is to be greater transparency, it will come about largely because the American people have demanded it.

Powerful interests certainly let members of Congress know they're watching. The American people should be able to, too. So, next time you run into your representative, put the question to him or her bluntly, "Do you, or do you not, want to let the sunshine in?"

Audio Version

We Urgently Need to Fix Our Voting System

2007-01-23T11:32:00.000-05:00

As the 110th Congress convened January 4, its members had only to look around them to be reminded of an issue they should be addressing this session. Indeed, they could look the reminder right in the face.

His name is Vern Buchanan, and he was sworn in as the duly elected representative of Florida's 13th District. He won his seat by 369 votes, but his opponent has called into question why some 18,000 people in the district who voted for other races on the ballot seem not to have cast votes in the House contest.

It will be up to the courts to decide on the opponent's charge that she was the victim of a voting-machine malfunction. But the questions that have arisen over whether the computerized voting machines in Sarasota County operated properly — or whether, as some suggest, a poorly designed ballot page caused some 18,000 voters to skip choosing a congressional candidate — are yet another reminder of a serious problem that our representative government faces and that Congress needs to address: Our voting system is fragile and desperately in need of shoring up.

Ever since the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, Americans have been aware that the systems by which we record, tally, and verify votes don't always work. Why does this matter? I'll let the 2005 report by the national Commission on Federal Election Reform, on which I served, give the answer. "The vigor of American democracy rests on the vote of each citizen," the panel wrote. "Only when citizens can freely and privately exercise their right to vote and have their vote recorded correctly can they hold their leaders accountable. Democracy is endangered when people believe that their votes do not matter or are not counted correctly."

In other words, what might seem an obscure and technical subject — the accuracy and verifiability of our voting process — is in fact part of the bedrock of American democracy.

While we do not face a crisis in our voting system, the problems do need to be addressed. It puzzles me that there seems no particular sense of urgency, either among the public or in Congress, about making sure we fix things right now. If elections are defective, our entire system is at risk.

Admittedly, fixing the system won't be easy or inexpensive. For one thing, it involves questions about how far the federal government should reach into a matter that has largely been left to states, counties and local governments to resolve. Some states and smaller jurisdictions do a fine job of conducting elections; others, however, try to do it on the cheap, with machinery and processes inadequate to the task.

So let's ask ourselves: Is it too much to expect that every American voter, regardless of where he or she lives, can go to the polls on Election Day confident that there won't be long delays and that his or her vote will actually be registered as cast?

The federal government took a step in the right direction with the Help America Vote Act of 2001, known as HAVA, which for the first time set national requirements for state and local elections, in exchange for funds to improve the administration of elections. Now it's time for Congress and the states to focus on what additional steps are needed.

To begin, it will take a lot of money to be sure that every precinct in the country is equipped adequately. A lot of jurisdictions have adopted computerized voting screens, but without going to the added expense of making sure they include a voter-verifiable paper trail; as the election reform commission suggested, Congress should require such an audit trail and, if need be, help fund it.

As the 2005 report noted, "The purpose of voting technology is to record and tally all votes accurately and to provide sufficient evidence to assure all participants — especially the losing candidates and their supporters — that the election result accurately reflects the will of the voters."

Several other steps might also be needed to ensure that Americans have confidence in the system. Voter registration systems need to be strengthened, voters accurately identified, voting made more convenient, votes counted accurately, and the administration of elections improved.

Why my sense of urgency about all this? Because we have less than two years until the next presidential election and a set of House and Senate elections that might affect the majority in both chambers. As the election reform commission noted, "Election reform is best accomplished when it is undertaken before the passions of a specific election cycle begin." The time to fix things is now, not after the next instance in which voting snafus cause some number of Americans to wonder whether they really live in a democracy.

Audio Version

Congressional Debates Need Facts, Not Spin

2007-01-16T11:02:00.000-05:00

Congress likes to think of itself as "the world's greatest deliberative body." If ever there is a time for it to live up to this self-image, it is now.

In 2007, our senators and House members face grueling — and long overdue — debates on the Iraq War, fighting terrorism as a free society, enhancing economic chances for working families, improving the long-term outlook for Social Security, policing their own ethical behavior, and other knotty issues.

