 Hello, everybody. Welcome to our virtual panel. I am Leigh Drummond, a senior fellow in the political reform program that New America, and a very proud co-editor of this exciting new volume, Congress Overwhelmed, the Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform, which I co-edited along with Timothy Lapira and Kevin Kosar. It's been a long time coming. A lot of us have been thinking about the problem of congressional capacity for very long time, and this book brings together some leading scholars of Congress with almost 20 essays on the state of congressional capacity and is, you know, well worth the cover price, whatever the cover price is these days. So I'm really thrilled to have three distinguished colleagues in the study of Congress with us today who will be talking about this volume and some sort of broader questions that I think are on everybody's mind about Congress. Sure. So let me introduce the panelists. We have Molly Reynolds from the Brookings Institution. James Jones is a professor at Rutgers University, Camden, and Ruth Block Rubin, who's a professor at the University of Chicago. And so, you know, I think as probably, you know, the event of Congress is the January 6 attacks on Congress, you know, so I think it would be great just to kind of as a way of introducing each of us to the audience and, you know, if we could just kind of each reflect a little bit on the January 6 events, maybe talk about some of the ways in which we love to hear from each of you how your work, you know, gives you a lens into thinking about the January 6 attack, and please don't be shy to mention the titles of books and articles that you have written on the topic because people want to know where to find more. So with that, let me start with, why don't we start with you, James? Thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me on this great panel. My research looks at the social experiences of black workers in Congress. My current book project, The Last Plantation, looks at how racism shaped their career experiences and their daily work life, and how in return they challenge and resist the inequality that they face. And then I spent January 6 and the days and weeks after thinking about what does it mean to be a black person working in Congress? What does it mean to be a staffer of color working in Congress after such a traumatic event? And I mean thinking about this, about black workers, workers of color across the board in Congress. So, you know, I think one of the images that immediately popped up the night of January 6 was the image or the video footage of black service workers who had to clean up after their interactionists stormed Congress, desecrated it. And I've talked to black service workers and they do this work with dignity. They're such a pride of doing the work they're doing, doing this in the nation's capital. But that work that they were doing was actually pretty degrading, right? So we're thinking about how they're picking up shards, they're cleaning up feces off the wall. So again, this is like a really traumatic and degrading experience for them. I was thinking about black staffers, people, staffers of color who had to barricade themselves in the offices. And you know, racism is a routine part of working in Congress. One of the interesting things that I've talked to staffers about is not necessarily the racism they might experience with their colleagues. Congress can be a professional workplace, but it's often often the the racism that they get, you know, just doing their jobs talking to people on the phone. It's not their constituents. It's just racist just calling them to harass them and their office. But in many ways, this is that was, you know, was brought really proximate right and that day you have people who are entering these halls chanting, you know, really racist remarks. And you know, you know, it wasn't lost in me that like, you know, as a black person who's worked in Congress, I could never do this. I've always like a purchase space as a place that's really dignified. I'm aware of my position in it. And to see a group really invade the space and to do that in such a disrespectful way was like really hard to watch. And again, this is something that this these workers have to live with not only as they go on coming to like this, the scene of the crime and again and again. And I thought about, you know, black capital police officers, right, people who were taunted by the rioters who were repeatedly called inward. I just recently wrote an op-ed for the Daily Beast looking at the sort of this long racial history or racist history of the capital police, and which, you know, racism is a routine part of their daily experiences of their careers. But again, you know, January 6 was different in many ways. Ruth, do you want to jump in with some thoughts? Sure. Well, like James, I appreciate able to participate in this conversation. And I think having written a lot about factions and how they organize in Congress, often the kinds of connections one draws between the organizations that legislators form and the groups they're representing within the electorate feel kind of tenuous. We think there is these connections between same members of the House Freedom Caucus and individuals who are sympathetic to that cause who visit the voting booth. But often they're not in the same place at the same time. And I think the capital riot was an instance where those sentiments felt very acutely connected. And I'm looking with interest at some of the investigations that are unfolding now, thinking about how legislators may have actually abetted some of those activities by giving tours the capital or have subsequently continue to express support for those activities and the ideas that encourage them. And I think in some ways it suggests that the work that I have done is insufficiently imaginative. It is to an extent that the depth of connections that these organizations can have in sort of connecting the people to Congress, which on the one hand suggests a real problem that individuals can feel so entitled to a space in part because of these organizations that they're comfortable waltzing in and destroying things. And at the same time, recognizing that the same kinds of organizations can create a sense of belonging for folks who often feel excluded from the political process. So thinking more about the Congressional Black Caucus and other organizations like that, which can ideally make groups that have every reason to feel like Congress is not serving them well, might actually have a sort of stronger say in the political process. And I think that's something that political scientists would do well to attend to. Molly. Yeah, thanks, Lee. And thanks for having me here with James and Ruth today. So the work that I do that's featured in the book that we're here to talk about today. Looks at kind of staff capacity in Congress at a pretty high level, kind of how many staff are there, what do they do, what resources does Congress give them to do their jobs and I think that both the actual experience of the both the instruction at the Capitol itself and then what we've seen unfold in the aftermath is really highlights specific cases of a number of bigger, broader challenges that I highlighted the work that I do in the Salomon elsewhere and the other folks who have been writing and thinking about these issues so things like funding for the legislative branch so we know that it is really politically difficult to convince Congress to spend more money on itself and that Congress feels really quite constrained in how much money it can politically allocate to the legislative branch but then we get to things like within that constrained budget. We are Congress is spending more and more money on the Capitol police. $515 million in the current fiscal year, but with notoriously little oversight so as we kind of look at what happened