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The topic of this episode is, “What is the relationship between lobbyists and Congress?” My guest is https://www.jmu.edu/polisci/people/faculty-lapira.shtml (Timothy LaPira). He is a professor of political science at James Madison University and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia. Tim, I should add, is the lead editor of our volume https://amzn.to/3NuwH5P (Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline of Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform) (University of Chicago Press, 2020). But even more relevant to the subject of this podcast episode is that Professor LaPira coauthored the book https://amzn.to/35n7JUu (Revolving Door Lobbying: Public Service, Private Influence, and the Unequal Representation of Interests). This makes him an especially apt person to answer the question for us, “What is the relationship between lobbyists and Congress?” Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. Tim, welcome to the podcast. Timothy LaPira: Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Kevin Kosar: Let's start very simply, with the definition of a lobbyist. Now, under the First Amendment, anyone can petition the government for a redress of grievances, as the Constitution says. So plenty of people do talk to Congress, and the executive branch and judiciary, for that matter. In fact, in my job at a think tank, I am often asked to comment on bills or testify before Congress by congressional staff or even legislators who approach me. But I'm not a lobbyist. So what makes a lobbyist a lobbyist? Timothy LaPira: This is a great question. It's one that's often misunderstood. There's many definitions of what a lobbyist is, but I tend to think of—there's two ways to think about this. First, the more comprehensive, academic version of thinking about a lobbyist. It could go by the name of policy advocate, government relations professional, policy strategist, or something along those lines. These are people who make money to represent other people's interests. Those interests are typically going to be collected in organizations, but it's not just representing those interests in speaking. It's representing those interests in the policymaking process. There has to be a connection between the private sector and the government. So that's a very broad definition. There is, further, a statutory definition, primarily through the https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/1060 (Lobbying Disclosure Act) of 1995, which has been updated a number of times. In that law, there's a three-test definition of what a lobbyist is. First, they have to earn money. There's a minimum amount of money that's frankly not all that much given the size of the lobbying industry. It's about $5,000 a month. Second, they have to contact more than one government official. The purpose of this in the law, of course, is not to simply capture everyone, as you suggested. They might want to call up their member of Congress and say, "Vote for the bill,” or “Vote against a nominee," or what have you. The third point of the definition is most critical and frankly controversial: the lobbyist must spend more than 20 percent of her time on lobbying services in a given three-month reporting period. Now, https://www.congress.gov/member/carl-levin/L000261?q=%7B%22house-committee%22%3A%22Rules%22%7D (Senator Levin), when he originally wrote this law—the...

The topic of this episode is, “What does the Congressional Budget Office do?” My guest is https://spp.umd.edu/our-community/faculty-staff/philip-joyce (Professor Philip Joyce). He is the senior associate dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, where he also is a professor of public policy. There, Philip Joyce teaches and researches public budgeting, performance measurement, and intergovernmental relations. He's the author of many publications — far too many to recite, but I will mention one that is germane to today's podcast. Phil is the author of the book https://amzn.to/3BYPmBb (The Congressional Budget Office: Honest Numbers, Power, and Policymaking) (2011), which makes him an ideal guest to answer the question, “What does the Congressional Budget Office do?” Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. Professor Joyce, welcome to the podcast. Philip Joyce: It's great to be with you. Kevin Kosar: Let's start simply. The https://www.cbo.gov/ (Congressional Budget Office), AKA, “CBO.” When did Congress create it and why? Philip Joyce: CBO was created in 1974. You have to sort of go back in time if you can. Well, probably a lot of people can't go back that far in time that are listening to this podcast, but I can. As you recall, in 1974, at least early 1974, Richard Nixon was president. There was something that became referred to as the imperial presidency, and it essentially involved President Nixon being viewed at least by many people in the Congress as overstepping his bounds, doing things like withholding funds that the Congress had appropriated. So the Congress was trying to reassert its role in the budget process. And it did this by passing something called the Congressional Budget and Empowerment Control Act of 1974, which did basically three things. It created the budget committees; it created the budget resolution, which is the blueprint that the Congress establishes for the budget; and it created CBO. Why did it create CBO? It created CBO in particular to provide the Congress with its own source of information on the budget and the economy. And why did it need to do that? Because the alternative was to rely on the https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ (Office of Management and Budget), which was attached to the president — and not just any president, but Richard Nixon. So the idea that the Congress was going to reassert its role in budgeting, but have to rely on Richard Nixon's OMB for information, just didn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people in the Congress. The other thing I think it's important to note up front is that according to the law, this was all to be done on a nonpartisan basis, which means that CBO doesn't work for the party in control of the Congress. It works for the Congress as a whole, and tries very hard to make sure that it is responsive to both political parties. Kevin Kosar: Yes, I should elaborate a touch further for listeners who are not familiar with this period of time, the early ’70s. After being pushed around and eclipsed by a burgeoning executive branch, one that often didn't play straight and sometimes transcended the law in its activities, Congress decided to reassert itself. It took the Legislative Reference Service and beefed it up into the https://crsreports.congress.gov/ (Congressional Research Service). They created the Office of Technology Assessment. It wrote a new law on...

