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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello everyone, and welcome to Academic Life. This is a podcast for your academic journey and beyond. I'm the producer and your host, Dr. Christina Gessler. And today I am pleased to be joined by Dr. Maya Kornberg, who is the author of How Money, Media and Violence Prevent Changes in Congress. Welcome to the show, Dr. Kornberg.
- [00:28]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [00:30]
A
We're going to dive into your book. Before we do that, will you please take a moment and tell us about yourself?
- [00:36]
B
Yeah. So I am a political scientist who has a lifelong fascination with Congress and legislatures writ large. This is my second book on Congress. My first book, Inside Congressional Committees, looked at the nitty gritty of the legislative process. I'm delighted to talk more about this book today. I also have experience working in international development with the United nations and other international development orgs and democracy nonprofits looking at legislatures in a global context. So happy to speak more to that as well if that's of interest. I'm currently a senior fellow at the Brennan center for justice at NYU Law and again, excited to talk more and dig in more on this topic today.
- [01:27]
A
We are excited to hear what you have to share as well at the academic life. We're curious about how people find their path and their passion. What led you to this field of study?
- [01:36]
B
So I've always been interested in how people interact with each other in social groups and how we live together in community. And that is why I studied political science as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. I believe that that's what government is about. And I have dedicated my career in different ways to making democracy and our democratic institutions work better for the people that they are meant to serve. And so as I mentioned, I've done done that both in academia and working in various roles in the public sector.
- [02:19]
A
You mentioned in the book about different sources that you used to create this book, and one of them was dozens of interviews that you personally conducted. How did you get people to talk to you?
- [02:33]
B
So the interviews were with many different kinds of people. I interviewed lawmakers, former and current from the periods that the book was, was, was focused on, and advocates and others who are working in and around Congress and, and certainly congressional staff. And what I found was that people were eager to share about the experiences that they've had. You know, Congress, this won't shock your listeners, is not a particularly popular institution. And so when someone genuinely wants to listen to you about hardships that you've faced and things that you've accomplished in that body, I think that there is a real appetite to share. And that was definitely my experience both in this book and in other research that I've done about Congress.
- [03:30]
A
The book takes us into three different freshmen classes of Congress, and it has three key themes that it's looking at. It's looking at the role of money, the role of media, the role of violence, and how this prevents change in Congress. But you're also looking at things like relationships and caucuses and coalitions and how seniority is used. You're really looking at what you alluded to a moment ago, your interest in how people interact with each other. And we really see that in the book, in each chapter, that how people interact with each other has an enormous effect on whether or not something gets passed and whether or not someone keeps their job. And so right away, you take us into the class of 1974. You tell us that this is a really important class for us to be looking at. We're going to come back to it in later sections of the book and we're going to understand how pivotal this class is and why you chose it. It's a time of monumental changes and it's the time of the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War. There's a lot going on in the early 1970s. And you introduce us to a couple of key Waxman and Moffitt. Can you take us into that class and tell us why it's so important for us to know more about them?
- [04:46]
B
So as you mentioned, the book really looks at and is structured around three classes. My book is a 50 year survey of change making efforts in American politics. I go back 50 years and start at Watergate and I'll circle back to why I started at Watergate in a moment. But I look at these three pivotal classes because these are the three largest groups of new lawmakers that have come to Congress, have come to the House of Representatives in particular in the last 50 years. These three points in history, 1974, 1994 and 2018, are also inflection points in terms of Congress's relationship vis a vis the executive. These three classes are tied to impeachment proceedings in different ways and I think are also moments in time when the public outrage over executive overreach and Congress's relationship with the executive is really reshaped. And as I mentioned, these are key inflection points. So 1974 is where I start. And I think that there actually are a lot of analogies to be drawn to what's going on today. But that's a class that comes in, in the midst of, or in the aftermath, more accurately, of the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation in the midst of the Vietnam War, which is increasingly unpopular. And it really swept in the wave of kind of change making spirit that we have at that time. The 70s are a time when Congress is, is really trying to strengthen itself and take back some of the powers that Nixon has usurped. We see Congress passing the 1973 War Powers Resolution to try to take back some of the war powers. We see Congress passing the Impoundment Control act to try to fight against impoundment, which is a term referencing the President refusing to spend funds that have already been congressionally authorized. And, and we see kind of many other things, kind of Congress standing up as a branch. So that's why I choose to start the book there. And I'm, I'm happy to kind of circle back to talk more about that class, if that's of interest.