This is as it should be: Congress is where our diverse nation is supposed to come together to discuss and thoroughly air the challenges we face.

So it was dismaying to read a recent study by two respected political scientists stating that thoughtful congressional debate, rooted in facts, is actually hard to come by. Legislators often resort to "half-truths, exaggeration, selective use of facts, and, in a few instances, outright falsehoods," write Gary Mucciaroni of Temple University and Paul J. Quirk of the University of British Columbia in their book, Deliberative Choices: Debating Public Policy in Congress.

This is not reassuring at this especially troubled moment in our history.

We all know that Congress doesn't always live up to the lofty standards we would wish. Debate on the House and Senate floors can get long-winded, repetitious, and perfunctory. But the Mucciaroni-Quirk study probes deeper than that, exploring how truthful and accurate were claims made during 43 separate debates between 1995 and 2000 on three key issues of that time: welfare reform, estate-tax reduction, and telecommunications deregulation.

Their conclusion was that in debates, only about a quarter of the claims made by members of Congress were supported by the facts, with the other three-fourths either unsupported or only partially supported by the relevant evidence.

In addition, "When others exposed speakers' claims as weak, the speakers in almost every case ignored the criticism only to reassert the dubious claims." This brings to mind the infamous comment by Rep. Earl Landgrebe of Indiana during the Watergate debate: "My mind is made up," he said. "Don't confuse me with the facts."

Even worse, the book concludes, "Congressional debate is typically no better than moderately informed. Legislators frequently assert claims that are inaccurate or misleading, and reassert them after they have been effectively refuted.... In a typical debate, the best that Congress achieves is a roughly even balance of fact and fiction."

I suppose this "facts don't matter" approach might sometimes be expected on the campaign trail. There, unfortunately, we have become accustomed to half-truths, distortions, and falsehoods, and voters have had to learn to take campaign statements with a grain of salt.

But when Congress is in the process of making decisions on key issues confronting the nation, is it really okay with the American people that its members deal with each other in a straightforward and truthful manner only half the time? I doubt it. Members of Congress simply must do better.

There are some internal changes in the way Congress operates that would improve the situation, and Mucciaroni and Quirk suggest a few. They would extend the time for debate, for instance, noting that members can, indeed, catch misleading statements by others and correct them on the floor. Congress might also reduce the number of omnibus bills, which make it difficult, if not impossible, to delve into the details of what the legislation would actually accomplish.

And Congress should restore the central role once played by standing committees, whose members tend to have the expertise to understand the issues they confront. Moreover, committees usually serve to refine and focus debates on the core issues, making it easier both for the American public and for other members of Congress to follow and take part in them.

In the end, though, I think there's no substitute for members and staff to become more serious and more careful about how they prepare for and conduct debates. They are, after all, making the nation's laws, not engaging in some effort to score debating points.

The American people have an important role to play in this. They must hold their representatives in Congress to a high standard. They must insist that the decisions of Congress be rooted in solid analysis and factual information. Part of the intense dislike Americans have developed for Congress in recent years stems from disappointment in the quality of its political discourse and the prevalence of spin, distortion, and partisan mockery.

As the new Congress takes up a long list of formidable public policy challenges, it could go a long way toward restoring public confidence by debating them carefully, fully, and accurately, with respect not only for the truth, but also for its own role in making the laws of the nation.

Audio Version

It's Now or Never for Ethics Reform

2007-01-11T09:04:00.000-05:00

The voters offered Congress an unparalleled opportunity on Election Day. Let us hope our legislators have the wisdom to seize it.

I'm talking, of course, about ethics reform. The upcoming session of Congress may be our best chance in a generation to enact meaningful reforms governing how Congress runs and polices itself.

Acting quickly, early in 2007, is crucial not only for addressing the problems that arose on Capitol Hill over the past several years, but also for restoring public confidence in a vital, but badly stained, American institution. Voters were clearly and unequivocally in the mood for reform in November and impatient with excuses for not moving ahead with it, and there is no doubt in my mind they will be watching carefully to see what happens in January.

