Lee Hamilton Comments on Congress

Whatever Their Tone, We Need Town Hall Meetings

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:49:00 -0400

The strident rhetoric and heated tone of recent congressional town-hall meetings has some people wondering whether they're getting out of hand. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says this is nothing new, and that "Whatever Their Tone, We Need Town Hall Meetings."

Years ago, when I was still in Congress, I pulled up one day to address a public meeting in a remote and very rural part of Indiana. The sheriff, a friend of mine, met me outside the small volunteer fire house where I was to speak. "The Ku Klux Klan is here in full regalia," he told me. "If you'd like, I'll keep them out of your meeting."

For just a second, I'll confess, I weighed his offer. But I was not in the business of trying to keep constituents out of public gatherings — even if they were in the KKK. No, I told my friend, the Klansmen could come in, as long as they removed their hoods. There's no place for anonymity in a public meeting, I said.

And so about twenty-five of them — hoodless — marched down the aisle made by the rickety folding chairs set up in the tiny firehouse and took their places in the front. Was this or was this not a Christian nation, they demanded. And what did I think about Jewish influence in Hollywood and on the media? I responded calmly, but their persistent overtones of anti-Semitism wore out the audience's patience. Eventually they left, and the meeting continued.

I've been thinking recently about that long-ago event as the temperature of congressional town meetings heats up. Media coverage of stormy public gatherings may give the impression that we've entered an especially fraught time for public discourse, but I can tell you that anyone who's been in public life for a while has seen plenty of fierce town-hall meetings. The challenge is not to avoid controversy; it's to make it productive. Here are some things I've learned over the years about how to do that:

First, you have to recognize that public meetings are crucial for members of Congress and other elected officials. They're where they can best gauge the intensity of public feeling, hear from ordinary citizens, and give people a chance to get to know firsthand their representative. Sometimes you have to square your shoulders before you head into a room where you know tempers are going to flare, but this is democracy at the retail level, and it's vital.

Often, raw emotions surface — a particular policy can affect people deeply, and they ought to hold strong views about it. The first rule if you're the official presiding over the meeting is to be unfailingly polite and let everyone speak—don't cut anyone off. The crowd will always start out sympathizing with friends and neighbors, even vociferous ones, but I've noticed that angry or long-winded speakers inevitably wear out their welcome, as the Klan members in Indiana did. In the end, most people come to meetings like these to listen and discuss, not hear someone else harangue them.

In some ways, the bigger challenge that a member of Congress faces is to draw out the people who don't speak easily, but who often have insightful things to say. Every meeting will have speakers seeking the limelight; the trick is to create a space where the more hesitant can feel comfortable saying what's on their minds, too.

Sometimes, it's hard to understand a question or comment; people don't always express themselves clearly. But it's important to try hard, and not simply brush someone off because he or she is inarticulate. Because when you do finally understand, you'll often be impressed by the common sense and pragmatism that often underlie people's concerns, no matter how angry or tongue-tied they appear to be.

Finally, meetings like these are a chance not only to educate the public, but also to be educated by it. Once, at an especially lively meeting over the Panama Canal treaties in the 1970s, I found myself — a supporter of the treaties — overwhelmed by the opposition in the room and not quite sure I would emerge from the meeting in one piece. A constituent I'd never met stood up and gave the most cogent argument for ratification I'd ever heard. Not only did the room quiet down, but I took those debating points back to Washington with me, duly reminded that there is great wisdom even in the most obscure corners of our country.

Over my years in Congress, I conducted hundreds, if not thousands, of town-hall meetings. Almost every time I came away with the feeling that this was precisely what I was meant to be doing — engaging with my constituents in a small part of the dialogue of democracy. Just as often, these meetings reinforced my confidence in the fairness, decency and judgment of the American people.

So as we look ahead to the next congressional recess, and no doubt to the next round of heated town-hall meetings, let's remember that they, too, help ensure that our representative democracy remains vibrant.

Audio Version

It's Time to Govern the Flow of Political Money

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:19:00 -0400

The amount of money flowing through the system for congressional campaigns and lobbying has grown so enormous that it threatens Congress' ability to do its job right. This is why, says former Congressman Lee Hamilton, "It's Time To Govern The Flow Of Political Money."

There was a time when I believed that the best way to curtail the impact of money flowing into our political system was to monitor it. Make sure that campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures were reported quickly and accurately, I reasoned, and journalists and the American public could determine for themselves what they could tolerate.

Transparency is still needed. But the entire political system is now so swamped with cash — and lawmakers so overwhelmed by the need to raise it — that something more is clearly needed. Congress, the institution I know best, is in danger of drowning. It needs help. Americans dislike the idea of using taxpayer dollars to fund politicians' campaigns, but what Congress needs is pretty straightforward: It needs public financing of congressional campaigns.

The simple cost of running for office is ludicrous. I first ran for Congress 45 years ago, and spent $30,000 on that race. That was before the costs of television advertising, pollsters, consultants, web strategists, get-out-the-vote efforts and all the other mechanics of a modern campaign took off — it was even before most of them were considered essential. These days, the winners of House seats spend an average of $1.3 million on their campaigns (and that includes both competitive and noncompetitive races); on the Senate side, it's closer to $8 million.

Except for certain well-situated politicians, most of the people running for Congress are not raising this money at home. Instead, they're turning to wealthy donors in a few major metropolitan areas — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and, of course, Washington, D.C. In the last election cycle, in fact, contributions from those five cities, many of them aligned with one or another special interest jockeying for position on Capitol Hill, outweighed those from 36 states combined.

Although the rise of the Web as a fundraising tool has to some extent democratized political giving, that trend is still puny compared to the concentration of financial power in relatively few hands. In 2008, a few industry sectors — finance and real estate, lawyers and lobbyists, healthcare, communications, and energy and transportation — combined to provide $1.2 billion to federal candidates. Of all the funds raised by federal candidates, including candidates for president, less than 1 percent of Americans provided 80 percent of the money.

The effect of all this is apparent. Far too many Americans are now convinced that they count for very little in the political arena because their voices are drowned out at election time by heavy donors and in the legislative process by well-heeled special interests. In a poll conducted last year by the Center on Congress at Indiana University, over half the people surveyed believed that members of Congress pay closest attention to lobbyists; only 10 percent believed they listen to the folks back home.

This is understandable, especially if you look at giving patterns whenever Congress takes up legislation affecting a given industry. When a banking regulation bill starts moving on Capitol Hill, suddenly donations to key members of the banking committees skyrocket; when a health care bill is on the docket, the flow of money to key committee members is unstinting. These torrents of cash power widespread cynicism about our system.

The impact on Capitol Hill has been no more wholesome. Lawmakers are engulfed by the need to raise money, and by the political calculations they must inevitably make when weighing what big-time donors want. They spend many hours each week going to fundraisers or telephoning potential donors; given the need to raise some $15,000 every week for House seats (and more for the Senate), it's hardly surprising that they find themselves listening especially closely to those who can promise access to the financial spigot.

We often criticize Congress for its inefficiency, but its members certainly are efficient at vacuuming up contributions. Yet this fundraising treadmill makes it much more difficult for our elected representatives to do what we hired them to do: study and understand the complicated dilemmas facing our country, debate the policy alternatives, work with one another to forge common ground, and spend time listening to and speaking with their constituents. In other words, it has wrenched the political process completely off track. For both candidate and contributor, the money-hunting process is demeaning.

So it's time for us to consider some alternatives. In my view, this means moving toward the public funding of congressional campaigns, just as we do for presidential campaigns — perhaps requiring a mix of public and private funds.

When I propose this in public forums, I often feel lucky there aren't any pitchforks handy, because my irate listeners would certainly use them on me. But as a political scientist I know puts it: We already pay for congressional campaigns, we just label it "the national debt." Interests that donate to campaigns often get what they want from legislation, and we all pay for that; by comparison, public financing seems like a bargain. Until we get it, moneyed interests will command the playing field, and our political process — and our representative democracy — will be twisted beyond all sense.

Audio Version

You, Too, Should Care About What's Happening To Journalism

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:29:00 -0400

The troubles besetting journalism are of great concern to politicians and journalists who care about the media's role in a representative democracy. But former Congressman Lee Hamilton says that "You, Too, Should Care About What's Happening to Journalism."

A central aspect of the art of politics in Washington is getting information to the American people. Determining what the White House, Congress and the people will focus on — and, just as important, what the content of debate will be — preoccupies politicians at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and legions of lobbyists, pundits, strategists and consultants.

One major institution looms large in all these people's calculations: the national media. Not only has it historically played a vital role in informing the people and focusing their attention on issues that need addressing, but also it has a considerable impact on how we talk about them. What we read in the newspapers, hear on the radio, and see on television or online helps to shape how public policy gets discussed.

The crosscurrents of reasoned discourse and angry outbursts that have characterized much of the debate on health care reform are a perfect illustration of how coverage by the mainstream media, the exhortations of talk radio hosts, and extreme theories spread through the blogosphere all combine to influence the dialogue of democracy.

You can find the crucial role that an independent media plays in a democracy in any basic journalism text. Unlike partisan commentators and bloggers, its first obligation is to the truth: to provide the basic information that a self-governing people relies on to make discerning judgments. This means that journalists have a heavy responsibility to check the facts and be accurate, since their fundamental role is to foster understanding of issues, players and government, not to stoke contempt or praise for them.

The press helps make representative democracy work. If it does its job, it maintains a healthy skepticism of those in power — and of those who seek to defeat them at the ballot box. It should perform vital oversight not only of government, but also of the special interests that seek to influence it. It should provide a forum for public dialogue. It should report comprehensively on issues in a manner that does not reduce them to simple sound bites. And it should strive to help readers, listeners and viewers understand what is significant and what is not.

Without a robust, independent and professionally competent media helping Americans understand our government and politics, and giving them the tools to make good judgments about them, our democracy will fail.

This historic role of the press is under siege today. In part, of course, it's being undermined by the sorry financial state that many newspapers and mainstream news programs find themselves in. But it is also being compromised by the blurring that has taken place in recent years between news and opinion, and. more destructively, between news and entertainment.

The media today is more anxious to comment on the news than it is to cover and report it. Hard news and reasoned analysis are foundering as the numbers of reporters shrink, Washington bureaus are slashed or abandoned altogether, and the space devoted to the basic informative aspects of journalism gives way to reporting about politics, polls, personalities and conflicts, rather than the substance of issues.

And what has come to dominate the public's attention instead? Feisty advocates for a particular point of view, belligerent personalities, and wordsmiths promoted for their cleverness and temerity. Television is a particular culprit here. Many interviewers on television now deem it a virtue to offer an avalanche of opinions and a trickle of facts, to prod for angry shouting matches, to exacerbate differences, and to book guests based on their partisanship, not their knowledge.

It has reached the point where people attempting to be fair, reasoned and discriminating on many television shows either give up or find themselves in the awkward position of being marginalized. The political center may be alive and well among Americans on the ground, but it is very hard to find on the air — when, for instance, was the last time you saw a program on abortion that wasn't all about the clash of pro-life and pro-choice advocates, rather than the more subtle views held by many Americans?

