Transcripts For CSPAN3 Congressional Reform 20221018

My name is tonio burgos. Im the chair of the harvard conservatory conservancy of the national parks. It oversees a lot of federal monuments with the exception of the statue of liberty and ellis island. They have their own conservancys. But within our region we have amazing monuments, including this crown jewel, federal hall. This evening, i am joined by Board Members of our board of directors former congressman steve israel. [applause] come on, steve. And my dear friend and one of the great former republican state chairs of the state of new york, ben cox. [applause] you see, like the former members of congress, our board is a bipartisan board made up of people from both Political Parties and from all walks of life, because that is what new york represented when we formed this great nation. You are in the building that is not the original federal hall. The original federal hall was a wooden building that basically lasted to 1812, and then was demolished. It was serving as the city hall of what was then new york. Ironically, in 2024, new york as a unified city will be 400 years old as a founded city. And in 2026, we will be celebrating our nations 250th birthday. Coinciding with that, im sure all of your kids and grandchildren will want to know come to new york and new jersey because we are going to be hosting the world cup of soccer. So we hope. America 250 congress sanctioned in 2017 a commission that is in charge of celebrating that 250th celebration of our nations great history, and it is ignited four host cities. Obviously, a commission with five members from massachusetts, five members from pennsylvania you have boston, philadelphia. There were suburban cities of the city of new york. But then they added charlston and new york. It was supposed to be and it is representative of the 13 original colonies that founded the 13 original states. We hope that federal hall, which will soon be named a National Signature site, will be one of those places in which we celebrate this incredible moment in history. In 2026, that signing of the declaration of independence was the document that united us as a nation. A lot of people dont know this. The Largest Naval armada ever assembled was the year that the british marines got here in 1776. No bigger armada was formed until we went to normandy and the great war of world war ii. George washington had just delivered the document known as the declaration of independence, and we had our troops lined up in Bowling Green, and he read the declaration to them as this fierce armada was coming toward us. Im not going to rewrite history here. We got our butts kicked in brooklyn. Like the brooklyn dodgers, we always lost in brooklyn. But washington recovered and the rest of that history is well familiar to you. This part of town, peg leg stuyvesant was our first governor when the dutch got here. They built a wall. They called it the stockade. Now, it is called wall street. Later on, a guy by the name of Alexander Hamilton figured it out. He would give up this city being the National Capital city so we could be the city of capital. Thats pretty good, right, steve . Especially for your members from out of state and all around the country, we end up being the city of capital all the time. But in 1765, a full decade before the first shots were fired at lexington and concorde, this was the site where the colonies convened. 10 years before axing and concorde. Lexington and concord. And so much more throughout that period. I will say this building represents so much of that history. George washington actually lived down the block, right by where the museum of the American Indian sets. And Thomas Jefferson lived on main lane, with these atoms a dams guys. They lived altogether on maiden lane. The mayor of the need city of new york is eric adams and the City Council President of new york is adrian adams, so deja vu for those of us who remember the other atoms. Adams. George washington, when he gave his amazing first inaugural address, before he gave it, he went to his friend, James Madison. He said, i want you to take a look at what i am writing here. He did and he said you cannot deliver this address. Why . Because you cannot stand there and hold the 13 states together by saying slavery must come to an end, or by talking about antisemitism and talking about a strong executive government. We just defeated the king, for gods sake. Why would you say that . He rewrote the speech down to some 30 odd pages, and then madison and monroe together wrote the response to the speech. That is the way it should work, right, guys . You should write the response to the state of the union. But what happened that very moment we then had this Congress Meet here in 1789. It was the most prolific congress of the time. The past the bill of rights and other landmark pieces of legislation. I am a lobbyist. The first lobbyist was ben franklin. He was retained by the quakers to lobby against slavery in this very same building. He did not do very well. But the thought of our flawed country we have a great country. We are going to celebrate in a 250 year celebration. We are honored to have you where is pete . Hes working. Thanks for the leadership youve shown in bringing this is the second time. The last time we were together before pandemic, we had a debate here, ed will remember it, it was a debate on impeachment matters, and it was quite a spirited debate, right, ed . And we had some former members involved as well as the organization supporting it, and i thank you and all of you for supporting what we do here at federal hall by being here. Now, i have a great honor of introducing a great author were energious, he has a great author, fergus. Hes written more than i ever know because i fly by the wheel. But he wrote congress at war. Think about this, how the republicans fought the war and ended slavery and for a dime we built the Continental Railroad and thats a hell of a infrastructure project. Americas great debate, henry clay, Steven Douglas and the compromise that preserved the union, washington, the making of american capital. Does everybody know George Washington distilled whiskey in mount vernon, its 127 dollars a bottle if youre interested. Tonight well hear about those