on the sixth and start to investigate kind of where things went wrong at a management level there. So if we have to confront these questions of we have these resources how are they getting used and what information is available to Congress itself and the public about how those resources are being spent. Also things like as we think about helping staff, especially staffers of color in member offices in committee offices all the way down to the kind of service workers that James was talking about as we try to make sure that they have access to the resources that they need and that those resources are culturally responsive are there is there the financial wherewithal in Congress to spend money on itself on the people who support its operations in when historically Congress has been really unwilling to spend money to bolster its own operations. It also highlights I think some important questions about the organization of Congress. I'm Ruth was talking about kind of internal party organizations and internal organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus I when I say organization I mean things like what are the consequences in the aftermath of the insurrection on having a really historically decentralized human resources structure so we often talk about Congress as 535 small businesses. And there are lots of, there are lots of services, lots of resources that individual offices may or may not be well equipped to offer to their, their employees who survived a traumatic workplace incident and then we're more or less expected to just go back to work. What are the consequences of having decisions about things like physical security at the Capitol made by people who are responsive to political actors, the Speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader. Those are really actually sort of basic organizational questions. And then lastly I'll say that as we kind of think about staff capacity we also have to think about kind of workplace management and culture and so James was talking about the experience of black staff other staff of color and one of the things that we've seen in doing after the attack is the degree to which folks in many cases did not feel safe before this happened and then don't feel safe now and have trouble imagining how they would feel safe, simply going to work to do their jobs again and what does it mean to go to work in a place where other people that you interact with were as as Ruth, Ruth was suggesting implicitly explicitly complicit in, in this attack on your workplace and so these are a lot of again really specific issues that have been surfaced by what happened in January 6, but I think a lot of cases they're consistent with lots of bigger longer term questions that those of us who have been thinking about congressional capacity have been reflecting on for a long time. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for your comments. And, and James I think I may have erroneously described you as that at Rutgers Camden when you're actually at Rutgers new work, which is, which is the, because on your on your Twitter handle, you describe yourself as Philly Pratt and I think of like Camden as being close to to Philly because it's right across the river. So my apologies. So, alright, let's, let's move on to talk a little bit about the current Congress. And let's start a little bit about it through a capacity framework I mean I know that there are tremendous issues with the polarization of Congress partisanship of Congress, sort of the overwhelming of Congress, but what else is holding Congress back. Ruth, let's start with, let's start with you here. Sure, I mean I think one of the things that's been striking I've been following with perhaps unreasonable interest and pleasure. And sort of discovering as Molly was suggesting how to run a small business in Congress, the sort of startup costs to how you get your office running and different legislators tweeting about you know their strategies and office decor has been quite interesting, and perhaps alleviating some of the anxiety about other things. But one of the things that's interesting is to hear that a lot of new incoming members and similarly junior members are not staffing their offices as sort of was traditionally done with a mix of staff who specialize in communications and the staff who specialize in the nitty gritty of legislation but rather recognizing perhaps that they have a more limited capacity to engage in the legislative process in a meaningful way of opted to staff their offices primarily with communication staffers and I think this has really profound implications for what happens in Congress and perhaps more importantly what doesn't happen. And I think sort of speaks to the broader problem of a sort of under investment in legislative expertise and when we talk about expertise we are not often talking about members of Congress or senators themselves but their staff. And not that communication staffers do not have their own expertise but what we typically think Congress should be doing is actually writing laws and identifying innovative policy solutions and that requires experience and knowledge about free policy areas and so it's concerning to me that as lawmakers are beginning their new legislative careers that they do not see that there is much value in investing in expert legislative staffers who know about the policy problems that are confronting America today which seem abundant and instead are focusing on hiring individuals who can craft a particularly sassy tweet but aren't necessarily going to solve the problems that we have. Molly how about you, what are you thinking about that as things other things that are holding Congress back. I've been thinking about a lot lately as we kind of look at the policy landscape that's confronting the new Congress and how this Congress looks like it might tackle some of those policy questions is the consequences of the relative interference of members so Ruth was talking about sort of new freshman members and junior members getting their offices going organizing hiring staff and I think that one of the, you know, if you pay attention to news reports one of the things that we see a lot of is the idea that in order to get around expected Republican obstruction in the Senate that Democrats plan to use a particularly complicated set of legislative procedures known as the budget reconciliation process to try to move some of their major policy priorities both on responding to the COVID crisis, but also responding to kind of broader economic conditions, economic inequality, that sort of thing and these these rules and procedures are really complicated and they are, they're difficult to navigate for even experienced members but members are also we're seeing not necessarily that like that experience in the institution so if we look at kind of data on seniority in both the House and the Senate we go back to the first Congress under the Obama administration so this is 2009. About a third of the members of the House in the 111 Congress were in their first second or third term so relatively junior now it's about 10% higher than that it's about 43% of the House. I mean the Senate over the same timeframe and average Senate service is down by about two years so the average Senator in 2009 served about 14 years now it's down to about 12 years. So we look at again the sort of plans for the reconciliation process specifically the last time Congress used the reconciliation process to do a big broad legislative package and the kind that they seem to be putting this year was in 2005 and only about 20% of the House and about 20% of the Senate were in those current jobs they currently have in 2005 so it's a lot of inexperience, which serves to only further consolidate in the hands of party leaders. On the flip side, having all of these somewhat less experienced members means that many more of