Moreover, I am amazed at how much airtime is spent interviewing pundits about their opinions, both informed and ill-informed, and how little time is spent investigating the facts or breaking stories not already covered in the print media.

All of this, of course, concerns both responsible journalists and those they cover. The relationship between decision-makers and the journalists who report on them is symbiotic. Journalists need newsmakers, but they also rely on politicians with a deep understanding of a given issue to help them explain it to the broader public. Likewise, politicians and policy-makers rely on journalists to help build public understanding by reporting in depth on the substance of issues, not just the politics and the personalities.

A world filled with partisan blogs and hyper-bloviating commentators can work to a politician's advantage, giving him or her the ability to stoke public support by appealing only to the faithful. But the travails besetting journalism today are alarming to those of us who believe that democracy is not simply a matter of mobilizing the masses; it is instead about searching for common ground among competing interests on difficult issues and then painstakingly building support for compromise and reasoned solutions.

All who believe in representative democracy must understand that what's happening in journalism today has huge consequences for the quality and vitality of our republic.

Audio Version

Members of Congress Need to Travel

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:09:00 -0400

The recent brouhaha over congressional plans to buy new military jets for official travel has brought a new round of public criticism of congressional "junkets." Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says, on the contrary: "Members of Congress Need to Travel."

Spooked by the public outcry, the House of Representatives has cancelled its order for four new military jet aircraft that would have been used occasionally to ferry members of Congress around the world. Even so, you shouldn't expect for a minute that the next time you fly, your seatmate in coach will be some duly humbled congressman on a fact-finding mission.

For the most part, when members of Congress head overseas on government business, their experience is a bit different from travel as most of us know it. To begin with, there's no need to worry about schedules or wait at the ticket counter or fret about missing a flight because you're stuck in a security line. If you're flying courtesy of the government, the Air Force will have a plane waiting whenever you're ready to go. Someone picks you up at your house or on Capitol Hill and takes you to Andrews Air Force Base, where they seat you in a very nicely appointed VIP lounge with plenty of refreshments. At some point along the way, they also take charge of your bags; the next time you'll see them will be in your hotel room. You carry on board only those papers and belongings you need in flight.

In the air, members of Congress fly with more room and amenities than first class on commercial flights, with plenty of legroom, excellent meals and attentive service. There's usually a doctor on the flight, offering tips for staying healthy on long jaunts. Quite often, spouses are included in the trip, "for protocol purposes," as the phrase goes. At your destination, you're met by an embassy official who not only has all the details you'll need on your itinerary, but also a wealth of information on restaurants, entertainment (tickets available upon request), museums, and sightseeing, along with information on the politics, personalities, economy and culture of the country you're visiting.

It can sound a lot like one of those tours to exotic locales that colleges now arrange for alumni, except that the taxpayer is picking up much of the bill. And let me assure you, it's not a modest bill. A military plane costs an estimated $10,000 an hour to operate — and that's before you factor in the costs of the actual visit on the ground.

Given Americans' distaste for letting their public officials enjoy unusual privileges, you might be tempted to deride government-sponsored travel as a waste of time and money. But despite everything I've just described, I don't think it is.

The reason is that the alternative — privately sponsored travel — is worse. If a group with an interest in legislation is paying for a trip, it enjoys an extraordinary advantage, because it has those politicians' undivided attention and creates obligations to the group. If you control the transportation, then you control much of the official's itinerary. This is why Congress has sensibly changed the rules governing travel and begun to restrict privately sponsored trips.

And members of Congress do need to travel. Even now, many of these trips can hardly be considered junkets: They go to some pretty uncomfortable places, like Iraq and Afghanistan — where the projection of American power means that the bulk of Americans who travel there are the kind who pack an M-16 as an ordinary part of their luggage.

Members of Congress need to see places that our policies affect, whether they're in the glamorous capital cities of the world, in a war zone, in the developing world or even in Antarctica. There's no other way to understand fully what's at stake.

Members of Congress who travel to difficult spots around the world and try to learn first-hand how our policies and programs work (or don't work) on the ground should be commended, not criticized. Elected officials who don't travel are as much of a problem as those who abuse the privilege.

Don't get me wrong: There are certainly some members who vacation on the public dime. And there's no question that opportunities to keep expenses down on official trips should be a matter of course for Congress. Still, railing against all congressional travel isn't especially useful.

Instead, I believe, the process ought to be as transparent as possible. Every proposed trip should have a legislative purpose, its costs should be rigorously, fully and honestly disclosed, and the ethics committees in the House and Senate should be charged with ensuring that congressional travel privileges don't get abused. A detailed report of the trip with all the relevant information, findings and conclusions should be required. That way, Americans can be sure they're getting public-policy value for their money.

Audio Version

Congrees Needs a Five-Day Work Week

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 6 Apr 2010 09:13:00 -0400

Making Congress more effective does not necessarily require complicated reforms. In fact, a simple change would go a long way: "Congress Needs A Five-Day Work Week," suggests former Congressman Lee Hamilton.

Looking at ways to make Congress a stronger, more effective institution, it's easy for reformers to get dispirited by the sheer complexity of the task. How do you even begin to fix the budget process, or reduce the hold of campaign money on members' attention, or change the lopsided power equation between Congress and the White House? Yet there is one small improvement that Congress could put into effect right now that would go a long way toward making it a more successful body: extend the congressional work week.

I don't mean to suggest that members of Congress are sloughing off. Far from it: they work extremely hard. It's just that much of their work involves tasks other than legislating. Most of the year, they devote only three days a week to this fundamental responsibility; the rest of the time, they're raising money, giving speeches, politicking in the district, traveling on fact-finding visits, meeting with lobbyists and constituents, and attending to the myriad other responsibilities that contemporary members of Congress believe to be part of their job.

Only during the middle days of the week is their attention focused on the hard and often tedious work of crafting legislative language on difficult policy issues — the core, in the end, of their constitutional reason for being.

Even then, if you spend some time on Capitol Hill, you cannot help but be impressed by the frenzied pace that legislators maintain during the few days they're there. They rush from one committee hearing to another; they hold countless meetings with lobbyists or groups of constituents, interrupted by a quick dash to the floor for votes; they give speeches, spend much time with the media, attend receptions and fundraising events, and put out dozens of telephone calls. The members of Congress I meet generally seem very tired, and it's no wonder, given the schedule they keep.

Which is why I often think of a piece of advice I got from the great New York Times newsman James "Scotty" Reston shortly after I arrived in Congress in the mid-1960s. "Make sure," he told me, "that you take the time to put your feet up on the table, look out the window, and think." When I repeated this to some members of Congress recently, they just laughed — they recognized good advice when they heard it, but also recognized that getting even a few minutes to reflect at peace seems an impossibility these days.

The manic schedule that members of Congress maintain costs them more than the chance to get their thoughts in order. I would argue, in fact, that it hurts their ability to be effective as legislators. For the simple truth is that good legislating takes time. It demands the patient pursuit of consensus, the working through of alternatives, the ability to test ideas in debate, and a willingness to build the broad consensus that is necessary for effective legislation.

All of this is pretty much impossible if you usually devote only three — or three and a half — days a week to the work of the Congress. Many members don't have the opportunity to get to know one another well, and therefore to build the trust required to work across party and ideological lines. Time for debate and deliberation — key constitutional responsibilities — gets constrained.

The opportunities multiply for pursuing delaying tactics, playing against the clock, or, in the Senate, threatening a filibuster. Leaders have more leeway to circumvent good democratic process by cramming complex legislation into last-minute, must-pass legislative vehicles. The cramped congressional schedule, in other words, curtails the deliberative process and encourages the dysfunctional habits that the American people have come to identify with Congress.

This is why returning to a five-day work week on Capitol Hill, at least for three out of every four weeks, is so important.

I recognize that it is politically difficult to pull off — the jet airplane has made returning home to the district so easy that members of Congress feel they must do so every Thursday evening or risk alienating their constituents and the local media. But if they're interested in producing good legislation, there is no substitute for time spent doing so.

A longer work week in Washington would give them the chance to build the ties they need to work together, to craft legislation without constantly looking at the clock, to overcome the delaying tactics that have so frustrated policy-makers in recent years, and to make more rapid progress on the truly difficult issues that confront Congress with such regularity these days. It might even, every so often, give them a chance to put their feet up on the table, look out the window, and spend some time pondering what's best for the American people.

Audio Version

The Sotomayor Hearings Were Hardly Oversight

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:14:00 -0400

One of Congress's most important oversight roles is thoroughly to examine presidential nominees who will be making U.S. policy. This includes Supreme Court nominees, and on this score, says former Congressman Lee Hamilton, "The Sotomayor Hearings Were Hardly 'Oversight.'"

Over four days of hearings into the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her 583 questions. Yet when they were done, we knew little more of importance than we did at the beginning.

To be sure, everyone did his or her job. Senators asked good questions about weighty issues facing this country, from gun rights to how far the executive branch can go in terrorism surveillance. Judge Sotomayor herself laid out the complex history and reasoning behind some notable Supreme Court decisions. Everything went smoothly, there were no headline-grabbing catastrophes, the Obama administration was pleased — in short, for the political establishment these were successful hearings.

Yet I found them singularly unsatisfying, and for a simple reason: despite senators' obvious preparation and repeated attempts to learn more about Judge Sotomayor's views, they failed to illuminate the things we really need to know about her.

This was in no small part due to Judge Sotomayor's masterful adherence to a formula perfected by several nominees before her, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alioto and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It is an approach designed to advance an agenda shared by the nominee and the White House — to get confirmed with a minimum of fuss. It includes:
— avoiding direct responses to questions on legal issues while showing a firm command of the considerations involved;
— carefully articulating relevant precedent while declining to reveal how one feels about it;
— taking care to be unflappable and polite, answering each senator as if his or her question were the most important of the hearing;
— and claiming the high road of not answering abstract or hypothetical questions while construing as many questions as possible as falling into this category.

Above all, Judge Sotomayor — like any number of nominees before her — adhered to two myths that senators have historically been reluctant to puncture.

The first is that judges do not legislate from the bench. The truth is, judges of all persuasions do this all the time. When the law is not clear — and as a former member of Congress, I can tell you that a lot of legislation is not clear, because one of the ways Congress reaches consensus is by leaving language ambiguous — then a judge has to decide what it means. And that's making law.

The second myth was repeatedly cited by Judge Sotomayor. Intensely aware of the tricky partisan politics around her years-old "wise Latina" remark, she maintained that judges should not exercise personal discretion in deciding cases, only the precedent of the law. Yet judging is a complex process, and smart people apply the law differently based on their own experience and opinions. In other words, they use personal discretion. If they didn't, then every decision facing the Court would be decided 9-0.

Because the Senate Judiciary Committee was unable to break through these polite pretenses, the American people came away from the Sotomayor hearings with little idea of what kind of justice she will be, and in particular with few indications of how she would rule.

