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Demystifying Congress

A collection of 28 issues

A Few Essential Words to Understand this Moment

If there's one thing politicians love it's getting elected. And if there are two things politicians love they are getting elected and then talking about what they're doing in elected office with words that make zero sense to the people who elected them. Words

How to Go On Offense When the Powerful Want Us On Defense

"This will be our reply to violence," wrote New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein after President Kennedy was assassinated, "to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." The night before, Mr. Bernstein had led the Philharmonic in Mahler’s Second Symphony, known

A Strategic Way to May Your Voice Heard with Congress (From Someone Who Used to Work There)

First, let's address the elephant sitting in many rooms right now: Congress still matters. Yes, they pass an unadmirable number of bills (1-2%), making it hard to figure out what the combined 535 members (100 Senators, 435 House members) of this august body do most of the time.

Which Politicians We Should Pay Attention to Right Now

"Folks come to Washington to do one of two things, " Senator Mitch McConnell said from the Senate floor one December day. "To make a point. Or to make a difference." The politicians who're in Congress to make a point might be making the finest

The Secret to Bipartisanship

White oaks are in a bad way. They need what we all need: sunlight, nourishment, some room to grow. But those wise old controlled burns – the ones the Narragansett, Wampanoag, Pequot used to do to thin out the beeches, birches, maples so the oaks could have some space already – those

Understanding Politicians' Power & Our Own

Not too long ago, I was giving a summertime workshop on policymaking. And everything I was saying could be boiled down to two syllables: power. The bones, marrow, and heart of policymaking is power - who has it, who stands to gain or lose it. And the more we understand

Understanding Why Politicians Take Foolish Votes

It's Washington D.C., 1957, Frank Church's first day as a United States Senator from Idaho. And Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson is turning the screws on him. "Now Frank, you are the youngest member of this Senate, and you have a great future..." the

How to Beef Up Cancer Funding in Two Steps

Who do you think the largest funder of cancer research in the world is? It's not Susan G. Komen or Lance Armstrong, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or the American Cancer Society. It's actually you and me. Our taxpayer dollars fund

What Gets Politicians Re-Elected

The other evening, I sat on the couch and read a story wrongly told. It was about a recent primary loss down south. The incumbent was outspent, the story went, the incumbent had extreme positions. The candidate who won had cash and moderateness on his side, the story explained. And

A Good Thing to Know About the Politicians Who Represent Us

How is it that Senator Angus King, governor of Maine twice over and 80 years old to Maine's other Senator Susan Collins' 71 years, became the junior Senator from the Pine Tree State? One of the most significant words in policy: seniority. Senator Susan Collins came to