the members have only really served in this period where we've seen a lot of reliance on omnibus legislating. Excuse me. And so as they sort of contemplate what does it look like to try to do big things in with as few votes as possible, which I think is basically how we can describe the current legislative strategy that the members are pretty used to that approach, you know we saw it like the big giant legislative package the past the end of last year and so this is just to say that like as we think about how the current Congress might try and respond to the really big policy challenges facing the country that how long they've been around and what how the members have kind of been acculturated into the institution is really important. And Molly, do you have any book recommendations for people who might want to read more about if you, if you need to know more about the budget reconciliation process. I, I wrote a book in 2017 that's called exceptions to the rule which is about the reconciliation process and other similar legislative procedures for circumventing the filibuster in the Senate so if you if you need lots of very granular detail on how the process works, you can find it there. Thank you, Lee. Great. All right. James, what are you thinking about as obstacles that Congress faces to your legislative this year. Yeah, I think echoing what Ruth and Molly have said, I think it's definitely an issue about staff capacity and staff expertise right. And then we can sort of see this sort of decline in staff person, a professional personnel right and this is something that you guys illustrate in your book. I think one data point I was sort of sort of mentioned is sort of loops us back to the beginning of the conversation is just thinking about the growth, or this is the size of capital please. Right now, as Molly sort of mentioned their budgets over $500 million, which is about 10% of legislative branch preparations. This is about 300% increase over the last 200 years, sorry, the last 20 years, right, one of which is double the size of the capital police right to about 2000 sworn officers. And the legislative branch has only increased its own budget by 30%. Right. And what we sort of see at this time is that you know, personal office, personal office and committee office staff, in particular, are declining right. And as sort of Ruth mentioned, like this means that there is less expertise amongst the staff and unfortunately members of Congress are choosing to hire more communication staff versus staff or who are going to be engaged in policy work. This is the main task of Congress. But I also want to sort of think about this in terms of not only staff capacity but retaining the staff that Congress does have right so I'm thinking about this in light of January 6 so you know, working in Congress, you know, is a great job you can make a real difference but you know that's the pay is low. You know, you, there is some of a limit of what members are you can sort of do in the policy making process so there's not that much room for entrepreneurship or policy entrepreneurship, but also thinking about working and the sort of really hostile workplace. All these things I think what can affect if staffers staffers of color in particular what are willing to stay and and work in Congress and I think this is going to be something that members of Congress are going to need to sort of deal with if they want to be effective at sort of at lawmaking. Great. Well, thank you all for, for those insightful comments. I want to move on to another topic that I think a lot of people have questions about, which is, you know, the extent to which the splits within the Republican Party are going to shift at all, they're going to widen or going to congeal and you know what about within the Democratic Party. Ruth you've written a wonderful book about factions in Congress called building the block so I think, I think all of us are really interested into how you see things playing out in this current Congress with with factions within the parties. Well, with the caveat that when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. I would hazard to guess that we're going to see a lot of fighting, both within the majority and the minority. Although, as others have observed, it's a lot easier to hang together when you are in the minority, because you can just say no and you don't have to supply an alternative, which Republican certainly looked far more cohesive when they were in the majority and I think that led a lot of political scientists to overestimate just how you know five Republicans were in the first place. And recent politics has suggested they're about as big a mess as Democrats are, but pivoting to Democrats who now, you know, do face this problem of working with President Biden to pass his ambitious legislative agenda. I think we should only expect fighting and so then the question becomes sort of how does Biden and how do congressional leaders try and manage that. And I think there are some interesting things to look out for one of which is that and I will just state. While I think there are a lot of reasons to think that there will be a lot of interparty fighting at this point, it is worth noting that the status quo is so bad that it may in fact be that everyone agrees something has to be done. And so there's more room to play than there would be in a typical circumstance where there are some within the Democratic Party that are reasonably satisfied with the status quo and therefore willing to sort of sit things out or let Republicans throw some wrenches into the policy process and I think we're less likely to see that now but that doesn't necessarily mean that Democratic leaders are going to have an easy time. And I think here, what's particularly interesting is that especially within the House, Democrats, or different Democratic factions have really done a particularly good job of revitalizing their organization so typically or at least historically Democratic moderates have been far more organized and disciplined than progressives this is often been true, but particularly over the last couple of decades certainly true the blue dogs and new Democrats really have their organizational stuff together and progressives have been trying to work through the congressional progressive caucus which until recently was this sort of very large cumbersome organization that while it articulated a lot of really interesting ideas had a hard time finding its members and ensuring that they could go to the bargaining table with party leaders and say if you don't do what we want. We're going to keep our votes together and make life hell for you on the floor. And until recently the congressional progressive caucus just didn't have the organizational apparatus to do any of that which really limited their capacity to bargain in the way that say like the House freedom caucus has within the Republican Party. But more recently they've adopted some similar sort of organizational rules and membership norms that are going I think put the screws to members who consistently say I'm a CPC member but don't actually walk the walk. And so it'll be interesting to see whether progressives are able to push back on some of Biden's moderating tendencies. And I think if they're able to do that that's only going to make Democrat leaders job more difficult because they're going to be facing not only organized moderate members within the Democratic Party but also an increasingly organized and unhappy left and so it'll be tough sailing but nevertheless I think really interesting for us observers. James how about you. How do you see the structure of the parties in the current Congress. Sorry, I think we're sorry I think we should expect fighting right both within Democrats and with the Republicans I think the thing that I'm interested in primarily I'm looking to see how this is going to fall