This is Democracy – Episode 277: How Congress Works

[00:00:00] Music: This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you, a podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:24] Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy.

This week we are going to talk about how Congress works. Everyone knows what Congress is, very few people know how it really works. And many people, throw shade on Congress, blaming Congress for all kinds of problems in our society. Maybe that’s true, maybe that’s not true. But, one of the things that certainly strikes me as a historian is how significant Congress has been throughout our history, particularly in the recent decades that we’re going to discuss today, and how little time we spend studying Congress, how much more time most of us spend talking about the presidency and more recently the Supreme Court.

Today we’re going to rebalance things and bring attention, as we really haven’t on too many episodes in the past, on, Congress and how Congress works. And we are joined by, I think, One of the few people alive who knows Congress backwards and forwards, maybe better than he ever wanted to. this is John Lawrence, who’s become a friend recently.

I had the chance to meet him when I was lecturing out in Santa Fe recently. John served for 38. Eight years, 38 years as a senior staff person in the U. S. House of Representatives in the belly of the beast. And for part of that time, he was chief of staff for speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, and we will talk about that experience.

he’s now in his second career, after detoxing from his time in Congress. He’s a visiting professor at the university of California’s Washington center. And he’s an established and really superb author, I have to say. his first book, The Class of 74, Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship, touches on something we discussed in an earlier episode, The Legacies of Water, Watergate.

John’s, big book that I really love and the one we’re going to talk about today and the one I encourage all of our listeners to read is called The Arc of Power. Inside Nancy Pelosi’s speakership from 2005 to 2010, it gives you, I think, the most in depth, assessment and analysis of what happened in those crucial years, and I’ll remind all of you that those are the years at the end of the Bush presidency and the beginning of the Obama presidency, the time of the 2000 Eight economic crisis, the, decision to withdraw from Iraq and surge in Afghanistan, all sorts of major issues.

the Affordable Care Act comes out of that moment and John gives us really an insider view of how Congress made this happen and the role of Congress and the role of Nancy Pelosi in particular. more recently, John has, is also a Sherlock Holmes fan, and he has published a book called Sherlock Holmes, The Affair of Mayor Ling Lodge, which was recently reviewed in the Washington Post and received a terrific review.

The, Sherlock Holmes book is now sitting on my bedside for me to read when I have some time coming up. John, I’m amazed at your range. Congratulations on all that you’ve, written recently.

[00:03:22] John A Lawrence: thank you so much. It’s really a pleasure to be with you, Jeremy. Thanks for having me on the show.

[00:03:27] Jeremi Suri: It’s, our pleasure to have you, John. Before we turn to our discussion with John Lawrence about, Congress and how Congress works, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary’s scene setting poem. what’s the title of your poem today, Zachary? The Speaker. The Speaker. Okay, let’s hear it.

[00:03:45] Zachary Suri: Now there is an empty chair, an empty man, a piercing stare, but once there was a woman there who set the spikes of every snare and never waited for a wind to blow, but told it when it had to go.

Do not wonder how it all was done, how in the storm the wars were won, how in the orange raging angry din she took a pound of flesh for every sin. Do not wonder how it all was found, the money and the matter and the sound. The blemish erased, the shame displayed, She who made sure the price was paid. Do not wonder, it cannot be answered, Except to say she had the answers.

Do not wonder, it cannot be told, Except to say she never had to fold.

[00:04:31] Jeremi Suri: Zachary, Speaker Pelosi is actually going to be in Austin this weekend for the TribFest, and as I told you, I think I should try to give her a copy of that poem. I think she’ll like it, don’t you think so?

[00:04:45] Zachary Suri: Perhaps, What’s it about?

I don’t, I’m not sure it’s in, 100 percent positive portrayal, but it’s certainly about the, amazing political skills that she has. Demonstrated for decades, at the top of Congress and helped this country, whether or whether many a storm, and, made sure that those who broke the law or who, violated the constitution were held accountable.

and it’s pretty amazing to think how much she was able to accomplish given the conditions that she was given.

[00:05:20] Jeremi Suri: Yes, John Lawrence, I take it you would agree with that assessment?

[00:05:24] John A Lawrence: I certainly would. Congratulations on the poem, Zachary, and if there is a way to get it to her, when she’s in Texas, that’s fine.

Otherwise, I’ll make sure that she gets it, otherwise. yeah, I think she probably would find it very, Very heartening. I’m not sure she would agree that she could tell the wind to blow, but One of the few things that she, probably couldn’t do.

[00:05:51] Jeremi Suri: So John, in the lead up to your experience with Speaker Pelosi, which we will certainly talk a lot about, and it’s the center of your book, Arc of Power, that I’m recommending to all of our listeners.

but in leading up to that, how did you, find yourself in this place? How did you come to Congress and why did you go to work there for so long? what brought you to that? That role,

[00:06:12] John A Lawrence: I’d always been involved in political campaigns. My family’s closest friend had been elected to Congress when I was just a kid in 1960.