The topic of this episode is, “Should we expand the membership of the House of Representatives?” My guest is https://www.aei.org/profile/yuval-levin/ (Yuval Levin), who is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Levin is the founder and editor of the journal https://www.nationalaffairs.com/ (National Affairs), a senior editor at https://www.thenewatlantis.com/ (The New Atlantis), a contributing editor at https://www.nationalreview.com/ (National Review), and a contributing opinion writer at the https://www.nytimes.com/ (New York Times). And, particularly germane to the subject of today's discussion, Yuval recently coauthored a https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/2021_Enlarging-the-House.pdf (report) on the topic of expanding the membership of the House of Representatives. You'll find a link to that report in the program notes. Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. Yuval, welcome to the podcast. Yuval Levin: Thank you very much for having me. Kevin Kosar: The founders set the number of senators at two per state, but they did not set a constitutional cap on the number of legislators in the House. Why is that? Yuval Levin: Well, the nature of the Congress came out of a very complicated set of compromises at the Constitutional Convention. If you look at James Madison's https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp (notes on the convention), well over half of the debate was actually about this question of how representation should work. And ultimately, in some obvious ways, the large states wanted to be represented by population, the small states wanted each state to have equal membership, and the decision was made, “Let's do both.” So the two houses do have intentionally very, very different forms of representation: for the states and for the people. The House of Representatives is meant to represent the public. And so each member represents roughly the same number of people. State delegations are based on the size of their populations. The difference between the two houses in that sense is very intentional, and intended to create these kind of overlapping majorities that include both forms of representation. Kevin Kosar: All right, so the Senate is supposed to represent the states; the House, the people. Now, we have 435 members in the House, and we've had 435 for a long time. When was that number set? Yuval Levin: The House of Representatives at first grew after every census. From the very beginning, from the 1790 census all the way through the 19th century, with a single exception after 1840 for complicated reasons, the House grew as the population grew. That continued to happen until after the 1910 census, at which point there was the beginning of a normal debate in the House about how much should we grow and in what way this time. That debate fell apart, and the House ultimately at that point simply didn't act. And the size of the House remained as it was after 1910. Then afterward, after the 1920 census, the House actually actively decided to no longer grow after every census and passed a law that set a cap at 435, which was the size it had reached. For most of the 19th century, the House of Representatives grew by a formula that allowed states to avoid losing seats. So as the population grew, new seats were distributed in such a way...