it's like this sort of division between just Democrats and progressive Democrats in particular there's sort of this new and rising crop of Congress people of color, you know the squad is growing so we have new members like Corey Bush, Jamal Bowman, Monday or Jones which each horse, who are, you know, thinking about these indications are really, really effective communicators right so like to Ruth this point, it'll be really interesting to see how this sort of progressive side mobilizes in this new Congress. And I just to say it's like it's really interesting watching these new members of Congress. You know, get acquainted with the institution right they're just different they're coming from different professional backgrounds. So I think about someone like Corey Bush, who was a nurse and an activist right she had this really great op ed in the Washington following the Capitol right and once you know she talks firsthand about what does it mean to have experienced tear gas on her skin right this is not just January six but this is her running for Congress this is her being an activist for the last couple of years. And so I think there's an urgency to get things done. But, and I think there's an urgency to change the status quo, but I think some members fill that urgency different. So I think they're going to be really pushing democratic leadership to do more and not less. How about you Molly how are you seeing seeing this question. Yeah, it's a really good question. And I agree with what both Ruth and James have already said and I think that in the spirit of Bruce when you have a hammer everything right now, like I think a lot obviously about the rules of both the House and the Senate and I think that one thing that we're going to be reminded of pretty quickly is that the rules, even when you have ones available to you that allow you to get around certain kinds of obstruction in the House and the Senate, they can't force agreement or agreement doesn't exist and so as we think about kind of what, as I was James was just saying about a reinvigorated new, new member coalition within the Democratic Party, the blue dogs versus the progressives as we think about kind of these factions within the Democratic Party in both the House and the Senate, like, even when we have rules available that Congress might use to try and do things like get around the filibuster. They're not magic. They're not going to help, help force agreement if the underlying policy agreement isn't there and this is a really important lesson for the Democratic majority of learn from the 2017 Republican majority where they came in. They tried to do something they had been promising that they would do for basically a decade, which is repeal Obamacare. They tried to do it in a way that was not subject to a filibuster in the Senate and they failed. We all remember John McCain going to the floor with the famous thumbs down in the middle of the night and it's because even when the, when the rules allowed them to act without the threat of a filibuster in the Senate that they that the underlying agreement wasn't, wasn't there and then the other thing that I've been thinking a lot about in this, in this context as we think about potential rule change and things like will Democrats choose to abolish the legislative filibuster in the Senate is, we, if we are thinking that the filibuster might go away we have to ask ourselves what's the issue that breaks the dam on the filibuster for for Democrats what is the the issue on which they get sufficiently united think is is really important can't be done any other way, except by eliminating the filibuster and that they're facing such Republican intransigence on that they're willing to willing to change the way the Senate works. I think that some sort of voting rights legislation some sort of democracy reform is a possibility. I think it's very important and telling I think when former President Obama came out at job most is funeral last summer and said that if it takes eliminating the filibuster to pass a new voting rights act. Democrats should do it. I think there, there are some other possibilities but we have to ask ourselves think there's something that breaks the dam, and then you ask what's up river, what are other things that maybe aren't so important that they'd actually break the dam, but that could flow through and there again we get into big important questions about what different parts of the party, where their priorities are what they want to work on what what electorally vulnerable members want on or off the agenda, as the party looks towards trying to hold the majority after the midterms and we know that the president's party historically loses seats so there's lots of lots of moving pieces here but they all kind of come back for me at least to the idea that at the end of the day, you need to build agreement on the substance. And that the rules can't do that for you. We have a few more questions for the panelists, and then we'll open it to audience questions so if there are audience questions start typing them. All right, so penultimate question for the panelists, turning to the possibilities for this Congress. I came down a few days ago that the House Select Committee on the modernization of Congress has been re authorized for yet another go at making Congress better. So, what, what should they do this time around what what should their top top number one priority be this time around. Let's let's start this time with you James. I think one of the things that came out of the last committee on modernization was its emphasis on diversity and inclusion so making permanent the office of diversity diversity inclusion in the house. And there was also language which know, you know, prioritize hiring racially inclusive like practices right. I think this is great. I think this is also setting the bar really low for what Congress should do to have an inclusive and equitable workplace. I think one of my recommendations would be around transparency. Right, so, as we were talking about staff capacity. It's the important question to ask is like who actually works in Congress right. We actually don't really know that the answer to that question, particularly as it relates to race and gender, even class. So one of the things that Congress can do is collect demographic data on his workplace and his workforce. You know, when Congress passed the congressional accountability act in 1995 it extended 13 federal workplace laws to the congressional workplace things about you know, not discriminating. One of the things that left out was, you know, collecting this demographic data and this demographic, this demographic data has been really important for researchers across the field and measuring the presence of discrimination. So let's investigate if there are disparities and hiring promotion and retention. Without this, it makes Congress is sort of enigma. We don't know who works there we don't know how race and gender factor into the sort of hiring promotion process. So my, my push would be for them to collect demographic data, and to actually make this data available to researchers to make sure that we were having a fair congressional workplace Congress started to do this last summer. I released a policy paper with pay our interns, it's called the color of Congress and looks at who, who Congress was hiring as interns right I mean people think about interns as the most junior people in Congress but you know in many ways this is a gateway into paid employment is also a gateway into the office right I was really struck by Kamala Harris's resignation speech and when she sort of talks about, you know, her, her, her experiences a Howard undergrad, working for Alice Cranston as an intern in the Senate. But you know, there are there's no record keeping about at all about who Congress hires people just forget some offices that I surveyed have really