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Demystifying Congress

A collection of 24 issues

How to Get a Legislator to Yes

Most politicians are party animals. By which I mean they are - or at least believe themselves to be - somewhat beholden to the priorities of their political party. (Though a certain Senate Majority Leader from New York is also known to enjoy a good dance party.) The party probably

A Key Policy Power Marker

While it is true that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, it is less true that a House Speaker by any other name would control as much. Legislatures the land over just love their titles. And too often, good folks unwittingly misaddress legislators, an immediate flag

Decoding Policy Jargon

The poets seldom write about short-term CRs. Full committee markups and community directed spending (a spiffed up way of saying earmarks) are also notably absent from the poetic canon. Uninspired though legislative language may be, it can actually have some bearing on us. So let's open wide the

For When You Want to Give Up All Hope of Policy Change

"This is something we really cannot duplicate in the United States," Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross tells the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging one August day in 1972. "In England," she continues, "it does not cost the patient a penny." She isn't talking

If You Want to Get a Bill Passed

A seasoned driver in Delhi once told me that to drive in that city, you need three things: A good horn, good breaks, and good luck. Getting a bill passed isn't so different. You need some attention on it (horn), some patience (breaks), and good luck for miles.

All The Policy in Our Food!

My kitchen is absolutely teeming with policy. Probably yours, too! Let's take a spin through the cabinets to find policy's fingerprints all over them. In the lazy Susan, my spaghetti sauce has to tell me it has sugar in it and my rolled oats have to

Just How Powerful Is Your Member of Congress

It's November 2021 in Montpelier, Vermont. Senator Patrick Leahy, who's tenure in the United States Senate was longer than John F. Kennedy's entire lifespan, who's the sole person in the world to be both third in line to the Presidency and in

A Largely Unknown Manual That Touches All of Our Daily Lives

As that age-old saying we all are so familiar with goes, "There is life before you know about the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and there is life after." Well, welcome to the next chapter of your life! (And if you already speak MUTCD, a round of

An Alternative to Calling Our Member of Congress

One year is 8,760 hours. And of those many hours, let's pull out just four to six of them. Or 0.06 percent of a year. Now let's put that figure on the shelf for a moment. First, I want to talk about The Question

Of Airline Customer Service & Policy Change

While attempting to sleep on the floor of the Charlotte airport one evening after my flight had been delayed long enough to spend the night in Terminal C, but not long enough to get to a hotel and have more than 90 minutes of shut-eye and return through security in