And, that got me bit with the political bug. That was also, of course, the John Kennedy election. And if you were a young person and inclined to politics. That was the perfect storm for seizing your interest. When I was in graduate school, I wasn’t convinced that I wanted to, go into an academic career.

I finished my PhD, but while I was doing so, I volunteered to work in a campaign, in the San Francisco Bay area for a young guy named George Miller, who was only a few years older than I was. he won, he asked me to come to Washington, and we worked as a team really for much of the next 30 years, both on his personal staff and in the two committees that he chaired, the Natural Resources Committee and the Education and Labor Committee.

And, he became the closest advisor to, Nancy Pelosi, a very close friend, also obviously from the Bay Area. And, in 2005, she asked if I could come over and be her chief of staff. And, that was a pretty good career trajectory. I think largely, because of not only my interest in politics, because I, but because I was working for somebody who was very legislatively engaged and who gave me an enormous amount of latitude to, select issues, pick issues that I thought would work for his agenda and satisfied my own interests, many of which were historical.

And I was able to work on legislative issues, particularly around the creation of some national parks that integrated my historical training, as well as my legislative, skills. And of course, working for Mrs. Pelosi, I was very aware that I was going to be in situations that had enormous historical significance from the beginning, of that, of, my work there in 2005, which lasted for eight years, which is a long time to be chief of staff to somebody at that level in Congress.

And so I, very assiduously took notes, ended up with over 9, 000 pages of handwritten notes about almost every meeting and phone conversation that I was involved in or that I was involved with her and as a result, that, that became a lot of the body of, the evidence, for the, Ark of Power, the book that I wrote about her first term as Speaker.

[00:08:42] Jeremi Suri: and I should, mention, it’s one of the things I really love about the book, you cite your own notes, and you have now placed those notes at the Library of Congress, where historians like me and, many of our listeners can actually go, as of 2026, and have access to, to actually check the notes, correct?

[00:09:01] John A Lawrence: Yeah, I’m, I’ve actually transcribed many of them, not all of them, because I, they go through 2012, and, my book ended in 2010, so I have a couple more years where I’m transcribing so that you and other historians will be able to actually read the notes as opposed to, trying to figure out what my strange hieroglyphics, in shorthand are.

[00:09:24] Jeremi Suri: Having struggled to read, the handwriting of people like Henry Kissinger and Paul Nitze and others, I appreciate that you transcribed, these notes. Zachary.

[00:09:36] Zachary Suri: I’m going to ask, you clearly have level of in depth knowledge of Congress that the vast majority of Americans do not have.

What do you think are some of the key misconceptions that Americans have about how Congress works? and, what’s the truth?

[00:09:51] John A Lawrence: I think the, and I teach a course on this, and so this is an excellent question and one that I try to cover and try to resolve in the, course. I think people misunderstand the institution to believe that, first of all, it can be run like a business.

And you very often hear the government should be run like a business, somebody makes a decision and then everybody ratifies it. But of course, the nature of Congress is that it’s extremely diverse. Not only the House, which has 435 districts, all of which have their unique characteristics, and each member, of course, is, elected in a district, and you really need to think of the House as a, an amalgam of those individual districts rather than one entity that, that, that can move like a parliamentary majority can move.

but there’s also the Senate, which represents a totally different, jurisdiction, totally different districts, totally different. timeframe in terms of their election, six years versus three years. And so to understand Congress, you have to really make sense. And it’s very often hard to do that, that you’ve got to, piece together 218 votes in the house and very often 60 votes in the Senate to do anything, of legislatively.

And that, structure was created by our founding fathers specifically because they had some very deep reservations about this democratic model that they were creating, the small d democratic. And they wanted to ensure that, of not only that you had the voice of the people, but that the majority of the people did not abuse the power that they were being given.

And so they purposely created a government and a congressional structure that had multiple, houses, but also multiple layers that were able to, as we know, check and balance the actions of each one. And so people naturally get frustrated with Congress. And they very often believe that when a president makes a pronunciation, says, this is the policy I want, the Congress is supposed to snap into action and simply do what the president says, particularly if the president is of the same party as Congress, but that is a fundamental misunderstanding.

The Congress views itself as a co equal separate branch of government. It has to resolve many, internal issues. Even if you have a majority, you still have deep factional disagreements within that majority. And then you have the other house of Congress to deal with, which has an entire different set of.

of priorities and, political concerns. So it, is, I don’t say all that. So as people say, Oh, okay, then it’s a very complicated situation, institution. And I guess I shouldn’t be critical of it. Of course, people are critical of it, but making it work, is, a, an incredibly complicated task under the best of circumstances.

And very often we don’t have the best of circumstances. and one of the reasons I wrote Arc of Power was to look at a very uniquely talented. speaker who was able under both Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, in the majority and in the minority to make, legislative decisions, that she could then secure a, the support of virtually in her entire caucus, notwithstanding the multiple factions.

And, move legislation under, that was complicated and sometimes under the most egregious circumstances, and turn it into law. And those, are, the complexities that, many people who get frustrated with politics, and of course, Everybody, even in Congress, gets frustrated, doesn’t understand about the nature of that institution.