- [07:06]
A
Yes, please. Because I think some of the people that you highlight there, we come back to again, their people who came in with a great deal of passion for change. And understanding how they navigated or didn't navigate the system tells us a lot about the forces that work for and against Congress.
- [07:24]
B
So the class of 74, as I mentioned, this is a time when there's monumental change happening vis a vis the executive. But the other thing that this class does is to change the way that Congress operates as an institution. So there's over 90 new lawmakers that come in, many of them decades younger than the average member of Congress and with different kinds of lived experience. And what they do is they change the way in which committees are structured and especially key committees like the Ways and Means Committee, they change the way in which committee assignments and committee chairmanship decisions are made in a way that allows them as new members to rise more quickly to chair subcommittees or full committees even than you would see normally. And so members that I talk about in that chapter, specifically, you know, Henry Waxman or Toby Moffitt or some of the other members that I shine a light on in that chapter, really rise up relatively quickly because of these structural changes. And so they are not just changing Congress again vis a vis the other branches of government, but also changing Congress from within in terms of the way that these pathways to power, power are structured.
- [08:43]
A
And early on in the book, you, you talk about what it's like when these new people arrive. On page two, you say election cycle after election cycle brings new, fresh faced lawmakers promising to fix things. These candidates want to clean up politics, repair Congress, stand up to violence, and bring home real changes for ordinary Americans. So why does it seem like we are moving backward rather than forward? That backward rather than forward feeling is one that you keep exploring in the book. It's one that Americans will bring up every time there's an election on the horizon, and there's one that they bring up after an election if it didn't go the way that they wanted to. How do some of these forces create this pervasive feeling of we go backwards when we mean to go forwards.
- [09:30]
B
Right. Yeah. So the book title kind of speaks to this in some way. It's what I think a lot of people are feeling, this stuckness, the way in which our democracy feels stuck and many Americans feel trapped in a political and economic ecosystem that is not working for ordinary people. And the book itself is an effort to look backward at how we got here in order to chart a course forward and to show how these distortions of violence and money and the pressures of social media have led us here and to show how we can unstick Congress. So, you know, in a way that the book kind of tells a chronological story about that. I'm happy to dive in on kind of various of those topics, but. But it's a. It's a big one to. To get into. So I don't know if you had a preference as to which one of those big distortions we should tackle first here.
- [10:29]
A
I don't have a preference. One of the ones that I pick up on as we reading along in the book is the problems of working together. On page 22, the subtitle is Working Together and it says ambition and energy were not enough. The freshmen soon discovered that they had to learn the art of legislating. Their confidence did not mean that they knew complicated procedures or the art of politics in Congress. Maybe a place to start is how under resourced these people are.
- [10:57]
B
Right? Yeah. And that's certainly something that has gotten a lot worse quote that you. That you just read is, is referencing the 1974 class. And certainly there's always. When you get to a new job and being elected to Congress is a new job, there's always something to learn. But. But many members have told me just how frustrating it is to feel that there is no help in learning that. At least not institutionalized help. So there's very little onboarding, especially not substantive onboarding in terms of policy making. That's true in today's Congress. That was true before. But in today's Congress they also have fewer resources than they once had. So Congress today has several thousand fewer staff than it once did. As a result of some of the changes in the 90s that I talk about in that section of the book, committee staff have been gutted. Congress lost an entire support agency called the Office of Technology assessment in the 90s. And the support agencies and the committee staff just do not have the, the kind of infrastructure that they need. Members also the, the cap on personal staff that they can hire has not changed since 1975. And so they don't have the personal staff that they, that they need, even though constituency sizes have grown tremendously obviously in the last 50 years. So they're really hard pressed to work in kind of this, this environment of reduced staff and increased work demands. And so in that context, the book argues for the importance of not just, you know, increasing staff and resources, but, but also of creating more institutionalized onboarding processes that can help members to learn the job. It gives the example of former Representative Blumenauer told me that he would actually write letters with, you know, recommendations of just how to, how to live life and stay healthy in this job and also how to do the job. And he would hand deliver those letters to new members who were elected. And I heard from members who got those letters just how helpful that was. I've heard from so many members how helpful these informal kind of relationships are with older lawmakers in learning things. But what Congress needs is, is more formalized structures. It needs more formalized support and staff to support all members. And it certainly needs formalized onboarding to teach new members to do the job.
