Let me conclude my introductory time at the lectern by introducing you all too fill. Phil is a senior fellow previously worked as at the institute. He also served as a fellow on the House Select Committee on modernization of congress. That was back in 2019 earn a doctorate in politics in and Princeton University authored two books wyatt congress and to the edge of the gallate legitimacy andse responses to 28 financial crisis. Sitting at the far end is daniel lipinskis a distinguished fellow at the hoover institution. In a fellow on social at the university of dallas. Hate represents Third District of illinois u. S. House of representatives in 2005 until 2021. His career was quite distinguished but congressman trent to doctor for Duke University author of congressional communication, content and consequence. In the middle we w have reid ribble inaugural practitioner resident and Political Science university of wisconsin green bay. He too served in congress and served well. He represent the eighth district of wisconsin u. S. House of representatives from 2011 until 2017 for it after returning from house congressman served as a ceo of that Roofing Contractors association for five years. With that let me step away from the lectern bring up our guests. Philip wallach. [applause] also to start by thanking everyone who braved the smoke today and is here in person. It is a real honor to have you all gathered together. I do think the American Enterprise institute for providing relate such a wonderful professional home for me c where i could write this book. I want to start off by reading the epigraph of my book which seems like a strange thing to do. But i really find it inspirational and helps give a sense of why i am involved in this project. It comes from this book in the sense politics by bernard crick. And it goes like this. Boredom with the establisheded truth is a great enemy of free men. So theres some excuse and troubled times not to be clever and inventive in redefining things or to pretend to academic unconcern or scientific detachment. But simply to try to make some old platitudes pregnant. Politics in the greek myth cant remain perpetually young, strong, lively so long as he can keep its feet firmly on the ground of mother earth. The quick is a great defender of politics as its own thing. That is actually the very beginning of his book and in the next paragraph he goes on to Say Something about how we should think about politics buted politics is too often regarded as a poor relation inherently dependent and subsidiary. It is rarely to something with the life and character of its own. Politics is not religion and ethics law, science, history or economics. Another solvesev everything nors it present everywhere and it was not any one political doctorate such as conservatism, liberalism, socialism they can contain elements of most of these things. Politics is politics to be valued as itself. Not because it is like or really is Something Else more respectable or peculiar. Politics is politics. X is often a dirty work in contemporary usage. If something is a political that means it is bad. Part of my effort in writing this book is to rehabilitate the idea of politics is something that free people do. And the best way that we have to keep social peace in the context of profound differences between the people of our country we need how to learn to cope with different management and regulate it i not hope we can suppress it or pretend it doesnt exist. Thats a big theme of the book is why congress is the place where we need to tell the difference . Why in the american Constitutional System Congress is the one institution that allows the many notes of america to have it say and to allow different factions to come up against each other and hopefully in the process of figuring out how to accommodate each other actually produce policies and solutions for the challenges facing ournt country better than anything or one group could come up with all on its own. This is not a new idea as the epigraph said. I dont pretend any inventiveness. This goes straight back to something truly most of you were taught in civics class at some point from james mattis and federalist number 10. Though madison is co authors of the federalist papers and j are very concerned with how are we going to make this country hang together . Because as the constitution was balance they were this junk project from the United States of america was not long for the world. Centrally concerned with the problem of outcome get this diverse republic full of people divided by class interest regional interest, alchemy get them to all live together in relative harmony rather than falling to pieces . Madison provides this very famous answer about the extendev republic. He talks about having sufficient diversity of factions they will essentially check each other and keep anyone from predominating and thereby make sure we cannot have tyranny of the majority or tyranny of any one group. I will not go into that in detail you probably have all heard that a million times. Suffice it to say i think of madisons arguments and federalist 10 are more profound than they are given creditt fo. I think an awful lot of people in our current politics believed somehow you s should suppress difference. Until the fact people disagree but somehow one people who agrees on everything. I think a madison route is far more realistic and more profound. But turning to practicalities madison it pretty quickly found its not simply enough to put these factions in contact with each other mix it up and hope everything turns out all right. And madison in the Second Congress became concerned that amid factional chaos is a giant special interest of his day was coming predominant. He worried about the bank of the United States and its las specifically. Madison as a member of Congress Went to his friend