I don’t know whether I’ve simplified it or made it more complicated, but that’s how I would, in a nutshell, try to explain the difficulties of Understanding the internal dynamics of the Congress.

[00:13:44] Jeremi Suri: Actually, I think you’ve made it fascinating, at least for me, John, because, it strikes me that what you’ve, said is that, Congress has in a sense a leadership role to play that we often don’t recognize.

But that is very hard to get all the ducks in a row. One of the points you make in your book from the time that, Nancy Pelosi campaigns to be a party whip before she’s even speaker is, and I think these are the words you use, that she’s very good at counting votes. What do you mean by that?

[00:14:14] John A Lawrence: another politician from the Bay Area, Philip Burton, a really historic and significant leader of the liberal faction in Congress in the 1960s, 1970s.

He once said, be sure you’re counting the right votes. when you go to somebody and you say, I need your vote on something, they, count it. They don’t say, and they say, I think that’s a great idea, or you’re gonna win, or boy, I really admire the work you’re doing.

That’s not the answer you want. The answer is yes, I will support it. She’s better at counting those votes than anybody I think, and anyone who studies Congress will tell you, she is better at counting votes. She rarely, would go to the floor and lose. because even when we had very tiny majorities and many of the bills incidentally that we passed with very, tiny majorities, just a couple of votes.

She knows how to get information that she needs from people in order to evaluate people, what information, what political cover, what concessions people need to get their votes. I always say Nancy Pelosi. follows the, the, advice and the insights of that great, British political theorist, Sir Mick Jagger.

you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you need. She knows more about your district. She knows more about your politics. She knows more about the substantive issues than most members of Congress. And she’s able to then distill those into, a strategy and an approach that secures your vote and secures the 218 votes, she needs.

It’s an, it’s a unique. Capability, rare, it is rare that political leaders have that skill. And all you have to do is compare her successes with Republican speakers, subsequent to her, who, constantly would be unable to unify their caucuses. And, would fail, and, would fail as speakers, and that’s why you’ve had four Republican speakers over the same period of time that Nancy Pelosi remained the leader of the Democratic Party.

[00:16:24] Jeremi Suri: What struck me as, someone who spent a lot of time on this podcast and elsewhere, focusing on Lyndon Johnson, who was another very effective legislator, of course, operating in the Senate, which is different from the House. But Johnson’s approach seemed to be so different, right? The Johnson treatment, as Bob Caro and others have written about, involved bullying, hectoring, threatening, physically sometimes.

We’ve all seen the images of Johnson leaning into, Richard Russell and other members of the Senate. It sounds like Pelosi gets to the same end, but through a very different road. Is that correct?

[00:17:02] John A Lawrence: I think that’s right. And to be accurate about it, I’m not sure how well that technique would work even in the Senate.

I worked very closely with Harry Reid and, he would always make the point that he was, not really able to force people to do that. you can try, you can throw people off committees. John Boehner tried that. All you end up doing is making more enemies for yourself. Mitch McConnell has once said that, the, Senate majority leader’s job is like being.

the head groundskeeper in a cemetery. There are a lot of people under you, but they’re not listening to you. And, I think that people misunderstand congressional leaders. It’s more it’s more like herding cats. than it is giving an or, a CEO giving an order. And I’m not sure that Johnson technique would work these days.

In fact, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work in the Senate. It certainly does not work in the House of Representatives.

[00:18:01] Jeremi Suri: One of the parts of your book that I really loved, and I mentioned this to you before we started, Is the set of chapters you have about a third of the way through on this really difficult time in our country.

I think the quote you use, I think from President elect Obama is the country’s falling apart. This is 2008, the depths of what we now call the Great Recession, also a presidential transition, also a failing war in Iraq. and, Nancy Pelosi has to work with Congress, has to work with a presidential transition in this moment, has to work with, you describe auto executives coming to Congress, coming in their private planes to Congress to ask for money.

just walk us through what are the, some of the key elements of, how you describe in the book so well, Congress coming forward and in some ways saving the country in this moment. I think that’s that’s your thesis there, isn’t it?

[00:19:00] John A Lawrence: Yeah, it really is. Important thing to keep in mind as you mentioned Jeremy, is we are talking about a period that where, the economy starts crumbling at an enormously rapid pace just a few weeks before a national election, a presidential election.

Obviously that means all of Congress, all the house representatives in one third of the Senate and with in, in an incredibly tense few days. a, meeting is called, in the Speaker’s office, which I explain in great detail, at which the, representatives of the Bush administration, who, remember, Speaker Pelosi has been deeply critical of, both on Iraq, but also on mismanagement of the economy, and particularly on failure to regulate the financial institutions, which now we’re told are crashing.

and could bring down the entire economy and we are handed a three page piece of legislation, which essentially says when you distill down the three chapters that you referenced, the Congress has to vote immediately. No hearings, no markups, no, reports from the CBO or from independent agencies has to give 800 or 900 billion.

