 Greetings from the National Archives flagship building in Washington, D.C., which sits on the ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank peoples. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's program, which asks the question, can Congress reform itself again? This is our 13th year as a partner with the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress. We're proud of our annual collaboration with the Association. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Tuesday, June 15th at noon, historian Michael Berlingame will be here to talk about his new book, An American Marriage. Based on 30 years of research, Berlingame describes and analyzes the marriage between Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd. And in the evening on June 15th at 6.30 p.m., Scott Borschert, author of Republic of Detours will discuss the story of the Federal Writers Project during the Great Depression. Today's panel, made up of former and current members of Congress, will explore the question of how Congress governs itself as an institution. At different points in its history, Congress has questioned its processes and made changes to respond to changing times. The Center for Legislative Archives and the National Archives preserves the historical records of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Within those pages are stories of legislative struggles, compromises, and routines. The committee records that detail the rich history of the legislative process make our holdings unique. Through them, we can see the daily work of the House and Senate committees and subcommittees. Today's moderator is Dr. Carly Hayden, Librarian of Congress. She'll guide the conversation among our panelists. They are Derek Kilmer, congressman from the State of Washington, and chairman of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, Will Timmons, congressman from the State of South Carolina, and vice chairman of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, former member of Congress from the State of Michigan, James Blanchard, and former member of Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, Bob Walker. Now let's hear from Carly Hayden and our panelists. Thank you for joining us today. And we provide not only a new members orientation, but also we have so many resources available. So I'd like to jump right in with the work of the committee. Maybe I'll take first swing and then Vice Chair Timmons, I welcome you too as well. First of all, thank you for engaging on this discussion. I'm reminded of a graduation speech since we're around graduation season that former Secretary John Gardner gave at Cornell in which he pointed out the importance of people being loving critics out that often were caught in the crossfire between uncritical lovers who smother their institutions loving. Should I jump in since he seems to be having some technical difficulties? Yes, because this is the challenge of reaching out to each other and constituents during this time too. So we are giving an example of that. I'll make a plug for rural broadband. We've got to definitely put some of that in the infrastructure package. So, you know, first again, thank you for having us. We really appreciate your interest in the committee. We have really, I've enjoyed so much the last two and a half years getting to work on helping to modernize Congress, helping to fix Congress. Ms. Chairman, I'll keep going and you can jump back in. My campaign slogan when I ran for Congress was Washington's broken and to be in a position to help try to make Congress less dysfunctional, more functional is just a dream come true. And I can't tell you how promising it is that we have six Republicans and six Democrats that are putting all of our disagreements aside on policy, which I'm sure there are many. And working to help make the body, make the institution more effective and more efficient and more transparent for the American people. You know, as a small business owner, time is everything. And I cannot tell you how often my freshman year, I was wondering how we could be doing what we were doing as a body, how the members could be running around. Just it was incredibly inefficient. The way that we had the calendar to schedule the floor votes, all these different things. So can Congress modernize itself? Absolutely, absolutely. We can do better. We must do better. And if we can just save five or 10 minutes a day for 435 members and there are thousands of staffers, that alone is a success. So we will succeed. We are going to succeed. And I really look forward to working with the chairman and with that, Ms. Chairman, while you were gone, I made a plug for rural broadband. It's going to be in the infrastructure package, I promise. He made a big plug for it. Apparently, I should have also been working on suburban broadband all these years. But so let me just say, and I started with this, that former Secretary John Gardner talked about the importance of being loving critics. That too often we see folks in institutions either be uncritical lovers and unwilling to look at some of the life-giving criticism that's required to improve an institution. On the other hand, sometimes there are critics without love who are better at demolishing an institution than strengthening it. And the committee that Vice Chair Timmons and I serve on are really focused on being loving critics, on trying to enhance the institution and to strengthen the institution and have it serve better for the American people. We're not the first of this kind. The select committee, about every two or three decades or so, Congress realizes things aren't working and they create a committee to do something about it. The last one was in 1992. And our hope is that we can continue to work, continue to move forward and break through that partisan gridlock. And that's similar to the history. I'm sitting in the members' room in the iconic Thomas Jefferson building and the idea of progress and moving forward is embedded in