good records of who they hires interns, and then there's don't. But particularly as Congress has moved to pay their interns, we should have records and who they're hiring. If this money is going to the students who need money the most right so my push will be for Congress to be more transparent about who is hiring to collect demographic data as a measure to sort of guard against anti discrimination and equal opportunity. Molly do you have thoughts on what the modernization committee should prioritize this time around so first of all I agree with everything that James just said is someone who has made valiant attempts to track some information about how many people in Congress is is hard and when well meaning folks on the hill including members of the select committee ask questions of those of us who think about congressional capacity one of my responses is always to say, like, we can try and answer some of those questions that you're asking but we could give you much much better answers if you give us better data. So everything I agree with everything that that James just said, in terms of things that the committee should continue to focus on in the new Congress, I have two. One is, again, continuing to make sure that there are changes made to the kind of congressional human resources structure and funding apparatus to provide resources to staff as they continue to grapple with what happened with the capital on January 6. And then also more work on continuity of of Congress and of congressional operations and I say I think that as we as we go on we learn more and more about ways in which sort of things could have been even worse than they have been for this in terms of coven and being able to operate in the middle of a pandemic. And you know we can talk about proxy voting in the house which has been to my mind kind of a second best option for how to how to deliberate remotely and it's the best that they could do in the time frame, and with the political circumstances that they were facing but like they are much better. And so just making sure that the next time something happens and there will be another thing that happens. That makes it difficult for Congress to operate in person in the way historically has, making sure that both the House and the Senate are much, much better prepared for everything from how to have staff operate and work remotely. Although I up to how do you deliberate on the floor, or on the floor of both chambers one of these unsafe or impossible for members to gather in person. Ruth. In addition to seconding both James and Molly suggestions, I would say, recent political events have led me to think that two things are more important than I thought they were these initially are the first time we were thinking about some of these issues and one builds on, I think Molly is act of institution and that's I think to encourage the committee to think about ways to institutionalize within Congress, a move to thinking about the unthinkable or to imagine what we haven't yet imagined and so whether that's like a special committee that starts to think about some of the issues in a kind of institutionalized way, such that folks aren't scrambling at the last minute that you know, not to add to the committee structure necessarily but I do think having an institutionalized way to be thinking about some of these questions in a way that a lot of intelligence has to do and other parts of government will be really useful. I also would say with. Well, putting aside my I think often cynical political science hat I think the select committee's recommendations to encourage civility and bipartisanship seem all the more important. It's hard to read accounts by sitting members about how they feared for their lives and they worried about members in the room with them in lockdown perhaps a betting individuals who are trying to kill them. And I think that Congress can be thinking about ways to make people feel closer to each other or at least to recognize that there's a lot of common ground on which people operate seems really important and in that way I think the select committee on organization in Congress historically has been a place where members have come together from across the island recognize that they have a lot of shared priorities and I think that's certainly true for the select committee this time around and so to the extent that there's camaraderie that's built up I think would certainly like there's no we can't expect different populations in the country to possibly come together if we can't even expect individuals who are paid to be in the same room get along with each other. And so to the extent that we can, you know, attempt to foster understanding across these different areas by whether that's focusing on policy instead of partisanship or by some other expedient. That would be really useful and I think in a way that's more substantive and simply, you know, saying well you all just need to drink more beer together I think we all recognize that is insufficient. And so sort of having a sort of a more granular way to really recognize that there are areas of commonality will be useful. Great. So I'm going to move on to my final question and then we'll open it up to some of the audience questions that have been coming in. You know, this, you know, this volume is about congressional capacity conceived broadly as the ability of Congress to have the resources to do its job. And the volume is really about how Congress is overwhelmed by the demands upon it and the lack of internal capacity it has to handle those demands. So I think something certainly in light of the of the events of January 6 and perhaps broader challenges that Congress faces, you know, what else besides capacity and polarization. And so what we're focusing on is is capacity even the right question to be focused on. I think it's a moment for being self critical here too, as we, we, we expand our thinking. So, so Ruth, do you want to weigh in on that. This is been something I've been thinking a lot about, and I suppose it depends on what we think the problem is. If we look to the seeming disaffection with what government is doing or disbelief that the electoral outcomes we all believe to be true are in fact reality. If that is it all related to Congress seemingly unable to solve the problems that give people faith in government and lead people to trust their legislators, then I think investing and emphasizing legislative capacity makes a lot of sense. If that's not the problem, then I don't know that focusing on a lack of congressional capacity as opposed to other issues is the right way to go. I suppose, if one adopts the physician practice of like a first do no harm but be if things aren't working like try anything. It seems here like there's no harm to improving legislative capacity. And certainly the status quo is so untenable that it can't help but be productive but whether it is in fact going to heal the risks that I think we've all seen and many people have been pointing to have existed long before. Then I think we may be needing to look towards solutions that are beyond Congress is Ken and that's unfortunate for those of us who study Congress but on the other hand means we get to sort of punt to other experts. Yeah, so I think that improving congressional capacity and all of the areas that we've talked about that other chapters in this volume talk about is necessary but not sufficient for Congress to be able to address the problems of the country so if we think about a lot of the kind of big picture pro democracy reforms that are on the table so we you're breaking the two party doom loop book speaks to a lot of these I was talking before about something that might be easier but is still difficult which is eliminating the legislative filibuster in the Senate because even if you get rid of that you're still facing down a really mal apportioned