Dollars. To the very people who precipitated the collapse of the American economy. And, this, I, view this as one of the great moments of, of speaker Pelosi’s, speakership, because the easy thing to do, the political thing to do, the thing that frankly, I think a lot of people today in 2024 would assume would happen is that she would say, you know what, you made that mess.

I’m not putting my hands on it. I’m certainly not asking my members. To put their fingerprints on it just a few weeks before an election. But instead, you have this unique moment where politics, in a sense, takes second, place behind the urgent need to come together and find a solution for the country.

Now, having said that there were ultimatums, there were threats, there were there were, priorities that the Democrats insisted upon, the Republicans insisted upon. It wasn’t that smooth, but it had to happen within about a week’s time. One of the major things that Pelosi succeeded in doing, and I was very much involved in negotiating, was requiring that all of these loans that were being given, all these, TARP, so called TARP loans, Had to be paid back with interest.

And actually the government made about a hundred billion dollars off about those loans, that saved the American economy and arguably the Western economy. But there was also failure built in. Pelosi particularly wanted much more, stringent constraints against golden parachutes and other kinds of.

Retirement awards for the executives who took, these, bailout funds. We couldn’t get that largely because of opposition from secretary Paulson and the Bush administration. But she also had insisted both from the Bush administration and later the Obama administration for a substantial amount of mortgage relief.

So that we weren’t just bailing out the industries that caused the problem, but we’re also helping Hundreds of thousands millions of homeowners who were losing their homes and neither the bush nor the obama administration Came through with that mortgage relief, that we were promised would be a feature of the tarp legislation So there’s no question.

This was a masterful effort on pelosi’s part and senator reid’s part the price, of that was that the republicans Who were after all, this was their president who had gotten us into this situation. The Republicans were supposed to put up votes. They never did. They never put up the votes they were able to promise, which meant Pelosi had to keep going back to her members and saying, even if you have problems here, even if it’s going to cause you political damage.

We need your votes because the alternative is a financial catastrophe that, that will affect the entire world. And as a historian, I will say, I look back at that with a very bittersweet mixture on the one hand, Congress, functioned at its best. It was able to act, quickly under enormous political duress and at tremendous political risk.

But I also view, historically, that I think what comes out of that experience is the rise of the Tea Party and the rise of this very strong grievance, right wing reaction that government functioned, but it functioned to help the affluent and the wealthy, and it really failed. To, help the, the, people at the bottom, people who are, suffering.

We get into that, of course, when we do the stimulus and we do other legislation in the Obama administration. But short term, I think that really ended up fueling an enormous amount of this. feedback from the right wing that leads to the Tea Party, leads to the Freedom Caucus and ultimately leads to the Trump election in 2016.

[00:24:04] Jeremi Suri: I wanted to actually get to the stimulus, which you just mentioned, in that chapter, You’re somewhat critical of a new President Obama, in not actually pushing for a stimulus package of the size that Pelosi and other Democrats, particularly progressive Democrats, wanted, and in some ways, I think it’s a package in the end of less than 800 pages.

Billion dollars rather than one trillion or more, and it ends up having just the effect you spoke of, right? Helping those maybe who needed the help least and not helping those who needed the help most. Is that a fair assessment?

[00:24:41] John A Lawrence: I think there were several problems with the stimulus bill, and one of them definitely was it wasn’t large enough, and we did feel that the president, and he does this again, on healthcare, establishes a ceiling on expenditures.

that, then, become very difficult to supersede, even though there was support in the house for a larger stimulus. And most economists who were looking at the scope of the crisis told us that there, you would have to have more money than we were ultimately able to approve. But there were two other things that I think are really important in, the, in that became significant problems with the stimulus.

One is what I refer to In my blog, Democracy, as the implementation gap. And that is that Democrats have a tendency, and we’ve seen this also with the Inflation Reduction Act under President Biden, of passing very large, very expensive pieces of legislation that are designed to stimulate the economy, create jobs, address particularly lower income, needs, but because a lot of that is tied into, job creation, construction, infrastructure, hiring, they, the benefits of the very expensive legislation are not felt immediately and particularly with respect to the house, which has only a two year term, you’re going back to your constituents.

on the one hand, saying we passed really important legislation, but on the other hand, the constituents look around and say, I don’t see much benefit. And we were warned about this at the very beginning. We were told many of these jobs are called shovel ready jobs under the stimulus bill, would not be ready to hire people, even by the 2010 election.

And we knew that was going to be a huge problem. The way we wanted to address that is the third problem, and that is the messaging. And, we were very insistent that the administration had to go out and explain this. in all the communities of the country, as, members of the House tried to do. And we really felt that, messaging operation, which was the specific responsibility, I would point out, of Vice President Biden at the time, that fell short.

And so the Democrats went into the, into the 2010 mid year election, having voted for very expensive legislation, both in terms of stimulus and the Affordable Care Act, which But with minimal benefits being realized by the American people. And that was, that, that was a huge liability for, Democrats.