The topic of this episode is, “What is wrong and right with the House of Representatives?” My guest is https://danlipinski.com/ (Dan Lipinski), who is uniquely positioned to answer this question. He was a member of Congress, and represented Illinois’ third district from 2005 to 2021. He also is a political scientist — he got his doctorate from Duke University in 1998. And if that is not enough, Dan is a former congressional staffer and a socially conservative Democrat. You don’t find many of those anymore. You can see Dan’s recent writings on his website, https://danlipinski.com/ (DanLipinski.com), which includes an essay for The Atlantic titled “https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/house-representatives-congress-filibuster-democracy/620275/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2021-10-11T11%3A00%3A57&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social (The House of Representatives is failing American democracy).” Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. Sir, welcome to the program. Dan Lipinski: It's good to be with you, Kevin. Kevin Kosar: Let's start this conversation on a positive note. You served in the House of Representatives for 16 years. What accomplishments are you most proud of? Dan Lipinski: Well, if I had to pick out one bill most proud of — I actually was able to pass about 17 bills in my 16 years in Congress — but the one that I spent the most time on, maybe the longest lasting impact, is the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act. The requirement of that bill is every four years, the administration needs to create a strategy to promote American manufacturing. We could do a whole podcast on just what it took through five years to get this bill passed. We finally changed it to go to a different committee. In the end, after we spent five years working very hard, first it got attached to one bill, which we strategized to do, and then that bill unexpectedly got attached to an omnibus bill at the end of the year. After five long years of working on it, I was actually shocked when I saw it show up in an omnibus bill. Like I said, we could do a whole podcast on that and the strategy, and all the pitfalls, and what it took to get it through the House and finally get it through the Senate, get the president on board. It took a long time. But the first one was done in the second year of President Trump, and the second one now needs to be done early next year by the Biden Administration. So it's a plan to promote American manufacturing, kind of like the Quadrennial Defense Review, which the Department of Defense every four years needs to look at the defense department and put out a plan for the next four years. Kevin Kosar: So, you're a legislator who got things done. But as you just mentioned, it sure wasn't easy, and it sure didn't follow the script that many of us learned in Schoolhouse Rock all those years ago about how a bill becomes a law. This gets us to my next question. Let's talk about what's wrong with the House of Representatives — why it's so hard to get things done. In an https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/house-representatives-congress-filibuster-democracy/620275/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2021-10-11T11%3A00%3A57&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social (article) for The Atlantic, you state that the House, whether controlled by

The topic of this episode is, “What differences do women make in Congress?” My guest is https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RbbCAAS/michele-swers (Michele Swers), professor of American government at Georgetown University. She studies Congress, congressional elections, and women in politics. She has written a lot of research articles and book chapters, and also is the author of two books on women in Congress. The first one is titled https://amzn.to/3ozw9j8 (The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress). The second book is titled https://amzn.to/3Ho4URi (Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate). And, I would be remiss if I did not mention, she is the coauthor of https://amzn.to/3kEuRT2 (Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence). Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. It is to Professor Swers we now turn to learn about women in Congress. Professor Swers, welcome to the program. Michele Swers: Thank you, Kevin. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan of your podcast. Kevin Kosar: Oh, thanks for saying. Let's start with a really simple question. How many women are in Congress today? Michele Swers: So, right now you have 120 women in the House. Eighty-nine are Democrats, 31 are Republicans. And in the Senate, you have 24 women, 16 Democrats, 8 Republicans. From those numbers, you can tell that there are more women who are Democrat than Republicans. And that's because the number of women really started to increase in 1992, and people called that the Year of the Woman, but it was really the Year of the Democratic Women. It was Democrats who elected more women at that time. They had a pretty good year that year. Even in years where Republicans had good years, like 1994, they elected more women, but not a lot more women. In 2018, Democrats elected another Year of the Woman, but they elected more women of color. So there was a lot of attention to that. And that's when I'm sure your listeners know that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comes into the picture and Ayanna Pressley and some others. And then in 2020, Republicans did have a very good year. They went from 13 women to 31 in the House of Representatives, and they elected a greater mix of women and minorities. It was a good year from their perspective. But you can tell though that by these numbers, when Democrats are in charge, women have more access to the majority and seats of power. So women are about 40 percent of the Democratic caucus in the House, and that means they have some seniority level. In the House, on the Democratic side, anyway, committee assignments work based on seniority, so you have more women who have access to be chairs. So Rosa DeLauro, head of Appropriations, or Carolyn Maloney as the Oversight chair, Maxine Waters at Financial Services — important committees. On the other hand, for Republicans, women are only about 15 percent of their caucus. They've had a woman in the conference chair position for a very long time — obviously turnover with different women. Most recently, Liz Cheney was pushed out, and Elise Stefanik is now the conference chair. But they don't have as many women with seniority. There are not as many women who will reach those committee chairmanships when Republicans are in charge. Right now you do have Kay Granger at Appropriations. She's the ranking member, so maybe she'll...