institution that over represents rural white interests so even with all these big problems on the table and these big things that are making it difficult for Congress to to address the needs of the country, even if we were to make any of these reforms to get to make changes, we would still need a better resource more effective Congress that the last thing that that I want is to is for us to do the really hard political work of making bigger change and then find ourselves with the Congress that's not up to the task of following through on what what other actors have what kind of change other actors have been able to to make possible and so we need we need we need folks who are experts on the areas that they work in who can build long and well compensated careers on the hill where they're where they're like workplace benefits are not political footballs that get tossed around by partisan actors and so we need all of this infrastructure if any of the bigger much harder to achieve reforms are to make a real difference in our ability as a country to solve the problems we face. James. Yeah, so I think congressional capacity is the right way to look at this but also that when we're thinking about congressional capacity, we have to also think about it in terms of inequality, right so we have to be certain if we're going to expand congressional capacity that we don't necessarily exacerbate or reproduce inequalities that are currently existing within the congressional workplace. So oftentimes we talk about staff capacity and this sort of race and gender neutral language right, and that language is problematic because it obscures of workplaces dominated by whites, where there are gender positions thinking about comms work, and that overwhelmingly privileges affluence right it's not everyone can work on the hill is oftentimes requires a sort of supplemental income from your family or working a second job racing class and gender effects. How you get to Capitol Hill, once you're there your experience and what you can do, and then also, ultimately, what happens when you leave where you can go and what you can do. I think as we're thinking about strengthening Congress and expanding its capacity, we have to make sure that we're doing so in a way in which advances anti races principles, anti races principles. Well, we've got a lot of work to do. So, we'll move over to the audience questions now. And I will start with a question that is dear to my heart about electoral reform that comes from an audience member I promise it's not a plant. But john asked whether watching Lisa Murkowski's behavior since Alaska past RCV and her colleagues behavior towards her has notes that it's been amazing. So, what john's interested in what extent are and that's that's, you know, because Alaska past RCV in the last ballot election. You know, what, what impact could, you know, could RCV have and you know more broadly it's also the Alaska top four primary model plus RCV. You know, I mean, I think we could even broaden it out and this is the question that certainly I've thought a lot about is, you know, how much of a problem is our election system and the electoral pressures that members face and pathways in order to get reelected. And I'll open it up to all of the panelists. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll start by saying, and you never, I don't think you ever want to hang too many lessons on kind of Lisa Murkowski's individual experience. You know, the, she did win a reelection once as a right in candidate. She was 2010 with a, not easy to spell last name on the on the ballot. But I think this broader question of what does it. What does our electoral system mean for the incentives that members of Congress face and how they behave while in office, I think is really important and so I think to some of the things that Ruth was raising before that if we want to change the way that members of the institution we need to change. We may need to change some of the ways that we select who gets there. And particularly that we may need to think about, you know, how do our current electoral institutions incentivize the kind of behavior. And that means that you go to Congress and you just use it as a platform from, from which to make speeches and message to the public as opposed to a platform to do actual legislative work. Obviously there are changes that we might need to make within the institution that speak to that as well. And I do think that, again, as we as we think about like, why is Congress the way it is some of these questions about about electoral institutions are really important ones to ask. Anybody else want to weigh in. Yeah, can I just follow up with Molly said I think we definitely need to have democracy reform and how we sort of like our candidates, but like I think also like that's also one of the purview of how this institution is set up. Right. So again, a reason why I'm really emphatic on thinking about inequality and amongst congressional staffers because congressional employment is a pathway to elected office right so in the 116th Congress about one fifth of members were either an intern or a staffer right so it matters who who gets to work in Congress because oftentimes you before you can work before you can leave Congress you need to work in Congress right so I'm thinking about this also in terms about race, gender and class. I think about people like Ayanna Presley, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Lauren Underwood. These are people black women women of color, who have all worked in Congress but who are now advancing and pushing Congress to do greater and better things right so I think part of that question is thinking about how we vote on vote candidates but also how do we nurture these like these like these politicos right how do we support them how do we train them. And like is I think this also goes about this is related to about access and and the congressional workplace. I'm going to add to James point because I think it's a really great one is that when we think about, I think we probably all in our heads, have members that we think of as really effective members. And I think that a lot of those folks are folks who had previous experience in the institution, both the folks that he mentioned. I think, you know, we were talking about the select committee before there are a number of folks who I think were effective members of the select committee in the last Congress who sort of first came to Congress is the results of having been staffers both in the end of the district level we haven't really touched on the importance of state and district staff to the way that Congress works into Congress's capacity but to it. This is another reason why as James really importantly highlights caring about the pathways into elected office is really important because it shapes kind of how you approach the job once you get there. I also wanted to jump in and know just as it's important to pay attention to the pathways into Congress it's important to understand the pathways out of Congress or the things that cause people to retire or may prevent them from running in the first place. If one purpose of rank choice voting is to encourage more moderate members to run folks who might not get the party strong endorsement or toe the party line on a lot of issues individuals like Murkowski. So we have to pay attention to the experience of congressional moderates in Congress and a lot of them do not seem to enjoy it and retire pretty quickly, and many people often choose not to run and so we have a pipeline problem not simply when it comes as James is arguing to diversity, but into sort of ideological diversity it's a lot more pleasant to be a firebranding Congress today than it is to be a moderate and that can be good depending on your politics but it can also be bad particularly if you care about more of a transition passing. Great