Understanding Congress

The topic of this episode is, “Should we expand the membership of the House of Representatives?” My guest is Yuval Levin, who is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Levin is the founder and editor of the journal National Affairs, a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. And, particularly germane to the subject of today's discussion, Yuval recently coauthored a report on the topic of expanding the membership of the House of Representatives. You'll find a link to that report in the program notes.Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation.I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC.Yuval, welcome to the podcast.Yuval Levin:Thank you very much for having me.Kevin Kosar:The founders set the number of senators at two per state, but they did not set a constitutional cap on the number of legislators in the House. Why is that?Yuval Levin:Well, the nature of the Congress came out of a very complicated set of compromises at the Constitutional Convention. If you look at James Madison's notes on the convention, well over half of the debate was actually about this question of how representation should work. And ultimately, in some obvious ways, the large states wanted to be represented by population, the small states wanted each state to have equal membership, and the decision was made, “Let's do both.” So the two houses do have intentionally very, very different forms of representation: for the states and for the people. The House of Representatives is meant to represent the public. And so each member represents roughly the same number of people. State delegations are based on the size of their populations. The difference between the two houses in that sense is very intentional, and intended to create these kind of overlapping majorities that include both forms of representation.Kevin Kosar:All right, so the Senate is supposed to represent the states; the House, the people. Now, we have 435 members in the House, and we've had 435 for a long time. When was that number set?Yuval Levin:The House of Representatives at first grew after every census. From the very beginning, from the 1790 census all the way through the 19th century, with a single exception after 1840 for complicated reasons, the House grew as the population grew. That continued to happen until after the 1910 census, at which point there was the beginning of a normal debate in the House about how much should we grow and in what way this time. That debate fell apart, and the House ultimately at that point simply didn't act. And the size of the House remained as it was after 1910. Then afterward, after the 1920 census, the House actually actively decided to no longer grow after every census and passed a law that set a cap at 435, which was the size it had reached.For most of the 19th century, the House of Representatives grew by a formula that allowed states to avoid losing seats. So as the population grew, new seats were distributed in such a way that states with larger populations could grow, but no state would lose seats. That formula worked for political reasons, it made mathematical sense, and that's how things were growing until 1910. And we've been stuck at a 1910 level. So that has meant that as the country has grown—the population of the United States is almost three times what it was in 1910—the House of Representatives has not grown. Each member is now left representing about three times as many people as members did a century ago.Kevin Kosar:Yes, in the report that you helped coauthor, I recall seeing that in 1910 the average representative had 210,583 constituents. Today, seeing as there's 330 million plus Americans, there's about 761,000 constituents for each member of the House, which is a colossal number. Which leads to the next question: What would be the benefits of expanding the House?Yuval Levin:That question points to exactly where you just pointed to first and foremost, which is, we've reached a place where each member of the House now represents a massive number of people, about three quarters of a million people. At the beginning of our constitutional system, each member of the House represented just about a little over 30,000 people. That number went to 60,000 pretty quickly and gradually grew over time. But the idea originally—James Madison originally propo