The topic of this episode is, "What is the role of the Senate’s majority leader?" My guest is https://www.rstreet.org/team/james-wallner/ (Dr. James Wallner). He is a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a lecturer at Clemson University. He is the author of three books on the Senate, including one titled https://www.amazon.com/Parliamentary-War-Partisan-Procedural-Legislative/dp/0472130544 (On Parliamentary War: Partisan Conflict and Procedural Change in the U.S. Senate) (2017). James has worked in the Senate, and also is a cohost of the https://www.politicsinquestion.com/ (Politics in Question podcast).  Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I'm your host, Kevin Kosar, and I'm a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. It is to James Wallner that we turn to learn about the role of the majority leader. James, welcome to the program. James Wallner: Thanks for having me. Kevin Kosar: First question. Chuck Schumer is the current majority leader in the Senate. How did he get that job? What's the process? Did all the senators get together and vote for him or some other candidate? James Wallner: Well, that's how it works in the House, where you nominate candidates to be the speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi is our current speaker. Democrats and Republicans on the floor of the House all cast a vote for the speaker, and the nominee with the most votes becomes the speaker. And so the majority party, in effect, selects the speaker. In the Senate, it's a similar process, but slightly different, because they're not electing a speaker, they're not electing a presiding officer. The majority leader, Chuck Schumer, is merely the floor leader of the party with the most votes — so in this case, the Democrats. And it’s 50–50 right now, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. The vice president is a Democrat, so assuming that the vice president would cast her vote with the Democrats on a tie vote — under the Constitution, she gets to do that — that means that Chuck Schumer has more votes behind him than the leader of the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell, has behind him. So he is the majority leader, McConnell is the minority leader. The way they're chosen is simply by their party colleagues in secret ballot, in a meeting that usually happens right after the election, typically in December following an election before the new Congress meets. Kevin Kosar: You underlined a point there about the difference between leadership in the House and leadership in the Senate. It sounds, at least ostensibly, that a speaker may make a claim to be the head of the whole of the House, whereas in the Senate, it sounds like the majority leader is just the partisan leader. James Wallner: Absolutely. Look, party leaders in the Senate have institutional tasks, too. They help to schedule legislation. They do a bunch of different things that institutional leaders in the House, like the speaker, also do. And the speaker is also a partisan leader, in the fact that she is selected by her majority party caucus and really works to advance the agenda of the majority party. So they go hand in hand. But there is no Senate leader. I'm reminding myself of Woodrow Wilson, where he says, "There's no leader in the Senate," and that's something that's really frustrating him. And this is what makes the Senate great. Because there's no one that presides over the Senate, who wields lots of power, whom all senators vote for, the institution has a very...

The topic of this episode is, "What is the Congressional Review Act?" My guest is https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/bridget-ce-dooling (Professor Bridget C. E. Dooling) of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center. She has a deep background in regulation. Previously, Bridget worked for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. She also has clerked for an administrative law judge and worked in the U.S. Department of Justice. Kevin Kosar: Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It's a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I'm your host, Kevin Kosar, and I'm a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. It is to Professor Dooling we turn to learn about the http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title5-chapter8&saved=%7CKHRpdGxlOjUgc2VjdGlvbjo4MDEgZWRpdGlvbjpwcmVsaW0pIE9SIChncmFudWxlaWQ6VVNDLXByZWxpbS10aXRsZTUtc2VjdGlvbjgwMSk%3D%7CdHJlZXNvcnQ%3D%7C%7C0%7Cfalse%7Cprelim&edition=prelim (Congressional Review Act), a tool for Congress to abolish regulations. Welcome to the show. Bridget Dooling: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Kevin Kosar: Before we get into the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, let's start with something basic. What are regulations, and why do they matter? Bridget Dooling: Regs are great, and studying them is even better. Regulations are everywhere. They shape our world, but not necessarily in obvious ways. Knowing about regulations is like having a decoder ring for why certain things are the way they are. Like, why do you need prescriptions for some things, but you can help yourself to whatever supplements like vitamins that you want? It's because there's a regulatory line there. You can't see it when you're in the drugstore, but it absolutely affects the way you live. Kevin Kosar: Yeah. Regulations really, to a degree, I guess they're specifications of laws, particular applications. Is that a fair characterization? Bridget Dooling: Yep. Kevin Kosar: Now, if listeners want to see these things, these regulations, where should they go? Where can they find a list or collection of regulations? Bridget Dooling: Yeah, there's a few ways. One is that you can look at legislation, because that's where Congress tells the agencies what they're allowed or required to do. And then you can also look at what the agencies themselves produce. So for rules that are in the process of being made, there's a website called https://www.regulations.gov/ (regulations.gov). That's a great place to start, so if you hear that a rulemaking is coming down the pike, that's a great place to go check its status and see if it's open for public comment, for example. So that's regulations.gov. And for rules that are already on the books, you'd want to look at something called the https://www.ecfr.gov/ (Code of Federal Regulations), which pulls all that regulatory text into one place so you can read it all in one spot. Kevin Kosar: Excellent. Now our listeners know. So let's turn to the Congressional Review Act. Congress enacted it in 1996. Democrats and Republicans alike voted for it. President Bill Clinton signed it into law. In most basic terms, what is the CRA? Bridget Dooling: The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to disapprove federal agency rules using fast track procedures, during a special window of time following the rule's issuance. And perhaps the most important of these special fast-track procedures is that resolutions of disapproval can't be...