- [13:35]
A
There's a scene in the book that takes us pretty vividly into how it feels to be an under resourced freshman. You come in, you want to make change. You've been elected to do this job. You're brand new, you. And you take us into the experience of freshman at tyart and you talk about how overwhelmed he is. He said when he walked into his office, everything was in disarray. The computers were stacked in a big pile in the middle of the room and the desks had just been pushed together. It looked like a mountain of office equipment. And he says it took him four hours to find the post office. That part stopped me as a person with a terrible sense of direction that only gets worse when I'm under deep stress, I could feel his bewilderment in something so important and seemingly simple like finding the post office and burning four hours on that. You quote another freshman, Davis, saying, we didn't know what the hell we were doing. We are just freshmen, Right. You go on to say, like all new employees in an institution they have never worked for, freshmen needed to learn the ropes. You quote Phil English comparing it to drinking out of a fire hose, saying it's a constant challenge to navigate an institution where I have never even served as an intern. In this section, you're talking about a lot of the effects of Newt Gingrich and the problems of seniority. So on top of what you've just shared about what needs to happen and what isn't happening, you have this layer of people there who easily know the ropes in comparison to someone who's bewilderedly lost for four hours and how they can take advantage of that.
- [15:15]
B
Yeah. So certainly that example that you gave of Representative Tiert is. Is just one of many stories that I heard of members coming in bewildered. You know, from everything from how to find an orientation event and how to navigate physically the chamber to how to, you know, do your financial disclosures, how to do make policy, how to navigate the policy making process. And so this is something where this is just overwhelmingly what I heard from members new and old about the process. Now, with the example that you just gave of Newt GINGRICH in the 90s, we very much see a story of leadership that takes advantage of some of that newness to push forward changes that I just spoke of in the 90s of, you know, changing committee structure, you know, also doing things in the 90s like doubling the power of the party speaker in the steering committee to decide on committee assignments and other allocations. So certainly that naivete can be taken advantage of and has been taken advantage of by people who have been there for a while and know what to do. And I think that's all the more reason why, if we want the people that we elect to actually be able to adequately represent what we elected them to do, we need to be leveling the playing field by figuring out how to empower new members and new voices that we're sending to Congress.
- [16:49]
A
We've been pointing out the problems that freshmen have. However, not all freshmen are the same. And one of the things that you point out in the book is that women have a different set of challenges. For Waxman, you point out the anti Semitism that he faced. And for people of color, there's another layer of challenges that are heaped on them. On page 39, you say, in 1977, there were 18 women in the House of Representatives. That made them 4% of the members. There were no women's bathrooms in The Senate. So female senators were forced to use visitor restrooms. You go on to say women were not allowed to. To swim in the chamber's pool because some male members preferred to swim naked. Many women who joined Congress as a boys club were told the rules and that they were boxed out of positions of power. You quote one black congressional staffer saying, this is a rich white man's place. Do you want to talk about the additional challenges for women? And if you want to talk about the unusual swimming policy, yes.
- [17:55]
B
So that, I think that's, that's one that is usually shocking to people. In addition to the fact that, you know, there were also no women's bathrooms in the Senate until, until quite recently. You know, I think that this, this, the, the pool, the bathrooms, they just speak to kind of a broader point, which is that this was. And again, I quote that black congressional staffer putting it, I think so. Well, it is designed as a rich white man's place. And so when we're seeing, and I talk about the class of 2018 coming in, which is a record numbers of women and people of color and young people and really the most diverse class ever, we have to actually rebuild and reshape the institution to make it more representative there. You know, women that I spoke to talked about the kind of boys club component from everything to kind of building those relationships, those mentorship relationships that help you to team up with someone to get things done, that help you to campaign, to get onto, you know, an A list committee, to, you know, small things again, like just figuring out how to, how to, how to set up your office. So that is why things like the Congressional Women's Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus and, you know, these other groups that were started at, you know, at the time that the book kind of starts in the 70s and 80s, are really instrumental in building communities and allowing groups that are coming in and reshaping the institution in larger numbers to build power. Another thing that I think not everyone realizes is that, you know, we, we. I think we do hear quite a bit about fundraising as a major challenge for women and people of color and working people and others with less access to wealth when it comes to running for office. But what we see in Congress is that those same structural barriers face these groups when they want to build power in a chamber where increasingly you have to pay dues to the party in order to move ahead. You have to fundraise as a tool to build power in the chamber again to win that committee assignment, to win that leadership position. And so in that way, you are again facing those same structural barriers and. And those again need to be reshaped and overcome if we want to have a representative branch.