this place in Congressman Walker and Governor Blanchard. What do you see any similarities between today's conference and those previous times of transformation? And I have to say, can Congress do it again? Well, I came to Congress two years before Bob Walker with a group of, I'm trying to keep track now, of 93 new members of 76 new Democrats, 17 Republicans. And most of us had the goal of coming to Washington to open up Congress. The power was concentrated in a small number of people and allowing every member to have some role and be able to speak, work and have some impact on legislation. We enacted a number of reforms, Democratic caucus, actually work, they were really good. And it withstood in some respects the test of time, whether it was selection of committee chairs or limited committee chairs to having only one subcommittee to changing the assignment of committees from ways of means to a steering in policy to allowing the various caucuses to have a role in everything. It worked reasonably well. One dramatic difference between then and now is we didn't really have to spend a lot of time raising money. There needs to be, I believe, I mean, right now the average member of Congress, I think spends way too much time raising money for various reasons, their own reelection of colleagues, whatever it is, way too much. It just, I spent so little time raising money and so did my colleagues. So I think it's somewhat related to Congress. There has to be a way to legislatively modify the Citizens United and also probably deal with some of your internal rules, which are forcing people to have to have a fundraiser to meet with a member of Congress. I'm speaking about a so-called reform of gift rules, which really forces an awful lot into a transaction. If you could try to reduce the impact of money on congressional elections, remember Congress would have a lot more time to worry about policy to get to know their staff, get to know their colleagues. And the issue of the member's time seems to be a thread going through here and how much time you need to save and especially with the demands in the modern times too. So Congressman Walker, is that something that you think would be helpful? Freeing up the time of the members? Yeah, I think that that's extremely necessary because what's happening is that this time that's spent in fundraising and other kinds of activities is not being spent in committees. And I believe the further away you get from the idea of... I lost the sound here. Congressman Walker, we lost the sound. I think, sorry. Sounds like you had something important to say. Well, we'll come back to that because that thread of time and then now we're learning too. Technology puts an extra layer learning where the new button is. Yes, now we can hear you. Can you hear me now? Okay. Yes. Well, the point that I was making was that we moved away from regular order in the Congress through a series of changes that were made. Jim talked about the one that I think is the most serious and that is the fact that the fundraising has become an instrumental part of what they are doing day to day in the Congress when that time should be spent during subcommittee and committee work. I think that anytime you get away from the idea of vigorous debate and open debate that informs decisions that you have lost a lot of what Congress is all about. And today, in my view, the debate is almost a perfunctory exercise with little meaning and little consequence. And yet at the end of the day, that's what Congress should be all about and that the reforms should be driven toward making certain that those are upheld rather than the extraneous matters. And so were there any lessons learned from that 1992 effort and the time that has gone since then? Well, in my view, what we did in 1995 when we took over, 1995, one of the things that we did. We've lost you again. Congressman Walker, we lost your audio again. And this is going to be another thing for broadband. I think we can all say that and that's one of the reasons why I'm in the Thomas Jefferson building and not somewhere else. Well, it's a real shame. Bob Walker served about 20 years. Very close. About 20 years and probably just the impact of what we're doing now and how those lessons learned are going to inform. And you're very fortunate, I think, to have people who've had that experience be part of the committee. Is that true? I like the idea of what Bob Walker said, getting the work in the committee, spending time in committees and dialogue and debate, more bipartisan involvement. I was only in Congress eight years and then I went back to the governor. And I remember thinking that I didn't feel like I wasted so much time as governor as I did in Congress sitting around waiting for some jackass to finish a speech or a quorum. But I like that. I like the idea of regular order. I also like the idea of giving a preference to legislation that has sponsors in both parties. I recall that I used to try to get a Republican to co-sponsor whatever I had. I couldn't do it all the time, because it gave it more credibility at home. And it also forced us to work with each other. And so almost anything I did that was important. I had several Republican co-sponsors and it was a real lift. It really, it could mean in a tight situation, 30 or 40 extra votes for what I was doing. So I'd like to see, I don't know, to our two chairs of the modernization committee chair and ranking member, whether there's a way to give preference in scheduling legislation to items that have serious bipartisan support. I'm glad you brought up the bipartisan because the committee itself is an example of how both parties can work together. And so what can Congress, the rest of Congress, learn from the way that the committee is operating and how can you really stress that that's an important part of what the work of the Congress should be? I'm happy to take a swing at that. You know, listen, we're never going to agree on everything, but the select committee on modernization