Thomas Jefferson and worried the stock at jobbers were becoming the band of the governments. Tyrants are bribedit by the overall glamorous in combination. They really had a lot of flair back then. [laughter] so madison worries that if there is not some kind of organization put on this factional interplay on the congress he is an active member of, a leading member of that it is going to open the door by interest. And so madison, who worried so much about faction is a little bit ironically one of the fathers of Political Parties and helps to create the Republican Party as a counterbalance hamiltons a party essentially e federalist in congress. And we should not pretend that made everything worked out smoothly and in and of itself. The 1790s were in exceptionally nasty decade of politics in American History. I am going to say we see a situation where we need to organize affection and congress. A partisan organization introduces its own problems. Let me fastforward about eight decades to another famous observer of congress that is the political scientists woodrow wilson. Woodrow wilson as it doctorate student at John Hopkins University wrote a book that became probably the best selling work of american Political Science and history it is called congressional government. Multiple remember it today for a famous pronouncement congress and committee is congress at work. That is the most famous pronouncement. Wr wilson was not just writing a textbook. He is very concerned that the congress of his day was again a place where special interest were predating on the American People that all sorts of deliberation was happening and Committee Rooms behind closed doors there were no open Committee Hearings at that time. And the committees would write legislation be promptly signed into law their passing on the house and Senate Floors without much real substantive debate. We once again had a situation parties which wilson thoughts were rather bankrupt in terms of theires principles sort of runng on fumes from the civil war largely he worried that was basically leave in american politics adrift. Wilson articulated very powerfully in alternativelt visn very much different from madison and federalist number 10. Madison was celebrating complexity this multiplicity of faction as a solution to possible tyranny. Wilson once clean lines such that we can have accountability. And he believed the parties can tilt with faction internally and then they can present the American People with a clean choice and at election time the American People will decide. They will charge a one of these parties which is given a clear message with governing theth country and then that party should beha given a chance to implement its agenda and Pay Attention to the finer details of administration. It is remarkable at the extent to which wilsons prescriptions got followed in the decades after he wrote well before he emerged as a Major Political figure in his own rights. In the 1880s and 1890s move toward a system of very strong partisan control of the house or speaker read known as art read and his successor in the first decade of the 20th century was one of the most colorful figures in American History really who i wish was not such an obscurity today, joseph a gurney cannon the gurney cannonknown as boss. He was somebody who was raised in the wilds of western indiana in the 1840s but here he was a dominant figure in the first decade of the 20th century. He always had a cigar hanging out ofan the corner of his mouth and he played up his hayseed nature as a way of dealing with oppressive brit he was a very shrewd political operator became the dominant figure in washington for a time. And if i can i need a clicker. There is a clicker somewhere. Thank you. Okay im not slowing you a slideshow but have this one political cartoon which is practically my favorite part of the whole book. This is a cartoon the caption of it, i better get it right. The caption says the house in session according to the minority point of view that is the script up at the top there. For those reviewers online and on cspan in case you cant see it i will describe the picture this is joseph gertie cannon presiding over chamber of the house hes is a gentleman from illinois is recognized. Im that is him the gentleman from illinois is him the house is full of him. [laughter] its a dozens and dozens or scores of scores of carbon copy such that the house in session consists of doing what mr. Cannon once. So we followed wilsons advice to a remarkable degree we ended up in the situation we had a dominant party with a pretty clear agenda. Very clear differences between the party after the election89 f 1896. We have a William Mckinley and williams and jennings obrien. Ken is the business orthodoxy of the day. He is the dominant figure. That comes with the problem of stifling orthodoxy. The time of the second revolution very rapid social change congress cannot keep up when things are just Joseph Gurney cannon trying to say how things should be. This is a moment in congress and insurgency from progressive republicans who join forces with the democrats, overthrow his dominance. In addition to be the speaker and is stripped of that power soon enough things are blown open congress operates on a very different principal for many decades. The seniority principle or Committee Chairman become the Power Centers lets a decentralized model of congress. The book tries to give a sense that congress is a place with a long history. In trying to deal with this problem affection. Trying to make sense of how to play factions off against each other in productive ways. We sometimes end up in a land like this other times we end up feeling like the place has become a decentralized chaotic mess. And we need to reimpose some order perhaps through centralization. That is all they wanted to show for my picture show. Im going to