The signals coming from the incoming House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have been quite positive. She has said that the 110th Congress will be "the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history," and the new House majority is already moving to put together a package of reforms. Republican leaders also seem supportive of efforts to prevent abuses of office.

So this is a hopeful moment — but it is only that. The hard work will come when Congress convenes and focuses on the details of changing fine words into deeds.

Some of what Congress needs to do is obvious. Banning all gifts, meals, and travel paid for by lobbyists is a key first step. So, too, are: requiring complete and readily accessible disclosure of lobbyist contacts with members of Congress; finding ways to restrict the access to sitting members by former members of Congress who have become lobbyists; and tightening up on ways members enrich themselves while in office.

Simply put, the freewheeling atmosphere that once prevailed on Capitol Hill — at least until the Jack Abramoff scandal dampened the fun — needs to become a thing of the past.

Somewhat less obvious, but no less important, Congress should also own up to its own bad habits. The new majority has already indicated that so-called "earmarks" are off the table for the remainder of the fiscal year, but it also needs to act for the long term by requiring disclosure of who is responsible for each earmark that lards future budgets.

This is a slippery issue, because there are some earmarks — a bridge, a new post office, a badly needed highway interchange — that members are more than happy to be associated with back home. But there are other earmarks — most notably, appropriations aimed at funneling federal money to this contractor or that contributor — that their sponsors would prefer to remain cloaked. So talk of requiring full disclosure of "district-oriented earmarks" misses the point; it's those darker payments to interests that may not be located in a member's district that need the full light of day and thorough vetting.

Finally, I am heartened to see that the notion of an independent Office of Public Integrity, separate from the congressional ethics committees, is at last getting serious consideration by House members and senators on both sides of the aisle.

This is a key reform. The slap-on-the-wrist approach taken by the House ethics committee toward members who knew early on about former Rep. Mark Foley's behavior toward House pages is a classic illustration of how hard it is for Congress to enforce its own ethics code. Even though an independent office could at best make recommendations for enforcement to the ethics committees, its words would carry great weight and ensure that, at a minimum, the American public would have a trustworthy yardstick by which to judge the actions — or inaction — of its representatives.

The truth is, it takes two independent forces acting at once to keep congressional ethics on the front burner, both legislatively and in legislators' minds.

One is pressure from the voters, and with 42 percent having reported in exit polls Nov. 7 that corruption and scandals in government were extremely important in how they voted last month, public pressure is a key influence at the moment.

The other is a clear message from the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate that this is important, and that they expect and will enforce the highest standards of conduct in Congress.

No doubt there will be attempts in coming weeks to water down whatever reform legislation is proposed, just as the temptation will be strong, once the spotlight has moved on, to let standards slip. But as long as the public and the leadership remain determined to see that members of Congress act to reflect credit on the institution and to live up to what the American people expect and deserve, we have a good chance of regaining an institution that makes us proud and maintains our trust.

Audio Version

When The Voters Take Charge

2006-12-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

One of the oldest tricks in the political playbook is to cite the results of congressional elections as proof that the American people want X or reject Y, in accordance with the speaker's own view of the world.

So it has been — at least, in Washington — with this year's voting. Americans want out of Iraq, say various commentators, or have grown tired of President Bush and of the last few years' congressional shenanigans. No, say others, they are angry at Republicans for violating conservative fiscal principles, or simply fell for a few middle-of-the-road Democrats in traditionally "red" states.

The truth is, election results are built on the individual decisions of millions of people voting for or against hundreds of different candidates, and sweeping generalizations are always risky. In every election there are two elections: the actual voting, and what the politicians say the voters meant. But as January approaches, and with it the transition from Republican to Democratic rule on Capitol Hill, both parties might at least want to remember that voters had something more than policy issues on their minds: They wanted change in the political environment on Capitol Hill.

Congressional majorities get overly cocky and sometimes forget that Congress is, after all, the people's legislature. The Democrats did this during the 1980s and 1990s, and were chided for it by the voters in 1994, when they lost their majority. The Republicans did it over the last decade, and paid the price in November. If there was a clear message from the voters, I believe it had less to do with policy than an overall perception that they didn't like the way Congress was performing. It's a reminder for both parties that how you use power can be just as important to the American people as what you accomplish with it.