We were told on the one hand, don’t talk about the bills you’ve passed, the laws we’ve passed, because people are going to react negatively against you. And on the other hand, we want you to talk up the administration and talk about successful. We are, it was an impossible situation. It contributed of course, to the loss of 63 seats in the lots of the house of representatives.

in, in, in 2010, that implementation gap incidentally, that, that’s something that uniquely affects both Democrats and House Democrats in particular, because it does take a long time for this kind of legislation to go into effect. We’re seeing the same thing incidentally now with the, infrastructure legislation that was passed where people see some evidence of it, but they don’t see as broad evidence as ultimately will be felt when all of those.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are, spent out. And so it, the problem tends to impact House members who are up for re election. within only months after the legislation has been enacted. and we saw that in 2022 when Democrats had passed the infrastructure legislation, but they lost the house of representatives anyway, just like we lost the house in 2010 after passing the stimulus and the affordable care act.

[00:28:25] Jeremi Suri: And you talk in the book about, for instance, the problem with finding shovel ready jobs and shovel ready projects, I guess is the phrase, and things of that sort. Zachary?

[00:28:34] Zachary Suri: you just described a lot of very important pieces of legislation, that the House of Representatives helped usher, into law.

But you also described a huge, gap between what Congress is doing and what the public perceives. Why, in general, do you think, particularly in our moment, that people think of Congress as so ineffective?

[00:28:58] John A Lawrence: because it is ineffective, and I think most members of Congress would agree it’s ineffective.

The problem is that there’s a disproportionality in what people, in what the parties expect out of Congress. Democrats tend to come into office with a long litany of policy initiatives because they, by nature of the parties, and particularly as the parties have realigned ideologically, Democrats tend to be more pro government, pro legislative initiative.

Pro spending, if you will. And so they have a lot of things that have to pass Congress in order to demonstrate party success. Republicans, by contrast, have evolved into a largely anti government party, which doesn’t have a very long list of legislation. And the legislation they do have either tends to be tax reduction, which with all due respect is not the most difficult piece of legislation to pass, or legislation undoing, democratic legislation like Trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act 70 times.

but they don’t have, they haven’t put forward a lot of other policy prescriptions. So that’s one problem is there’s a disproportionality in what the parties have interest in doing. The other is what we go back to from the very beginning of this conversation, and that is that the House can pass legislation by a majority.

And, that means, As long as one party has those votes and, very important, and can keep itself together, bind together the factions as Pelosi was uniquely capable of doing, it can pass a lot of legislation which goes over to the Senate. and then dies because unless it happens to fit through a very narrow parliamentary, keyhole, it needs 60 votes to proceed.

And so almost in any Congress where Democrats are in the majority in the House, you will see votes pile, legislation piling up by the dozens in excess of 200 bills in the last time the Democrats were in control, 21 to 2021 to 2023. And that the Senate cannot take up. It’s not a question they can’t pass it.

They can’t even take it up for a debate because of the filibuster and the need to have 60 votes. And if you don’t have 60 votes, and that is a very rare instance, only happened briefly in 2009, 2010, then the Senate effectively, becomes what Bri Byron Dorgan, Senator from North Dakota, used to describe it as a hundred human brake pads.

it’s just very hard and, I think it’s, one of these issues that people say, that’s constitutionally the way the Senate operates. It’s not. The filibuster is not a constitutional provision. It is simply a rule of the Senate. It can be changed at any time. It was changed in 2013 and 2017 for judges.

But, as long as the Senate And I say this both in Democrats and Republicans, as long as the Senate views the preservation of an antiquated rule protecting its interests and, giving it great leverage in the legislative process, let’s, admit, as long as they elevate that over things like voting rights or climate change.

gun control or a woman’s right to choose by national choice policy, then the House is going to be more productive than the Senate, but the institution itself is going to fail.

[00:32:12] Jeremi Suri: So why would the Senate, however, ever get rid of the filibuster, John, based on your analysis? Because as you say, and I think as your book shows, it gives them so much leverage that they would then lose if they didn’t have the filibuster, right?

[00:32:26] John A Lawrence: Yeah, I’m not optimistic they will. I, think that, when you get into the issue of judges, that’s a different matter because both parties want to be able to act on judicial appointments. That’s one of the great benefits that the Senate has, and the Senate doesn’t have to make any concessions to the House on that because the House is not involved in the approved appointment, process under the Constitution.

but when the issue comes to legislation where you need agreement between the House and the Senate. And the White House having the filibuster gives each individual senator, because any senator can hold up legislation and then cloture, of course, gives you if you don’t have. a 60 vote margin gives you the minority enormous power.

It gives you leverage to say what happens all the time. And of course, this is a theme that emerges in the art, of power, my book. And that is that you will go to the Senate leadership or you’ll go to the president and they’ll say, look, house speaker, you have a great idea. You have a great bill.

You’ve passed a great bill, but that’s just not going to happen in the Senate. If you want law, Here’s the way the law is going to work. It’s going to be what we can get 60 votes for, and here it is, take it or leave it. It’s what Steny, Steny Hoyer, the former majority leader used to call it, my way or the highway.