books and the First Congress and how James Madison and George Washington and all those extraordinary men, no women, no people of color, no native americans, but men that founded a document, created a nation that is ever growing. He will share the unheralded place of firsts. So i give you a great honor and respect, fergus bordenwich. Fergus good evening, everyone. James baldwin once wrote, history is not the past, sorry, history is not the past, it is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. First i want to thank pete and the former members of inviting me to say a few words about the First Congress and say it here in a wonderful space which as a new yorker im familiar with and always admired but this is called federal hall euphemistically because it wasnt federal hall but its the site of federal hall and is an immensely rich site of ritalin of importance in american history. So i rarely use this kind of term but as close to a sacred site, a political sacred site at any rate that this country has. Were starting on the site where the First Congress met, James Madison and countless other founders participated in debates here, fought each other here. George washington, of course, not a member of congress, but obviously was here many times, usually rather grumpily. And inarguably, i think, its one of the most significant historical sites in the United States. The house of representatives met approximate where we are tonight in this part of the building which then stood here which is not nearly as magnificent if made of brick but the grandest public building in new york at the time. And the u. S. Senate met on the second floor, hence the upper house because it was upstairs. It had no other implications, it was just up there. We think of philadelphia as the birthplace of american liberty until philadelphia obviously has a pretty good claim until the congress met there and the declaration of independence was signed there and the declaration of independence took place there but this site were sitting, federal hall, is the birthplace of american government, the government that we have today. It began here. Its where the government that was created on the basis of the sketch that was the u. S. Constitution. The constitution didnt create governments it was the idea for government, it laid out a plan for government. The government was created by the First Congress. Who did all the political work necessary for those ideas to reside in the actual constitution. And the machinery of government was invented here in the First Congress. Its only outlined in the constitution. And when i speak about the First Congress, bear in mind, it was plan b the constitution was plan b. Plan a was the articles of confederation. It had failed. There was no plan c. There was no plan c. If this didnt work, nobody knew what was going to happen. The degree of anxiety that infused the members of the First Congress was intense from washington on down to the least consequential and least sober of the house. These institutions that became our government didnt springlike a zenna from zeus forehead wholly formed it took two years of highly creative and contentious politicks to accomplish the job and is creative and politics dont often come together in american speech but it required and always required, including in every congress that each one of you was a member of, it requires immense creativity that is versely unappreciated by a lot of the American Public who dont see the machinery at work very often. When the First Congress met here, this was in march and april of 1789, the challenges facing the country were immense. Bear in mind the country was barely a country at all and was a shaky collection of 11 sovereign states because North Carolina and rhode island hadnt yet even decided to join, which was especially with respect to tiny rhode island, posed a real bone of contention in congress and it was actually debated whether or not to send troops to the border to bring about regime change in providence. Fortunately that didnt occur. At any rate. Opponents of the constitution were demanding wrath of the amendments, 200, even a new Constitutional Convention to reinvent the system and basically destroy what had been done by the Constitutional Convention we always refer to. The government had no reliable source of revenue and more than 50 different currencies in circulation. There was no permanent seat of government, sectional suspicions were intense. There were fears, well founded fears of the west and when we speak of the west in 1789, its west of the appalachians, were not talking about wyoming and montana here, that the west would break off into another country or maybe even several, quakers and some others were demanding an end to slavery, southerners meanwhile threatened succession if the government tamper with the peculiar institution and threatened procession in precisely the kind of language used in 1960 and 1961 even many members of congress doubted the government would even survive its birth. James madison and this is the one of the most telling remarks madison perhaps ever made, and he wrote this in a letter memorably. Were in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us. James madison who was in a sense the closest to a embodiment of a guiding spirit that the First Congress had. Ill speak of him again in a minute. Madison feared that no one would show up. If you read his letters, and i want to mention parenthetically because some of you may already be aware of this, there was a marvelous project, the First Federal congress project, which was founded as long as 50 years ago and just recently completed the 23rd volume of the collected papers of the First Congress, not online, unfortunately, but makes fabulous reading for anybody who really wants to know what the founders were talking about when they were trying to do the work. Anyway, madison feared that nobody would show up, there wouldnt even be a quorum, and his letters from that period arh to begin with and you read his letters, hes on the brink of collapse, that it was all going to be a fizzle at the start. And one by one they kind of trickle in from here and there and madison is firing after these letters begging his friends in virginia or new hampshire, please come, please come. If you dont come, theres no government. And it wasnt the same in 1789 as getting on a flight and being here in a couple hours or getting in your car in connecticut or new jersey and just driving over here. One poor member from virginia, i think, didnt show up and didnt show up and didnt show up and it turned out, as one learned in the letters, he had been both shipwrecked and land wrecked his boat sank off sandy hook, you know, but he got here and then he died. But anyway anyway, the First Congress achieved perhaps the most prodigious output of any congress in american history. And just to summarize it in the briefest way, it established the executive departments, the federal court system, the first Revenue Streams of the national government, it approved the first amendments to the constitution, boiling those 200 plus down to 12. 