This is a bracing facet of our democracy. There were plenty of people within the halls of Congress who were discomfited in recent years by how it operated, but, because they were in the minority or were not part of the leadership, they were powerless to do much about it. Instead, it fell to the voters to force change in Congress.

In doing so, they have created a new dynamic on Capitol Hill, a sense of optimism and a belief that old foes can start anew. So there is a tremendous opportunity at the moment to heal some of the breaches that developed in recent years — to construct a Congress that is genuinely bipartisan, that upholds time-tested legislative processes designed to give a voice to the manifold interests in this diverse nation, and that behaves like an institution proud of its independent constitutional role.

The voters have handed political leaders — not just in Congress, but in the White House as well — an opportunity to make progress on issues critical to the nation by serving as uniters, not dividers; by taking the path of cooperation, not confrontation; and by understanding that if anything over the next two years is to get done by a Republican president and a narrowly Democratic Congress, it will have to be by appealing to the middle ground.

If they do, then I believe any number of issues that in recent years have seemed intractable will turn out to be resolvable — if not in one fell swoop, then at least in increments.

So, for instance, we may be unable to balance our budget at once, but we can certainly put national finances on a more sustainable path. There is clearly central ground on immigration questions that can be enlarged and turned into successful legislation. Health care, energy conservation, the environment — all of these are issues upon which legislators of good will with a willingness to compromise can make progress. Even in a controversial arena like tax reform, a Congress and a president determined to work together can at least clean up the tax code, strengthen tax collection, and remove inequities and loopholes that all agree have long needed addressing.

I don't believe for a moment that cooperation is the only path open to our leaders. They could just as easily fall back on the tired habit of confrontation. If this happens, with a slender majority of one party in Congress and a president of the other in the White House, then we face two years of stalemate.

I prefer to hope that the recent election will instead work to cleanse Washington of the bad blood and politics of accusation and resentment that have characterized it in recent years, and encourage our leaders to resolve to turn over a new leaf.

Certainly that is the tone that both the President and congressional leaders have been adopting since the election. If they live up to their rhetoric, then the new sense of energy and purpose that American voters gave to Capitol Hill on Election Day should yield benefits we all can enjoy.

Audio Version

Is Congress Truly Representative?

2006-11-28T11:42:00.000-05:00

Now that the mid-term elections are over, the pundits and the politicians are having a field day parsing the results and deciding what the voting really meant. Inevitably, they're talking about this as an "historic" shift. Yet while the results may seem dramatic, a step back reveals that the congressional elections process has become stultified. It no longer reflects the views of the American people as accurately as it should.

Why do I say this? Well, what else can we make of an election in which polls consistently showed massive unhappiness with the Congress, and yet the final numbers appear to be that fewer than 30 seats in the House (out of 435) and 6 in the Senate (out of 33) shifted party hands? The strongest throw-the-bums-out mood in over a decade yielded change in only 7 percent of the seats in play on Election Day. If this year's elections were a massive rebuff to Congress, why are the overwhelming majority of its incumbents coming back?

To answer that, let me start with a brief refresher on Congress. Over the years, one of its major strengths — at least in the House — has been its representative character. For the better part of our history as a nation, the people elected to the House broadly represented the people in their districts, and elections were meant to reflect change in the public mood.

In a country as remarkably diverse as ours, the interests and perspectives of a rural, farming community in Indiana found expression in Congress just as thoroughly as inner-city neighborhoods in New York, suburbs of high-tech workers in California, and the rugged individualists of Montana or Wyoming. And changes in the public mood, great or small, would be reflected in the make-up of the Congress, especially the House.

In a general sense, this is still true. On most days, you wouldn't confuse a representative from the Upper West Side in Manhattan with one from Montana or Georgia. Yet as changes relating to the election of members of Congress have made it increasingly difficult to dislodge incumbents, the result has been a House that does not register changes in the public mood as accurately as it was meant to.

The outsized importance of campaign fundraising, the crucial role that money plays in determining elections, the ability of computers to craft congressional districts that give a strong edge to one party or another — all have added to the advantages already possessed by incumbents, making it extremely difficult to dislodge them.