This makes little sense. The Supreme Court, whatever the official mythology, is one of the prime policy-making bodies in Washington; it makes law with every case it decides. As citizens of a democratic government, are we not entitled to know more about how a Justice Sotomayor would think about the cases before her?

To be sure, on questions she might be called upon to decide in short order, there might be legitimate cause to decline to answer questions. But that right should be exercised narrowly. On the whole, Americans would have been far better served had we been able to learn her positions on abortion, executive versus legislative power, gun rights, privacy, and a raft of other issues.

That, after all, is what legislative oversight is about, and it is why I am critical of the Senate's current process for deciding on a Supreme Court nomination. We need to know as much as possible about the people who will fill this vitally important role in the nation's policy-making apparatus. It is Congress's responsibility, as the arm of the federal government closest to the American people, to ensure that we do.

Instead, by allowing itself to be persuaded by the politically expedient argument that justice is blind, the Senate has merely ensured that up to the moment a new justice actually puts on the robes of the highest court in the land, the American people will be, too.

Audio Version

The Private Lives of Public Officials

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:40:00 -0400

Looking at recent revelations about the private misconduct of a series of public officials, you might ask what the public response ought to be. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says that when it comes to the private lives of public officials, that decision is up to each of us individually.

As happens every so often, we have recently been through a spate of embarrassing reports about the lives of prominent public officials. Adulterous affairs by Nevada Senator John Ensign, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and former presidential candidate John Edwards, entanglements in prostitution by Louisiana Senator David Vitter and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer — these are just the latest in a long line of dismaying revelations about people in whom the American voters once put their trust.

Celebrities often disappoint. Baseball players use steroids; track stars and internationally known bicyclists enhance their performance with chemicals; entertainers slip into alcohol- or drug-induced misbehavior; ministers run away with their choir directors.

Politicians are no different, with actions that raise issues about their judgment, self-control, and basic integrity. They are public figures, but they are also all too human, with all the strengths and flaws that attach to the human condition.

The question, of course, is what do we do when their private lives go off the rails? And the answer, I'm afraid, is that there is no answer: Each of us can only respond according to his or her own lights.

I still remember, for instance, a single day in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal that beset the presidency of Bill Clinton. Two constituents of mine, both strong Clinton supporters, spoke publicly about their reactions. One commented that he still believed Clinton was a strong and effective president, whatever his personal behavior. The other declared that he was appalled by the whole affair and could never bring himself to support Clinton again. Both were intensely personal reactions.

Because there are no set rules when it comes to this sort of thing, there is also little consistency when it comes to the long-term results. Some politicians' careers have been undone or badly sidetracked — think of Spitzer, Edwards, or former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey — while others have suffered uncomplimentary attention for a few weeks and then picked up their careers where they left off.

In the end, a politician's fate often rests in the hands of the voters, who must use their own judgment about that politician's values, performance, and abilities. Voters tend to prefer politicians who share their values and signal that they'd make similar choices on ideological issues — indeed, the question of how much weight to place on character issues often depends on whether or not we agree on a politician's positions.

But if voters see hypocrisy — behavior that the politician in question would have been quick to condemn in others — they are less likely to be tolerant, and can be merciless.

There is another question that has to come up in such cases, and that is whether the misbehavior is truly personal, or instead threatens to bring discredit to the institution in which the politician serves. This is illustrated in the House of Representatives, where the official name of the committee overseeing members' behavior is not — despite its wide use — the "House Ethics Committee," but rather the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee. Its focus is less on ethical misconduct in general than on actions that relate to official conduct and that might undermine the integrity of the institution or affect a member's performance of his or her official duties.

A House member's extra-marital affair with a neighbor, for instance, would probably not lead to any formal committee involvement — in that case, the House would leave questions of punishment up to the voters back home. But a member's affair with a lobbyist, or with a paid member of the staff — and certainly with a congressional page — would lead to a much tougher look by the committee and the House as a whole. In some cases, important questions need to be investigated and answered: Was public money involved? Did a politician abuse his or her position of power? Were any laws broken?

This means that sometimes — rarely to be sure — the House or Senate takes action to remove the member from Congress. Yet other times he may leave because of actions taken by the courts. And sometimes he decides to resign from office midterm or not run for re-election.

Yet often the decision is left up to the voter, and in that case each of us will have to make our own judgments. We may be disappointed when a political leader's personal vulnerabilities or weaknesses come to light, but how that affects our willingness to support him or her is a deeply personal decision.

As voters, we're asked all the time to make decisions about politicians based on incomplete or insufficient information. When an elected official misbehaves, all we can do is to make the best decision we can, rooted in what we know about the case and our own personal reaction.

Audio Version

Congress Needs To Embrace Transparency

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:46:00 -0500

Secrecy in government breeds cynicism. That is why, former Congressman Lee Hamilton says, "Congress Needs to Embrace Transparency."

The word "transparency" has been much in vogue on Capitol Hill lately. The stimulus package contained unprecedented requirements for tracking where and how federal dollars are spent. Some members of Congress have openly been pushing the National Security Agency to account for its surveillance of U.S. citizens' emails. President Obama's plans for revamping financial regulation have brought renewed calls for greater openness on the part of the Federal Reserve, one of the most habitually opaque institutions in Washington.

These are refreshing developments. A big part of Congress' role in our democracy is to ensure that the executive branch carries out its responsibilities to the American people in plain sight — or, at least, as openly as the demands of national security permit.

The presumption in a free society is that government will operate in the light of day, allowing its actions to be gauged and assessed, and its decision-makers to be held accountable to the American people. There are limits, of course, especially when it comes to national security, but secrecy is too often used as an excuse to cloak positions that politicians don't want to reveal, or mistakes that bureaucrats would rather cover up, or simply to avoid accountability for actions that wouldn't stand up to public scrutiny.

I don't mean to suggest that transparency is always called for, but the institutions of our government function better when they do so visibly, rather than in the shadows.

This goes especially for Congress. On the whole, it has a better record of openness than the executive branch, but it's "the people's branch" — it ought to do better. Over the last few decades it has made some significant strides on this score: putting television cameras in the House and Senate chambers and in committee hearings; requiring recorded votes both on the floor and in committee; opening up conference committees; moving — at least in the House of Representatives — to make campaign filings more easily available, and requiring more information from lobbyists.

All of this makes legislators more accountable to the people who elect them and more accessible to the various stakeholders who will be affected by legislation.

Yet openness in Congress is a work in progress, not a done deal. Increasingly, for instance, important legislation is being put together by just a few leading members, sometimes without amendments or full-on debate being allowed. The drive to open conference committees has had the unforeseen side effect of making them less important — the leadership of both houses often cooperates, now, to sidestep them so that deals can be struck in private.

While the 110th Congress took the important step of making individual members' responsibility for particular earmarks more transparent, it is still too hard to find out whether officers of companies benefiting from those earmarks made campaign contributions to the members who sponsored them.

And although Congress has tried to strengthen the disclosures required of lobbyists, it has been less assertive about enforcing them — according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a sample group of lobbyists failed to document fully their activities in more than half the disclosure reports they filed, as required by law.

While secrecy breeds problems for government as a whole, I believe it is especially problematic for Congress. It makes ordinary Americans more cynical, limits the access of stakeholders, and permits members to avoid accountability for their actions and cut corners they shouldn't cut. In other words, it creates both political problems for Congress — as measured by lack of trust in the institution — and makes legislation less responsive than it would be if it were openly created and debated.

As a member of Congress, I often encountered a troubling lack of confidence in the American people on the part of both executive-branch officials and my congressional colleagues. They believed that it was fine for them to know things that most Americans didn't. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times: "Trust me; I know." This is fine for troop movements, but in most cases I believe they underestimated the sophistication and good judgment of the American people. "Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe," Abraham Lincoln once said.

And while I thoroughly agree with him, I would add one point: If it is the responsibility of Congress and the White House to hold themselves to high standards of transparency, it is equally the responsibility of voters and media to demand openness and accountability of their government.

Audio Version

Why Congress Needs Institutionalists

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 9 Mar 2010 10:20:00 -0500

In these politicized times, it's getting harder to find members of Congress who put the interests of the institution they serve first Former Congressman Lee Hamilton says this is troubling, and explains "Why Congress Needs Institutionalists."

It takes all kinds of people to make the U.S. Congress work. The ambitious and the laid-back, loners and consensus-builders, partisans and aisle-crossers — all have their place. In these highly politicized times, though, there's one type who is particularly valuable: the institutionalist.

This means pretty much what it sounds like: a member who puts the institution of Congress first. Who welcomes responsibility for making it work; who pushes his or her colleagues to fulfill their constitutional obligations; who respects the role and history of Congress in forging this country's history.

Institutionalists generally tend to be more senior members of Congress, whose years on Capitol Hill not only give them an appreciation for the accomplishments of the legislators who came before them, but also help them put in perspective all the other considerations that compete for a younger member's attention, like partisanship, power, relations with the White House, and the regular task of getting re-elected.

For what an institutionalist values above all else is the role that Congress plays in making our representative democracy viable. It should not be merely a body of elected officials, each pursuing his or her own goals or banding together to advance one political party's interests. Rather, Congress has a set of responsibilities laid out in the Constitution and developed over the 220 years of its existence that enable it to serve as the place where the American people come closest to touching their national government.

To do what's required of it, Congress must function as a deliberative and democratic body; work as both a partner and a critic of the presidency; protect itself against inevitable pressure from the White House to let the President set the agenda in all things; and engage constantly in the search for remedies to the challenges that beset our country. These things don't just happen on their own. They require members of Congress to tend to the body in which they serve.

All too often, though, both incumbents and challengers these days run against the Congress, taking delight in criticizing it and hoping to make themselves look good as a result; this public disdain for the institution makes it much harder to play a constructive role in building on what's right about the place.

The traditions of Congress — rules about how legislation should be handled, how debate takes place, how controversy gets channeled through layers of committees so a productive conversation can take place — evolved because of a simple insight: democracy is a process, not the most expeditious means to a result. Congressional conventions embody certain values, such as fairness, the importance of deliberation, and a bedrock concern for building consensus instead of riding roughshod over the concerns of the minority or throwing wrenches into the plans of the majority.

Fairness and deliberation and consensus-seeking have not been noticeable priorities in Congress of late. Over the last couple of decades, concern for how Congress functions as an institution has increasingly taken a back seat to other priorities: party-building, fundraising, the centralization of power in the leadership's hands, making certain that members can take four days every week to get home and campaign. This has all taken a visible toll on relations among members of Congress, and it has also diminished the institution itself. It has become less fair, less deliberative, and — with some exceptions — less concerned with finding consensus among its diverse parts.

This is why it is so crucial that there be members of Congress whose chief goal is to strengthen it. Anyone with an appreciation for the accomplishments of Congresses past — from the GI Bill to the creation of the land-grant colleges to the interstate highway system to Medicare, Medicaid and the civil rights legislation of the 1960s — can't help but see value in an institution capable of making this a better nation.