has really sought to break the mold. We've worked together as partners on one team across party lines just to try to produce results. You know, we made a number of recommendations about how committees ought to function and we tried to actually practice what we preached to encourage more bipartisan collaboration, to encourage more productivity and we tried to model good behavior. Let me give just a few examples. One of our recommendations was that committees ought to hold a bipartisan agenda-setting retreat so that we have a sense of what people want to accomplish during this Congress. We did that. We held a bipartisan retreat after we were formed and again in this Congress and it really helped us establish a positive bipartisan approach to our work from the outset is incredibly valuable and I will tell you because since I know we have former members of Congress watching, we also had a conversation about the events of January 6th and how we can move forward as a committee despite what was a very traumatic day for members. We have something unique in Congress. We have a unified, nonpartisan staff with one budget, one office. We made a decision up front that our committee wouldn't have people with red jerseys and blue jerseys that we would have a committee whose staff were fixed Congress jerseys. That really breaks with the tradition of dividing resources between the parties but we have found that to be very constructive. So as part of the work of the committee to model some of the things you'd like to see happen, it sounds like you're trying to do that. Absolutely, yes ma'am it is. And I'll follow up. I was in the State Senate for two years and we had 46 members and we were in session together and we sat in one room and you would take the well and you would advocate for whatever bill you were pushing and you would have to defend your ideas, you'd have to answer questions and everyone would get to listen to the questions and the answers. So there was a true exchange of ideas and if you said something ridiculous both your colleagues would look at you kind of funny and your colleagues across the aisle would look at you even funnier and so that whole dynamic, that social interaction is so important and one other thing that I believe that the reason that the modernization committee is going to be so successful is because we began by building relationships between the members and if you had a relationship with your colleagues on your side of the aisle and on the other you really can make progress in a way that you just can't if you don't know people, if you don't have that relationship, if you don't have that mutual respect you're not going to get anywhere. So I think that we're in a good position and I think we got to get more committees and really all of Congress to adopt some of these principles. That idea of providing opportunities for members to get to know each other as people seems to also be something that has come up quite a bit and with the Library of Congress congressional dialogues the one thing of course the wonderful authors and getting to hear from historians about history that most members comment on though is the opportunity to get to know and be in a author record non-partisan setting and get to know each other is that something you think that the committee is going to try to absolutely and we've tried to engage in some efforts to encourage that type of bipartisan collaboration if you watch our committee meetings we don't sit with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other because occasionally you hear a testimony and you say well that's actually pretty interesting you lean over the person sitting next to you and it's a good thing that the person sitting next to you on our committee is someone from a different party we will meet regularly as a committee and private as a full committee just to talk through some of the tough debates and have those debates out of public view to build some trust and solve problems together and I think that is again a model for how other committees can function we also have a united non-partisan staff one budget one office no red jerseys and blue jerseys our staff puts on fixed Congress jerseys and we work together to try to solve problems together and I think again that's something that we've encouraged other committees to do and I think that might pave the way for a little bit more productivity and a bit less partisan bickering to have the staff members actually work together too they're on the same team and that concept that they're on the committee's team or they're on the working with it now the since 2019 and I have a tier of research for librarians they're nearly 100 recommendations and so are there next steps for looking at those recommendations and how this committee take what came before and try it in the next two years that your chair and of course vice chair Simmons how will you work on that sure Mr. Chairman I'll start off and you can follow up so when you think about it we only were given a year in the 116th Congress and so we had to do everything we could in that one year and luckily the speaker was kind enough to extend it so we got a second year and I couldn't be more pleased that we got a second Congress and so we have two years right now so we're going to be spending part of our time this Congress making sure that we implement all the recommendations and we've already done a third of them and we've got two-thirds left but we are going to make sure that we hit every one of them and we're also going to address some things that we didn't address in the 116th Congress we got the low hanging fruit if you will so we're going to go back and tackle some of these harder issues we need nine votes to make a recommendation and I fully expect that we're going to have a recommendation that isn't unanimous so you know we're going to keep working and I'm just very pleased that we were able to get another two years and I can't thank Speaker enough for that Mr. Chairman, follow up? Yeah