As a result, it has become less and less clear whether Congress is capable of representing the shifting moods and concerns of American voters. It took a year like this one, when scandals, an unpopular war, and doubts about the congressional majority's ability to govern responsibly combined to produce change reflective of the national mood.

But these tidal waves in public opinion don't come along very often. The truth is, few incumbents of either party today face serious risk of defeat, and many congressional districts have become safe for one party or the other. Well over 90 percent of House members who run again get re-elected, often without much effort.

Well, you might ask, if voters want to keep re-electing incumbents, then why should it matter? I'll tell you why.

To begin with, a safe incumbent feels no particular pressure to gauge opinion throughout his or her district; what counts is the core constituency, the so-called "base." This means that over the years, members of the House have become less inclined to work hard at representing the entire district, since they don't need to in order to get re-elected.

Instead, their positions and initiatives reflect the concerns of the active core that selects the party nominee; in the House, they drift toward the center only when they must.

Just as troubling, while incumbents in safe districts may be just as assiduous as their less secure colleagues in going after federal grants and sorting out Medicare tangles for their constituents, they tend not to keep their ear as close to the ground to pick up the always-changing attitudes of voters.

Mid-term elections used to be a powerful indicator of the public mood, but unless it's a truly extraordinary year like this one, most individual contests won't be competitive. This, in turn, means that voters have less of a chance to weigh the policy direction they'd prefer and then signal their choice by sending one or another candidate to Washington.

This year's election may prove me wrong about the declining representative character of the Congress, but I don't think so. Most elections these days simply ratify the incumbent. The public's opportunity to express its views on the country's direction is diminished.

And when you factor in other forces that drive a wedge between members of Congress and their constituents — the constant fundraising, hectic schedules, and intense pressure to remain loyal to the party — it seems to me that the Congress, designed to be a sensitive barometer of Americans' concerns and preoccupations, grows more distant from the people it is supposed to represent.

Audio Version

Spotlight On A Congress In Institutional Crisis

2006-10-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

The page scandal that is currently shaking Congress is not just about sex, lies and cover-ups; it's also about institutional integrity.

Everywhere you turn in this latest congressional scandal, you find behaviors that have become all too familiar on Capitol Hill in the last several years: the elevation of political calculation and personal loyalty above other values; an overriding focus on winning the next election; the failure to investigate a serious matter with diligence; the dominance of a very small inner circle of congressional leaders and staff in handling key matters; the disappearance of safeguards and systems — in this case, a functioning ethics committee — that might have kept the House from running off the rails; the hypocrisy of those who expressed the importance of family values but tolerated former Congressman Mark Foley's behavior.

But the feature that has bothered me the most in this sordid mess is the disregard for the institutional integrity of the House of Representatives.

It is heartening that the ethics committee has finally stirred from its long torpor and has begun to investigate who knew about Foley's behavior yet swept it under the rug. But it is telling that even members of Congress, not to mention the public at large, are uncertain about the committee's ability to investigate fully and dispassionately, which is why some are also calling for an independent investigation.

The sharp decline in the ability of the House in recent years to police its own members has led to a widespread loss of faith in the institution's integrity.

The vast majority of members of Congress, I believe, are principled, yet they have tolerated an institution that has not demanded of its members that they abide by the primary ethical standard of the House code of conduct: that all members, at all times, act so as to reflect credit on the House. If this standard had been applied here, it would have meant, at a minimum, that any member with knowledge of Foley's activities would have tried to stop him immediately.

The emphasis on winning and retaining political power that has been so central to House leaders now gives all appearances of having led them to check their responsibilities — in the form of concern for the well-being of both House pages and the institution of the House — at the door. Foley might have been stopped as long as two years ago by a leadership with an appropriate sense of priorities and institutional responsibilities.

Instead, interested perhaps in preserving a congressional seat and avoiding bad headlines, the leadership chose not to delve into the e-mails that should have set alarm bells ringing.