Institutionalists in Congress are often seen by their peers as slightly quirky nags, consumed with the trifles of process or precedent while the more important work of fighting against the opposition or slamming legislation through at all costs goes ahead. But of course, they've got it backward. It's the institutionalists who have the nation's best interests at heart, because they understand the role that Congress plays in sustaining a functioning democracy and making the country work.

Audio Version

Is Fixing Congressional Procedure A Lost Cause?

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Wed, 3 Mar 2010 15:59:00 -0500

Changes in how Congress operates have made it a less open, fair and democratic institution. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton worries that it may now be too late to change, and wonders, "Is Fixing Congressional Procedure A Lost Cause?"

Four years ago, the Democratic minority on the Rules Committee of the U.S. House — the body that oversees legislative process for that side of the Capitol — issued a lengthy report excoriating the Republican majority for abandoning "procedural fairness" and "democratic accountability." The House leadership of the time, it charged, had essentially shut down debate and boxed the minority out of any meaningful participation in congressional life.

Last year, the Republicans on the committee — now in the minority themselves — responded with a similar broadside. They accused the new Democratic majority, in the words of their report's subtitle, of abandoning "its promises of openness and civility." "The record demonstrates," they went on to say, that Congress under the Democrats "has actually been more closed than any in history."

This exchange may seem to be an obscure front in the usual partisan warfare on Capitol Hill, but there is something more fundamental going on than simple partisanship. There is, I believe, a generational shift that has taken place in Congress that raises the question of whether the deliberation, openness and fairness that most Americans would want to see in their premier legislative body are receding out of reach.

Simply put, the rules have become a tool of the leadership in both parties to pursue their goals — and there are very few members of Congress who still remember when they instead guaranteed the right of ordinary members to engage in open debate and to affect the course of legislation. Each side seems to recognize this now only when it is in the minority.

The body of rules that members of Congress like to refer to as "the regular order" evolved over time for a reason. It performed a balancing act: on the one hand, allowing any member a chance to participate in debate and legislation, and on the other, seeking to rein in and channel the determination of ambitious politicians to have their say. In doing this, the rules sought to preserve Congress' essential nature as the place where Americans' representatives could bring their various points of view — regional, ideological, moral, and parochial — and work to reconcile them as they grappled with promoting the national interest.

But gradually, beginning under Democratic majorities in the 1980s and accelerating under the Republican majority of the 1990s, the leadership — especially in the House — began to experiment with interpreting the rules to maximize its power. It did so in part because it wanted to banish uncertainty — the unforeseen amendment, the chance that a floor debate might change minds — and in part because the close partisan divide of the last couple of decades has raised the stakes in every vote, redoubling the determination of the majority to avoid politically uncomfortable votes arranged by the minority.

The paths the leadership took seem technical. It used the Rules Committee, stacked with loyalists, to limit the ability of members to debate or amend legislation. It found ways to bypass the general committee structure entirely and have bills considered only under conditions — and with amendments — of its own choosing. It began to rely on huge omnibus bills that are impossible for members to read through, let alone analyze and debate, before they're voted on. It limited the ability of conference committees between the House and Senate to depart from the script laid out in advance by leaders in both chambers.

The upshot, however, is not at all technical. Power is now concentrated in the hands of the leadership and its allies. Actual debate — debate in which the legislative outcome is uncertain — is largely a thing of the past. Legislative maneuvering is aimed less at affecting policy than at affecting elections. The divide between the majority and the minority — not just as partisan bodies, but as individuals serving in Congress together — is deepened by mutual unhappiness over how the other side behaves.

This is not healthy for Congress, and it is certainly not healthy for the American people, who deserve policies that are openly debated and fairly pursued. So I worry that with every passing year, it is getting harder to undo the changes of the past couple of decades. For most members of Congress now, the current state of affairs is "the regular order," and the earlier era isn't even a memory.

Change is unlikely to be driven from within; it will only happen, I believe, if enough members of the public come to see the disconnect between how Congress runs itself day-to-day, and our ideals for a representative democracy that is worthy of the name.

Audio Version

What It Means To Be A Representative

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:24:00 -0500

One of the hardest jobs of an elected representative is learning how to represent a diverse constituency. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton explains "What It Means To Be A Representative."

Compared to what it looked like a couple of decades ago, Congress today is a far more representative body. It's true that, as Congressional Quarterly recently pointed out, the House and Senate are still "populated mainly by wealthy white men with advanced degrees and backgrounds in law and business." Yet Capitol Hill undeniably looks more like the American people than in the past.

It has more women than ever before, for instance — 90 all told. It has a mix of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans. It has its first member of Vietnamese descent, and it's likely that its ethnic diversity will grow with each election. It has members who grew up in families with very little, and members who have never known a day of want.

Yet "representation" in Congress takes place at two levels. The first is what most people think of when they talk about how well Congress reflects the nation, the sort of tallying by category I've done above: gender, ethnic or racial background, and the like. The less common, but no less important, way of looking at it has to do with how well individual members actually represent their districts or states: not in terms of their looks or background, but in terms of their actions.

One of the most memorable aspects of the years I spent as a representative in Congress was the astounding cross-section of people I met in my district. I'm hard-pressed to think of another job that could have exposed me to such an array of classes, occupations, racial and ethnic backgrounds, political philosophies, and cultural preferences. Districts and states vary, of course, and some are more homogeneous than others. Yet there isn't a constituency in the country that doesn't call on its member of Congress to reach out to people of wildly different backgrounds and outlook.

This is not always easy. We all instinctively like or dislike people, in part based on the snap judgments we make when we first meet or even see them. Yet that is a burden the best politicians learn to get over quickly, and not just because they want to get elected.

For in the end, the job of representative isn't just to speak for the people with whom one feels comfortable. It's to strive to understand and represent everyone in a constituency. This is, interestingly enough, one of the more bracing aspects of the job: you invariably learn something about ways of looking at the world from people who think differently from you; you also learn that, for the most part, their motives are as sincere as your own. As it happens, this is all good training for being a legislator: listening to other points of view and searching for common ground is part and parcel of being effective in Washington.

Still, paying close attention to the diverse views of a constituency is one of the most difficult aspects of the job. The challenge, of course, is how to reconcile all those conflicting views with one another. As an elected representative, you often ask yourself what your obligation should be to people who don't agree with you — a good many of whom will probably be working to defeat you in the next election. Clearly, you can't violate your own core beliefs; nor can you hope to give voice to every nuance you find in your district. As a representative, though, you can work hard to understand them better; you can search for points they have in common with one another and with you; you can explain why you differ from them; and you can strive at least to acknowledge the positions you do respect, even if you don't agree with them.

Just as important, you can make sure that you never let policy disagreements get in the way of the rest of the job — making sure lost Social Security checks get found, veterans' benefits get paid, and other ways of running interference with the federal bureaucracy are pursued.

As a politician, you quickly learn that it's impossible to satisfy everyone. There will always be someone in a crowd who, when you approach, refuses to shake your hand.

Yet your job, both as a politician and as a representative, isn't to satisfy everyone: it's to satisfy most people. It's to listen carefully, carry what you hear back home to Washington and express it, explain what you hear in Washington to people back home, and, more than anything else, allow the small slice of the American people you represent to feel that there is someone in Washington doing his or her level best to give them a voice.

Audio Version

In Congress, Change Is A Constant

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:47:00 -0500

Congress may not seem to change much from year to year, but in fact it is an evolving institution, and not always for the better, says former Congressman Lee Hamilton.

We think of Congress as immutable, a steadfast presence in American life since its first session in 1789. The inspiration we draw from the dome of the Capitol, the pull of a congressional hearing we know will change the course of history, the lofty statements on the floor of the House or Senate — these were as much a part of our grandparents' time as they are of ours.

Yet after watching Congress carefully for nearly 45 years, I am struck as much by how it has changed as by how much has endured. In everything from where power lies and how it is wielded, to the procedures for running the institution, to how members like to operate, the Congress today is a different body from the one I joined in 1965.

The most significant change has been its steady yielding of power to the White House. Our democracy was built on the core notion that the Congress, the President, and the judiciary would serve to check and balance one another. Yet there is no question today where the national agenda — from budget-making to the use of force — gets set. In deferring so often to the President, I believe, Congress has become a much less powerful actor in the American system of government than the founders intended and a well-functioning representative democracy requires.

Power within Congress has shifted, too. The leadership — especially the majority leadership in both houses — has consolidated its hold on the institution with ever larger staffs and budgets, making it harder for other voices to be heard. Not coincidentally, the influence of campaign money, and therefore of those who raise it and those who determine where it will be spent, has taken on vastly greater importance than it held four decades ago. So, too, has the presence and influence of lobbyists, leading many Americans to feel that they have no real voice in the policy-making process.

Even so, Americans' relationship with Congress has changed in many ways for the better. Though the average member of Congress represents about 200,000 more people today than he or she did in the 1960s, Congress today better reflects the diversity of America. It includes more women, more members of racial and ethnic minorities, more people with different backgrounds. Congress is also a more open institution: Its proceedings are televised, its votes are widely published, its activities — especially in this day of instant communications — more readily scrutinized.

Still, this openness has its drawbacks. Televising congressional hearings and debate has led to more grandstanding and greater use of celebrities by advocacy groups hoping to draw attention, diminishing the quality of deliberation and most likely contributing to a rise in partisanship as members play to their political bases.

There are other dynamics at work, such as the declining competitiveness of congressional districts, work schedules that provide members fewer opportunities to get to know one another, and the overall weakening of the political center in the U.S., but the results are striking to someone who knew Congress four decades ago: It is more open, but also less civil, less friendly, and more intensely political now.

It is also more pressured. Congress confronts issues of a complexity that was unimaginable a few decades ago: global warming, terrorism, cyberwarfare, the spread of nuclear weapons, a vastly more complex and interwoven global economy. It must also respond to an electorate and a set of special interests that see much more at stake in its actions than they did when I arrived and are skillful at pressing those interests on legislators.

Where the general attitude toward Washington once was "get off my back," now there is intense pressure on Congress to "get government on my side," whether through tax breaks, subsidies, or regulatory favoritism.

So it's hardly surprising that Congress now operates differently, short-circuiting the "regular order," relying on omnibus funding bills, and compressing the work week as leaders seek to control the outcome and avoid drawn-out debate. This has fed a drop in deliberation and in the quality of congressional debate, creating a more frenetic, less thoughtful and systematic body. To be sure, individual members can still lead their colleagues on both sides of the aisle through a thorough consideration of one issue or another, but those instances stand out as exceptions now, not the rule.

In other words, Congress may still be our indispensable institution, the place that makes this country a representative democracy, but it also an institution that continues to evolve, in ways both good and bad. It is under great stress at a time of national need. The challenge is to make it work better. Our representative democracy depends on it.

Audio Version

Can Congress Cope With The Communications Age?

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 14:22:00 -0500

The communications revolution has presented Congress with an ironic problem: how to ensure that messages to and from constituents get heard. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton wonders, "Can Congress Cope With The Communications Age?"

