Reforming Congress – Casey Burgat, Dir. Leg. Affairs Program, Asst. Professor GWU

June 28, 2022  

  • Video
  • 00:15 Background
  • 03:10 Lets talk about the research end of things, can you talk about what you are interested in when it comes to Congress and political science work?
  • 10:13 What kind of things did you learn about the staffers?
  • 13:22 What about the turnover on the committee side? What was your perspective on the committee data?
  • 18:24 What about on the members side? What is the breakdown between the staff? Are the legislative more stable?
  • 20:09 Talk about the “good” or “bad” staff. Can you talk about your perspective on the good or bad? Does it change with experience?
  • 24:46 Talk about the experience staff, when you think about good and bad for a staff at that level, in your experience is it mostly good or are there red flags that could be an issue?
  • 28:34 Given what you know about staff, if you could be in charge of the whole Congress staff, what would you change?
  • 35:22 The overarching question is, knowing that you cannot legislate behavior. How do you get people to see that investing in legislature is important?
  • 39:13 Minority party participation and majority party legislation
  • 45:37 Legislation that passes without majority support and minority involvement, what are your thoughts?
  • 49:01 What are your thoughts on different incentives, how they’re playing out and how they can be used?
  • 53:46 Any thoughts on how to adjust this incentive landscape?
  • 54:17 [Lightning Round]
  • 54:26 What do you think Congressional representation should mean?
  • 57:08 How would your ideal Congress allocate its time?
  • 58:51 How should debate, deliberation and dialogue occur or be structured in Congress?
  • 1:00:22 What fundamental institutional amendments should Congress make in the next 50 years?
  • 1:01:12 What book or article most shaped your thinking on Congressional Reform?
  • 1:02:04 What are your future plans?