Understanding Congress

The topic of this episode is a recent book that is titled, Congressional Deliberation: Major Debates, Speeches, and Writings 1774-2023 (Hackett 2024). The book is edited by Jordan T. Cash, a professor at James Madison College at Michigan State University, and by Kevin J. Burns, a professor at Benedictine College. As the book’s title indicates, its coverage is capacious: the very first excerpt comes from John Adams’ diary entries on the debates in the continental Congress, which he wrote in 1774. The books’ very last entry is taken from the debates that led to the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023.Certainly, I could go on and on about all the parts of the book that fascinate me, but today we’re going to do something better than that. I am going to chat with one of the editors, Jordan Cash.Click here to read the full transcript.

The topic of this episode is, “What does a member of the House of Representatives do all day?”It is not easy for the average voter to imagine how a member of Congress spends each day. We see images of them standing in the ornate chamber, talking with voters, and there’s no shortage of videos of them delivering speeches or denunciations of presidents or the other party. Some polling data indicates that many voters think legislators have cushy, part-time jobs and have legion staff doting upon them.But is life in Congress really like that?My guest is Derek Kilmer, who has written a chapter on this subject for Casey Burgat’s new edited volume, We Hold These "Truths": How to Spot the Myths that are Holding America Back (Authors Equity, 2025).And who better to talk about this topic than Derek Kilmer. He is a former member of Congress. He represented Washington state’s 6th district from 2013 to 2025. Mr. Kilmer served on the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee, which helps decide where federal spending goes. Listeners may also remember that Mr. Kilmer also co-led the House’s Modernization Committee, and he previously was on this podcast to explain the various things that were being done to make Congress work better.Click here to read the full transcript.

The topic of this episode is, “Can term limits fix Congress?”Many Americans, including possibly you, dear listener, look at Congress and think, “These people stink. They spend decades in Congress and are out of touch with the American people and pay too much attention to special interests.” This widespread feeling unsurprisingly leads to nearly 90 percent of Americans telling pollsters they favor term limits for legislators.So would term limits be a helpful reform? To help us think through this question I have with me Dr. Casey Burgat, a professor at George Washington University. He is the editor of a new volume, We Hold These Truths: How to Spot the Myths That are Holding America Back (Authors Equity, 2025). It's a fun book, and has contributions from a lot of smart people. The book also includes a chapter that Casey authored on this very topic of term limits for Congress. So who better for us to have on the program?Click here for the full transcript of the episode.

The topic of this episode is, “What is the lost history of Congress’s Offices of Legislative Counsel?”My guest is Beau Baumann, a doctoral candidate in law at Yale University. He studies the intersection of administrative law and legislation. He has published articles in a number of law journals and previously worked as an attorney for the US Department of Justice and clerked for a federal district court. He is the author of a really interesting, new article titled, “Resurrecting the Trinity of Legislative Constitutionalism.” In it he describes some of the lost history of Congress’s offices of legislative counsel (OLC).Click here for the full transcript of the episode.

The topic of this episode is, “What has become of the United States Senate and can it be revived?”The Senate did not have a good year in 2024. The chamber did not pass a budget resolution, nor did the Senate enact any of the dozen annual spending bills. Its year-end calendar of business listed dozens of pages of bills on matters large and small awaiting votes. Lots of floor time was spent on presidential nominations rather than on debating policy or amending legislation and voting on it.To help us get a better sense of what’s not going well in the Senate and what might be done to improve its functioning I have with me Professor Anthony J. Madonna. Tony is a professor at the University of Georgia. He is the author of many scholarly articles on Congress, and most recently published a piece for Political Research Quarterly titled, “Interbranch Warfare: Senate Amending Process and Restrictive House Rules.”

The topic of this episode is a new book on Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican who served as his party’s chamber leader for the better part of two decades.The book was written by Associated Press reporter Michael Tackett, and its title is The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party. It was published by Simon & Schuster in November of 2024.It is a fine book, and I certainly enjoyed reading it. I learned a lot about Senator McConnell. For example, who knew that he dated a lot when he was a single guy? Who knew that he had a role in transforming Kentucky from a Democrat-controlled state to one with a vibrant Republican party? And who knew that Senator McConnell recruited a Rep. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to run for the Senate?Capacious as this book is, I could have read one twice its size. Mitch McConnell is fascinating figure, and a historic one.So let’s get to it—the story of Mitch McConnell.Read the full transcript here.

As listeners know, every two years the House of Representatives is reborn. After the November election each party convenes in Washington, DC. They discuss and debate how they will run their parties, and what their legislative priorities will be. And if they are members of the majority party, they will discuss and decide what the rules of the House should be. Then when they open the new Congress in January one of the first things they will do is to vote along party lines on a new rules package.A group of scholars and former House members recently released Revitalizing the House (Hoover Institution/Sunwater Institute), a report calling for the House to revise its rules. You can find that report on UnderstandingCongress.org.To discuss why the House should change its rules I have with me one of the authors, Dr. Philip Wallach. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a colleague and a friend. At AEI he studies America’s separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state. His latest book is Why Congress (Oxford University Press).Click here for the full transcript of the episode.

The topic of this episode is, “What does the House Ways and Means Committee do? And how does it do it?”The House Ways and Means Committee is the oldest committee of the United States Congress, first established in 1789 and became a standing committee in 1805. It has jurisdiction over raising revenue for the government to spend---taxes, tariffs, and the like. The term “Ways and Means” comes from English Parliamentary practice, wherein there was a committee with authority for finding the ways and means to pay for government actions and policies.My guest is Tom Reed, a former member of the House of Representatives. He was in Congress from 2010 to 2022 and represented New York’s 29th and 23rd districts. Importantly for this podcast, Mr. Reed served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was deeply involved with its tax reform work.Click here for the full transcript of the episode.

The topic of this episode is, “How can the House of Representatives better prepare new members?”My guest is Rep. Stephanie Bice, a Republican who has represented Oklahoma’s fifth congressional district for the past four years. She previously served in the Oklahoma state legislature from from 2014 to 2020. Prior to that, she worked in business for her family’s technology company and her own marketing firm.I first met Rep. Bice perhaps eight years ago. I was studying alcohol policy reform and she was deep in the process of helping rewrite some of Oklahoma’s outdated alcoholic beverage laws.Rep. Bice, I should add, sits on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. And most relevant for this podcast, she also is on the Committee on House Administration, which has jurisdiction over many matters including the onboarding of new members of Congress.

The topic of this episode is, “How does media affect our perceptions of Congress?’As listeners no doubt know, Americans are down on Congress. Public approval of Congress has averaged about 20 percent over the past 20 years, according to Gallup. Certainly, the people on Capitol Hill are partly to blame. We have legislators who behave as if they are on a reality television show and who spend a lot of time starting fights on social media. Congress also has hurt its reputation by failing to address major public policy issues, like immigration and the soaring national debt. And then there are the occasional scandals that disgust the average American.Yet, Americans’ dour opinion of Congress also is fueled by media coverage.To talk more about this I have with me Rob Oldham, who is a Ph.D. candidate in politics at Princeton University. This year he will be an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, and will be spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill. His published papers investigate the relationship between supermajority rules and bipartisan policymaking. His dissertation considers congressional policymaking in response to crises during the era of polarization.And importantly and especially relevant for this podcast is that Rob is the coauthor (along with James M. Curry and Frances Lee) of a fascinating, recent article titled, “On the Congress Beat: How the Structure of News Shapes Coverage of Congressional Action.” This article was recently published by Political Science Quarterly.