well, obviously I think it's, it's pretty important. All of these, all of these questions about both the pipeline on the, and the electoral incentives. And you know I think it's something I would agree with what everyone said here and I think it's really something that Congress needs to think more about. I'm going to wrap two questions here. Together. Yeah, one question is should Congress bring back the office of technology assessment, which I think everybody on the panel would probably say yes to although correct, I think that seems to be a universal consensus among people who think about congressional capacity. So, but I'll just leave that out there in case anybody wants to add anything more. I think the, I think where the consensus is is that Congress needs much more capacity to effectively make policy in kind of technical areas that require a lot of scientific and technological expertise. And then the question of kind of what and this is, this is, I think, a generally important question we think about congressional forum is that there can be a lot of consensus on big ideas or ideas that kind of a high level. And then the question of how you actually design an institution within Congress to provide that expertise is a separate question entirely so the, what the question is phrase should we bring back the OTA. I don't think there's broad agreement, maybe there is on this panel on that specific organizational form, but I, my, my sense from the congressional reform community is that this is a particular, particular substantive area where Congress's capacity is, is really lacking and really has not kept up with external with changes outside of the institution. Yeah, let me actually that's a great point that it's you know I mean I think I think I kind of view the Office of Technology assess bring back the OTA as kind of like a stand in for Congress needs more expertise on on technology and maybe it's not maybe the Office of Technology assessment is a is not a great name and maybe you should think about how to reinvent it with a with a better branding but whatever. But yeah, yeah, as you as as you know Molly despite there being, I think, some broad consensus in the congressional reform community, it has not actually happened, which then you know it takes to another question. I request that previous question is from Renault. This is a question from Garrett which is how does Congress make a budget increase for itself politically palatable. So I mean I guess there's there's kind of two. I just want to expand that a little bit one is the sort of politics of how you do internal congressional reform, and you know that's both the public facing politics and the internal within Congress politics which probably are connected to this, if there's consensus within Congress it's easier to sell it to the public than for it to be a partisan issue. But just just open that up to our panelists here. I'm like, I'm curious about how much Congress needs to actually sell this right. It's I think this is a different question like expanding legislative capacity versus actually raising members salaries I think that's something completely different hot and but hot button issue. I think when we were talking about staff and like what Congress can do, I, I'm not sure. Maybe this mean that being naive how controversial this is. And how much voters are actually going to pay attention to it. Right. I think if you want to make this much more palatable, it's all goes back to thinking about, you know, congressional staff as a as a marker of citizen citizenship right. You're thinking about increasing access. Right. So I think, you know, one ways in which you can sort of make this more palatable is like thinking about what Congress has done over the last couple years was to start paying their interns. Right. But to do this in a way to sort of sell this program as like hey, we are rewarding our constituents we are trying to, you know, help out people. I think there has been a lot of talk with in like the last year about black candidates and you know their rise from HBC use. I would love to see a program where Congress sort of expands this capacity by working with HBC graduates and building a pipeline there. So I think there are definitely ways in which lawmakers can build and expand legislative capacity by thinking about Congress as a site for minority empowerment, really empowering citizens to really be a part of government and I think you know this this is a multiple dividend so one is thinking about increasing access to elected office, but it's also about like really renewing citizenship, the belief in government right so I'll tell a quick story you know I worked in. I was an intern in Congress in 2006 I thought I would be a member of Congress, but I realized quickly it wasn't for me, but it was really interesting as I would go home and be with my family is like well, James is working in Congress. And they thought about Congress in this institution differently because I work there. Right. They was like, Oh, what's happening there. Does it work. And so I think as we sort of expand legislative capacity, you sort of get these ambassadors for Congress on everything they do so it might not be that they're going to have long 10 years in Congress they may not be that they're going to run for office one day, but they're going to have that experience and they're going to carry that and they're going to share that with everyone who they encounter right so I think Congress can expand this legislative capacity and they can do that in a way and sell it as a way of building our democracy. So I love that framing that James just offered and when I think about this problem I think about it less as easy. And so I think that aside from some particular hot button pieces which are themselves important. What we pay members and how that is implicitly or explicitly tied to the maximum pay available to to staff is is important. This always strikes me as an issue where members believe it to be politically unpopular, even if it isn't actually politically unpopular. So one big step for me would be convincing them that it might actually be more popular than they think it is, or at least less unpopular than they think it is and maybe, maybe that's going, making an argument in the using the frames that that James has just offered and maybe there, there are others but I think that this is the place where what is actually true and what they believe to be true may not be the same but that we need to figure out how to convince members that there are investments that they can make in the institution in their offices that are potentially much more politically palatable than they believe to be true. So I think both James and Molly have made excellent points and I guess the one thing I'd add is that I do think we need to collectively a more productive way to talk about how we distribute quote benefits I think we often have an all or nothing situation where you know just judging from how folks talk about at the state level, sort of better benefits that we are offering to city or state employees it's often a well I don't have this so why should you. I mean I do think that's something that members internalize where they're concerned that constituents are going to look at what we would think of as very basic accommodations or benefits paid maternity leave. Where you think you know this is going to make it more possible for a diverse group of people to work for Congress. That you know because they don't have that or not every workplace provides that that Congress shouldn't and I think what's often frustrating about those conversations is that if anybody should be doing it if anyone can sort of set a benchmark on what is appropriate behavior what are you know basic rights that you should have as an employee it should be an institution of government like Congress and so I think to to the point that both