That is the way the Senate views it. And, so I think it’s a bit of a pipe dream. I hope I’m proved wrong, but every Senator understands the leverage it gives him or her, and it gives the Senate as an institution in the shaping of legislation. So I, for one, do not foresee a significant change in the filibuster rule as insofar as it pertains to legislation in the near future.

[00:34:05] Jeremi Suri: One topic that comes up quite often when people talk about Congress, and it’s, a topic that does come up in your book as well in the arc of power, but it’s less prominent than some of the policy issues we’ve discussed, is the issue of money in politics. the constant fundraising, the influence of lobbyists, I guess some of that is in your book.

but I, wonder if, you see that as, an even bigger problem than perhaps, your book indicates at times and how we should think about that problem. How should we understand the influence of money?

[00:34:39] John A Lawrence: The role of money is the issue that gives me the greatest concern to be quite honest about it.

as, Jeremy, the. Majority comes, it goes, political atmosphere changes. The amount of money which is now in the political process, partly, by virtue of laws, but heavily because of Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United in 2010. Simply distorts the process to the point of dysfunctionality.

A lot of people think of money as, as just how it’s played in elections. And that’s bad enough. even if you look at something I personally can get very positive about, which is that Kamala Harris has raised over half a billion dollars in about six weeks in her campaign. But on the other end, if you, tease that apart, half a billion dollars, and that’s a small amount of what will ultimately be spent on the, campaign this year.

And you have to add in the House, Senate, and all the state and local races. That’s, that just cannot, you would have to be enormously naive to believe that isn’t going to shape the direction of campaign. And in fact, you’re already seeing reports that Vice President Harris has backed off some of the economic proposals that President Biden has made, because she’s getting pressure from some of her high end contributors.

So that’s, really destructive. But I think it’s also important for people to understand it, it goes far beyond campaigns. this interest of money, both contributors to campaigns, but particularly the independent expenditures that are now unlimited and undisclosed, those are the influences that shape the legislative process.

The influence of money there is the bill that never gets taken up. It’s the amendment that is never offered. It’s what doesn’t, you mentioned my Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s what in the, one of the most famous Sherlockian, quotes. is, it’s the dog that doesn’t bark. You don’t see the bill not coming forward.

You don’t see the amendment not being offered, but it’s the, issue of money dissuading, and preventing even debate from taking place, even a discussion of important issues. and it’s pernicious. The problem here, of course, is the Supreme court has elevated to a constitutional right, the right to spend money equating dollars with votes.

corporations with individuals and, unless we can figure out a way to address that either by, the Supreme Court reconsidering, the McCutcheon and, Citizens United decisions and realizing that it’s from the very year that it was decided, it exploded the amount of money in politics.

Or a constitutional amendment of some kind, which even tougher in some ways because that requires three quarters of the states to ratify. Even if you could get, a super majority in both houses to approve it, you’re, it’s gonna be very difficult to have, any kind of constraint on the, in, on this influence of money.

when Citizens United was decided, justice Kennedy, who wrote the decision, said. the, contributions will be, offset by a disclosure of where they’re coming from, and then voters will be able to make a decision. whether or not they want to, they want to support people who are having that kind of influence and people who are listening to that kind of, money’s influence.

The problem is Congress didn’t enact the Disclose Act. It passed the House again, but it didn’t pass the Senate. So this anonymity of money in politics continues and will continue. I think even, even, regardless of, whether or not we are able to, unify government under one party or the other and try to address the issue, I’m not terribly optimistic.

[00:38:37] Jeremi Suri: John, is there a way to keep members of Congress in Washington? More days of the week. one of the issues, of course, it’s not that members of Congress don’t work hard, you know better than anyone how hard they work, but they spend so much time traveling back to their districts, not really to meet with constituents, but to raise money and to go other places to raise money.

It seems to me that one of the things that’s missing is the time that could be put into legislation and to put into negotiation and building relationships. This is a point many have made that the Washington of the 1950s where people actually who were in Congress lived in Washington is very different from the Washington of today.

Is that something that could be addressed?

[00:39:20] John A Lawrence: It’s a subject that comes up very often, and there have been some attempts to build bipartisan retreats and other ways of doing that. of trying to restore exactly what you’re talking about, this, an, atmosphere in Washington where you come together around commonalities, the fact that your families are there, they go, your kids go to the same school, you find yourself at soccer games, you have, you’re down in the gym playing handball or you’re going out to dinners together.

they generally don’t work and, one of the reasons they don’t work is that the politics of the 2020s is not the politics of the 1950s or the politics of the 1960s. we have a far more realigned or aligned political structure where the parties, have very little in common. Either from the standpoint of specific legislation or even philosophy and views of government, very narrow number of, very tiny number of people in the middle, and all sorts of money and media.

Both, official, and, social media that victimizes people who look for compromise rather than, than honors them. and politicians will always do what gets them more support, not what makes them victims. With very few exceptions. People like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger. Come to mind. there’s one part of me that says, if you spend more time in Washington, you’re going to spend more time arguing with each other because there’s no fundamental.

