Show Notes
Daniel and I recorded this conversation with Soren Dayton, the Director of American Governance at the Foundation for American Innovation, and James Wallner, non-resident fellow at FAI, about their paper “Rebuilding Congress from Within, How Factions Facilitate Deliberation and Lawmaking.” It posits a view we share that too much of what goes on in Congress now is directed by leadership, to the detriment of the deliberation and negotiation between members that the institution is designed for. Factions, they argue, are one of the few tools currently available to rank-and-file members to restore collective decision-making and fix Congress. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the history of factions, how they operate, and why members of Congress, the philanthropic community, and the public should embrace energetic debate rather than the false goal of finding bipartisan, politically moderate policy solutions. Daniel Schuman: We are here today with Soren Dayton and James Wallner with the Foundation for American Innovation. And we’re here to talk about their new paper, Rebuilding Congress from Within How Factions Facilitate Deliberation and Lawmaking. Thank you both for joining us. James Wallner: Thanks for having us. And can I just say off the top real quick? I really wanted to name it something different. I mean, Soren was like, let’s just go with that. It’s a good name. I was thinking more like, you know, Kong versus Godzilla, you know, rise of the factions or something, spicy to get people in. But, you know, we went with Soren’s title. Schuman: That’s fair. I mean, you could have done the facts on factions, but that would also be kind of a pedestrian approach. Wallner: Or factions of life. Schuman: Oh yeah. You take the good, you take the bad, that kind of thing. Wallner: There’s so many options. Good thing we’re going to have a never ending series of factions papers after this just for the titles. Schuman: Your paper argues that Congress is dysfunctional because the members are not organized to deliberate and legislate in the present environment. James? What do you mean by that? Wallner: Well, I want to take a step back. I think it’s important to maintain a clear focus on agency in this, as you and I have talked about in all of our writings and conversations around town and over the years. It’s important to maintain focus on agency when we say Congress isn’t organized. I think the way to rephrase that, if I’m teaching one of my writing classes and colleges, where it’s active voice, active voice, active voice. And it is that lawmakers are not organizing themselves to facilitate their own participation in the process and to enhance their own ability to deliberate and to impact outcomes. There’s lots of different ways that Congress can organize themselves, but one way is through these things called factions congressional caucuses, intraparty caucuses -- people call them different things -- but they’re in essence, factions, sub-party kind of units. Sometimes they can be cross-party -- not so much in this day and age. We zero in on these in particular, because if you are an opponent of the status quo – and most of the reform throughout Congress’s history has been driven by opponents of the status quo, the outliers, if you will – you’re not going to be able to rely on existing kinds of legislative organization, right? So, congressional committees and the political in the party structure in the House and Senate, because those are set up by winners of the status quo, they’re set up by the people who are the reason why the status quo is the status quo, and so they’re going to be less inclined to kind of rock the boat. They’re not very friendly to the skunks at the garden party or the ants at the picnic. Factions really become important in that scenario. And then when you look at Congress today and the dysfunction that we see in Congress today, and the bipartisan frustration from the far left to the far right, that all seem to be ech
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Daniel and I chatted with Catholic University’s Matthew Green, who’s written on party leadership selection among a host of other congressional topics, on what will happen between the election and the start of the 120th Congress. This transcript is AI-generated and has been lightly edited by me. - CN Chris Nehls: Hi, this is Chris Nehls of the American Governance Institute here with Daniel Schuman and our guest, Matt Green, a professor at Catholic University of America. We’re going to talk about some of the stuff that’ll be coming up between the election and the next Congress. It’s actually a pretty busy time for members, particularly if the majority flips to figure out who are going to be their leaders in the next Congress and get that all arranged. And Professor Green is one of the experts on that topic. So we’re going to talk about that and some other stuff about the organization in the next Congress. So thanks for coming on. Matt Green: Thanks for having me. Nehls: Sure thing. So let’s just kind of start high level when we have an election and we have an outcome for the midterms, the parties are going to get together ahead of time because they have a lot to do to organize the next Congress, and the first thing on their agenda is usually to pick their next leadership class. Let’s just talk about how that works. And just the mechanics. Green: Sure. There’s this period between the November elections and January when the next Congress officially meets. During that period, the parties – both parties in both the House and Senate have some big decisions to make. So one of them, as you said, is choosing their leaders. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. They do also have the opportunity to revise their own internal rules. So each party has its own internal rules. And that can govern things like how committee assignments are decided within the party. It can determine disciplinary action if a party member is not doing what they’re supposed to do, and so forth, that doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, but that can be pretty significant. So there’s the writing, the rules, possibly rewriting or revising the party’s rules and then choosing leaders. So each party in each chamber has a set of leaders. So in the Senate, for example, each party has a floor leader. Majority is a majority leader, minority has a minority leader. They also have their whips in the House. Similar situation with one important difference I’ll talk about in a second. And so the parties first meet internally to decide who that leader is going to be. That selection is usually pro forma because most leaders are incumbents and no one challenges them or whoever’s running, just no one else wants the job for whatever reason. And so it’s by acclamation. But occasionally these races can be contested within the party. And so there’s a lot of politicking that goes on. And then you have this vote, and we can talk more about the mechanics of the vote, if you like. And the big difference here is the House versus the Senate, because in the Senate, each party picks their leader and the majority party has a majority leader, and then you win by majority, vote in both parties in each chamber and then the Senate. That’s the majority leader. So Chuck Schumer, who’s the Senate majority leader, was chosen by Democrats. And then that’s the last vote. But in the House, you also have this speaker of the House position, which is subject to a vote by the full House on the House floor. So when each party is choosing their top leader, they’re also choosing their nominee for speaker. And then that nominee is formally nominated on the House floor on the first day that the House meets. And then you have an election again, this usually up until about ten years ago, where everyone votes with their party and whoever has more seats, that’s going to be the speaker. But as we saw with Kevin McCarthy, we learned that’s not always the case. And it can get quite complicated. But that is the one big dif
For this episode, Daniel and I discussed the little-known but important set of rules that govern how Democrats and Republicans how to operate as caucuses within the House of Representatives. These rules determine how members are selected to committees, how leadership has to treat legislation, various punishments for misconduct and falling out of line, and a host of other things the parties need to decide on to work as a single unit. The Democrats keep theirs secret. The caucuses typically revisit caucus rules at the start of every Congress. With the House majority potentially flipping in November, adopting caucus rules will be important for how the Democratic caucus decides how to share power and what potential the rank and file will have to impact the chamber. Members arriving in Washington after the election, we explain, should be thinking not only about the rules that govern the House, but govern themselves as party members. Chris Nehls: Hi, this is Chris Nehls with the American Governance Institute. Welcome to another episode of the First Branch Podcast. This time around, we decided to keep it local. I was thinking of a conversation to have with someone about caucus rules, and it turned out that the person that probably knows the most about them is Daniel Schuman, who is nearby and easy to contact. So here we are. We’re going to have a conversation about What the caucus rules are, how they relate to the chamber rules in the house and why you should care about them. So thank you, Daniel, for taking the time. Daniel Schuman: Thank you for having me on my show. Nehls: It’s the nightmare scenario. Two of us talking to each other. At least it’s two of us because it could be even worse, right? That’s just be one. Schuman: That’s true. It could be just be one. There’s a word for that. It’s called radio. Nehls: Yeah, monologues are probably not the thing that we need to be promoting. But yeah. So each Congress, the parties get together and write their own rules in the House. And they’re usually held close. And by hook or crook, you’ve been able to get a copy usually of what took you some time. But why don’t you talk about what these things are and why the caucuses go through this process. Schuman: Thank you for the question. As regular listeners of this podcast know, there are lots of different rules that relate to the legislative branch. Of course, there’s rules that come from the Constitution, the House of Representatives every two years, usually, but not always on the first day of the new Congress will adopt rules that governs its operations. But in the 20th century, the congressional parties took on some new and different roles, and some of the authority or some of the mechanisms for governing the operations of members in the chamber happened in the caucus rules and not in the chamber rules. And this often flies below the radar, but it really controls a lot of how things work. Nehls: And just to clarify, the caucuses, it’s basically everybody that’s of a party in the House. It’s not the specific caucuses, we’re talking about the entire body of Democrats or Republicans. Schuman: Yeah, so of course, everything is lingo and Democrats and Republicans can’t even agree on what to call their thing. So the Democrats have a Democratic caucus... C-A-U-C-U-S, if you’re hearing me otherwise, that’s not what I’m saying. For Republicans, they have a conference. And basically, this means that the people that are affiliated with those parties that the party recognizes as being members of that party. You don’t have to be a member of the Democratic caucus or the Republican conference, but since one of the things that these rules govern as it relates to the operations of the chamber is who gets to sit on committees, in the modern era, if you’re not a member of the caucus or the conference, then you don’t get a committee assignment, which is no bueno if you’re actually trying to do stuff. So even if you’re an independent, you probably have t