200 didnt make it which is another story im not going into, which became the bill of rights, the first 10. It adopted a program for paying the countrys debts and braced the capitals braced capitalism and established the First National bank and established the capital on the potomac and a great deal more. I should say the debate over where the capital was going to be was intense. There were 32 gift sites proposed all with their own advocates. As i said earlier, as a new yorker, my favorite was the south bronx, spectacular setting but didnt make the cut. Anyway, none of this was for ordained. None of these achievements you can imagine, well, this is what they had to do. It isnt, actually, its what they struggled to do. Members of the First Congress werent demi gods and didnt regard themselves as that and didnt expect anyone else to either. The great majority were, surprise, professional politicians and most were lawyers. They were overwhelmingly pragmatists. None of them were ideological zealots. One or two of them were, frankly, a bit crazy, james jackson, a georgian, was reported to have i couldnt prove he actually did this but inclined to think he did. He would pull out his gun and shot it out the back window here to make a point. And the senate upstairs would close its windows, uhho, jackson again down there. And there were members who were better known for frequenting local taverns than they were for showing up for business. I dont think this is unique. I mention this simply to make the point these were human beings. They were not democrat gods demi gods, they were the kind of men and had women one could have said women but there werent any but you know, today, who become members of congress and commit themselves to Public Service and these were the same kinds of people and thats Crystal Clear in the letters that theyre writing to each other. James madison, as i said a few minutes ago, stood out as the leading figure especially during the first session and was in effect the floor leader in the house in the absence of majority and minority leaders, whips and any structured seniority, none of that existed at the time. He was recognized by almost everyone as the foremost interpreter of the constitution because he wrote quite a bit of it, and he was a brilliant parliamentarian. Extraordinary to kind of watch him at work through the records of that First Congress and he had the complete confidence of the most charismatic man in the United States, George Washington. And washington, i think its important to point out, had no program for his first hundred days. That term is a coinage of the 1930s, its a 20th century concept. He had no agenda of his own to advance. In fact, he was figuring out the presidency as he went along. And when his hands trembled on the second story balcony, people could see his hands trembling, it was not a myth but for good reason because he didnt know what was going to happen. He didnt know if he could handle it. Fortunately he proved to have exactly the right stuff for the moment. Anyone who really studies that congress or the period will always come out with an even higher estimation of washington than they went in with. The real engine of governments therefore, was not in washingtons office at his home, mostly on Cherry Street a little further up under whats today one of the pilings of the brooklyn bridge. Yes, he also lived down here at Bowling Green but namely up there on Cherry Street. Wasnt in the president s mansion. The real decisions were made here by congress. Congress was the driving engine of government, as it was through most of american history, incidentally, not to get off topic. This is where the real decisions were made, plans for the country proposed, and where all the fundamental conflicts were hashed out. And i would hope that it really doesnt need underscoring for you, congress didnt accomplish anything with a group hug. The founders in the 178 0s and 179 0s werent particularly fuzzy guys and did what they did through pragmatics and shameless deal making, which is richly disparaged by idealogues and idealists today and sometimes necessarily but suspension of personal principles in order to get things done in the public interest. I want to quote otto who was the french ambassador at the time and one of the most acute observers of the First Congress, wonderfully quotable guy but ill spare you all but one. He wrote, the intrigues, the kabols and underhand and insidious dealings of a fact which you say and turbulent spirit are even much more frequent in this republic than in the most absolute monarchy. Well, the turbulence that astonished him and was describing was simply republican government at work. This was democracy at its birth. It was the passions and partisan and the imperatives of Public Service that members were thrashing out as they do to this day. And members differed on all kinds of issues. It wasnt a giant group hug that went on for two years, they differed on slavery, centralized government, regional interest, taxation, the powers of the president , but they were determined to make the government succeed. Yes, they were afraid to fail. They knew failure would mean catastrophe and there was no plan c. But they rose. And these are great men, they were extraordinary because of what they did as human beings, they were ordinary and real life people we all know, especially whom we know in politics and rose to the urgency of the time. And they