- [20:47]
A
There's one more story I want to highlight from this section. You. You tell us about Shirley Chisholm. She was the first black woman to serve in Congress, elected in 1968. And in this section, you're talking about how women were not told the rules, how they were boxed out at positions of power. And she said that she broke one of the venerable traditions of the House before she was even sworn in, when she wore a coat and a hat on the floor. She goes on to share things in her memoir. One was that men kept asking her, what does your husband think of all this? They acted as if they were joking, but they meant to imply that, after all, a women's place. She jokes that anyone who gets in politics will find that the men who are already there will treat her as the high school counselor treats girls. They see her as someone who is obviously just playing at politics part time. Early on in the book, we have a contrast to that with when AOC comes. And some things have changed, as you pointed out. There are caucuses, there are groups now so that women do not feel so alone. But you take us early on in the book, on page seven, in a section called the Change Makers, to when AOC arrives. And she's. She's live streaming a lot of it. She's putting it on social media and sharing it with her followers. And she says, hello, everyone, we made it here to Washington, D.C. for what I am lovingly calling Congress Day Camp, Day Zero. And she even films herself with her swag bag. And then later she does a video where she says, guys, there are secret underground tunnels between all of these government buildings. Through her adept use of social media, we actually get a sense of how much onboarding of information the freshman lawmakers need to do and how much of it they do on their own.
- [22:33]
B
Mm, yeah, certainly. And I think that what she did, and continues to do well, is to. To use social media to shine a light on kind of the human part of being a member of Congress, to normalize it, as she did in those videos. But. But again, to your point, it also speaks to how little institutionalized onboarding there is. I think the third thing that that example highlights, which the book gets into, is just the use of social media as a tool in general. And so there's a chapter in the book called Kings and Prophets which speaks about this. This is something that members today have to contend with that, of course, they did not have to in the 1970s. Members today, as opposed to members in the 1970s, are facing a system where, as I mentioned, they are under pressure to fundraise. And I also get into the book that the just how much the threats and violence are wearing them down. And they also are in a chamber where, as I mentioned, committee and other staff have been gutted. Power is very centralized in leadership and so there is not as much space as there once was to make legislative change. And so in that context, many of them are turning to social media as another avenue to make change. I use the analogy that, that I'm quoting Sean Kasten, who's a member of the class of 2018, who's saying that there's two kinds of power. You can be a king who governs or a prophet who holds the megaphone. And social media is a way of holding this prophetic power. And I think AOC is of course one of the ultimate examples of that. Social media is also increasingly a vehicle for fundraising. Of course, I mentioned the pressure to fundraise in Congress now, and increasingly members are fundraising online and they can use that same social media soundbite to both raise awareness and elevate their profile and connect with constituents and to fundraise. I give the example in the book of Republican Representative Joe Wilson screaming, you lie in the middle of Barack Obama's address to the joint session of Congress in 2009. And that clip went viral and he used it to fundraise. So AOC's use of social media in general, I think speaks to, to, to, to that reality that is facing members now. I will also say that, you know, one of the things that the book points out that I think people don't always realize, just as Congress watchers, is that that prophetic power, that social media power, it does not translate neatly into legislative power. And, and so it is frequently, and the book talk, you know, talks about both kings and prophets, and it is frequently not the same people who have that legislative power versus the people who are, you know, on social media as Instagram influencers. And it is an incentive structure now where as Representative Lauren Underwood, who I interviewed for the chapter on the class of 2018, said, quote, it incentivizes eyeballs and acclaim rather than policy work. So this, this reality, I think is one that we need to reckon with. And social media is obviously a wonderful tool to engage with constituents and shine a light on things like congressional orientation, but it's also a double edged sword in terms of what it Means for incentive structures.