The secretive manner in which concerns about Foley's behavior seem to have been treated is also part and parcel of a modus operandi that badly needs an overhaul. Even before this particular scandal hit the news, the American people were making it clear that they distrusted Congress, recently saying they disapproved of its work by a margin of 66 to 32 percent.

This is because, I believe, the public feels the disappearance of the transparency, check-and-balance procedures and watchdog structures that were put in place over many decades by members of Congress devoted to the institution.

The American people want and deserve a Congress that acts to protect its own integrity. If it does not, no one should be surprised if the public fails to hold it in high esteem.

A functioning ethics system would have spared the House not only this moment's shame, but also some, if not most, of the scandals that have brought it such disgrace in recent years. Americans long for people of strong principle to stand up and put a stop to such breaches; a robust ethics process is not simply a nicety, it's absolutely essential. One of the top priorities of the new Congress should be to rebuild a vigorous, robust, bipartisan ethics committee so that it can maintain the high standards of congressional conduct that are essential for safeguarding the public's trust and confidence.

Finally, to me the saddest aspect of the Foley affair is how starkly it shows the relaxed attitude toward the institutional standing of the House. What I would hope to see in the end is a Congress that takes seriously its constitutional role, in which members are not just adherents of a political party determined to continue control of the institution, but also are highly aware that they belong to a separate and co-equal branch of government whose untainted performance is vital to the functioning of representative democracy.

If, as a result of the uproar over this page scandal, members begin to show us that they are determined to protect the integrity and credibility of the House and to act always to reflect credit on the institution, then this whole, sad affair will have produced some good.

Audio Version

How To Run For Congress

2006-10-10T11:09:00.000-04:00

I love election season. My fondness for it may be stronger now that I don't actually have to be out campaigning or raising campaign funds, but as an American I find it immensely inspiring.

In towns and cities from one end of the country to the other, men and women at this moment are doing their best to grapple with the hard issues that confront us and to persuade their fellow citizens that their approach will help this nation grow stronger. We get to weigh what they say and do, and make our choice at the ballot box. This is the heartbeat of our democracy, and I never tire of listening to it.

Just as amazing is the fact that ordinary people — our friends and neighbors, our teachers and military veterans and farmers and shop owners — have decided to step forward and run for office. They know that the challenges of campaigning are enormous. Yet often, when I speak in public, a few listeners will come up to me afterward and ask my advice on running for Congress. Our hurried conversation always feels inadequate to me, so here's what I wish I had the time to tell them.

First, know why you're running, and be able to articulate it. "I want to serve my country" is not enough. In my experience, the vast majority of members of Congress are there because they want to make America a better place, but most Americans — if current surveys are to be believed — believe they're there to enrich themselves. Just as important, people aren't interested in hearing only about problems; they also want to hear about solutions. So know what you want to accomplish and be straightforward about it — Americans can spot phoniness amazingly quickly.

You should also be prepared to spend an enormous amount of energy. Campaigning is exhausting work. It begins early in the morning in front of plant gates, and ends late at night in neighborhood bowling alleys and American Legion halls and wherever else people congregate and might be willing to lend an ear.

That is why enjoying people is an enormous asset for a candidate. A campaign is an unrelenting parade of people; indeed, I know of no business that brings you in touch with a wider variety of people than politics. One night you're making the rounds in a popular watering hole, and the next morning you're in church; one day you're shaking hands and patting babies' heads at a county fair, and the next you're sitting around a table trading ideas with community leaders. In some ways, Americans look at Congress as a local office, and they want to be able to size you up, eyeball to eyeball.

Yet if you have to become good at getting yourself across, you also have to learn how to listen. People don't just want to hear what you have to say, they want you to know and to care about what they think; if you can't be troubled to pay attention and ask good questions, they won't trouble themselves to vote for you.

Moreover, as a politician, you need to be able to size up a crowd quickly; since every crowd is different, you need to be able to gauge whether they're pleased or reluctant to see you, and whether they're after a reasoned exchange of views or want a red-meat tub-thumper that will get them fired up to help you.

For the truth is, you can't run for Congress alone. You need a core of aides who can help you with advertising, polling, research, writing speeches, developing positions, scheduling your time, figuring out how to respond to your opponent's attacks, and organizing volunteers — the people who will stuff letters, answer the telephones and make calls on your behalf.

