SEPTEMBER 17, 2015 U.S. CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER | CONGRESSIONAL AUDITORIUM WASHINGTON, D.C.
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WELCOME, and thank you for participating in Conflict, Order and
Reform in the House: The 94th—114th Congresses. The University of Maryland’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress are proud to present this event, which is both a celebration of Constitution Day and a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the 94th Congress, one of the most influential classes in recent history. It seems that every 20 years or so, the electorate engages in a populist movement aimed at overhauling Congress. Why does this phenomenon occur, and what impact does this have on how well Congress functions? What lessons did the Newt Gingrich Republicans of the 104th Congress learn from the resurgent Democrats of the 94th Congress, and what will the new majority of the current 114th Congress learn from their predecessors? Today, we are honored to be joined by former Members of Congress and Congressional staffers, renowned scholars, members of the media, and notable authors who will address these and other timely questions. Ultimately, we hope the bipartisan dialogue in this space will resonate throughout the halls of the Capitol, the greater D.C. area, and our nation. By examining how Congress has—and has not—been effective, efficient and bipartisan in the past, we hope to shed light on how it can bring about positive and lasting change for the American people in the future.
Barbara Kennelly
Former Congresswoman (Connecticut 1st, 1981-99) Founder, Barbara Kennelly Associates President, USAFMC
Gregory Ball
Dean and Professor College of Behavioral and Social Sciences University of Maryland
CONSTITUTION DAY On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created. Constitution Day—held annually on September 17—commemorates the formation and signing of this historic document.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: #ORDERINTHEHOUSEDC Throughout today’s event—and after—share your thoughts, reactions and takeaways on social media via #OrderintheHouseDC. UMD’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences: @bsosumd facebook.com/bsosumd U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress: @usafmc facebook.com/usafmc
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8:30 – 9 a.m.
REGISTRATION
9 – 9:30 a.m.
WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS Gregory Ball Dean and Professor, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Maryland Barbara Kennelly Former Congresswoman (Connecticut 1st, 1981–99); Founder, Barbara Kennelly Associates; President, USAFMC David Skaggs Former Congressman (Colorado 2nd, 1987–99); Board Member, USAFMC Bob Carr Former Congressman (Michigan 6th, 8th, 1975–81, 1983–95); Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Political Management, The George Washington University; Senior Advisor, Brookings Executive Education; Board Member, USAFMC
9:30 – 11 a.m. 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. 1:45 – 2:30 p.m.
PANEL I—CONGRESSIONAL REFORM IN THE 1970s PANEL II—CONGRESSIONAL REFORM AND THE REPUBLICAN RESURGENCE BREAK FOR LUNCH KEYNOTE ADDRESS Introduction Eric Swalwell Congressman (California 15th) Keynote Address Mark Shields Political Analyst and Commentator, PBS NewsHour
2:45 – 4 p.m.
PANEL III—LESSONS LEARNED: THE FUTURE OF CONGRESSIONAL REFORM
4 – 4:15 p.m.
CLOSING REMARKS James Thurber University Distinguished Professor of Government and Director, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University
4:15 – 5:15 p.m.
RECEPTION
PANEL I CONGRESSIONAL REFORM IN THE 1970s Moderator CHARLES W. JOHNSON III was appointed as an Assistant Parliamentarian by then-Speaker John W. McCormack on May 20, 1964. After a 30-year apprenticeship, Mr. Johnson was appointed Parliamentarian of the House on September 16, 1994, and served in that role until 2004. He has served as a consultant to the Office of the Parliamentarian from 2004 to the present. He was honored with the John W. McCormack Award of Excellence for House service in 2004. Among numerous works, Mr. Johnson is the co-author of Parliament and Congress: Representation and Scrutiny in the 21st Century with Sir William McKay (2nd edition, Oxford University Press). His edited volumes include Precedents of the House of Representatives (Deschler-Brown-Johnson). Mr. Johnson also has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia Law School and as a visiting professor at LUISS University in Rome.
