Understanding Congress

The topic of this episode is, “Who were the House Appropriations Committee Surveys and Investigations Staff and what did they do?” More than a decade ago, a friend and longtime veteran of Capitol Hill informed me that he had received a contract to work for the House Appropriations Committee Surveys and Investigations staff. I had no idea who these folks were, despite all the years I had spent work...

The topic of this episode is, “Does the Congressional Baseball Game increase collaboration in Congress?” Each June, members of our national legislature play ball. Democrats and Republicans from the House of Representatives each field a team, practice, and then play a game. The 2026 Congressional Baseball Game is on Wednesday, June 10, at 7:05 pm EDT at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. This tradit...

The topic of this episode is, “What’s the status of congressional modernization?" My guest is Representative Stephanie Bice , who is the chairperson of the Subcommittee on Modernization and Innovation in the US House of Representatives. She also sits on the Committee on House Administration , which has jurisdiction over a lot of aspects of the legislative branch’s operations. Rep. Bice is a Republ...

The topic of this episode is, “Does Congress need a Congressional Capacity and Technology Office?” Congress has a reputation for being behind the times when it comes to technology. Legislators often do not understand new technological developments, and the Hill itself has lagged in adopting technology. I recall being employed at a legislative branch support agency, and we were handed Blackberries...

The topic of this episode is, “Why should we care about Congress's power of the purse?” Well, we are just getting through the FY2026 budget process, which Congress was supposed to finish nearly half a year ago. And the next budget process has begun. During the second administration of Donald Trump, we have seen an escalation of the longstanding battle between the executive branch and the legislati...

The topic of this episode is, “What’s wrong with Congress?” I can’t recall the last time I met someone who said, “Congress is doing great. The first branch of government is getting things done and playing its central role in our Constitutional system. Nope. Almost everyone who shares their feelings about Congress with me despairs of the state of our national legislature. They think that it is play...

The topic of this episode is, “What is the primary problem?” Every two years, we have congressional elections, which feature both primary elections and general elections. For nearly everyone who listens to this podcast, this seems like an eternal feature of governance system: primary elections are used to winnow the candidate field, and then general elections give voters the choice between two or...

The topic of this episode is, “What are congressional norms and why do they matter?” To many Americans, the United States Congress appears to be a rather nasty place. There are lawmakers calling each other names, introducing resolutions to censure legislators and boot them off committees, and generally behaving towards one another in beastly ways. At least twice in the last few years there were mo...

The topic of this episode is, “Should Congress pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution?” The federal government experienced a shutdown in autumn 20025, which is one of many that have occurred in the past 20 years. The nation also has racked up about $38 trillion in debt, and Congress and the president have not taken real action to right America’s fiscal ship. So should Congress pass a...

The topic of this episode is, what are budget rescissions and pocket rescissions? Rescissions have been in the news recently. This past July President Donald J. Trump sent the House and Senate a rescissions message . This memorandum requested that Congress rescind, or take back, spending authority it had previously granted. Congress passed the legislation, which cut $9 billion from foreign aid, th...

The topic of this episode is, “Was James Madison the first majority leader?” Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have a majority leader. At the time of the recording this podcast, Republican John Thune of South Dakota is the Senate majority leader, and Republican Steve Scalise of Louisiana is the House majority leader. Now, congressional scholars tend to argue that the majority leader...

The topic of this episode is, “Does Congress's power to declare war mean anything?” In June of 2025, President Donald J. Trump directed US aircraft to drop 30,000 pound bombs on nuclear facilities in Iran. Some legislators in Congress and some media complained that this was a violation of the US Constitution. They note that Article I, Section 8 declares , “Congress shall have the power to declare...

The topic of this episode is, Why are legislators on social media?” We’ve all seen it, and if you haven’t, well, you will soon enough. Social media posts by members of Congress. They are on Facebook, X.com (what used to be called Twitter), Bluesky, and the like. The average voter may be forgiven for wondering, “Why are these lawmakers hanging out online? Don’t they have anything better to do?” To...

The topic of this episode is, “Is Congress getting anything done?” The 119th Congress convened in early January. Months have gone by, and there are lots of things happening in Washington, DC. But is it all being done by President Donald J. Trump? Is Congress itself doing anything? Gabe Fleisher is here to help us answer that latter question. He is the creator and editor of the must-read publicatio...

The topic of this episode is a recent book that is titled, Congressional Deliberation: Major Debates, Speeches, and Writings 1774-2023 (Hackett 2024). The book is edited by Jordan T. Cash , a professor at James Madison College at Michigan State University, and by Kevin J. Burns , a professor at Benedictine College.  As the book’s title indicates, its coverage is capacious: the very first exce...

The topic of this episode is, “What does a member of the House of Representatives do all day?” It is not easy for the average voter to imagine how a member of Congress spends each day. We see images of them standing in the ornate chamber, talking with voters, and there’s no shortage of videos of them delivering speeches or denunciations of presidents or the other party. Some polling data indicates...

The topic of this episode is, “Can term limits fix Congress?” Many Americans, including possibly you, dear listener, look at Congress and think, “These people stink. They spend decades in Congress and are out of touch with the American people and pay too much attention to special interests.” This widespread feeling unsurprisingly leads to nearly 90 percent of Americans telling pollsters they favor...

The topic of this episode is, “What is the lost history of Congress’s Offices of Legislative Counsel?” My guest is Beau Baumann , a doctoral candidate in law at Yale University. He studies the intersection of administrative law and legislation. He has published articles in a number of law journals and previously worked as an attorney for the US Department of Justice and clerked for a federal distr...

The topic of this episode is, “What has become of the United States Senate and can it be revived?” The Senate did not have a good year in 2024. The chamber did not pass a budget resolution, nor did the Senate enact any of the dozen annual spending bills. Its year-end calendar of business listed dozens of pages of bills on matters large and small awaiting votes. Lots of floor time was spent on pres...

The topic of this episode is a new book on Senator Mitch McConnell, a Republican who served as his party’s chamber leader for the better part of two decades. The book was written by Associated Press reporter Michael Tackett, and its title is The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party. It was published by Simon & Schuster in November of 2024...

As listeners know, every two years the House of Representatives is reborn. After the November election each party convenes in Washington, DC. They discuss and debate how they will run their parties, and what their legislative priorities will be. And if they are members of the majority party, they will discuss and decide what the rules of the House should be. Then when they open the new Congress in...

The topic of this episode is, “What does the House Ways and Means Committee do? And how does it do it?” The House Ways and Means Committee is the oldest committee of the United States Congress, first established in 1789 and became a standing committee in 1805. It has jurisdiction over raising revenue for the government to spend---taxes, tariffs, and the like. The term “Ways and Means” comes from E...

The topic of this episode is, “How can the House of Representatives better prepare new members?” My guest is Rep. Stephanie Bice , a Republican who has represented Oklahoma’s fifth congressional district for the past four years. She previously served in the Oklahoma state legislature from from 2014 to 2020. Prior to that, she worked in business for her family’s technology company and her own marke...

The topic of this episode is, “How does media affect our perceptions of Congress?’ As listeners no doubt know, Americans are down on Congress. Public approval of Congress has averaged about 20 percent over the past 20 years, according to Gallup . Certainly, the people on Capitol Hill are partly to blame. We have legislators who behave as if they are on a reality television show and who spend a lot...

The topic of this special episode of the Understanding Congress podcast is a recent book by Michael Johnson and Jerome Climer. The book is titled, Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People (Morgan James Publishing, 2024). Mr. Johnson and Mr. Climer each have spent more than four decades in Washington, DC and have had stints working inside Congress. Today, I have with me one of the authors, Mi...