- [26:03]
A
We've been referring to chapter five, which is called no One Else Looked Like Me, the Class of 2018. And that's where we meet Lauren Underwood. She's a nurse, she's black, from a white district in Illinois. And she arrives when she's 31, making her one of the younger freshmen. Number of the people that you highlight were, were young. And we can contrast that with people who have been there for a very long time. And it really kind of highlights the feeling of being a freshman. And Kings and Prophets is, is chapter six. And that's where we're really digging into the effects of, of social media. One of the things that the book points out is the increasing threat of violence that's happening now and that it has a disproportionate impact on women, on people of color, on our Jewish lawmakers, because of the rising anti Semitism. And we jump right into that in the introduction. You take us into an example of violence. We're at Representative Eric Swalwer's office and he receives five threatening messages. Of course, it's his staffers who are answering the phone and receiving those messages. It's December 19, 2023, and one of the messages said bloodshed is coming. Can you take us into the, the effect of violence?
- [27:23]
B
So certainly the, you know, the, the presence of violence in the United States of political violence is not new. But what we're seeing in Congress right now is a really scary rise in sort of threats and violence against members, you know, compared to 2018, when the last class that I talk about came in. Just five years later in 2023, the US Capitol Police reported that over that five year period, the number of threats against members doubled. So there's really a worrisome trend here. And the book talks about three ways in which the increase in violence and the incidence of violence is distorting lawmaking. So firstly, there is an attrition problem. We're seeing a lot of retirements in Congress and at all levels of the political pipeline. One of the reasons that politicians are citing is violence. There's a quote from Nancy Pelosi in the book where she says, when I talk to young, dynamic people about running for office, what I hear is that what happened to Paul, and she's referring to the violent attack against her husband, Paul Pelosi, in their home in San Francisco. People say to her that what happened to Paul is their greatest fear and that that is one of the reasons that they are considering not running. And that is really a widespread sentiment. We did a survey at the Brennan Center a few years back of state and local lawmakers where we found that women and people of color were more likely to experience and report threats that targeted their families. And so, you know, Nancy Pelosi's point is, I think, particularly worrisome when we think about building pipelines to power for groups that are already underrepresented. In the survey that we did at the Brennan center, we found that about half of women in local office said that they were dissuaded from running again or running for higher office as a result of violence. And that was just echoed in what I heard from members of Congress about the way in which violence is wearing them down and causing retirements. The second thing that violence does is that it distorts the way in which members can and do engage with constituents. So one member that I interviewed told me that when she does engagement events and when her colleagues do, it's impossible not to have the Gabby Giffords shooting in the back of your head. And she's referring to the 2011 shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords at a Congress at your corner engagement event. So we're seeing members cancel town halls, limit town halls, move them online. Of course, we just recently saw an attack on Ilhan Omar at a town hall. One member told me that there are parts of her own district that she does not go to because she does not feel safe. Safe. So that's really scary in terms of what it means for representative democracy. Members need to be able to listen to and engage with constituents and embed themselves in their districts in order to be adequately representing people. And when they can't do that, then that is really scary. The last thing that the book talks about in terms of the distortions of violence is the violence can actually and does in some instances, change the actual issues, the legislative agenda that members have and the way that they vote. Even in some instances. There's a quote in the book from Liz Cheney who says that there are members who have said to her, I would have voted to impeach the president, but I was afraid for the safety of my family. Now, that to me, is just a shocking statement to sit with the fact that there are members of the United States Congress saying, I would have voted to impeach the president, but I was afraid for the physical safety of my family. So, again, the way in which violence is actually changing legislative agendas and preventing members from voting their conscience is really disturbing. So those are kind of three key and I think really worrisome ways in which violence is distorting the problem. And as you mentioned at the outset, of course, the book talks about violence as something that is, in the American context, inherently gendered and racialized and affects religious minorities and the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups in disparate ways. And so everything I'm talking about in terms of ramifications is also viewed in that lens.