gesture at most of that meat chapters of the book. Want to get that basic conceptual idea out there. Im sure will have a lot of time to talk about contemporary politics in the discussion. The main part of the book goes from 1970s to today. I was gotten from a place that was in the 1970s became a radically decentralized chamber to today place dominated by very cannot like figures until very recently maybe things today are changing and we will talk about that. Thats a place where a centralized leadership is called the shots to a remarkable degree an structured the agenda. Given the sense we dont have an interesting interplay of factions. We have two clusters of factions who know how to yell at each other and insult each other. And dont how to Work Together except for the absolutely have to pay to be fair than they do. The argument of the book is that ifwe are in a moment or the stifling orthodoxy is enforced by the centralized leaders really give our politics eight sense of not being adequate to the challenges of the moment which are very real. They tend to push a policymaking elsewhere in our government. Of course is a vacuum the executive branch largely pays up the slack. Executive branch is not a good place to represent the many nests of this country. Profound legitimacy problems we try to have agency bureaucrats to solve all of our problems. Old statutes we need to continually renew our self of sense selfgovernment. Take ownership of the federal government does this to send to congress we believe in the process by which they mix it up with each other and work out accommodations. And find Solutions Though not always be pretty solutions they wont always be good laws. My argument is not that we empowered Congress Better and got it to be a more assertive branch we would always do the right thing. That would be a crazy argument to make. I dont believe that. But overall, why congress . Byti investing in the political process, by investing in this ideal of selfgovernment that is how we renew our commitment to being a free people. Thats always secure social peace better than any other weight we know. Thats really how our constitutional system is meant to function. We need to make the choice once again in order to keep our country fromec falling to piece. So i will leave it at that and look forward to the discussion, thanks. [applause] x thank you felt. We will first start with congressman daniel lipinski. Phil spoke of congress and especially the house as being a place that is supposed to be a bunch of diverse interest beingg piled into the same form and then having to work things out amongst themselves so we can go to basic ways. Either they cancel each other out and nothing happens. Are they bargain out a compromise most can live with tand move on to the next chambe. Was h that happening when you ae in congress . Wasnt having much, a lot, not much at all . What was your experience . We start because phil read let me read this from a distinguished academic on a public servant. The blurb on the back of the book. While few claimants contemporary congress is uniting the nation are solving are most vaccine problems, why congress lays out a convincing case is exactly with the institution was designed to do, has done in the past, and can do once again. Let me tell you as we all know its not doing that right now. So many different thoughts come to mind as phil was speaking did anyone ever do that we do the cartoon i shared with nancy pelosi . That wouldve been absolutely perfect. I had said the biggest change i have seen. I said here congress the biggest change ive seen happen over the last few decades is it used to be after every election federal election every two years. House members, senators would look around and say who has the majority of the house . Who has the majority in the senate customer who controls the white house . What can we do over the next year end a half together . What can we work on for the betterment of the country before we fight it out in the next election . Today after the election every two years everyone looks around who controls what . What can we do in the next two years so our party can get control of everything and shoved down the throats of the other side exactly what we want. This is not how congress is supposed to operate. As i was coming over here i saw a tweet of scott perry was asked today have they resolve the impasse . Right now the house is stock. Some members of the Freedom Caucus blocked a a rule and some built republicans wanted. They asked ifnd it had been resolved he said it doesnt matter as a messaging belt. That is all the house is doing rightat now. I have argued that is all the houses done since 2011. The house has taken it self out of to a large extent legislating. The big problem is as phil said we are not really congress is supposed to take all of these ideas of the country this book is really incredible. Its a book i wish i would have written. Im glad phil has to put all the work into do it. Did a better job than i would have it. Thisis is so important but so fw people understand this, with the role of congress is supposed to be. Its mostly representative who come and bring the views of their constituents to washington. C congress to debat, deliberate come to some conciliation. And it is not doing that. Now, some may say, well, thats just because the country is so split. Thats part of the reason. But congress was meant to end. It can as phil says in this book, it could help bring the country together if we actually represent and as founders do their job of having just its either a red way or a instead of having a red way or blue way and theres no other choices. Individual members dont get to have too much of a say in it. We are just trying to if we are in the minority, we are not trying to have a say, we want to shame the other side so we can win the next election. I rememb