Vice Chair Timmons and I started our morning or at least I did because it was early here he may have had stuff before testifying in front of the Appropriations Committee about some of our proposed reforms asking for changes within the ledge branch bill you already saw some of our committee's recommendations implemented about a third have been implemented through the through the House or in some form of implementation including some big ideas including restoring the ability of members of Congress to direct to direct spending toward priorities in their district that is something that our committee recommended in the last Congress and you're seeing the Appropriations Committee take up to Vice Chair Timmons his point part of our work in this Congress is to see the rest of those recommendations get implemented but also get to work on some other issues and for those who are interested in the work of the committee we have some really interesting hearings teed up for the month of June dealing with things like how do you change culture you know where you've seen unfortunately in Congress the erosion for lack of a better term corporate culture where the norms are at a whack a lot of the problems that we face have less to do with the rules of the place and more to deal with the norms and the culture and so we're going to have a couple hearings related to that we're dealing with issues like continuity of Congress which after the attacks on the riot on January 6th you know I think there's a real recognition that that could have been worse and that is a topic that Congress ought to take a closer look at issues like those that the Library of Congress have been so vital in raising like civility and collaboration so these are things that we're going to be working on but a lot of our approach is to make sure that these aren't just recommendations that sit on a shelf but that they get implemented and that's quite a task to go to the implementation stage now also term came up that about there might be some difficulties because change can be hard and in this time there seems to be recognition that there might be some roadblocks and how are you planning on overcoming what those roadblocks are and could you share your thoughts on what you think they might be I might actually turn this around on Governor Blanchard and Congressman Walker so one of the biggest challenges we face is that a lot of these recommendations have a decentralization of power there's an effect of you know the speaker and the leader and the whip they all have to give up something for some of these recommendations particularly around the calendar and the schedule having dealt with this before could could you give us some some thoughts and I will say this the reason that we got the second year and then the second congress is because I think everyone sees the dysfunction in congress everyone sees the polarization including leadership so keeping that in mind what what recommendations Governor Blanchard and Congressman Walker do y'all have I haven't looked at your list I'm glad you have one and I really do commend the two of you for taking this challenge on and the members of your committee I will say I think you had a few things in there about orientation I really really think that the orientation of new members maybe sometimes a reorientation of existing members is extremely important and it needs to be done bipartisan when someone comes here today they're going to get pulled off in their caucuses and their interest groups and whatever it is but I think and I know the Library of Congress is doing some of this there needs to be a fairly intensive orientation with both new members from both parties they're hearing the traditions the history of the House all the things that they should know and be proud of as a member of the United States House of Representatives I came here at a very young age it was by lifelong goal even though you can laugh but I really wanted to be a member of Congress by the time I was 14 and I came here at 32 and I still when I walked through the halls I still have a reverence for the place and the older guys who were having our orientation said to us remember always you are a United States representative you actually represent yes your district but your state you really the only requirement is you have to be a resident of the state and remember you not only have a duty to your constituents in Michigan and suburban Detroit but you also have and a responsibility to the House to the House of Representatives to its traditions you have you need to be loyal to our institution as well as whatever other causes you're championing and I never forgot that and they also said to us you know you're going to get into heated arguments with your colleagues but you know what on one day you'll have a heated argument the next day you may need them and they may be across the aisle so cool it guys this is for grown-ups here cool it and yes you can go out and grandstand all you want but remember you got to live with your colleagues you depend on them and if you elevate your colleagues you really elevate the institution and yourself and I always remember those kind of comments because I think they need to be said by people with credibility to the new members I do and Governor would that connection as a recommendation possibly be to have more of a connection with the former members if possible like the group that we're with today to possibly I don't I don't want to you know this is a different era Dr. Hayden it really is and so I don't want to pontificate too much and really Bob Walker served through a longer period of time and I think he has thoughts but but yeah I think some of the members that are more who left recently can probably look back and give some really good advice people like Ray LaHood or Charlie Dent or Henry Waxman I'm sure they have thoughts of things they would do differently if they were in Congress now or just starting out they are a wealth of knowledge but but I'm talking from a