Reforming Congress – Daniel Mulhollan – Former Director of CRS

August 30, 2022  

  • Video
  • 00:17 Background
  • 06:39 What was the sequence of work you were doing and the positions you held at CRS?
  • 12:21 When you started off, how big was CRS?
  • 18:38 Can we talk about your management experience at CRS and the areas where you developed a deeper level of expertise?
  • 23:04 Lets go back to committees, can you talk about the structure? How should committees evolve in the future?
  • 31:07 And what about the jurisdictions of the non-special committees, do you think that needs a radical overhaul? Do you think they should be more normalized in terms of their power?
  • 38:34 How members learn, how are members informed? How do they identify problems and prioritize those?
  • 44:39 If you could design a better decision support system for the member, what kind of decision support system do you think would be better for them?
  • 52:53 And when you’re thinking about the solutions, does CRS help identify what those solutions can be?
  • 58:50 What do you think the future is of these support agencies? Where do you see them evolving?
  • 1:06:35 What can Congress learn from other institutions? How do other countries do it and how can we improve based on our learnings?
    -Lightning Round-
  • 1:13:23 What do you think congressional representation should mean?
  • 1:19:04 How would your ideal Congress allocate its time?
  • 1:23:07 How should debate, deliberation or dialogue occur or be structured in Congress?
  • 1:26:12 What fundamental institutional improvement should Congress make within a 50-year time frame?
  • 1:28:25 What book or article most shaped your thinking with regard to congressional reform?
  • 1:29:46 What are your plans for the future?