The topic of this episode is, “What is wrong and right with the House of Representatives?”My guest is Dan Lipinski, who is uniquely positioned to answer this question. He was a member of Congress, and represented Illinois’ third district from 2005 to 2021. He also is a political scientist — he got his doctorate from Duke University in 1998. And if that is not enough, Dan is a former congressional staffer and a socially conservative Democrat. You don’t find many of those anymore. You can see Dan’s recent writings on his website, DanLipinski.com, which includes an essay for The Atlantic titled “The House of Representatives is failing American democracy.”Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation.I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC.Sir, welcome to the program.Dan Lipinski:It's good to be with you, Kevin.Kevin Kosar:Let's start this conversation on a positive note. You served in the House of Representatives for 16 years. What accomplishments are you most proud of?Dan Lipinski:Well, if I had to pick out one bill most proud of — I actually was able to pass about 17 bills in my 16 years in Congress — but the one that I spent the most time on, maybe the longest lasting impact, is the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act. The requirement of that bill is every four years, the administration needs to create a strategy to promote American manufacturing. We could do a whole podcast on just what it took through five years to get this bill passed. We finally changed it to go to a different committee. In the end, after we spent five years working very hard, first it got attached to one bill, which we strategized to do, and then that bill unexpectedly got attached to an omnibus bill at the end of the year. After five long years of working on it, I was actually shocked when I saw it show up in an omnibus bill. Like I said, we could do a whole podcast on that and the strategy, and all the pitfalls, and what it took to get it through the House and finally get it through the Senate, get the president on board. It took a long time. But the first one was done in the second year of President Trump, and the second one now needs to be done early next year by the Biden Administration. So it's a plan to promote American manufacturing, kind of like the Quadrennial Defense Review, which the Department of Defense every four years needs to look at the defense department and put out a plan for the next four years.Kevin Kosar:So, you're a legislator who got things done. But as you just mentioned, it sure wasn't easy, and it sure didn't follow the script that many of us learned in Schoolhouse Rock all those years ago about how a bill becomes a law. This gets us to my next question. Let's talk about what's wrong with the House of Representatives — why it's so hard to get things done. In an article for The Atlantic, you state that the House, whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans, now acts as if it were a unicameral legislature in a parliamentary system, rather than acknowledging that it is only one of two legislative chambers in a presidential system. Wow. Say more about that. Why is this happening?Dan Lipinski:Well, first of all, it's a shame the listeners can't see video, because I just held up my little Bendable Bill figure, who I did bring to the House floor a few times. The speech that I gave, my wrap-up speech at the end of my time in Congress, I brought Bill out there and I talked about this. The problem that we have right now — you know, Schoolhouse Rock, “I'm Just a Bill,” everyone should see that. It does the basics of how a bill becomes a law. It goes through committee in one chamber, the committee goes to the House floor or the Senate floor, and it has to go over to the other chamber, it passes, and then if it passes that second chamber, it has to go to the president for a signature. Well, it doesn't work quite as smoothly as it shows up in that video now. And it's a shame, because it is supposed to work the way that that video shows. The video shows a legislator having constituents come to him with an idea. And they say, There are ought to be a law. And he says, You're right, there ought to be a law. And he writes up a piece of legislation, and then it goes through the process. And the committee is supposed to — there’s Democrats and Republicans on every committee — they're supposed to debate it, amend it, decide if they want to pass it. Same thing happens on the floor. And it's all port

The topic of this episode is, “What differences do women make in Congress?”My guest is Michele Swers, professor of American government at Georgetown University. She studies Congress, congressional elections, and women in politics. She has written a lot of research articles and book chapters, and also is the author of two books on women in Congress. The first one is titled The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress. The second book is titled Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate. And, I would be remiss if I did not mention, she is the coauthor of Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence.Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation.I’m your host, Kevin Kosar, and I’m a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC.It is to Professor Swers we now turn to learn about women in Congress. Professor Swers, welcome to the program.Michele Swers: Thank you, Kevin. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan of your podcast.Kevin Kosar: Oh, thanks for saying. Let's start with a really simple question. How many women are in Congress today?Michele Swers: So, right now you have 120 women in the House. Eighty-nine are Democrats, 31 are Republicans. And in the Senate, you have 24 women, 16 Democrats, 8 Republicans. From those numbers, you can tell that there are more women who are Democrat than Republicans. And that's because the number of women really started to increase in 1992, and people called that the Year of the Woman, but it was really the Year of the Democratic Women. It was Democrats who elected more women at that time. They had a pretty good year that year. Even in years where Republicans had good years, like 1994, they elected more women, but not a lot more women.In 2018, Democrats elected another Year of the Woman, but they elected more women of color. So there was a lot of attention to that. And that's when I'm sure your listeners know that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comes into the picture and Ayanna Pressley and some others. And then in 2020, Republicans did have a very good year. They went from 13 women to 31 in the House of Representatives, and they elected a greater mix of women and minorities. It was a good year from their perspective.But you can tell though that by these numbers, when Democrats are in charge, women have more access to the majority and seats of power. So women are about 40 percent of the Democratic caucus in the House, and that means they have some seniority level. In the House, on the Democratic side, anyway, committee assignments work based on seniority, so you have more women who have access to be chairs. So Rosa DeLauro, head of Appropriations, or Carolyn Maloney as the Oversight chair, Maxine Waters at Financial Services — important committees.On the other hand, for Republicans, women are only about 15 percent of their caucus. They've had a woman in the conference chair position for a very long time — obviously turnover with different women. Most recently, Liz Cheney was pushed out, and Elise Stefanik is now the conference chair. But they don't have as many women with seniority. There are not as many women who will reach those committee chairmanships when Republicans are in charge.Right now you do have Kay Granger at Appropriations. She's the ranking member, so maybe she'll become the chair if Republicans take over in 2022. And Virginia Foxx at Education and Labor, she would need a waiver, so she would like a waiver. And if she doesn't get it, I think Elise Stefanik wants the position. But you don't have that many Republican women with seniority. There's also Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and she could end up becoming chair of Energy and Commerce if things go in the majority. A lot of the women that came in were elected in 2020, and so they're not very senior. It'll be a few years before they could develop into those leadership positions if they stay in Congress.Kevin Kosar: If I can just do a quick follow up on this question — you were highlighting some partisan differences. One thing I observed after the last election was, you had Kevin McCarthy, the head of the House Republicans, on Twitter, bragging about how the GOP had brought women into the party. You’ve studied this stuff for so long. Is this new, the GOP and the House bragging about getting more women, Republican women, into the chamber?Michele Swers: Yes and no. Republicans don't like to play what they call identity politics. They don't want to have policy that is necessarily focused on parti