For this episode, I spoke with two experts in appropriations law who have worked in and out of government — Cerin Lindgrensavage of Protect Democracy and Christie Wentworth of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — about White House attempts to appropriate funds as it sees fit, not as Congress has directed, and the legal and political means available for Congress and civil society to push back. Lindgrensavage is counsel at Protect Democracy and previously worked at the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and for Senator Barbara Boxer. She also clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Wentworth is a senior policy counsel at CREW and previously served as an attorney at the Government Accountability Office and as counsel for the House Budget Committee. Chris Nehls: Hi, this is Chris Nehls with the American Governance Institute. I’m here with Cerin Lindgrensavage and of Protect Democracy and Christie Wentworth of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. We’ll do our best to put all of that on the title card of this podcast. We’re here to talk today about appropriations and appropriations law and how when Congress approves appropriations, how does the federal government spend it? And what’s been going on in this administration that’s made it kind of unusual. So, thanks for joining me today. Christie Wentworth: Thanks for having us. Cerin Lindgrensavage: Yeah, happy to be here. Nehls: We have 12 appropriations bills a year, theoretically, that Congress approves. Sometimes, it doesn’t get there and does a continuing resolution, but there’s still the money it gets out to the federal agencies to spend. Well, how does that work after these bills move from the president’s desk to the agencies. Wentworth: A great question to start with. I’m going to take us back a second and just emphasize at the top here, because Cerin and I are both very power of the purse friendly individuals in that Congress does have the power of the purse, which is why they are the ones that are in charge of actually figuring out how much money the federal government has to spend. So that’s based in the Constitution. And as you mentioned, Chris, that usually results in 12 different bills appropriating funds for the federal government, including all three branches. After those funds are appropriated, they go through a process called apportionment at OMB. This is a responsibility that Congress gave to the president back in the day because agencies were blowing through their appropriations. They would enter into contracts, they would promise to spend money, and then they’d say, well, Congress, you know, we already said we’re going to spend this stuff. I know that you only gave us $10 and we spent $100, but we’re obligated now, and you have to give us this money. Congress said to the president, do a better job managing these funds and gave the president the responsibility to say, okay, agencies, you’re going to get 25% of your funding in quarter one for salaries and expenses, and then you’ll get another 25% in quarter two and so on and so forth. So, OMB now has that responsibility pursuant to a delegation from the president and they can apportion funds by time. They can apportion funds by program and they can do it through a combination of those two things. The purpose of that is still to make sure that the agencies aren’t spending funds too quickly so that they have to go back to Congress and ask for a deficiency appropriation. So that is the general framework for apportionments. I will say when I worked at GAO, we spent two and a half days teaching appropriations law principles to folks at agencies, so doing this in 2 to 3 minutes is a challenge. But that’s the apportionment process. I’m going to briefly share some of the components that we see in appropriations acts that agencies have to look for when they’re actually spending the funds. And then, Cerin, I’ll kick it to you to talk a little bit about the
Daniel interviewed the Foundation for American Innovation fellow James Wallner about how Senate Republicans appoint members to committees. The process is governed by Rule 24 of the Senate standing rules and Rule 5 of the Republican Conference rules, with appointments made through a "Committee on Committees" led by the Republican leader. The discussion covered how committee assignments work at the start of each Congress. They also examined a specific example involving Lindsey Graham's absence from the Budget Committee and Appropriations Committee, where his sister needed to be appointed to replace him. They also discussed how Democrats could potentially use procedural tactics to gain control of committees like Appropriations during this transition period. James noted that while procedural hardball is possible, party leaders typically resist such actions because they prioritize party unity and election strategy over immediate legislative action. The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity Daniel Schuman: I’m here today with James Wallner, and we’re going to talk about how Senate Republicans appoint members of committees. James, thank you for joining me. How do Senate Republicans appoint people to their committees? James Wallner: So there’s a magical, storied mountain, at the top of which are a group of people in robes. They got some chicken bones and there’s a smoldering cauldron. And they just do some chants. And then the smoke rises. And then it’s this person shall be on the committee. No, it’s not far off of that, to be honest with you. It is a very interesting process and it is a very insular and closed process. It’s hard to get a peek into. Right. There’s two kinds of governing authorities here. One is the standing rules of the Senate. Rule 24 governs the appointment of committees. The way this works is that the Senate shall approve a resolution, and that resolution will name the chairman of each committee or a committee, and