And you need to raise a lot of money. Running for Congress is expensive, and while it's true that you can still lose with a lot of money, you can't win without it.

Finally, you have to figure out how to enjoy yourself. Campaigning is such hard work that it's easy to burn out, to get short-tempered with staff or simply tune out the people you're meeting. Once you've developed your stump speech, you're going to be giving it over and over again, and if you can't make it sound fresh each time, your listeners will know right away. Your days will be filled with people whose help you need and who won't be shy about offering their advice or demanding favors.

Yet as great as the challenges might be, you'll also be on one of the most incredible adventures any American can have. Our system of government depends on ordinary Americans coming forward to run for office, and though the inconveniences may be great, the rewards of being part of our ongoing experiment in democracy are even greater.

Audio Version

Congressional Hearings Are Too Often About Spin

2006-10-03T11:46:00.000-04:00

Back in August, a House subcommittee chairman held a field hearing in Georgia — one of a series they were convening around the country — to inquire into the cost to American workers of illegal immigration. Hispanic groups noticed, however, that the only people testifying were immigration hard-liners. So they complained to the chairman. He was unsympathetic. "What I wanted," he said, "was witnesses who agree with me, not disagree with me."

For anyone who might have been tempted to follow the hearings in order to learn more about the issue, that comment pretty much summed up what they were about: public relations. They were held to advance a particular agenda and convince listeners of its correctness.

Unfortunately, this is now the norm in Congress, not the exception.

Sure, you can still find hearings on Capitol Hill that are designed to study an issue in all its complexity, seek a wide range of views, analyze possible approaches to solving national problems, and serve as the basis for crafting effective public policy. But you have to look pretty hard.

Instead, hearings are typically a vehicle for people with agendas to pursue them. Certainly, the witnesses do — they're usually there to advocate for a particular point of view. Members of Congress, especially the ones who put the hearings together, quite often come with their minds made up; what they're looking for are data or arguments that will either reinforce what they already believe or help them discredit their adversaries. Even the spectators, more often than not, are there because they have a special interest in the issue or in the outcome.

In other words, the congressional hearing has become a highly political exercise.

This isn't against the rules. Committee chairs are free to set up the hearings any way they want, as long as a majority of committee members are willing to go along. But no average citizen should allow himself or herself to be fooled: Such hearings are part of a battle for "hearts and minds," not a group of policy-makers openly and objectively delving into problems or seeking the best public policy solution to a difficult challenge.

Perhaps this shouldn't matter. Americans, after all, seem increasingly drawn to blogs, cable news channels, books, and magazines that reflect their own ideological leanings. Why shouldn't Congress?

Well, for one thing, the canned nature of congressional hearings makes them less useful to members themselves. As political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have noted, during the 1960s and 1970s the average Congress had some 5,400 hearings; in the 1980s and 1990s, the average dropped slightly to 4,800. After that, though, the number plummeted; in the last Congress, it was 2,100.

And attendance at these has also declined. Pressed with other business, in Washington for only a few days — or sometimes only a few hours — each week, members typically drift in and out of hearings, perhaps to ask a question or two, but rarely to understand an issue better or to gain new insights.

Turning committee hearings into exercises in spin also undercuts their purpose, weakening the entire committee system on which Congress rests by turning it into a public relations apparatus, not a means of searching for the facts needed to build legislation or understand policy options.

Small wonder that Congress has been shirking its crucial oversight role vis-à-vis the President and his administration; if the congressional hearing is all about PR, then it becomes impossible to scrutinize the performance of the White House and federal agencies with dispassion and an analytical frame of mind.

Perhaps the greatest cost has come in public distrust. I suppose it's inevitable that, when policy-making is seen as simply part of a long ideological campaign, then traditional mechanisms for generating sound policy — like congressional committee hearings — become part of that campaign, too.

But the American people don't seem very enthusiastic about this. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a more cynical, angry, and disaffected citizenry.

There are a lot of reasons for Congress' low standing in the public opinion polls, but surely one of them is that Americans are tired of politicians who seem more interested in propagandizing than in listening and learning.

Audio Version