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Demystifying Congress

A collection of 29 issues

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

Why A Few Bills Become Law & Most Don't

"Teamwork makes the dream work!" is not a common refrain in the halls of Congress. Capitol Hill is 535 small businesses (100 Senators and 435 Congresspeople) that each have - with few exceptions - one main political motivation: reelection. The reason meaningful gun control is so hard to

There Are Two Types of Politicians

At a conference I was once at, a man started his talk by saying, "There are two types of people. Those who think there are two types of people and those who don't." Of course, I like to think that I'm the enlightened latter.

How to Call a Politician's Bluff

A great many politicians are in the business of introducing bills. A much smaller number of politicians are in the business of passing them. Last Congress, 17,817 bills were introduced. Congress has two-year sessions that start the January after an election. Each session is called - and they brought

Understanding a Politician's Mind

Should you find yourself with a spare moment one afternoon. And should you think to yourself, I will use this spare moment to watch a bit of C-SPAN. And should you happen to turn it on when there is a Tough Vote on the floor of the House of Representatives,