We can’t even agree on basic facts at this point. I think, what’s more important is trying to rebuild a local level, some levels of accountability and support for collaboration and problem solving and recognizing on the part of voters. that simply. simply sending back to Washington people who say what you agree with.

But have no capacity for translating that into actual policy because they’re simply Taking a position and finding very little to argue about in to find collaboration with that’s not going to help just putting people that’s you know, it’s like it’s like your worst thanksgiving dinner with your uncle, you know From shboygan or something and you can’t even agree You know on on the basics, so i’m not sure time in and of itself is Helps There’s no question that, I think back to, trips that I went on with the speaker, international trips, CODELS, with members of the Republican party and, they weren’t necessarily people who you would think of as, allies, but Spending that time together.

Yeah, it did make a big difference. You found something common. They had a disabled child or they had, somebody was, they had somebody who had a housing problem in their family or, they couldn’t afford, somebody had to drop out of school because they couldn’t afford it. And then they become an ally with you.

And that worked. some of the legislation I, worked on in my career with, I worked with the legislation with a former member of the Birch Society on child welfare, but you found out things in common. So in that respect, spending time together, yeah, it would help, but, you have to find those issues and you have to build that trust.

And I think that depends on all sorts of institutions, from the news institutions to financial givers and whatever, rewarding the kind of behavior we say we want rewarded, but we, don’t, neither voters nor, contributors, nor the media really support. Everybody prefers to go to their corner and, and reward those who take the most extreme.

positions. It can’t hurt to get people together, but you got to give them some reason, to work collaboratively. And that means that’s where the rewards be votes, contributions, and media attention.

[00:43:27] Jeremi Suri: It strikes me that one of the key themes in your book is trust. And one of the powers that, Nancy Pelosi had is even though many people didn’t like her, they trusted her word.

If she said, She was going to do something they believed she was going to, do it. and I think we all can understand the value of that in any, enterprise that we’re, involved in, as we’re coming up on election year, and election week, very soon. this question we’re asking at the end of each of our episodes recently, what is it that voters should be thinking about?

How can we. at least elect a few more people who can build that kind of workable trust in this institution where they don’t agree, but they can still work together. What qualities do you think voters should be looking for in their candidates?

[00:44:15] John A Lawrence: let me, divide that into two pieces because I think this issue of people being able to trust Pelosi is absolutely key.

Most of her work had to do with convincing people on the far left where her own personal ideology is. That they couldn’t get what they wanted, but that she had fought hard for them. And so they could trust her that whatever she ended up negotiating had reflected taking into consideration what she and they preferred on healthcare, on Iraq or other issues.

I think it’s one of the ways that the Republicans have had a much tougher time because, and I know this because of my close working relationship with John Boehner, who succeeded Pelosi as speaker, because you’re an institutionalist as speaker. That is, you’ve got to, as Speaker, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, make the trains run on time.

You’ve got to pass appropriation bills. You’ve got to take up certain measures. by doing that, they, cast themselves as institutionalists, and that immediately makes them suspect in a large portion of their caucus. And so when those speakers, whether it’s Boehner or Ryan or even McCarthy, go to their members and say, look, we’ve got to do X, Y, or Z.

We’ve got to pass a continuing resolution. We’ve got to keep the government open, from a significant number of their members. What they get is, no, we don’t really care about that. And they don’t trust, and they don’t trust their Speaker because they see him as institutional and establishment and they view themselves as anti establishment.

It’s a huge distinction between the parties and it’s a big explanation of why Pelosi was trusted. In terms of voters, I just tell people, look, don’t, focus so much on what, politicians or candidates say, ask them what they’ve actually done, because it’s easy for anybody to get up and give you their idealized agenda for what Congress should do or what they will do.

The truth of the matter is, as Pelosi says, a lot of people want to make pate, But the truth of the matter is most of the time around here, we’re making sausage and you’ve got to get into that. You’ve got to move beyond what’s good for you or good for your constituency. And think collaboratively, think as a, caucus, think as a party, think as a Congress, if you will.

And if voters only hold you accountable based on their agreement with exactly what you say, and they, will not, they give secondary consideration. to the fact that the institution is failing, if you’re a member of Congress, you are part of that failing institution and you are accountable for that and you need to be able to explain to constituents and constituents need to be informed enough to say, that’s fine that you’re for, a balanced budget amendment if you’re a conservative Republican or, Medicare for all, if you’re a, if you’re a Democrat, but how did you, what did you actually do to get to that, to, effectuate it?

political change on those issues. politics is an engaged sport that you can’t just tune in, a couple of weeks before election day. You have got to be engaged, and to the extent to which you’re not engaged, you give politicians license to be irresponsible. So I don’t say that this problem is going to be solved in Washington.

I think this problem is going to be solved in districts and in states. where more engaged and more informed voters, hopefully through improved civic education and community organizations, hold people accountable on what they realistically are accomplishing as incumbent members or as candidates. And then you’ll end up with people who will be able to deliver on realistic promises rather than people who foment distrust and cynicism about government because they can never deliver on their promises.