SARAH BINDER is a professor of political science at The George Washington University and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is a past co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly and is the author or co-author of numerous works, including the forthcoming Monetary Politics; Advice and Dissent: The Struggle to Shape the Federal Judiciary (Brookings, 2009); and Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock (Brookings, 2003). Her other works on legislative politics have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science and elsewhere. Professor Binder was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015.
WILLIAM H. CABLE worked for 15 years for Congressional Committees and then served as an assistant to President Carter for Congressional Relations. He lobbied for 20 years on behalf of corporate and association clients to influence Federal policy. After September 11, 2001, Mr. Cable returned to the Hill to help develop processes to ensure continuity of government and operations in both the House and the Senate. He later became the staff director for then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Mr. Cable now consults part-time with the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Former Congressman DAVE OBEY represented Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for 42 years. He also served as Chair of the House Appropriations Committee from 2007 to 2011. Before his election to Congress, he served in the Wisconsin State Assembly for more than six years, where he served as deputy leader. Congressman Obey is a member of the USAFMC.
WALTER J. OLESZEK is a senior specialist in the legislative process at the Congressional Research Service. Mr. Oleszek has also served as either a full-time professional staff aide or consultant to nearly every major congressional reorganization effort, beginning with the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. In 1993, he served as policy director of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. A longtime adjunct faculty member at American University, Mr. Oleszek is the co-author of several books, including Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process and Congress and Its Members.
PANEL II CONGRESSIONAL REFORM AND THE REPUBLICAN RESURGENCE Moderator RONALD A. SARASIN is a board member with the USAFMC. He served three terms as a member of Congress, representing the fifth district of Connecticut from 1973 to 1979. Before that, he was a two-term representative in the Connecticut General Assembly and was a practicing attorney. Mr. Sarasin has served as president and chief executive officer of the United States Capitol Historical Society since 2000. Prior to that, he served for a decade as president and CEO of the National Beer Wholesalers Association. He also was director of government affairs at the National Restaurant Association. Mr. Sarasin is a veteran of the U.S. Navy.
MICKEY EDWARDS is vice president of the Aspen Institute and serves as director of its Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership. Mr. Edwards was a member of Congress from Oklahoma for 16 years, serving as a member of the House Republican Leadership and as a member of the Appropriations and Budget Committees. He later taught at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and as a lecturer at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Maryland Law School, Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and Harvard Law School. His books include The Parties Versus the People (Yale University Press). Mr. Edwards has been a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and has been a weekly political columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. WILLIAM R. PITTS served as staff director of the House Committee on Rules in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003–05. From 1980–95, he served as chief of staff and floor assistant to then-House Republican Leader Robert H. Michel. Prior to that, he served as floor assistant to the House Republican Whip and as manager of the House Republican Cloakroom. Among the numerous commissions and boards on which he has served are the President’s Commission on the Federal Appointment Process, the United States Capitol Historical Society Board of Directors and the Commercial Mobile Radio Alert Advisory Group. Mr. Pitts was honored by then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2006 with the John W. McCormack Congressional Award for Excellence. DONALD R. WOLFENSBERGER is a congressional fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a resident scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He previously served as director of the Congress Project at the Wilson Center. He writes a twice-monthly column, “Procedural Politics,” for Roll Call. He is the author of Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial (Johns Hopkins University Press, April 2000). Mr. Wolfensberger worked for 28 years as a staff member in the House of Representatives, rising to the position of chief-of-staff of the House Rules Committee in the 104th Congress. He is an expert on parliamentary rules and procedures and played a key role in developing House reform proposals for the Republican leadership over the years, culminating in their adoption as House rules when the GOP won majority control in 1995.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS Keynote Speaker MARK SHIELDS has worked in Washington through the administrations of nine U.S. Presidents. He was an editorial writer for The Washington Post, where he began writing his column in 1979; it is now distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate. Since 1988, Mr. Shields has provided weekly political analysis and commentary on national campaigns for the awardwinning PBS NewsHour. For 17 years, Mr. Shields served as moderator and panelist on CNN’s Capital Gang. He now is a regular panelist on Inside Washington, the weekly public affairs show which is seen on both ABC and PBS.