different era and I felt privileged to be in house I still do and I'm proud of that and I want the House to be respected I don't want people to be there they're always going to criticize you know government that's that's in the DNA of Americans always we've always been kind of an anti-government society but we respect that our leaders are most of the time that's really fallen away it's a very serious problem history can have lessons Dr. Hayden you know that yes I'm happy to take a swing at the question you asked as well yes I think there's you asked about challenges that the work of this committee faces and there's a couple that come to mind one you know the work of this committee I despite the charisma of Vice Chair Timmons is not exactly catnip for cable news you know we're not we're not viral on social media you know and part of the way we overcome that is through a bunch of terrific organizations including the former members organization and groups like issue one and others who are part of a reform community who want to see Congress work better that can amplify the work of this committee beyond that one of our challenges is inherent in trying to make Congress work better for the American people is making some investments in the institution you know that is not without controversy right because to some degree it's a lot easier to to pound on and say let's just burn it all down than it is to say let's invest and fix it and you know the testimony that Vice Chair Timmons and I gave this morning to appropriations was about for example investing in staff making it so that members of Congress can do a better job recruiting and retaining and having more diverse staff investing in institutions like CRS and enabling the CAO to have a staff Academy that invests in our staff and for that for that matter having a member Academy so that we can invest in the professional development of members of Congress so that they can better serve again that is not without controversy and it's up to us to make the case for why those investments are important I think to some degree the case makes itself when the American people hold Congress in lower regard than headlights and colonoscopies they want it to work better and we're suggesting investments to make it work better and I'm glad you mentioned CRS because they really put on that new member seminar in Colonial Williamsburg in person it's the time that new members come together with their families their significant others right before everything starts in early January and it's intense time for them to learn and be together and then have their families interact as well and Congressman Walker how is your sound responding because we really would like to hear from you we'll keep working on it we'll definitely keep Dr. Hayden let me add that I think the former member association I don't speak I'm part of that I don't but I will speak to them we have a lot of active former members and I know they would all love to help this committee but you know we're also respectful of the fact that we're no longer there we do not hold the office and we want to be respectful for those who do and sometimes you don't want people looking over your shoulder who've just been more recently in the institution so we want to be diplomatic about it but you know I know our group would love to help in any way we get together we had a social event just two Sundays ago and the social events are the ones that allow members to stand next to each other sit next to each other and even when they have those family members we've found there who can interact with each other young people that are going to the either the same school or they play the same game or whatever it's it's an opportunity to see each other as people and so the biggest roadblock what do you think is you're going to have coming up Chairman Kilmer make you know so the good news is we have 97 recommendations that the committee's already made a third of them are in some phase of implementation you know part of it is making sure that the work of this committee breaks through and that we're able to implement the others I think that you know when when the easy thing for congress to do is to put out the fire the day investing in the institution can be a little bit harder to break through to get floor time to see those that progress on implementation but we're going to keep pushing in in that regard beyond that I really do think that the hearings that we have coming up related to how do you fix some of the challenges that we see with regard to the erosion of culture within the place you know when I served in the state legislature in Washington state every bill was taken up under an open rule which meant if a member had an amendment that was at all germane to the subject you could debate it you could offer it and get voted on and in eight years in the Washington state legislature I can count maybe only five or six times where that was abused where someone used that for political hay making you know you contrast that with what we see in congress and more often than not the floor time is used for politics and that's not a rules problem that is a norms problem there is no norm right now that says don't be a jerk and so part of the discussion that we're having as a committee is how do you how do you reset some of the norms so that there is a desire to focus less on partisan bickering and more on solving problems for the American people that's a sticky issue but one that our committees committed to working on and I'll follow up with it I'll follow up with that it's it's probably the most important thing that we will do this congress and we have some hearings coming up on civility and you know how do we get people to have opportunities to develop mutual respect to develop relationships where they can work across the aisle I think about this a lot we think about it a lot I think it all began in the 90s when people stopped living in Washington and it's gotten worse with social media with the 24 hour news