When I first came to Congress in the 1960s, dialogue between members of Congress and their constituents was straightforward. Every so often, a lawmaker would get interviewed on radio or television. Many sent monthly newsletters to the folks back home. They responded to letters, fielded and made telephone calls, and met as often as possible with the people who had sent them to Washington. It was by no means a perfect system — unless they made extraordinary efforts, legislators were often in touch with a smaller cross-section of the population than they should have been — but it worked tolerably well and was readily managed.

Today, something very like the opposite situation prevails: lawmakers are deluged by e-mail messages from constituents and grassroots lobbying campaigns; they can be in touch with millions of people at the press of a "send" button or via a quick upload to YouTube; they can blog about their experiences on the floor of the House, hold videoconferences or telephone town meetings with people back home, and Twitter their thoughts to followers any time of the day or night.

The technology allowing communications between ordinary Americans and their elected representatives, in other words, is superb. Yet for all the words that flow back and forth between Capitol Hill and the country at large, it's not at all clear how much actual dialogue is taking place.

Part of this is a function of sheer volume. As the Congressional Management Foundation wrote in a 2008 report after surveying ordinary citizens and lawmakers and their staffs about their use of the Internet, "[T]echnological developments have been so rapid that neither citizens and the organizers of grassroots advocacy campaigns (the senders) nor congressional offices (the receivers) have learned to use it in ways that facilitate truly effective communications between citizens and Members of Congress. As a result, while more messages are being sent to Congress, it seems less actual communication is occurring."

The survey found that no one is happy with the situation: Hill staffers feel overwhelmed, while almost half the people who wrote to Congress and received a reply were dissatisfied with the response and almost two-thirds believed their representatives "were not interested in what they have to say."

Let's be clear about what's at stake here. A representative democracy depends on the give-and-take between lawmakers and those they represent. When that discourse breaks down — whether it's because high-rolling campaign donors drown out ordinary voters, or because changing technology overwhelms the ability of congressional offices to understand and represent public sentiment adequately — then it threatens the legitimacy of the system.

This presents a true challenge for Congress. Where the White House under President Obama has shown that it can use the Internet and social networking tools to mobilize a political base, it is largely a one-way street; no one expects a quick reply from the President to a letter or a text message. Congress is different. It is the tribune of the American people and we treat it accordingly: we not only expect two-way communications, we need them. That's how the system is supposed to work.

In this period of transition to the new technologies, there are some promising signs. A few members of Congress have learned to make effective use of blogs, Facebook and even Twitter to stay in touch with constituents; the House and Senate both have channels on YouTube now, and though they're mostly filled with the equivalent of video press releases, I have no doubt that legislators will figure out more compelling ways to use them. Meanwhile, the Congressional Management Foundation, after a decade of study, is working to convene congressional staff and grassroots advocates to develop ways to aggregate, verify, and manage online communications, so that Capitol Hill doesn't find itself so engulfed by citizens' messages that it tunes them out.

In the end, adapting to new communications technology will require work on both sides of the equation. Members of Congress will need to develop the tools that allow them to manage immense volumes of "mail," and let constituents know the best and most effective ways of passing along their thoughts. Voters who want to have an impact will need to pay attention, and not just assume that sending a quick email or filling out a form provided by their favorite advocacy group will command attention.

In the age of instant communications, in other words, it's not just the volume of words but the quality of the communication that matters.

Audio Version

Even In An Economic Crisis, Follow The Money

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:43:00 -0400

Recently, Newsweek looked at Federal Election Commission records and made an intriguing discovery. The political action committees of five major recipients of federal bank bailout money, it found, made some $85,000 in campaign contributions in January and February, mostly to members of Congress sitting on the committees that oversee their industry.

Quite naturally, the magazine uncovered some squeamishness about the notion that taxpayer dollars meant to resolve the credit crisis are instead being used to influence Congress. "The last thing I want to do is wake up one morning and see our PAC check being burned on C-SPAN," one bank lobbyist said. Even so, some banks are making the contributions, and lawmakers are accepting them.

And why not? This is how business gets done in Washington. In an illuminating, full-page chart, The New York Times recently illustrated the ties between captains of finance and members of Congress in 2007-2008: PAC donations in the millions of dollars from various Wall Street firms, and a web of lines showing personal donations that snaked from their CEOs to various influential lawmakers.

The same could be done with other industries. When prescription drug coverage provisions come up in Congress, big pharmaceutical companies blanket the capital with their presence and their cash. When defense procurement issues come up, military contractors — and their money — are everywhere you turn. On any given issue, in other words, interests with money line up to show Congress how much they care.

In his new book on the chase for political cash, So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government, longtime Washington Post editor Robert Kaiser tells a story about the late John Stennis, the legendary Senator from Mississippi. In 1982, running for his seventh term, Stennis found himself in a tough race, and was urged by his consultants to raise money from the defense industry he oversaw from his perches on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees. "Would that be proper?" Stennis responded. "Sir, I hold life and death over those companies. I don't think it would be proper for me to take money from them."

By the time Senator Stennis uttered those words, Washington was already changing; expressing that sentiment today would immediately get you written off as hopelessly naïve. The political process runs on people and organized interests with money: politicians need it in order to get elected; donors use it to try to get favorable legislation. And everyone knows how the game is played: legislators raise money from the industries that come under the purview of their committees, while donors contribute to those who wield the most influence over their interests and don't waste their resources on politicians who are irrelevant.

It is not at all clear what we can do about this. I don't fault politicians for raising money to run for re-election. How do you fund a multi-million dollar campaign without such contributions? Yet whether they want to admit it or not, accepting that money puts them under some obligation to donors.
We cannot eliminate money in politics, if for no other reason than that doing so would threaten this nation's obligation to protect free speech. Those who contribute to campaigns have a right to do so to promote their interests. I do wonder, however, who contributes to the common good. We want to make sure we have a system that allows everyone — not just the well-heeled — to express their views to their representatives and have those views treated with equal consideration.

I think the chase for money — demeaning to both candidate and contributor — has gotten so far out of hand that it is beginning to threaten representative democracy itself. And though we still haven't figured out a cure, that's not a reason to stop trying to find one.

One step in the right direction is to ensure real-time transparency of donations, so that as they come in, the public can learn about them. This already happens in the U.S. House, where donations must be filed and made available electronically. Astoundingly, though, the Senate has been dragging its heels on even this modest reform — when what we really need goes further: a system that gives the voter, with the click of a few computer keys, instant access to charts that line up contributions to members with their votes and earmarks. This is only difficult politically, not technologically. If Congress wants to restore public confidence in its actions, that's the direction it needs to head.

Audio Version

Is Congress Up To The Task Before It?

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:33:00 -0400

I arrived in Congress in 1965, just as President Lyndon Johnson's transformation of the U.S. government was getting under way. It was an extraordinary time, as LBJ sent up to Capitol Hill his proposals for Medicare, Medicaid, aid to elementary and secondary education, the Voting Rights Act, and a host of other bills that reshaped Washington and its place in the nation's life. The United States was a different country by the time Congress finished.

We are at a juncture that may be as far-reaching and no less dramatic. With the economic crisis as a backdrop, President Obama has sent to Capitol Hill a budget that places the government more thoroughly in American life than at any time in the past three decades, and eschews the anti-tax, anti-regulatory approach to public policy that has generally predominated in recent decades. The White House has put Congress on notice that it intends to reform the health-care system, make fundamental improvements to public education, and remake national energy policy. These changes are necessary, it contends, to keep the U.S. economy strong and prosperous.

There is an important difference in the approaches taken by the two presidents, Johnson and Obama. Enjoying the momentum built by his landslide victory in the 1964 elections, Johnson gave Congress specific proposals, like the Medicaid bill and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He told Congress precisely what he wanted and then helped shape its response.

President Obama, on the other hand, has given Congress the goals he wants to pursue and the concepts he intends to support, then left it up to lawmakers to craft the fine print. As the New York Times put it recently, he is "taking a gamble in outsourcing the drafting of his agenda's details" to Congress.

This is not just a leap of faith on the President's part, however. Given the recent past, it also presents Congress with an exacting test of its ability to function effectively and produce policies that serve the American people well.

Congress has a history of not dealing well with the big issues. Now it's presented with a budget and a presidential agenda that offer no letup in big issues. Its challenge is two-fold: to act at a time of crisis and in an economy that's being reshaped by the day; and, despite the pressure to act quickly, to act in a manner that allows for the deliberation and consensus-building that uphold the democratic process.

How it will respond remains an open question. No sooner had the President's plans landed on Capitol Hill than legislators of both parties and powerful interest groups declared this or that provision badly flawed, seeming to reject the President's proposals without open-minded consideration and debate. Meanwhile, there is a strong likelihood that the leadership, as it has done far too often in recent years, will choose to deal with the issues before it by bundling them into omnibus legislation that permits very little deliberation and requires an up-or-down vote on a bill of gigantic size and complexity. This may be efficient, but it is hardly democratic.

Congress has been given an extraordinary opportunity to live up to its constitutional responsibilities and to function effectively in the national interest. While its public standing has been improving of late, it remains damaged by the perception its members care more about catering to donors, playing partisan games, and putting in a three- or four-day workweek than they do about tackling the nation's toughest challenges in a reasoned, comprehensive, and fair way.

Now, at a time when Americans are closely tuned in to events in Washington, Congress is being asked by the President to address a far-reaching agenda. It can do so by reviving the tradition of open debate that enlightens the American people and allows its members to weigh the questions before them as they develop consensus, or it can give in to its recent habits of procedural expediency and partisan tactics. The test for Congress is clear. Let's hope it chooses wisely.

Audio Version

Conference Committees Fade, Democracy Suffers

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:22:00 -0400

In the official record, you'll find that the economic stimulus package recently passed by Congress was drawn up by a conference committee — a bipartisan group of House members and Senators who sat down together to wrangle over its fine print. In truth, nothing like this took place.

To be sure, a conference committee met, as is supposed to happen when legislation passed by the House differs from the version passed by the Senate. But it was more for show than for actual debate and deliberation.

Instead, like much legislation over the last decade and a half, the final version of the stimulus bill was pieced together behind closed doors by a handful of lawmakers. Then it was put to a vote before their colleagues could conceivably read the whole thing, let alone digest its implications. As Slate Magazine's John Dickerson put it, "the stimulus deal was so opaque even the people negotiating it weren't in on what was in it."

This may be par for the course in Washington now, but it's hard to argue our democracy has benefited as a result. Of all the various procedures developed by a maturing Congress over the last couple of centuries, conference committees were once seen as perhaps the most important step in passing legislation. They were where House members and senators, Democrats and Republicans, all came together to draft final language, strike compromises, deliberate face to face, and reach agreement on all aspects of a bill before sending a measure to the President.

In essence, they were where the very idea of representative democracy was put into practice, bringing regions, interests, ideologies, and attitudes toward legislating together in one room so they could find common ground.

But the conference committee appears to be dying. As Congressional Quarterly reported in January, there were 62 conference committees in 1993-94, and only 10 in 2007-8. Measures last year to reform electronic surveillance policy, bail out the finance industry, deal with the nation's foreclosure crisis, and fund the federal government all passed without a regular conference committee.