it will also include the members on that committee. So if we work backwards, you have a committee and it’s got a chairman and members. The way they get there is that the Senate takes action on the Senate floor. They approve a resolution that says, like the Energy Committee. And at the top there’s a chairman, and then there’s the Republican and Democratic members of the Energy Committee underneath that. And once the Senate approves that, those members are now on that committee. The Democratic and Republican parties have different internal party rules that govern that process, and the Republican rules are written down. You can find them online. And rule five of the Senate Republican Conference really spells out that appointment process, where the party, in essence, is making a recommendation to the full Senate, saying, these are the members that we want on these committees. Schuman: The Senate, unlike the House, considers itself a continuing body. So its committees continue on from Congress to Congress. So for the Senate, you have the committee, and then you’re just moving people around from chair to ranking member or moving people on the committee and off the committee. Is that right? Is that what the organizing resolution does? Wallner: Yeah, more or less. Look, the Senate is a continuing body in the sense that only one third of its members are up for election at any given time. Now, in practice, committees in the organizing resolution are going to be populated at the beginning of each Congress. But the reality of the situation is, if you’re on a committee, you’re going to keep that committee for the most part. And the parties have their own rules. They don’t have to follow the seniority process. But for the most part, once you get a committee assignment, not always and not on every committee, but once you get a committee assignment, that’s your committee moving forward. The Republican conference rules spell this out. Rule five says, except as otherwise provided by this rule, once sel
Daniel Schuman: June 30th marks one year on the job. How are things going? Chief Michael Sullivan: Terrific. This is an incredible organization with an incredible mission, much different than other jobs that I’ve had in major municipal cities. Really focusing on what we do here, which is protecting members, protecting this place, and protecting the legislative process. And that protective mission-- while policing is certainly part of that mission -- security and the protection piece is something that is much stronger than any other place. I would say it’s flip-flopped. I had protective missions in other places; however, it was a small piece of my portfolio. I would argue that protection piece of this place and the members is a much larger piece of the portfolio here at the United States Capitol Police. Schuman: The legislative branch has tremendous security needs and of course you can’t do everything, you can’t focus on everything. Is there something that you’re focusing on right now? Sullivan: There’s a lot of things that I’m focusing on right now. I met with a lot of folks over the last year right after my entry, hearing members’ concerns about safety, the concerning emails, phone calls, and threats that were coming to them directly. And, I can tell you there was deep concern across the entire membership that I talked to directly and had those one-on-ones on how we’re handling those. Being able to have those conversations really made me understand that difference in that policing mission versus what I would call a protection or security mission. It was helpful in instructing some of the areas I needed to make sure that I assessed and focused and did the best we can with the resources that we currently have. That’s been part of what I’ve looked at. I’ve also looked at, making sure -- because this agency made incredible strides since January 6th -- making sure that we have systems in place that embed that progress, that we don’t backslide. We have to make sure that we are always prepared, and a day like that, if it ever comes, that we’re there to meet that day and meet that purpose. I truly believe that we are today, but we’re going to kick the tires and if we’re failing in any way, we’re going to fix it. Schuman: Can I just stay on this for a second? In prior years, with some of your predecessors, there were questions around are you focusing on training, because training was a big issue, particularly [on January 6th] Are you focusing on communications? Are you focusing on particular aspects of member security? There’s a million things that someone in your role, of course, needs to be paying attention to, and you had spoken about the security mission. You gave us a good top level, but is there a particular thing that you’re trying right now to address? Sullivan: I can tell you as the chief of a major organization, I have to focus on all those things at once. Training is a huge issue. Making sure that we have leadership training, embedded in this organization. We have people up in Boston right now at the Senior Management Institute, which is an executive leadership school. I’ll be up there speaking to them and that entire cohort this Friday. That’s incredibly important to me. We’re investing in that. This is a very busy time of year, but we found time to send our senior folks there to get that training. Then we look at how do we embed the training, because it’s different here, right? Every place else I’ve been there’s been a state post that requires and mandates so much training. We don’t have that here, and making sure that we get our folks the training that they need, whether it’s around their critical needs like just something as simple as... and it’s not simple, but screening at the doors. We can’t just ask people to do that without giving them the training. We focused on improving policy, improving training. One of the things that I’ve learned over my time ... When I came up in this profession, you’d make a policy change,