my and Jim's are making that sort of reframing these issues that we should try and if there if it's at all possible to have conversations that don't assume that if everybody isn't receiving. The same kind of employment benefit that it's a non starter for government officials to provide that to their staff that seems like a really problematic race to the bottom way to think about employment which means that you're not going to get the best and the brightest who are wanting to walk the halls of Congress and serve our representatives who we vote for which is crazy. And you know I'm reaching to the choir here but I do think it means recognizing as Molly was suggesting that members do believe this and thinking about creative ways to change the way we have these conversations so that we can do what needs to be done. So I'm going to pull one final question from the audience, which, you know, Matthew raises that, you know, basically Congress has been failing to address more and more issues. And he asked the question whether this is because of polarization or declining congressional capacity, and I'm going to kind of break out of that binary framing, and instead ask a broader question that's going to be a concluding question, which is, you know, to what extent are these problems of Congress, all part of one big problem. And to what extent do they influence each other or to what extent are they a bunch of different problems. And why don't we why don't we go James Ruth Molly for for this round. I think it's a good question. I think these are both related. So I think there is definitely polarization in Congress, obviously. But I still think there is an opportunity for Congress to get things done. I think it's the question is like how, how is Congress doing its work. And is this the best way it should be doing this. I've like pointed to over the conversation, a number of ways in which it's like, not really the best workplace it's one in which Congress is quite unequal. I think that inequality is in many ways, a way in which is contributing to sort of this sort of low approval of this institution but also a way in which Congress is sort of missing, missing the mark right so I think diversity is important. So you can have really rich deliberation you can make sure that different perspectives are included. But when everyone looks at the looks the same way, you know, nothing is really getting done. And when everyone started you're starting in sorry the same perspective. One of the interesting thing about research on diversity and inclusion is that it's shown that diverse work teams produce innovation. They, they think outside the box. So again, I would sort of make a push, you know, for Congress to be much more inclusive. And who, who they're hiring and part because you know bringing in different actors can help solve this legislative gridlock by thinking outside of the box right so I think that there's definitely polarization but that doesn't necessarily mean that Congress cannot get things done. I think there's to be more attention on how they're doing things. And what are the, the social implications for that. Yeah, I think this is a challenging question and I do appreciate the feeling that maybe when one reads a lot about congressional reform that it feels like a kind of whack-a-mole problem where you solve one problem and suddenly there's a new one and, and then, you know, enough change and then suddenly the terrain is altered and the thing that you thought was working is what was going to solve your problem in the long term hasn't and I think polarization has shifted the terrain quite a bit and has changed a lot of the incentive structures but hasn't necessarily fundamentally altered the way our institutions function and so thinking about sort of reform over the long term or thinking about how we design our institutions to function better I do think sort of the fundamentals are all there and apparent to us and part of the challenge for the lawmakers who are charged with thinking about the kinds of reforms that they'll continue to recommend to Congress as a whole is to think about these sort of unintended consequences that often then become sticky and hard to solve and if to the extent that we can minimize those that would seem to be paying it to the next generation there are a lot of problems that are going to crop up that we're not going to be able to solve but if we can avoid creating new ones that would seem to be really beneficial and so that's I think one of the fundamental charges of thinking about the different reforms that are explored in what we and Tim and Kevin's book is precisely this you know what do we know about what's wrong with Congress what do we know about what's right with Congress and what do we know about implementing reforms that are going to help with the good things and minimize creating more problems that we're going to have to subsequently add to our list of the stuff and I realize that's pretty abstract but I do think that sort of captures the fundamental challenge and then it really to Molly's point goes down to the nitty gritty of what specific reform you're contemplating to sort of be able to adjudicate among these different issues. Well, what I'll add is that one important way in which I see sort of the kind of big broad forces in American politics, including polarization, linked to this conversation that we're having about congressional capacity is the degree to which our politics have made Congress a thing to be run against as an institution, so we can point to lots and lots of examples where Congress does not make investments in itself because it thinks that and members think that the right political move is to complain about the situation, and this becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy so one of these. I think one really important recent example is the experience on Capitol Hill with COVID testing over the past, almost a year. So it took a really long time for the political leaders in both chambers to embrace the idea that they should be providing to the members and staff who needed to come to work with COVID tests. It started as best I can tell because they didn't want to seem like they were getting something that Americans couldn't get access to. But it was said before like we elect these people to do the work of the country and so we need, we need to create an institution that allows them to like take some of these things. Again, embrace the institutions as a thing to be made to work better not as a thing to be blamed for its own failings. And so and I think that our politics have made made that politically expedient position to take in a lot of circumstances and so I think as we try to go forward figuring out how to make Congress again something that members believe is worth investing in. And I'll just say one thing about the select committee before we go is that like that I think has been one of the event to the extent that some of the nearly 100 things the select committee recommended in the last Congress whatever they choose to work on in the current Congress like those are really important recommendations but the degree to which that group of House members has been building a coalition and a constituency within the house for making the house work better. And I think is one of its really important things going forward to combat some of some of this overall dynamic. Well thank you to a virtual round of applause, as we can clap for each other and people can hear us. Thank you to James Molly and Ruth. Check out all of their books as well as this beautiful volume of Congress overwhelmed with 17 essays so it's like a like like 17 books and one it's like a really exciting with with essays by Molly and Ruth and many others. And thank you all. And this is a conversation that will continue so let's let's hope Congress can get its act together this year. All right, thank you all.