believed in politics as a tool for national survival. Im going to reiterate that because its one of the crucial things to take away from what the founders were thinking and doing. They believed in politics as a tool for national survival. Politick with all its messiness and conflict and frustrations and all its disappointments but they believed in it as a tool of survival. After all, the right to be political was what they fought the revolutionary war for. They fought to put politics into government, not to take politics out of government. With certain people in our society today, i imagine would make government better, its not the kind of government we want, however, one without politics. And they were determined to create a government that would endure. Again, this is not a foregone conclusion. They knew what they had was imperfect. One could cite any number of the 3 5 control compromise over the amendments which were legion. Part of the nature of compromise i think is a fantasy, a popular fantasy about compromise that you compromise in the end, everybody gets what they want and then feel better afterwards, i dont know, my observation of compromise is most people are kind of angry afterwards because of what they didnt get. And relief at least they got through it. They knew what they had was imperfect but created a machine that could fix itself, that could reform itself, that could modernize itself. Thats a term thats an an akronistic to imply but what they were talking about. There were no originalists at the origin, so to speak. Im saying that pointedly, obviously, that no members of the First Congress thought things could never be changed, could never be made better, could never be created anew. They made sure would take a hell of a lot of work to change anything. Thats true. But they believed and they knew and madison is on record very eloquently speaking of this that government could make itself better through the process of amendment, constitutional review, legislation, nittygritty Committee Work, you know, the tough Committee Work is often what changes peoples minds, or autolesion exhausts it. At least exhausts it. They dont lose public faith in Democratic Institution is more important than any single issue. They knew that it takes experienced politicians to shape the compromises that will always be necessary to keep the country together and move forward. They believed that they had created a system that the public would trust and had to trust. And for most of our history, the public has trusted it. For most of our history. I have to say that as an observer, the plummeting confidence in american institutions, and particularly in congress in recent years has appalled me. I find it extremely depressing and distressing as a historian. The last figure that i had, it may not be the same, this is from a few years ago, as few as 8 of the American Public has a positive opinion of congress. 8 . Nobody. Those are people who mark the wrong box, you know. For you look, americans have always scoffed at politicians and americans have always mocked their politicians, its called free speech. But the collapse of faith in the institution is something new. You do not find this earlier in american history. You didnt find it a generation ago. Approval of conga couple of generations ago was very high. Not everybody. Everybody complained, im sure others here would know the figures, 50 , 70 , as a matter of course. 8 . 8 . This is a catastrophe, a crisis. Its a crisis. We cant afford this. Democracy cant afford it. January 6 is an event that also demonstrates a collapse of confidence. Yes, obviously, and congress, given what happened that particular day, my wife and i were watching the hearings today and i mean, frankly, i could have wept. I know what happened, i was watching the news that day, that you had american citizens out there who thought they were patriots, who fought, claimed to be patriots assaulting one of the fundamental, and arguably the most fundamental institution of our government. We cant afford it. We cant afford it. Now, even the staunchingest antifederalist whom i didnt digress into talking about, the federalists were of course those, john adams, Alexander Hamilton, others who were the most forceful advocators of the new constitutional system, antifederalists were those who didnt like it very much and notable among them, eldris gary who gave us the term gerrymandering, congressman from massachusetts, very eloquent, interesting man but was a leader in the First Congress of the critics of the new system. Even the staunches antifederalists resigned themselves to outcomes they had fiercely resisted. Im going to quote patrick henry, one of my favorite quotes in the entire period. Patrick henry was an antifederalist and he hated the system. He had argued against it, campaigned against it but this is what he said. Although the form of government into which my countrymen determine to place themselves at my enmity yet we are all and one embarked, it is natural to care for the crazy machine so long as we are out of sight of a port to refit. He was the loudest critic of the constitutional system. He wrote that, too, his protege and other antifederal resists, james monroe, at the close of the First Congress. So were always out of sight of a port in american politics. Were always going forward, not quite knowing how its going to work out except that the going is going to be kind of tough politically. And its true the Great Machine of government that weve been bequeathed may seem crazy at times, maybe most times. It will never work perfectly but we canals make it better. And i think the former members, this wonderful Organization Im a great fan of, has an Important Role to play in the struggle to restore confidence in government through the many means that were discussed a little earlier this evening in that youve all committed yourselves to. And to reeducate but do much more than reeducate americans, including journalists who frankly seems to me too often i come out of journalism, by the way, originally, too often seem to lack a thorough education in civics or what the process of government actually is. But to reeducate the even the thinking American Public about what government is, what congress is, how it works. It isnt a