The topic of this episode is, "What is the role of the Senate’s majority leader?"My guest is Dr. James Wallner. He is a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a lecturer at Clemson University. He is the author of three books on the Senate, including one titled On Parliamentary War: Partisan Conflict and Procedural Change in the U.S. Senate (2017). James has worked in the Senate, and also is a cohost of the Politics in Question podcast. Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It’s a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation.I'm your host, Kevin Kosar, and I'm a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC.It is to James Wallner that we turn to learn about the role of the majority leader. James, welcome to the program.James Wallner:Thanks for having me.Kevin Kosar:First question. Chuck Schumer is the current majority leader in the Senate. How did he get that job? What's the process? Did all the senators get together and vote for him or some other candidate?James Wallner:Well, that's how it works in the House, where you nominate candidates to be the speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi is our current speaker. Democrats and Republicans on the floor of the House all cast a vote for the speaker, and the nominee with the most votes becomes the speaker. And so the majority party, in effect, selects the speaker. In the Senate, it's a similar process, but slightly different, because they're not electing a speaker, they're not electing a presiding officer. The majority leader, Chuck Schumer, is merely the floor leader of the party with the most votes — so in this case, the Democrats. And it’s 50–50 right now, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. The vice president is a Democrat, so assuming that the vice president would cast her vote with the Democrats on a tie vote — under the Constitution, she gets to do that — that means that Chuck Schumer has more votes behind him than the leader of the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell, has behind him. So he is the majority leader, McConnell is the minority leader. The way they're chosen is simply by their party colleagues in secret ballot, in a meeting that usually happens right after the election, typically in December following an election before the new Congress meets.Kevin Kosar:You underlined a point there about the difference between leadership in the House and leadership in the Senate. It sounds, at least ostensibly, that a speaker may make a claim to be the head of the whole of the House, whereas in the Senate, it sounds like the majority leader is just the partisan leader. James Wallner:Absolutely. Look, party leaders in the Senate have institutional tasks, too. They help to schedule legislation. They do a bunch of different things that institutional leaders in the House, like the speaker, also do. And the speaker is also a partisan leader, in the fact that she is selected by her majority party caucus and really works to advance the agenda of the majority party. So they go hand in hand. But there is no Senate leader. I'm reminding myself of Woodrow Wilson, where he says, "There's no leader in the Senate," and that's something that's really frustrating him. And this is what makes the Senate great. Because there's no one that presides over the Senate, who wields lots of power, whom all senators vote for, the institution has a very decentralized set of procedures. The way it makes decisions is very decentralized. And the majority leaders (that weren't in existence prior to the beginning of the 20th century) and the minority leaders, their job, while they do it differently over time, is really then to facilitate the participation of members in the process and also to help to enact their agendas. So there's an institutional component to it, and there's a partisan component to it.Kevin Kosar:Is there anywhere listeners can turn to see a job description for the majority leader?James Wallner:You could just Google it, I'm sure, and you’d get lots of interesting stuff. You'd probably look up something on Senate.gov. You can look at different biographies of different majority leaders in the past. Robert Caro's The Master of the Senate, a book about Lyndon Johnson, is a great example. But I want to underscore something. There is no one way to lead the Senate. That changes, and it changes over time in response to the environment in which the Senate operates, the problems and challenges that the senators have, and the goals that they want to achieve. And so the leadership position is going to look different at different points