cycle you know and fundraising is a part of it I agree with the governor but you know it really comes down and there's only 40 or 60 seats that are truly competitive so you know if you're in one of those seats you definitely have to spend all of your time fundraising because some of these races are tens of millions of dollars you know 20, 30, 40 million dollars um you know so I think that the solution is to put people together more and to try to force people to kind of defend their ideas and we're going to spend a lot of time on that but you know there's a huge disincent of when we're in Washington for such a limited period of time and then when we're there we're doing so much between committees subcommittees floor votes fundraising and then by the way we still have to legislate we still gotta try to push our our policy agendas that we think help our constituents forward so there's just not enough time we got to be in DC more we got to facilitate opportunities for bipartisan collaboration more and you know I'll give you one great example there's a weekend coming up where we have votes on Friday and Monday and if I want to stay in Washington and go out to dinner with some of my colleagues it's probably going to cost me I don't know $1,200 between hotels and all that stuff and or I can just go home and it's free but that shouldn't be that way we should we should find a way to facilitate opportunities and that's something we're going to be focusing on so it's important to the norm and to create because you can have rules and procedures but culture and norms seems to be something that's that you say a little trickier but how to give the experiences that will promote that and Governor and Congressman Walker was that an aspect that helped when you part of it that there were those norms Congressman Walker we still can't hear you I'm sorry well we're going to do a repeat Congressman Walker we're going to have to make sure that we get him in because that even though you governor kind of hesitated and said well you know that was a different time but I and maybe it's because I am a librarian and history such gives such context to things when you look at other times that your experiences could be very helpful yeah no we did spend a lot more time with each other by the way I've never know Bob the bit lost the words he's really a wealth of experience and so I wish we could hear from him because he was part of the Gingrich revolution I saw it I saw the kind of the beginnings of it but I was safely back in Michigan at the time no the more people work together that I mean the more they're put together the better I my my thinking is that too many people come here as with with tribal instincts politics is a lot more tribal I think today that it was 20 or 30 years ago and that's why I said I think loyalty to your state and your country and the institution should be a major consideration not just loyalty to your tribe things are very tribal I happen to think as a Democrat I can live with Fox News I obviously like all the other networks because I think most of them are are more accurate it's the social media that's really demonizing people and the money that's made from social media spreading lies about each other and that's it's both sides it's not just one side you know I can always say I think it's worse with the conservatives or the Republicans but social media is being those companies are making a fortune telling people what they want to hear playing to their biases and you end up with something like the insurrection of the Capitol people actually believe they were needed to come to the Capitol and take over there's a movie documentary very called The Social Dilemma that outlines this but we're going to have to get a handful on that we cannot keep having major vehicles to spread misinformation misinformation hatred day after day after day to people uh that that really causes a breakdown the harmony of our society that's a big one again I think this committee though and trying to make sure we put our colleagues together and their families really helps a lot but you know the time we were I was in Congress of the parties were a little bit different we had conservative Southern Democrats we had Northern Republican liberals so there was kind of a blend of what was going on and you always had somebody from somewhere that agreed with whatever you were trying to do in the other party that's a lot harder today that's why I think this committee's work is so important because it's an example for all your other colleagues and you mentioned and this is a question for each of you the outreach to the public and the members of your communities and each of these organizations the Library of Congress does a lot of programming NARA has the civic session programming and the former members says Congress to the community so with that would the committee be able to make recommendations about how you can increase the quality of the information to constituents about what Congress is doing or wants to do could you elaborate on that we have these programs there's been a lot of concern about the lack of civics education that the people who are consuming information about every topic haven't had the opportunity to for instance learn how Congress does work or how government works and there's been a lot of outreach the former members for instance has that Congress to the community the Library of Congress does a lot of things the archives to reach out to the public to say here's how government works and so would the committee be able to make recommendations about the communication that members have with their constituents and how to raise the quality of that to make it less partisan but really more informative sure you know the our franking budget is not small generally members spend between a hundred and three hundred plus thousand annually to communicate with their constituents so we have requested additional resources for the franking budget but also I think it's reasonable to facilitate best