Instead, about 80 percent of laws now are made by one chamber of Congress simply adopting the version passed by the other. Others are so tightly controlled by the leadership that — as with the stimulus package — they're the result of a conference in name only. Because bills that come out of conference can only receive an up or down vote on the floor — there is no chance for amendment — this puts considerable power into the hands of the majority leadership. Especially when, as has happened from time to time, the majority leadership neglects to tell the minority that a conference committee is even meeting.

This certainly makes for expeditious legislating, but at the cost of deliberation, bicameralism, transparency, and basic fairness. It means that debate and compromise get short-circuited. It means that the approaches unique to each chamber — the Senate's tradition of careful rumination, the House's tendency to reflect the urgencies of the moment — have no chance to be balanced against one another. It means that it is almost impossible for ordinary lawmakers, let along the general public, to understand how a measure was put together and what's in it. And it means that most members, especially if they are in the minority party, get cut out of the process.

This trend is not just bad news for the basic values Congress is supposed to represent, it damages Congress' performance as well. Members learn a great deal about the art of legislating in a well-run conference committee. They have to bargain, accommodate one another's needs, listen carefully to arguments, try different approaches, search for consensus, reconcile differences. In a sense, conference committees offer the chance to hone the political arts and values that democracy requests of its elected officials.

By the same token, the move to bypass conference committees has allowed negotiations and the crafting of bills to take place solely within the majority party, under the auspices of the House speaker and the Senate majority leader. The result has been legislation that tends to be less comprehensive, less accommodating to the legitimate concerns of the other side, more partisan, and more irritating to those excluded from the process. A major reason for the frustration of legislators is that they feel left out of this decision-making process.

When rank-and-file members of Congress press for a return to "the regular order," they are talking in part about restoring the conference committee to its rightful place. And that is because they recognize that the institution they serve — and the Americans they represent — are being harmed by the leadership's willingness to sidestep the conference tradition in the name of power and convenience.

Audio Version

Effective Oversight Requires Effective Press

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:08:00 -0500

These are extraordinary political and economic times, and even from a distance you can sense the animation on Capitol Hill as Congress debates President Obama's stimulus package, weighs his executive-branch appointments, and responds to his various initiatives.

You can feel the same intensity in the Washington press corps, as it works to keep a rapt public briefed on the ins and outs of the capital's daily workings. Yet as capable a job as it's doing right now, we should all be worried about what happens with the press in upcoming months.

I say this because reporters in Washington bear great responsibility in our democracy at the moment. Both Congress and the White House are in the hands of the same political party, which is almost certain to magnify an already troubling long-term trend: congressional deference to White House authority, especially on budgetary and foreign-policy issues. We saw the pernicious effect of this during the first six years of the previous administration, when a Republican Congress failed in its oversight role of a Republican president.

Now, although the policy particulars are different with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president, the results could very well turn out the same: A Congress that defers to the president is, unfortunately, a Congress that is prone to be passive in the oversight of his administration, which can lead to ineffective government performance, unresponsive bureaucracy, and wasteful spending. A few legislators will conduct tough oversight, but the likelihood is high that most will not.

This means that the watchdogs of the press will be needed more than ever to delve into the federal government's nooks and crannies, analyze its performance, make sure that programs are implemented as intended, explore the shadows where officials often feel most comfortable operating, and make sure that both the American people and members of Congress understand what the government is doing in their name.

The public's dependence on the press, however, couldn't come at a more challenging time. Almost every day now brings word of newspaper cutbacks — in space for news, in reporters, and in the resources that can be devoted to research, investigation and reporting. News organizations from Gannett to the Tribune Company to Cox Communications have been laying off and shrinking, with the result that newspapers large and small are trimming or even closing their Washington bureaus, a trend that has been echoed at state capitols around the country.
Inevitably, this means that the breadth of news we can get about our governments, both federal and state, is shrinking, too.

This is not to say that the volume of political and policy news has shrunk — not with niche cable channels, the blogosphere, the websites of organizations devoted to particular issues, and a press corps that, despite its travails, remains determined to cover Washington. Nor do I mean to suggest that we don't get solid investigative work out of the DC press corps any longer. It was the Washington Post, for instance, that reported on the CIA's secret interrogation sites for suspected terrorists and on mismanagement at the Smithsonian Institution. It was The New York Times that broke the story about the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

And it was a politics-and-policy website, Talking Points Memo, that led the press corps in detailing the Justice Department's politically motivated firing of U.S. attorneys. Moreover, the not-for-profit effort, ProPublica, shows promise as a source of serious investigative reporting down the road.

Still, the federal government is immense, and over the years most of the press corps had already given up paying close, detailed attention to the inner workings of various departments, from Agriculture to Housing and Urban Development. This is the kind of coverage that requires patient digging, months of work, detailed knowledge of the arcana of federal policy, sophisticated databases, cultivation of sources and diligent followup of whistleblowers.

I have no doubt that a handful of media outlets will continue to devote time and resources to investigating big stories, but in an era when the very existence of newspapers is coming into question and a successful business model for sustaining potent news organizations hasn't yet emerged, will even they bother to assign reporters to sniff out problems in the administration of far-flung federal programs?

The plain truth is, representative democracy depends on robust oversight of the activities of federal officials. It ought to be part of the daily business of Congress, and the daily concern of the media. When one is politically disinclined to press as hard as it ought, and the other is financially hampered in its ability to do so, every American ought to be concerned.

Audio Version

In Congress, First Impressions Matter

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:36:00 -0500

The start of a new Congress is a time of hope for great accomplishments. For new members, though, it is also when they lay the groundwork for their careers on Capitol Hill. New members face a lot of difficult decisions early on, and their political reputations — both in Washington and at home — will be shaped by how they make them.

This is partly because first impressions linger on Capitol Hill. Will a new member be a legislator or a limelight-seeking showboater? Will he or she focus on work inside Congress — drafting legislation and helping to shape strategy on policy — or on becoming known outside the institution? People in Congress watch one another closely, as does the press, and they begin to make judgments early; negative impressions can be very hard to overcome.

The challenge, of course, is that being an effective member of Congress requires an astounding variety of skills, which also have to be learned early on. So if you were just starting up on Capitol Hill, what should you be doing? There are two arenas to focus on — inside Congress, and back in the district — and here's my advice for both.

First, get to know your colleagues — both chambers, both parties. Attend social events, get together after work, do your best to be approachable and helpful. Personal relationships matter in Congress because they can help overcome ideological and political differences. You will be astounded by the number of times you ask your colleagues for help.

Second, learn the rules of parliamentary procedure, because you'll need them if you want to be effective. Get to know House or Senate officers, such as the parliamentarian — they can help enormously if you let them. And while you're studying, pay close attention to the ethics rules in your chamber and then follow them; you'll save yourself and your staff much heartburn later.

Third, work hard to get the best committee assignment you can for your district or state. Embrace its workload: attend meetings, be prepared, ask tough questions of witnesses, prepare amendments that will make legislation better. Let your colleagues know you are a serious legislator by picking an issue and championing it. Get to know as much as you possibly can about the bills you vote on — if you can get your colleagues coming to you for information or advice on bills, you're halfway to building a solid reputation.

You can go the rest of the way by being thoughtful toward your colleagues. So, fourth, don't be a know-it-all or have a solution for every problem, and be informed, rational and reasonable. Support your leadership when you can and tell them early when you can't. You have to be true to yourself and your district — your leaders expect that. But they don't like to be surprised by an unexpected vote against their position.

Fifth, hire an excellent staff. They are indispensable to your work. No matter how much you bone up on issues, there's always more to learn; they can help you. And if you want to win re-election, make sure you have top-notch aides for constituent service. A good staff will make you a better member of Congress.

Sixth, don't ever forget your constituents. You work for them. Without their support, you'll end up back home permanently.

So, seventh, you have to develop a strategy for communicating with them. A lot of Americans feel as though their representatives in Washington don't hear them and aren't interested — so the time-honored newsletter home isn't enough. Think about how you'll use the Web, social-networking tools, publicity, and your own visits to the district to reach as many people as possible and hear what they have to say. Travel home frequently: you simply cannot learn enough about your district or state, or get to know too many constituents.

Eighth, pick a few projects back home that have broad support, and begin working hard to get them approved. Small triumphs early build confidence and support.

Ninth, if you're in the House, plan now on how to get re-elected. Start raising money for your next campaign and think about staff and themes now. Two years is not a lot of time, and if you want to be effective in Congress, you'll need to win re-election. More than once.

Finally, there's one other constituency you need to keep in mind: your family. I've seen more than one promising political career founder on the rocks of domestic discord. Take some time off to be with your spouse and children and to recharge yourself. It may surprise you after all the fine treatment you get as you travel around Capitol Hill and your district, but the world will muddle by without you for a few days.

Audio Version

Good Communication Anchors Our Democracy

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:38:00 -0500

Shortly before the turn of the year, I got a look at some polling numbers that brought me up short. They suggest that our representative democracy has a great deal of work to do.

Every year, the Center on Congress at Indiana University polls about a thousand people across the country to gauge their attitudes toward, and experiences with, members of Congress. Our most recent survey looked into the relationship between constituents and their representatives.

It found a few encouraging signs: Almost half the respondents had contacted their representatives in Washington during the past two years, for instance, while 58 percent had read their members' newsletters and two-thirds of those had found this material useful. So there is some life in the "dialogue" between key players in our representative democracy.

Yet there was also sobering news. A full 68 percent of the respondents indicated that they don't believe members of Congress care what people like them think. And when asked whom members of Congress listen to most carefully, they turned even more cynical. Only 10 percent thought members of Congress pay the closest attention to people back home; 38 percent indicated party leaders; and over half, 51 percent, said they're convinced members of Congress listen above all to lobbyists.

These are dismaying figures. The very heart of our democracy is the relationship between voters and the men and women who represent them. Our system depends on the ability of voters to convey to their representatives what's on their minds, on the ability of representatives to explain to voters the choices that confront them, and on the care with which each listens to what the other has to say.

If voters don't believe they're being listened to — or, just as important, if they don't trust what their representatives are telling them — then a key piece of our political system needs rebuilding.

What I find especially intriguing about these poll results is that members of Congress do spend a lot of time and effort trying to reach out to constituents. They maintain staffs devoted solely to carrying on the correspondence that goes naturally with the job; they send out newsletters and e-mails explaining their positions; they meet with constituents in Washington, and travel home frequently for open houses and community gatherings. Even so, this recent poll suggests that none of this is as effective as politicians would like to believe.

I suspect that a large part of this has to do with perception on both sides. Many House members — the federal representatives closest to the people — come from essentially uncompetitive districts. They really do not have to listen to all of their constituents, only to a small fraction of them; nor do they have to campaign hard every two years, giving them less incentive to work tirelessly to be in touch with every strand of thought within their district.