- [32:00]
A
And listeners will find more in chapter seven, which covers the growing scale of violence faced by members of Congress. As we've been saying, and as you pointed out, the way it constrains lawmaking, it covers the toll, financial, emotional, and physical violence and how this burden limits the capacity of members. It goes into stories. It has data that you've collected. And that chapter is called a post January 6th world. You point out in other places in the book, as you've referenced here, that violence is not new, it's increasing. And so you get examples of. In the 19th century, Charles Sumner, who was a US senator from Massachusetts, was beaten with a cane on the floor of the Senate until he was unconscious. And in another chapter, you point out that in 1971, in the Capitol building men's room, there was a bomb that examples on page 46. And yet in some ways, it's apples and oranges how people are feeling now and how prevalent it is. Another key theme of the book is the effect of money. We've talked about the media part of the title and the violence part of. Of the title, but a key part of it is money. And you talk about in the book how fundraising is a deterrent, especially to women, for running for office. There are several examples where people are told what seems like a staggering sum of money, at least for an academic, that they have to raise just to. To be able to do their campaign. And. And many of them can't. And some of them said after they successfully, you know, were elected to office, they're glad they didn't have what was considered the more realistic number offered to them because they. They couldn't even reach the lower number that they were given. And there's an example you give of. Of a man who's elected to Congress, and he made up the shortfall by basically zeroing out everything that he had. And he really needed a new pair of shoes, and he had to borrow one, and he had to wait till he had a couple of paychecks before he could start taking care of personal things like buying yourself shoes.
- [34:02]
B
Yeah, I mean, certainly that. That reality, I think, is quite shocking. And the book kind of juxtaposes what that is now versus you know, what it used to be. So there is also a quote in the book from Elizabeth Holtzman, who ran in Brooklyn 50 years ago, saying she was running as an incumbent congressman. And she said that she was told that she needed to raise $100,000 to run. She raised around $30,000 and was able to win the campaign. Now, that is just a starkly different reality to the reality that members are faced with now. And that is a direct result of Supreme Court rulings like the 1976 Buckley Vivaleo decision that ruled that spending limits were unconstitutional and flooded campaigns with money. And of course, 2010, Citizens United unleashes unlimited amounts of outside spending into campaigns. So this is just a very different reality than the one that the book starts in. And I think that it's also an important point to just emphasize because it wasn't that long ago in the kind of broad arc of history, that we were in a completely different reality when it came to the scale of money and politics. And to me, that is something that gives me hope that we can again change things. And I think we do need to change things. And as I mentioned earlier, this is a barrier to women and other groups who have less access to wealth in the United States in running. And that is why and there's wonderful research by Nick Karnes and others on kind of what that means in terms of who is in Congress. His stat is that about 2% of Congress at the time that his book came out, which was a few years ago, are working class people, which is quite shocking given the country that they're meant to represent. So that obviously affects descriptive representation in terms of who gets to Congress. But the book really focuses on the way in which money is distorting the lawmaking process itself. So as I mentioned, when you're in a system in which you have to pay to play to get onto committees and leadership positions, that's going to disadvantage people who have again, less access to wealth. There's a quote in the book from Marcia Fudge, who represents represented more accurately a largely working class community in the Cleveland area, saying that she doesn't know how she is going to raise the money that she needs to pay her dues to the party. Now, that is not someone saying, oh, you know, how am I going to raise the money that I need to run? Which is something we hear about a lot. That's just, how am I going to raise the money that I need in order to pay dues to the party? Which is something that you need to do in order to get ahead in the chamber. So, so you know that that is a quite shocking reality to be faced with. And again, I think that dues system is something that is really worrisome. You know, I think people don't always realize this, but aoc, who, you know, we just talked about her being a prophet on social media only a few years ago, started paying dues to the party and I think out of a realization that that was something that she needed to do and if she wanted to actually, you know, chair a committee as she tried to do and to move ahead within the chamber. So that is quite striking and I think again, something that is often left out of the conversation of money and politics. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Co. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy. Bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stock the fridge for tip off with a variety of non alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or online@athletic brewing.com near beer fit for all times.
- [38:16]
A
Chapter two is called Building and Reshaping Power and listeners will find a deep dive into Buckley v. Vallejo, which is the 1976 Supreme Court ruling that we've been talking about. The increasing pressure to fundraise to gain power is covered in Chapter 4, Shifting Tides. And in that section you'll also see really when Congress started really turning to lobbyists and we can see the growth of their power from there. One of the things that you point out in the book by presenting a 50 year study is how long it takes to make change in Congress. You wrote your book because you are hopeful about change. You've identified a number of ways that you believe change can happen. How does change happen when change is so slow?