practices there's definitely an opportunity for the different member offices particularly freshman member offices because it took us a full two years to really get our communications under us so if we could make a recommendation surrounding how best to use franking and they already have those but we could probably spend more time on it in orientation and then perhaps have an additional opportunity for communications directors to sit down with the the the franking office and really dig into the best practices I think that would be a reasonable direction what do you think Mr. Chairman I'll just add so this is something that our committee has engaged on and will continue engaging on in this congress some of the recommendations we have made have been around making sure that all Americans can better access their government so you know we made recommendations around things like addressing physical barriers to access and also digital accessibility so that folks who might have a visual or hearing impairment can access congressional websites for example or follow congressional hearings we're going to continue working on this issue so that all Americans can better engage their government and I I'd like to mention the digital access and that recently we've had that illustrated that there are so many people particularly in the rural areas that don't have the digital access so we can have the best websites but if people can't get to them it makes it difficult for them to to track legislation or even to know about things so though you that sounds like those are some of the key things that you want to address in terms of engaging the public and what would you like to see the public know about the work of congress and possibly are you going to engage them in making some suggestions about reform so one thing that we've discussed as a committee is when we take up the topic of civic engagement to actually engage the public we've started talking about visiting university campuses and engaging not just the political science departments but but the student population about how might congress better engage the american people congressman timmins and I actually just participated in an event with an organization that has thousands of people around the country who are engaging on hot topics facing the country and trying to figure out whether there's a place where folks can come to some common ground and so these are the types of models that we're going to be looking at to see if there's recommendations that we can make to the institution about how as an institution we can better engage our constituents others and congressman walker we're going to keep coming back to you okay I think all right great great because we we've referred to you several times in terms of what you experienced and what you might give as a recommendation to the committee and how do you think they can move forward well a couple of things I mean I really do think that the authorization process needs to be revived the rules of the house long-standing rules of the house say that you have to have an authorization in place before you can appropriate money in my mind that's a very important part of getting congress back on the on the right track is to assure that it's not just the budget process or the appropriations process that determines policy but the policy is determined by the authorizing committees the reason for that is because it activates all the members today the thing I hear when I talk to the members is they they're tired of sitting in cubby holes doing fundraising instead of actually working on the policy issues that are in front of the congress and the way in which you assure that they can do that is by having an authorization process that works you also need to look at the budget process because the budget process now has become basically a reconcil and rather than what's the macro number what are the things that how much are we going to spend how much money do we have how much deficits is there going to be and then working out around that rather than allow reconciliation to drive the process and then I'd also say one other thing that I don't believe has been mentioned is one of the best ways that I had of getting to know my my democratic colleagues was going on codels when we went overseas together we traveled as Americans not as republicans and democrats and often we were able to take our families with us or at least our spouses and they got to know each other and we spent a lot of time together you know not only doing valuable meetings but also doing social things together and flying on the airplanes for long distances the media disparages those kinds of contacts and yet there's some of the most valuable in terms of building relationships that that in my mind proved to be some of the most valuable ones I had in both in civility and in bipartisanship yeah I agree with that I also think domestic field trips properly planned again bipartisan not not people just going out to score points but bipartisan field trips were always I found very very helpful to get people I wanted to backtrack to one thing that was said earlier about promoting civic responsibility the archives is involved with that so are the former members there's a lot of groups iCivics Library of Congress right we this is really important only 39 states requires some teaching of civics or government before graduation from high school 39 states and some of those are even of the 39 are minimal and so there needs to be an emphasis on a way to teach civics and government in middle school not just high school maybe even earlier my day we start all the way along that needs to be done and it needs to be done in entertaining way not in a boring way our archives is working to expand the teaching in a number of states that really need it and there's a lot of support for that and I think everybody agrees on it but it's how you do it without being patronizing to our citizenship citizens or partisan in the presentation material but if you