It's not that members deliberately ignore particular constituencies, but I know from experience that it's very easy to believe that you're meeting a lot of people as you travel around your district, when in fact you're actually just seeing the same people over and over again. You might visit a given community five or ten times over the course of a year, but if you look back and ask yourself whom you actually saw, you'll find it's often the same people: the news media, the party hierarchy and activists, the movers and shakers. You're not actually reaching deep into the community.

Similarly, many voters satisfy themselves with very limited exposure to their representatives: the occasional letter or e-mail; a glance at a newsletter; whatever they read in the press, see on the news, or hear about on talk radio. They don't take the extra steps to acquaint themselves with their representatives' votes or positions, much less seek out chances to talk with them face to face. So it becomes easy to buy into the national story line that Congress has grown distant from the people and is bought and paid for by special interests.

In brief, the quality of the dialogue between voter and representative is nowhere close to what it should be.

I am hopeful that new technology will eventually play a helpful role here, particularly for reaching younger voters. Members of Congress are — slowly — learning to make use of social networking sites, online communities such as Second Life, YouTube and other forms of new media to expand both their own outreach and the range of constituents with whom they can interact.

But fixing the problem will take time and effort by voters and elected officials alike. It will require a recognition that good communications takes more work than we'd thought — that members of Congress need to take the time to reach beyond the circles in which they usually travel, and that for a voter, being an active citizen means engaging one's representatives, not just passively hearing about them.

The payoff should be significant: more trust on both sides, more faith on the part of ordinary Americans that the system isn't stacked against them, and a more vibrant representative democracy.

Audio Version

Congress Needs Proper Leadership

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:56:00 -0500

As Congress moves beyond last November's elections and turns its attention to governing, it has to perform one of the toughest pivots in American politics. Governing is much more difficult than campaigning. After going at it hammer and tongs in congressional races, Democrats and Republicans now have a branch of government to run and policy to produce. Switching priorities to put the country and the institution of Congress ahead of politics can be a stretch for members.

The key to whether they succeed, enabling Congress to reach its potential as a representative body more equal in weight to the presidency, will be the congressional leadership. Its members set the tone of the Congress: They can act as stewards of its institutional strength, integrity, and effectiveness, or squander its potential.

They signal how much weight they'll attach to ethical behavior and tough ethics enforcement, and can make or break legislation designed to further it. They determine whether cooperation across party lines will be the order of the day, a rarity, or out of the question. They decide how the budget is to be put together. Above all, they craft the congressional agenda and determine whether it's going to be used merely to score political points or to respond in good faith to challenges facing our nation.

Leaders are the ones in a position to determine which issues will come forward for consideration, and which will be set aside; what oversight will be done and what ignored; what will get the media spotlight and what will remain in the shadows; which programs will be included in appropriations bills and which won't.

They have enormous power, in other words, over both the substance and the style of Congress. And they are the ones who largely determine whether Congress will become a stronger partner in our representative democracy or defer to the president to take the lead.

In some periods, as during the Great Society era during the 1960s, Congress was highly regarded because it was seen as addressing the key problems facing the country. There were significant accomplishments amid bipartisan cooperation, if not collegiality. Other periods have seen a breakdown on both fronts. And still others may produce a less productive record on legislation, but still be marked by an overall respect for Congress's integrity as an institution.

When House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Minority Leader Bob Michel squared off in public debate during the 1980s, for instance, it was only after intense but congenial discussions over how each of their caucuses viewed a measure; they would give a ringing speech on the floor to rally their troops, but in almost every case each man knew how the vote would turn out. They knew how to work with one another to assure that Congress lived up to its constitutional responsibilities, while remaining true to their political responsibilities.

Leaders must be held principally responsible for the performance of the Congress. If the institution is not performing well under stress - if it is ignoring proper budget process, sidestepping tough issues, not disciplining wayward members, or deferring excessively to the president and neglecting its constitutional role - that is a failure of congressional leadership. Often, leaders are quick to blame the opposition for standing in the way of progress, and sometimes that's legitimate; frequently, though, it's because the leaders failed to work well together, putting political advantage over legislative solutions.

Over the last few decades, the leaders' responsibility for Congress's performance has grown measurably greater. This is because their power has, too: Leaders of both parties have worked to increase their budgets and concentrate power in their offices. Their staffs have grown - where a speaker or minority leader might once have turned for policy advice to the chairs of particular committees, they now have their own advisors on energy or foreign policy or the economy.

And they have changed the process, most notably with the budget, to favor themselves. When spending priorities were put together by the various committees, rank-and-file members knew, in detail, what was in the budget and they had significant input into its contents. Now, Congress often acts by omnibus bill, which puts enormous power in the hands of a few leaders and their staff.

This is not a favorable trend. The increasing concentration of power in the leaders diminishes the role of other members and distorts representative democracy. Congress derives its legitimacy and authority from its members, who represent the American people in all their diversity. This is why the Framers put Congress first in the Constitution. When that multitude of voices is ignored or weakened, it is hard to see how Congress will ever be able to assert its standing as a separate, independent, and forceful branch of government.

Audio Version

Whoever Is President, An Administration Needs Oversight

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Mon, 8 Dec 2008 14:12:00 -0500

I'm as interested as the next person in all the excitement about how Washington will work with Barack Obama in the White House, but there's an important question that's been missing. It has to do not so much with the new President as with the new Congress, and it should be high on every attentive citizen's list of concerns: Will Congress live up to its responsibility to exercise robust oversight over the new administration?

This is especially important given the Democratic label that President Obama and the majorities in the House and Senate will share. Over the last two years, particularly in the House, Democrats began to delve into the activities and record of the current Republican administration. Once their own party controls the White House this will be harder to do, for obvious partisan reasons: There's a natural inclination to avoid inquiries that might seem to undermine the President or give ammunition to his political adversaries.

It is vital that congressional leaders set that concern aside, for the simple reason that vigorous congressional oversight of the administration - any administration - is necessary for our government to function properly.

This is, of course, what Congress under our system of government is supposed to do - to put the national interest first by holding the President and his administration accountable for their actions. It is Congress's responsibility, in other words, to ensure that the country is functioning properly and our laws are working as intended; that they are achieving the purpose Congress envisioned when it passed them; that resources are being used effectively and efficiently; and that executive authority is being exercised properly and in keeping with the laws and values that govern it.

Congress failed miserably at this task during most of the last eight years, and even with stepped-up scrutiny since the 2006 elections, it has fallen well short of the ideal, with unfortunate results: Witness its failure to explore vigorously administration plans to deal with the threats to the American economy.

Robust oversight need not be adversarial. Indeed, if Presidents understand Congress's constitutional role, they will see its activities as helpful. Constructive oversight brings fresh eyes and insightful questions to policy-making and its implementation. The plain fact is that the executive branch tends to wear blinkers: Its members are there in support of the President, and they are often reluctant to cast critical judgments on his decisions or on the implementation of policy.

This last point is particularly important, since Americans have in recent years lost confidence in the federal government not just because of the policies it pursued, but because of its failure to act effectively, whether in Iraq or in helping Louisiana and Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina. A Congress that is functioning properly would turn administration officials into regular visitors to Capitol Hill, quiz them relentlessly, and make them explain their policy decisions and how they are implementing federal programs.

So what would effective oversight look like? Congress has several tools for holding federal agencies accountable, including periodic reauthorization, personal visits by members or staff, review by the Government Accountability Office or inspectors general, subpoenas, hearings, investigations, and reports from the executive branch to Congress. The point is to make oversight a part of the daily business of Capitol Hill, and to make it as bipartisan as possible.

There will certainly be times when the Democratic and Republican leaders of particular committees disagree, but they should be able to sit down at the beginning of a new Congress and agree on the bulk of the committee's oversight agenda. Even more important, for oversight really to work, members must receive a clear message from the congressional leadership of both parties that it is a priority and that it will be done in a bipartisan, systematic, coordinated way.

For in the end, oversight is not about politics, it's about the institutional responsibility that Congress bears to ensure that the federal government is serving the American people's interests. This is even more important in this day and age, as newspapers shrink their Washington bureaus and, with them, their investigative abilities.

In 1787, John Adams wrote of what were to become the House, the Senate and the presidency, "Without three divisions of power, stationed to watch each other, and compare each other's conduct with the laws, it will be impossible that the laws should at all times preserve their authority and govern all men." It is as true today as it was 221 years ago, and the start of a new administration and a new Congress is exactly the moment for our leaders to recommit to that ideal.

Audio Version

Congress, Too, Can Set The Agenda

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Fri, 5 Dec 2008 13:32:00 -0500

Once he is sworn in on January 20, our new president will command all eyes. After a long campaign in which he and his rival traded policy prescriptions and accusations about their respective flaws, the country will be anxious to see the White House's agenda. Congress, it seems safe to say, will be an afterthought, its views given weight only insofar as they might hinder or abet the president's plans.

And really, why should they matter? The 435 House members and 35 senators who ran in November's elections present a cacophony of views — they're liberal and conservative, from large states and small, representing every conceivable kind of American voter. It's impossible for them to speak with one voice or with the institutional heft to be found at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Moreover, Congress long ago abandoned the practice of trying to put forward its own plans, and Americans have certainly lost the habit of looking to it for leadership. Even Congressional Quarterly, a magazine whose reason for being is to parse every nuance of life on Capitol Hill, carried a cover story a month before the election entitled, “11 Issues for the Next President.” It said, “The winner of the Nov. 4 election will face the most difficult roster of top–tier issues in a generation while trying to restore the country's faith in its government.” On everything from the economy to taxes, energy, and our nation's infrastructure needs, it suggested, Congress would be left to react, not to create.

While this picture certainly fits our national expectations, there are two problems with it: It's not how things are supposed to be; and it's not healthy for the United States.

The Constitution sets out a very clear expectation that Congress and the president are to be colleagues — equals — in determining the course of the country. And there is a compelling reason for this. The very forces that make it difficult for Congress to speak with one voice, especially its members' closeness to the diverse constituencies from which they hail, also provide Congress with a fine–textured understanding of national concerns and sentiment.

Better than any other part of the federal government, Congress reflects the regional, ideological, economic and cultural diversity of the United States.

This is crucial to crafting good policy, policy that is consistent, relevant, and sustainable over the long term. Such policy springs not from a single opinion about what's needed, but from sharp analysis and civil dialogue among people with different points of view, values, and experiences.

Congress, in other words, is as indispensable an actor in laying out a national policy agenda as is the president.

That it has chosen not to play that role in recent decades — with a few exceptions, like last year's boost in the minimum wage — has turned it into a reactive body with very little control over the policy debate; he who sets the agenda, after all, controls the discussion and usually the results, and recent presidents have been extremely forceful about putting forth both a domestic and foreign agenda. It has been politically easier for members of Congress to let the president take the lead, especially since it is very hard work to craft an agenda that a majority of both houses can agree upon.