- [39:01]
B
That's, I think that's a great question. And I do think to your point, change can be slow in Congress. I also do think that the moments that Congress is most changeable, which is perhaps why I anchored my book in these moments, are the moments when there's a wave of new members that come in 1974, 1994, you know, to, to a lesser extent, but still 2018. Each one of these moments ends up changing internal processes in Congress and the way that it is structured and the way that, you know, the legislative concourse to bill passage is built. And I think that this is not a coincidence. It's because you have new members coming in and shaking things up. And so that is certainly one thing that we can look to. We can still be looking to elect people to Congress in order to change the system itself. But the other thing that I highlight in the book is, you know, just the way in which savvy reformers in the current system understand how to work the system, understand how to navigate the current state of play. And so members like Lauren Underwood, who comes in and wants to work on the black maternal health crisis in the United States, she knows that teaming up with senior member Alma Adams will help her to do that. And they work together to start the Black Maternal Health Caucus and address this problem. And there's many other examples in the book of members who are kind of working with senior leadership, who are understanding how to navigate the system in that way. The other thing is to find windows when doors are closed. So the book talks about how Henry Waxman in the 80s was able to guard funding for AIDS research and fight for his priorities, even when he was dealing with a administration, the Reagan administration, where Reagan wouldn't even say the word AIDS. Until well into the 80s, Waxman was holding hearings on AIDS related topics. He was doing things like blocking funds for grants or threatening to block appointments, using all the tools in his tool belt in order to protect something that he wanted to protect, which was funding for AIDS research. So that, I think, is also a key lesson here in terms of what it is to be a savvy reformer. It's fighting windows when doors are closed. It's understanding how to build alliances with people who already have power. And I think that that is something that the successful reformers in the book have in common.
- [41:37]
A
On page 22, you quote Waxman as saying at two of the tools that he used were patience and finding allies. One of the things I noticed is the deployment of what we often called soft skills. But I think they're essential skills. And it comes back to your interest in how people build relationships and how people interact with each other. It seems like some of, yes, we see bluster, we see people pulling rank, we see wealth having an influence, but we also see the importance of soft skills. Can you talk a little bit more about some that you noticed?
- [42:12]
B
Right. So to your point, I think Henry Waxman put it very well. Building alliances is really essential. Members that I spoke to, like Andy Kim or Lauren Underwood recently or again, members from the 70s class 50 years ago, they all told me that, you know, to be successful, they understood that they needed to call up seasoned members and have meetings with them, get to know them, get to be liked by them, that building those relationships is essential. At the end of the day, the legislative branch, unlike other branches of government, is a branch where collaboration is absolutely necessary. It's baked into how things get done in terms of passing bills. It's also essential in terms of campaigning to build power within the chamber, as I mentioned. And so, you know, there's, there's a part in the book where I give the example of Angie Craig who's seeking to, you know, to get on quizzing committee and understands how she can navigate her relationships with different members in order to do that. So that kind of relationship building component of it I think is essential. And I think just the human component of that I think is sometimes overlooked. Just members, you know, understanding how to build relationships and understanding how to navigate the structures, the social structures at play in order to push forward their agenda.
- [43:52]
A
The book is called How Money, Media and Violence Prevent Change in Congress. You say that money, media and violence are the three under explored forces and this book dives deep into exploring them. But your interest is in talking about change and why we need change. And chapter 10 digs into that. Chapter 10 is called the Path to Changing Congress and Protecting Democracy. In there, you start talking about long term plans for repair. You go through a list of things that you'd like to see or that you think are essential based on all of this data and research, many of which we've touched on already, we'll pull them together here. More skilled staff, greater access to external expertise, reforms to campaign finance system reforms to how committee assignments are made. You talk about the need for a structural makeover. You also offer a concern for how we're going to keep people safe. And so you have a list of things that you see here that are possible but also essential in the time we have left. Would you like to take us in into chapter 10, the path to Changing Congress and Protecting Democracy?