can avoid those this is a huge huge need in our country and I haven't met anyone in politics it doesn't agree with what I just said I'm so glad you mentioned I civics with started with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and she was so concerned that young people weren't able to find out about government and she encouraged using something that would make it more entertaining a video game make it into something that would engage them and get them going and that program has been adopted and proves to get kids really involved and middle school is a good time to do it yeah the pure research which is the gold standard for I think for survey research there's not a lot of studying of this and they found that people who are active as adults generally get interested in middle school and they remain that way then they remain kind of committed citizens throughout their lives so I think the sooner you get people engaged the better and I know members of Congress would love that too because you hate to go to a town meeting and have the only people there are people with an axe to grind you'd really like people that are really interested in getting something done at a town meeting and not just coops and cranks I'm speaking out as a former member Congress went Walker with it sounds like a lot of the things that you are able to talk about in terms of recommendations have to really get get into the process of legislation too so we have from one that what the work of the Congress is and then how do we get the constituents to be involved yeah at the end of the day members of Congress get elected to to make a difference that's one of the things that drives you to be willing to go out and do all the things you have to do in campaigns and I get the feeling now that a lot of people don't feel as though they're making much of a difference that all the decisions are made in leadership offices and that they get to come to the floor and and cast a vote that's already predetermined so I really do believe that it has a negative effect on both the ability to achieve bipartisanship but also has a detrimental impact on the whole business of civility in the Congress because they just don't spend any time together with their bipartisan colleagues and I'm delighted to hear that the modernization committee has figured out a way to work together on all of this that's in fact the tradition of committees as a whole and I think you really need to get back to that back to the work of Congress and having people have time to work together and not having to do and this has come up with several of you the fundraising or the time that it takes to do other things I don't know if my Wi-Fi is working if you can hear me but I we can can you hear me okay well so I really agree with the comment that Congressman Walker just made you know and it's more to it than that too it's members need to feel a sense of efficacy to have they want to have impact they're there to have impact and if they don't have impact you see increased in civility I think you know members of Congress are not dissimilar to the Kilmer family's new puppy you know if we don't keep her constructively engaged she choose the furniture and you know if if we see too many members of Congress sort of sidelined and not able to make a difference you see a fair amount of furniture chewing happening on both needs to be addressed and so useful work and I'm looking at some of this historic furniture in the members room where the members used to come and study so I was like well but they getting the the Congress to have their processes and the way that they do work more productive as well as meaningful for the members themselves where they know they're making a difference and those opportunities to just be together in my view I mean that's that's essential you're not going to you're not going to do anything at the edges here it means that you that you've really got to have the systems in place that permit the members to to be effectively engaged well and I think you mentioned the authorizing committees they need to be heated I mean they need to know when they authorize something that it's important it's going to have impact it's going to change lives or change policy and it has and it should have some decent opportunity of funding and I want to mention though before we conclude to Dr. Hayden to congratulate you on the series you have years ago when I was a young member I worked with a young staff member in the White House on a major policy matter and his name was David Rubenstein I know he hosts all those dinners for the members I trust members of both parties gather really enjoy them so I want to thank you on behalf of all my colleagues from Michigan and I will relay that to him because that's one of the things that he really wanted to do to have the library he believes in literacy and the library so much but he also believes in it not just for the public but for Congress truly the library of Congress and to have this place in the same room where members are looking at the library's treasures based on what's the author is talking about but also to see the pairings there's no furniture chewing there's but they you see unlikely pairings and you'll say but wait they just but there they are talking and their spouses and I'm glad you mentioned the codels of so many times at those dinners when the spouses and partners are talking they talk about the trips that they took together and how that led to a book club or how that led to that so those trips seem to be and that's people that work decades together so thank you for that because it seems like this committee and we will be working with you and working with the former members and the and our partner of course the national archives to help with this because history never stops and you all are all part of it and we're pleased to be part of it too so good luck to the committee in any way we can help and thank all of you thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for having us