PANEL III LESSONS LEARNED: THE FUTURE OF CONGRESSIONAL REFORM Moderator JOHN A. LAWRENCE served for 38 years as a senior staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives, the last eight as Chief of Staff to Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He also served as staff director of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Natural Resources, as well as chief of staff and legislative director to Congressman George Miller. Upon his retirement in February 2013, Speakers John A. Boehner and Nancy Pelosi recognized Mr. Lawrence’s dedication to the House and to bipartisanship by conferring on him the John W. McCormack Award for Excellence. He currently is a visiting professor at the University of California (Washington Campus), and also teaches at the McCourt School for Public Policy at Georgetown University. He blogs on Congress and public affairs at DOMEocracy, johnalawrence.wordpress.com. FRANCES E. LEE is a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. She is the author of Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009). Professor Lee also is the co-author of Sizing Up The Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation (1999) and of a comprehensive textbook on the U.S. Congress, Congress and Its Members (Sage/CQ Press). Her books have received national recognition, including the American Political Science Association’s Richard F. Fenno Award for the best book on legislative politics, and the D. B. Hardeman Award—presented by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation for the best book on a congressional topic—in both 1999 and 2009. She is co-editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly.
NORMAN ORNSTEIN is a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal and The Atlantic and is an election eve analyst for BBC News. He served as co-director of the AEI– Brookings Election Reform Project and participates in AEI’s Election Watch series. He also served as a senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission. Mr. Ornstein led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. His many books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (AEI Press, 2000); and, with Thomas E. Mann, both The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track and It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.
JULIAN E. ZELIZER is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He has been one of the pioneers in the revival of American political history. Professor Zelizer has authored and edited 17 books, and has published more than 400 op-eds. Professor Zelizer writes a weekly column for CNN.com and is a regular commentator in the national media. His most recent book is The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress and the Battle over the Great Society. He is currently writing a book about the Speakership of Jim Wright.
ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND’S COLLEGE OF BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) at the University of Maryland is home to 10 diverse, interdisciplinary departments and programs, all committed to investigating and improving the human condition. Our faculty, students and alumni explore and inform the full range of fields in the behavioral and social sciences. While pursuing dramatically different projects and areas of research, each member of the BSOS community seeks to Be the Solution to the world’s great challenges.
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ABOUT THE U.S. ASSOCIATION OF FORMER MEMBERS OF CONGRESS The United States Association of Former Members of Congress (USAFMC) utilizes the unique skill sets of its 600 members to provide pro bono public service programs and initiatives both at home and abroad. Using the expertise of its membership, USAFMC has created programs to educate about the role of Congress, assist Congress in its international relations, and support emerging democracies abroad, all while providing opportunities for members to stay connected with their colleagues.
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BSOS and USAFMC gratefully acknowledge support for today’s event from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
USAFMC STEERING COMMITTEE For more than a year, a Steering Committee has been working to help shape and present today’s program. We thank them for their very important contributions to its success: Dr. Steven Billet Hon. M. Robert Carr Hon. Norman E. D’Amours Mr. Doug Dibbert Hon. Mickey Edwards Mr. Les Francis Hon. Charles Johnson Dr. John Lawrence Mr. Scott Lilly Dr. Thomas Mann Hon. Matthew F. McHugh Hon. Norman Y. Mineta
Mr. Bob Noun Dr. Walter Oleszek Dr. Norman Ornstein Mr. Billy Pitts Hon. Ron Sarasin Hon. Philip R. Sharp Hon. David Skaggs Mr. Bill Sweeney Dr. James A. Thurber Dr. Matt Wasniewski Mr. Pete Weichlein Mr. Don Wolfensberger
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