- [45:04]
B
Certainly. You know, the book is called Stuck. And I think that, as I mentioned at the outset, that is certainly the way that a lot of us feel about our democracy right now. But it is very much rooted in a belief that Congress has been stuck before, that it can be unstuck, and that it is more urgent than ever, given the executive abuse of power that we're seeing and given the four alarm fire for our democracy, for us to unstick it. And so it talks about a few things that both Congress can do and that we as citizens can do to help unstick Congress. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, Congress is just dramatically under sourced. And so, you know, I hear a lot of people complain about why is Congress not taking on, you know, the President's abuse of power and other things. But the reality is that it does not have the structures in place that it needs to do that. It needs to dramatically increase its staff. We need to allow members to hire more personal staff than they did in the 1970s. We need to reorganize committees in a way that makes sense. We don't even have a committee that is responsible for the tech industry because the last time we reorganized committees was in the 1970s in the house. And so we need to be organizing Congress to take action. That also includes making sure that members have the resources that they need to feel safe. Members now, for the first time just a few months ago, started getting monthly security stipends. And that's a great step in the right direction. And the U.S. capitol Police is growing and developing field offices that can keep members safe at home. But we need to be building on this and continuing to resource Congress. That also includes giving members of Congress a raise. They haven't received a raise in over 15 years now. Not even inflation adjustment raise. And there's a quote in the book of a member saying that he knows over 100 members sleeping in their offices for that reason. So if we want a chamber where not only the wealthy can afford to serve, we need to be thinking about that as well. So I think that's a key part of it, is just resourcing Congress. Another part, and I think this is a part that all of us as American citizens have a part in, is speaking out against violence and against the distortions of money in politics. Polling shows that the vast majority of Americans want campaign finance reform. They oppose political violence. And so it is important for us to be showing up at town halls and at committee hearings and engaging and speaking out against these things, because that is the way that we change the broader political culture and combat the negative influence of these distortions. I think that that is just so important. And I think more broadly that what I am afraid of is that the frustration with Congress will lead to disillusionment and disengagement. And I think that that is how we further weaken our democracy. Democracy. What we need to be doing now is doubling down and engaging with Congress and figuring out how to strengthen it so that it can take on what is the four alarm fire for our democracy right now.
- [48:21]
A
One of the things you point out in the book is that people have felt hopeful about politics before and they have felt hopeless before. Is there a role of hope in all of this, or is there something more practical that comes to mind?
- [48:34]
B
Certainly there is a role for hope. And as I mentioned, I at least draw hope from looking at other periods of time where Congress has unstuck itself, where Congress has done things like pass the War Powers Resolution or the Empowerment Control act and taken back some of its power and reorganized itself. That has happened so many times in recent history, and that can happen again. And I think more practically, we can, as I mentioned, think about specific ways to strengthen Congress so that it can do that. I think that hope is also taking action, and hope is electing people. We're sitting here in the midst of a midterm election campaign, electing people who we think can strengthen the institution and make our government look like what it's supposed to. It's true that the book starts with the fact that election cycle after election cycle, we have this, but that means that election cycle after election cycle we also have the opportunity for change. And the election cycles that I wrote the book in 1974, 1994, and 2018 were election cycles in which there was a huge momentum that was brought into Congress for that reason. So I think that this hope is both kind of theoretical, but it's also very actionable in terms of electing people and really just continuing to engage in a practical way.
- [50:03]
A
My final question is, what do you hope this episode sparks for listeners?
- [50:07]
B
So I think, just to reiterate my previous point, I think a lot of people right now that I hear are just bemoaning congressional ineptitude. And certainly the book talks about a lot of things that don't work in Congress. And I think Congress is a microcosm for some of these distortions of violence and money and media and politics writ large. But the most dangerous thing, I think would be to stop trying to fix this and to stop engaging with Congress. My hope in writing this is that it will show people how changeable Congress is and therefore spark in them a desire to be working towards changing it. I think the underlying assumption of the book is, and what I would want readers to come away with, is that Congress is malleable. It is always shaped and reshaped by the people who walk its halls and by the people who engage with it and in it. And it can be fixed now again, and we can be thinking about how to how to change it now again as well.
- [51:13]
A
Thank you for Joining us today, Dr. Kornberg, and taking us inside. Your book Stuck How Money, Media and Violence prevent change in Congress. You've been listening to the academic life. I'm Dr. Christina Gessler, inviting you to please join us again.