The topic of this episode is, “How has Congress evolved as an institution?” My guest is https://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/eric-schickler (Eric Schickler), the author of the book, “https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691049267/disjointed-pluralism (Disjointed Pluralism): Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress”. It is the 20th anniversary of this classic text, which won the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics. Eric is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

The topic of this episode is “How do legislators raise money to run for Congress?” My guest is Weston Wamp, who is the Founder at https://www.millennialdebt.org/ (Millennial Debt Foundation) and a Senior Political Strategist at https://www.issueone.org/ (Issue One). He hails from Tennessee, and ran for Congress in 2014. If his last name is familiar to you, that is because he is the son of former member of the House Zach Wamp, a Republican who represented Tennessee's 3rd congressional district from 1995 to 2011. Weston, like his father, knows a thing or two about how fundraising has come to be a major part of getting to Congress and staying there. And I should add that he is the host of the program, https://www.swampstories.org/ (“Swamp Stories,”) which has examined the effects of fundraising on Congress.

The topic of this episode is, “How can a new staffer survive Congress?” My guest is Mark Strand, the coauthor of the book, https://amzn.to/3g1xQDg (“Surviving Inside Congress.”) Mark is the President of the https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/ (Congressional Institute), a not-for-profit organization that helps Members of Congress better serve their constituents and that helps constituents better understand Congress. Mark has led the institute since 2007, and prior to that spent nearly 20 years working as a staffer for members and committees in the House of Representatives.

The topic of this episode is, “What does the Committee on House Administration do?” And who better to answer this question than my guest, https://rodneydavis.house.gov/biography/ (Representative Rodney Davis). He is the ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, or CHA as it often is called. He has been on the committee since 2014. Rep. Davis currently serving his fifth term in Congress representing the 13th District of Illinois, which covers a 14-county region that includes both urban and rural communities in central and southwestern Illinois.

The topic of today’s episode is, “Are earmarks good or bad?” My guest is https://www.cmc.edu/academic/faculty/profile/zachary-courser (Zachary Courser), a visiting assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He is the co-director of the https://policylab.cmc.edu/ (Policy Lab) at Claremont McKenna College, and the co-editor of the volume, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv7n0c0s (Parchment Barriers: Political Polarization and the Limits of Constitutional Order). Zach also is the author of articles on conservatism and populism, and he is the coauthor of an American Enterprise Institute report titled, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/restoring-the-power-of-the-purse-earmarks-and-re-empowering-legislators-to-deliver-local-benefits/ (“Restoring the power of the purse: Earmarks and re-empowering legislators to deliver local benefits.”)

The topic of today’s episode is, “Can Congress budget?” My guest is https://spp.umd.edu/our-community/faculty-staff/allen-schick (Dr. Allen Schick). He is professor emeritus at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He previously has held positions at the Congressional Research Service, the Urban Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Schick published three volumes with AEI press, which you can https://www.aei.org/profile/allen-schick/ (download and read), and many other books with distinguished presses. His books include, Congress and Money: Spending, Taxing, and Budgeting (1980), Making Economic Policy in Congress (1984), The Capacity to Budget (1990) and The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process (1995). Dr. Schick is the dean of budget policy, and we are very fortunate to have him on the program.