The topic of this episode is, "What is the Congressional Review Act?"My guest is Professor Bridget C. E. Dooling of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center. She has a deep background in regulation. Previously, Bridget worked for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. She also has clerked for an administrative law judge and worked in the U.S. Department of Justice.Kevin Kosar:Welcome to Understanding Congress, a podcast about the first branch of government. Congress is a notoriously complex institution, and few Americans think well of it, but Congress is essential to our republic. It's a place where our pluralistic society is supposed to work out its differences and come to agreement about what our laws should be. And that is why we are here: to discuss our national legislature and to think about ways to upgrade it so it can better serve our nation. I'm your host, Kevin Kosar, and I'm a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. It is to Professor Dooling we turn to learn about the Congressional Review Act, a tool for Congress to abolish regulations. Welcome to the show.Bridget Dooling:Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.Kevin Kosar:Before we get into the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, let's start with something basic. What are regulations, and why do they matter?Bridget Dooling:Regs are great, and studying them is even better. Regulations are everywhere. They shape our world, but not necessarily in obvious ways. Knowing about regulations is like having a decoder ring for why certain things are the way they are. Like, why do you need prescriptions for some things, but you can help yourself to whatever supplements like vitamins that you want? It's because there's a regulatory line there. You can't see it when you're in the drugstore, but it absolutely affects the way you live.Kevin Kosar:Yeah. Regulations really, to a degree, I guess they're specifications of laws, particular applications. Is that a fair characterization?Bridget Dooling:Yep.Kevin Kosar:Now, if listeners want to see these things, these regulations, where should they go? Where can they find a list or collection of regulations?Bridget Dooling:Yeah, there's a few ways. One is that you can look at legislation, because that's where Congress tells the agencies what they're allowed or required to do. And then you can also look at what the agencies themselves produce. So for rules that are in the process of being made, there's a website called regulations.gov. That's a great place to start, so if you hear that a rulemaking is coming down the pike, that's a great place to go check its status and see if it's open for public comment, for example. So that's regulations.gov. And for rules that are already on the books, you'd want to look at something called the Code of Federal Regulations, which pulls all that regulatory text into one place so you can read it all in one spot.Kevin Kosar:Excellent. Now our listeners know. So let's turn to the Congressional Review Act. Congress enacted it in 1996. Democrats and Republicans alike voted for it. President Bill Clinton signed it into law. In most basic terms, what is the CRA?Bridget Dooling:The Congressional Review Act allows Congress to disapprove federal agency rules using fast track procedures, during a special window of time following the rule's issuance. And perhaps the most important of these special fast-track procedures is that resolutions of disapproval can't be filibustered. And if it's enacted, this disapproval resolution effectively wipes the relevant rule from the books and the regulations revert back to whatever existed previously. Now, if an agency was to set about going back and undoing its own rule, that could take years. Congress can move much faster than a regulatory agency can by using the CRA to basically short circuit that rule.To be enacted, however, both chambers of Congress must pass the resolution and the president needs to sign it. And because a president's unlikely, very unlikely to sign a resolution disapproving a rule that was issued during his or her own administration, or that of a president from the same party, the Congressional Review Act is especially salient following a presidential election in which the incumbent or same party nominee loses. If that happens, and if both chambers in Congress are aligned with the incoming president, the potential for enacted resolutions of disapproval increases dramatically.Kevin Kosar:So let's pause for a moment. What we're talking about is a legislature passing a law to wipe out a regulation. The listener might say, Okay, well, why do we need the Congressional Review Act to do that? Couldn't have Congress just done this without creating an act to create an act?Bridget Dooling:Yeah, you're exactly right. Congress could always pass regular legislation to overturn an agency's rule, or another way they could handle it is