[00:48:01] Jeremi Suri: Zachary, what do you, think? is, John’s vision, which is clearly compelling to those of us sitting in studying this, but in, in reality, especially for your generation of voters, those who are coming into the system for the first time, is it. possible? Is it likely that they will look at candidates and think, as John asks, what have they done?

What are they capable of doing? Or are they going to fall into the trap of the person with the shiniest rhetoric and the person who, says the things they want to hear? How do, what do you think is going to happen?

[00:48:36] Zachary Suri: I think what we need is, is an innovator in social media and journalism to Show the world how we can communicate these kinds of things using, new technology.

I think part of the problem is that the easiest way to use a lot of this technology, the most obvious way to use it is in focusing on the personality of candidates or on the sound bites and flubs, that very quickly go viral. Instead, what we need are is serious journalism and serious policy reporting, that can be used, with this new technology in a way that is appealing, interesting, and engaging.

I think we’ve maybe yet to see that, but I think we’re moving in that direction. I, one thing I would add in addition to an informed, voter base is we need serious, committed journalists doing this kind of work. I think part of the problem is that at a local level, a lot of those journalists who may be in the past would have been reporting on the impact of federal dollars on their communities are not.

in their jobs anymore, and those jobs don’t even exist.

[00:49:44] Jeremi Suri: But I think also what John’s getting at, Zachary, is that our criteria for choosing leaders has to be about their ability to get things done, which does have a bias, probably, towards centrists. versus the, those on the, less in the center, those on the far left and far right, who can make stronger ideological claims, claims that might be compelling to certain voters, but claims that are, ineffectual, claims that cannot be followed through on.

Are, do you think voters will, can recognize the value of voting? More centrist pragmatism, which is what I think John is talking about.

[00:50:20] Zachary Suri: I’m not sure I would call it centrist and I’m not sure centrism is ever going to be appealing, but I think what it is pragmatism. As you said, I think we have to make clear that there’s a difference between being an ideological politician and being a politician with beliefs who also wants to get something done.

And I think that’s what Pelosi was so effective at doing. It’s not that Pelosi was a centrist, but she was willing to work to get things, to get real things done for real people. and I think, we need politicians who can communicate that effectively. And we need journalists who can show, how policy impacts our lives.

[00:50:53] John A Lawrence: I think that’s really insightful. Zachary, we have a saying in Capitol Hill that you, campaign in poetry. But you govern in prose, and one of the tricks for anybody coming into Congress, and I’ve talked to many incoming members of Congress and given them this advice, is you’ve got to start thinking about me and start thinking about we.

And that doesn’t mean abandoning your point of view. In fact, one of the criticisms, which I think Republicans are absolutely right, is that they level at Democrats is, you say you want to do this limited approach, but really what you’re doing, it’s the camel’s nose under the tent. You really, this is going to become the predicate for then much more expansive programs.

And they’re right. That is absolutely true. You’ve got to learn to walk before you can run. but you’re not going to move to that next stage, of course, if the initial effort is not proven to be successful. And yeah, you have to, you have to be able to articulate a clear vision. But vision isn’t policy.

Vision is, where you want to go. Policy is how you get there. And, I, agree with you 100%. Nobody wants to go home and say, I am a reasonable moderate and, I’m, gonna, I’m willing to compromise everything. what they want to hear is I’m going to fight as hard as I can, but I’m going to get something, and then I’m going to come back for more.

[00:52:17] Jeremi Suri: John, I think that’s a perfect note to, to close on that the value of modernity. of focusing on policy, not just positions, right? Obviously people want to hear your positions and want to hear your values, but they want to know what you’re going to get, accomplished. And, I think your book, which I recommend to all of our listeners, the arc of power really captures this point.

It captures how Nancy Pelosi is in a sense, a masterclass in someone who had very strong values, but even more, effective than the values was her ability to get things done that rarely were 100 percent of what she wanted, probably never, but we’re still able to get things done that mattered and move the ball forward toward the values that she cared about.

Is that a fair assessment, by the way?

[00:53:00] John A Lawrence: Exactly right. And just take a look, take an issue like the child tax credit. We were fighting for the child tax credit in 2007 in the stimulus bill under George Bush, and we got some major changes. It’s 2024. We’re still fighting for the child tax credit, and we keep getting and losing and getting.

You’ve got to keep fighting. You’ve got to be in there for the long haul. George Miller, my old boss, you say, put on the long pants. Okay. It’s a long fight to get what you want.

[00:53:27] Jeremi Suri: I, hope all of our listeners will remember to put on their long pants. we often don’t wear long pants in Texas cause it’s so warm, but hopefully they’ll know what to put on there.

Maybe that is the problem. Everyone. I hope you will put on your long pants. John Lawrence, author of the arc of power and many other books. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:53:47] John A Lawrence: The great pleasure to be with you. Thank you, Jeremy. Thanks Zachary for your participation.

[00:53:51] Jeremi Suri: Zachary. Yes. Thank you for your wonderful poem, as, as well as always week after week.

And thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for subscribing to our sub stack and joining us for this week of this is democracy.

This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio

and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in

this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini.

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