The topic of today’s episode is, “How does Congress fund itself?” My guest is https://twitter.com/danielschuman (Daniel Schuman). He is the Policy Director at https://demandprogress.org/team/daniel-schuman/ (Demand Progress), a grassroots, nonpartisan organization with over 1.5 million affiliated activists fighting for the rights and freedoms needed for a modern democracy. Daniel has spent many years studying our national legislature, working to reform it, and advocating to better fund it. He also is the editor of the First Branch Forecast, an extraordinarily informative newsletter that you can read and subscribe to at no cost at https://firstbranchforecast.com/ (https://firstbranchforecast.com/). 

The subject of today’s episode is, “What does the House rules committee do?” My guest is https://bipartisanpolicy.org/person/donald-r-wolfensberger/ (Don Wolfensberger). He is a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/donald-wolfensberger (scholar) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. He served as a staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives for 28 years and was the director of the Rules Committee. Don is the author of two books: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/changing-cultures-in-congress/9780231190152 (Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays), and https://www.wilsoncenter.org/book/congress-and-the-people-deliberative-democracy-trial (Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial).

“How Congress tricks Americans” — that is the topic of this episode. My guest is https://www.nyls.edu/faculty/david-schoenbrod/ (Prof. David Schoenbrod) the author of the book, https://www.amazon.com/DC-Confidential-Inside-Tricks-Washington/dp/1594039119 (DC Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington). David is a Trustee Professor at New York Law School, where he teaches and studies environmental law, regulation, and other heady subjects. He also is a senior fellow at the https://www.niskanencenter.org/ (Niskanen Center).

“Is Congress Broken?” — that is the topic of this episode. My guest is https://www.cmc.edu/academic/faculty/profile/john-pitney-jr (Dr. Jack Pitney), the coeditor of the book, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9VMONC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 (Is Congress Broken? The Virtues and Defects of Partisanship and Gridlock). Jack is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics at Claremont McKenna College, where he teaches American politics and government. This book, which was coedited by William Connelley and Gary Schmitt, is a marvelous collection of essays written by top scholars. All of the chapters, I should note, are accessible to the lay reader. One need not be a political scientist or academic to enjoy this book, and come away with a  greater understanding of the First Branch.

The topic of today's episode is, “How does the budget process work and not work?” My guest is https://www.concordcoalition.org/people/tori-gorman (Tori Gorman), the Policy Director for The Concord Coalition. It is a non-partisan, grassroots organization dedicated to educating the public about federal budget issues, and their consequences for the future. Tori spent 16 years on Capitol Hill where she held director level positions, advising senior members of the budget, appropriations, and tax writing committees in both the House and the Senate. Prior to her career in the federal legislative branch, she was the economist for the Maryland General Assembly.

The topic of today's episode is “What is the filibuster?” And does it have a future? My guest is https://www.brookings.edu/experts/molly-e-reynolds/ (Dr. Molly Reynolds), who is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She studies Congress, with a focus on how congressional rules and procedures affect domestic policy outcomes. She also supervises the maintenance of the “https://www.brookings.edu/multi-chapter-report/vital-statistics-on-congress/ (Vital Statistics on Congress),” Brookings’ long running resource on the first branch of government. Importantly, for our episode today, Molly is the author of the book https://www.brookings.edu/book/exceptions-to-the-rule/ (Exceptions to the Rule: the Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the US Senate).

The topic of today's episode is, “How Does the House of Representatives Organize Itself for a New Congress?” My guest is https://politics.catholic.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/green-matthew/index.html (Dr. Matthew Green), an extraordinarily accomplished scholar of the U.S. Congress. He has been a professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. since 2005, and he received his doctorate from Yale. Matt has authored or coauthored six books, the most recent of which is https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/legislative-hardball/37488C1E94117DFBFF924E5B67188E07 (Legislative Hardball). The first book-length examination of the tactics and effectiveness of the House Freedom Caucus. Matt is also a regular contributor to “https://www.mischiefsoffaction.com/ (Mischiefs of Factions),” a blog about political parties. And he has written about Congress elections and other topics in the Washington Post, Roll Call, and The Hill.