The topic of this episode is, “How has Congress evolved as an institution?”My guest is Eric Schickler, the author of the book, “Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress”. It is the 20th anniversary of this classic text, which won the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics. Eric is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

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

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

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

The topic of today’s episode is, “Are earmarks good or bad?”My guest is Zachary Courser, a visiting assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He is the co-director of the Policy Lab at Claremont McKenna College, and the co-editor of the volume, Parchment Barriers: Political Polarization and the Limits of Constitutional Order. Zach also is the author of articles on conservatism and populism, and he is the coauthor of an American Enterprise Institute report titled, “Restoring the power of the purse: Earmarks and re-empowering legislators to deliver local benefits.”

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

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

The subject of today’s episode is, “What does the House rules committee do?”My guest is Don Wolfensberger. He is a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. He served as a staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives for 28 years and was the director of the Rules Committee. Don is the author of two books: Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays, and Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial.

“How Congress tricks Americans” — that is the topic of this episode.My guest is Prof. David Schoenbrod the author of the book, DC Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington. David is a Trustee Professor at New York Law School, where he teaches and studies environmental law, regulation, and other heady subjects. He also is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center.

“Is Congress Broken?” — that is the topic of this episode. My guest is Dr. Jack Pitney, the coeditor of the book, Is Congress Broken? The Virtues and Defects of Partisanship and Gridlock. Jack is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics at Claremont McKenna College, where he teaches American politics and government.This book, which was coedited by William Connelley and Gary Schmitt, is a marvelous collection of essays written by top scholars. All of the chapters, I should note, are accessible to the lay reader. One need not be a political scientist or academic to enjoy this book, and come away with a  greater understanding of the First Branch.

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

The topic of today's episode is “What is the filibuster?” And does it have a future? My guest is Dr. Molly Reynolds, who is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She studies Congress, with a focus on how congressional rules and procedures affect domestic policy outcomes. She also supervises the maintenance of the “Vital Statistics on Congress,” Brookings’ long running resource on the first branch of government. Importantly, for our episode today, Molly is the author of the book Exceptions to the Rule: the Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the US Senate.

The topic of today's episode is, “How Does the House of Representatives Organize Itself for a New Congress?” My guest is Dr. Matthew Green, an extraordinarily accomplished scholar of the U.S. Congress. He has been a professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. since 2005, and he received his doctorate from Yale. Matt has authored or coauthored six books, the most recent of which is Legislative Hardball. The first book-length examination of the tactics and effectiveness of the House Freedom Caucus. Matt is also a regular contributor to “Mischiefs of Factions,” a blog about political parties. And he has written about Congress elections and other topics in the Washington Post, Roll Call, and The Hill.

The topic of today's episode is “Reforming Congress for the 21st Century.” My guest is Representative Derek Kilmer, Congressman of the 6th district of Washington State. He was first elected to Congress in 2012. Before that, Mr. Kilmer served in his home State's legislature, worked for the Economic Development Board for Tacoma Pierce County, and was a consultant for McKinsey & Company. He received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University and earned a doctorate from the University of Oxford in England. Of particular relevance for our conversation today, Representative Kilmer has been the co-chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress for the past two years. In autumn 2020, this committee released 97 recommendations for updating the legislature, which you can see at modernizecongress.house.gov, and we'll hear more about those recommendations shortly.

The topic of today's episode is, "Do we need a Congress?" My guest is my friend and colleague, Dr. Philip Wallach. He is a resident scholar here at AEI where he studies America's separation of powers system. And he focuses on regulatory power issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state. Before joining AEI, Phil was a senior fellow in governance studies at both the R Street Institute and the Brookings Institution. Phil also has served as a fellow with the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. He is the author of the book To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Response to the 2008 Financial Crisis. I have him on this episode because he wrote a terrific article for National Affairs titled "Congress Indispensable."