Given this history and the degeneration of Congress's policy–crafting muscles, it seems unreasonable to expect that Congress will suddenly set about advancing its own agenda for every problem, foreign and domestic, that assails us. Yet surely it's in a position to act more forcefully than in the recent past. If it wishes to fulfill its constitutional role and rebuild its standing as an institution that commands the respect of the American people — and, more important, earns legitimacy as a branch of government — it should certainly start to put forward initiatives to which the president can respond.

Congress needs to be a more assertive presence in Washington generally, even if it does it piecemeal rather than in a comprehensive way, and it certainly needs to flex its policy–making muscles more frequently than it does now.

How might it do so? I'd suggest that the party caucuses in each house — that is, the meetings at which Democrats and Republicans gather to work on their own marching orders — would be the appropriate place to start. Democrats in Congress ought to see it as their responsibility to put forward their own agenda for the nation, even if it's only in a few arenas; so should Republicans. The parties might even find some common ground. And in the debates over what these agendas should be, and then the conversation with the White House as they're moved forward, Congress might just find its own voice. That would be a good thing not only for its members, but for us all.

Audio Version

The Decision To Go To War

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 11:40:00 -0500

As Congress struggled to stave off financial meltdown recently, it was hard to imagine that it could ever face a more serious issue. Yet from time to time it does: when it ponders whether or not to send young Americans to war.

Watching the gyrations on Capitol Hill over the economic bailout, I couldn't help but reflect that while there was great uncertainty about how Congress would respond to the economic crisis — Would it side with the White House plan? Would it modify the plan or try to come up with an alternative of its own? — there is rarely uncertainty about war. If the President wants it, he gets it.

Our nation has long argued over whether this is how things should be. To my mind, the Constitution seems clear on the subject, stating in Article I, Section 8, that “Congress shall have power...to declare War.” Yet it also refers to the President as “Commander in Chief,” and in the ambiguity left by those two phrases it has seeded an ongoing political debate over how much right Congress has to tie the President's hands when it comes to the commitment of troops abroad. The courts, recognizing a political morass, have steered clear of the subject, leaving it to Congress and the White House to sort things out, and by and large not settling the question of which branch may exercise which powers.

Since World War II, the White House has prevailed. Harry Truman contended he didn't need congressional approval to fight in Korea. Congress sat on the sidelines for the invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s, and made only modest steps to assert itself when U.S. troops got involved in Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, and the Balkans in the mid–1990s. It willingly gave its go–ahead to the Vietnam War and the two wars in Iraq, turning power completely over to the President to do as he wished.

In essence, for over a half–century Congress has been content to act as an afterthought, rather than the President's equal when it comes to war–making. It has left the question of when to go to war up to the President.

The political reasons for this abdication of responsibility are straightforward. Committing U.S. troops to battle is a high–stakes move, and members of Congress would rather not have to make that decision themselves. It is far easier simply to let the President do it, then give him credit if he called it right and condemn him if he didn't. Moreover, the American people have a history of siding overwhelmingly with presidents who make the call for war; standing in the way is politically risky for any member of Congress — except in hindsight, as the current war in Iraq and the earlier war in Vietnam have demonstrated. None of this was what the Framers envisioned. The Constitution was drafted at a time of deep distrust of monarchy and, indeed, all forms of concentrated power. No single person, our founders believed, should have the responsibility for making the gravest decision a president can make: whether to send young men (and, now, women) into battle.

While 2008 is not 1789, and the world is a very different, more dangerous place than when the country was founded, I find myself in basic agreement with the founders. In our representative democracy, it is Congress — not the President — that gives voice to the concerns of ordinary Americans. Yet from war–making to the budget to setting the national agenda, Congress in recent decades has been all too willing to take a back seat to presidential authority. It has lost the skills and the political will that would allow it to be a co–equal branch of government.

So while it is too much to expect that, when it comes to the profound issue of war, Congress will suddenly start re–asserting itself in a major way, I don't think it's too much to ask it to start rebuilding its competence as a consultative body. Simply put, presidents should consult widely, surely beyond their closest advisors and especially with Congress, before they make the decision to go to war. If the President is determined to send Americans into battle, there is very little anyone can do to stop him. But ensuring that members of Congress and others can ask hard questions before the final decision is made at least offers a chance for wise and cool heads to weigh the risks, and for national policy–makers to proceed without blinkers on.

In the end, the calculation is simple. Going to war is the most important decision a government can make, because it means that young people will die. That decision ought not be made by one person, even if that person is the President of the United States.

Audio Version

The Ten Commandments of Citizenship

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:05:00 -0500

This presidential election, if you believe the polls and the rhetoric, is about change in Washington. Both candidates promise it, while voters clamor for it. It is the cause of the moment.

Yet I have news for you: Change in Washington won't happen, and certainly can't be sustained, without change in the country at large. For the point is not to overthrow the system, it's to make it function properly. Government does not fix itself. Only a citizenry that is engaged in our democracy to an extent far greater than in recent decades can help to heal our system. To get change in Washington, in other words, it has to begin with you.

Since being a responsible citizen takes commitment, here are some precepts to follow if you want to be effective — what I call the “Ten Commandments of Citizenship”:

Vote. This is the most basic step democracy asks of us. Don't buy the argument that it doesn't matter. Every election offers real choices about the direction we want our towns, states and country to take. By voting, you not only select the officials who will run the government, you suggest the direction government policy should take and reaffirm your support for a representative democracy.

Be informed. To be a knowledgeable voter, you need to know what candidates actually stand for, not just what their ads or their opponents' ads say. Read about the issues that confront your community and our nation as a whole. Our government simply does not work well if its citizens are ill–informed.

Communicate with your representatives. Representative democracy is a dialogue between elected officials and citizens — that dialogue lies at the heart of our system. Legislators and executives can't do their job well if they don't understand their constituents' concerns, and we can't understand them if we don't know their views and why they hold them.

Participate in groups that share your views and can advance your interests. This one's simple: In a democracy, people tend to be more effective when they work together rather than acting as individuals. You can be sure that almost every issue you care about has one or more organizations devoted to it. By joining and working with the ones you think best reflect your views, you amplify your beliefs and strengthen the dialogue of democracy.

Get involved locally to improve your community. You know more about your community's strengths and weaknesses than anyone living outside it. Identify its problems and work to correct them. Involvement is the best antidote I know to cynicism.

Educate your family, and make sure that local schools are educating students, about their responsibilities as citizens. As a society, we're not as good as we should be at encouraging young people to get involved in political life. Too many young people — and even many adults — do not understand how our government and political system work and why it is important for them to be contributing citizens.

Understand that we must work to build consensus in a huge, diverse country. In pretty much every way you can think of, ours is an astoundingly mixed nation of people, with wildly divergent views on most issues and a constantly growing population. This means we have to work through our differences not by hammering on the other side, but by bringing people together through the arts of dialogue, accommodation, compromise, and consensus–building.

Understand that our representative democracy works slowly. There's a reason for this: it is so that all sides can be heard, and so that we avoid the costly mistakes produced by haste. Our Founders understood this 220 years ago, and it's even more vital now, when issues are vastly more complex and the entire world is closely connected.

Understand that our system is not perfect, but has served the nation well. Democracy is a process designed to give people a voice in how they are governed. It's not perfect — far too many people feel voiceless, and polls in recent years suggest that unsettling numbers believe the system is broken. And our system offers no guarantee that you'll get what you want. Yet it is also true that it provides every individual an opportunity to be heard and to work to achieve his or her objectives, and it has served our nation well for over two centuries.

Understand that our system is not self–perpetuating; it demands our involvement to survive. Just because it has worked in the past does not mean we will have a free and successful country in the future. Lincoln's challenge is still urgent: whether this nation so conceived can long endure. Being a good citizen isn't something one does just for the heck of it; it's critical to the success of our nation.

Audio Version

Why Ethics Should Matter to Congress

hkremer@mac.com (Lee Hamilton) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:31:00 -0500

Congress will never regain the faith of ordinary Americans until members of Congress win their trust. This appears to be a long way off.

I see no other way to read the results of a recent poll by the Center on Congress at Indiana University. When it asked 1,000 people whether members of Congress are “honest people of good character,” a rather stunning 42 percent said that most are not. Asked to grade Congress on holding its members to high ethical standards, 75 percent gave it either a D or an F.

This dismal view of members' integrity — and of their interest in upholding the institution's integrity — is especially striking given the importance the general public places on it. Asked which characteristic they consider to be most critical in a member of Congress, respondents to the poll rated honesty as by far the most important, surpassing a member's positions on issues, religious convictions, good judgment, or ability to get things done.

Given the weight the public places on honesty, you'd think that members of Congress would be falling all over themselves to demonstrate they can put their houses in order. Yet the ethics committees of both the House and the Senate have been far too supine in recent years, even as an array of scandals hit their institutions.

Over a dozen members of Congress have come under federal investigation for everything from improper ties with lobbyists to bribery to using their influence for personal benefit. Recently, various members of Congress have been accused of getting special deals on their housing and of abusing the earmark process. Few outside observers would say that congressional ethics enforcement has worked, a sentiment shared by the general public. Too often the standard pursued by congressional leaders has been, “Is it legal?”: They have turned the Criminal Division of the Justice Department into the main ethics enforcer on Capitol Hill.

Passing judgment on one's colleagues is hard, there's no question about that. Not only do members of Congress depend on one another to be effective, and so try not to alienate one another, but they feel an entirely natural reluctance to judge the ethics of their peers in public.

This is a big reason for the one promising step taken by the House — but not the Senate — on this front: the establishment of an outside review board to investigate ethics complaints. This committee, made up of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans who are not sitting House members, will have the authority to look into complaints about misconduct, dismiss frivolous or politically motivated accusations, and recommend sanctions.

As with many things on Capitol Hill, the proof will be in the implementation. The new review board does not have subpoena power, and at least one of its Democrats and one of its Republicans have to agree that an investigation has merit before it can move forward — a recipe that could lead to partisan stalemate. Moreover, once an investigation starts, the board needs to have credible power to conduct its inquiries, a professional and impartial staff, and the political and financial resources to give it heft. We haven't yet seen whether it will.

The fact that Congress has to look for help from an outside panel is disappointing, indicating that by itself it is unable to police its own members. But it is also a recognition of the political reality that the congressional ethics process has in recent decades become highly politicized.

Too often, complaints of impropriety were made not to strengthen the institution or uphold its integrity, but to weaken a political opponent and drive a member from office with ethics attacks when substantive attacks on his or her record didn't work. When I was in the House, some of the “ethics and corruption” charges made against the leaders of both parties were accurate, some were greatly exaggerated, and some were simply false. The politicization of the ethics process was getting out of control.

One of the core goals of this outside commission is to reduce the political misuse of the ethics process, and that is certainly needed. Not punishing ethical misconduct has weakened the institution, but so has the misuse of the ethics process by members of both parties for purely political purposes. Both bring discredit on the institution and both contribute to the low opinion people have of members' integrity.

Americans want members of Congress to avoid actual and apparent wrongdoing; they want them to act always to reflect credit on the institution. That basic standard of good conduct needs to be vigorously and fairly enforced. Anything less will continue to undercut Congress's already imperiled legitimacy.

Audio Version