big group hug. It isnt always fun ever, fun and entertaining, its a challenge, its hard, the ship is always at sea and out of port, but the crew is much, much better and more capable than much of the public gives them gives you credit for. So with that, let me just say thank you for giving me a few minutes to talk about my favorite subject. [applause] fergus, thank you very, very much for that. That was a great book. I read the book beforehand and advise it to anyone who has an interest in congress and interest in our national history. But please, lets give another round of applause to energious to Fergus Bordewich thank you. My name is l. F. Payne and was elected an hour ago in the Board Meeting to be the president of the former members of congress. So someone said that i am the second virginian ever to be inaugurated as president in this building, the first was George Washington in 1789. So its a big deal to me to have this job and i want to thank all my colleagues who voted for me, and i do very much look forward to it. I did want to thank tone tonio and the board for allowing us to be in this wonderful venue, this wonderful room. Thank for you hosting us. Thank you to aarp who has been such a good partner for us and has supported us in this endeavor and many others. And tonight i have the opportunity as my first action as president to bestow on two distinguished members of congress an award that the former members of congress bestow from time to time on people who do something thats unusual, and that is these are people in the congress or former members of congress who actually do extraordinary things that are helpful to the institution of the congress. You heard fergus talk about it, the condition of the institution of congress. And today i think all of us are looking at how it is that we can help the congress and have people understand it better, and there are people in the congress who are doing some very special work. And the two people who well recognize are current members of congress, derrick kilme, who is the chairman of the select committee to modernize the congress and William Timmons, the vice chair, and i will ask him to come up in a minute. But let me tell you a little bit about this award. This is called our the award that we give to people for distinguished service, so its the distinguished Service Award. And this award has been given to a number of people over the years. Its given not every year but when people do special things youll recognize the names of recipients. Gerald ford, kip oneill, bob michel, tom foley, all have got then distinguished Service Award. And i think in what congressman kill her and congressman timmons have done is not only are they in charge of a select committee doing a lot, and theyll talk about that in a few minutes, that is helping the institution of congress and making it more effective, but theyre also doing this in a way in a very bipartisan way which is really a model for all the other committees in the congress to have a look at and determine how they might change it up a bit and do Something Like the two congressmen have done. So ill ask them both if they might come to the stage at this time and let me tell you a little bit about them as they come up. Derrick kilmer. He is in his first term and native of the state of washington, a district in the state of washington. He is a graduate of princeton where he has a b. A. He was a marshal scholar, and has his p. H. D. And his thesis had to do with comparative social policy, a p. H. D. From oxford. He worked in the Consulting Firm of mckenzie and company for a number of years, and also was in the Washington State legislature, and he did all this before he came to the congress. Congressman timmons is in his second year, one of the youngest people ever to be elected in the state of South Carolina to congress, is a graduate of George Washington university where he has a degree in International Affairs and political science. He has a masters in intellectual studies and a law degree as well from the university of South Carolina. He has a masters from n. Y. U. In cybersecurity strategy. He was in the South Carolina state legislature before he was in congress, and a captain now in the air national guard. So i would like on behalf of all of the former members of congress here to bestow upon the two of them the distinguished Service Award for the terrific work that theyve done on behalf of the United States congress. [applause] l. F. so derek on behalf of the former members of congress we have the distinguished Service Award and also have the book that you were just hearing fergus talk about, his book that he has inscribed for you for this occasion. And so thank you. Its in there somewhere. L. F. thank you for all the work youre doing on behalf of congress. Derek thank you. You want me to say a few words. He asked me to say a few words. Im excited about the really big plate but also the book after hearing the author talk. Actually, hearing fergus talk about the First Congress has absolutely changed what i was going to say and say that first with gratitude for each of you for being here and the kind recognition but perhaps most importantly is caring about the constitution in which you all served. 54 years ago this month, 220 miles from here at cornell university, john garder in gave a graduation speech and he spoke about the importance of being what he referred to as a loving critic. He said for an institution to approve a true steward has to be a loving critic of it. It cant deny it and be an uncritical lover denying the nourishment of criticism needed to improve an institution, to enable it to fulfill its promise but it also cant be an unloving critic where it treats the constitution like the pinata at the party which is good for demolition but not good for growth. Part of my excitement of the work of the select committee is this whole effort has been surrounded by loving critics of 9 whole institution and the members of congress are a part of that. We have staff who are loving critics of the institution. Theres an Extraordinary Group of stakeholders called cohorts that have been engaged with us and are loving critics of it. Ive had the pleasure of being able to work with two wonderful Tag Team Partners and one the former president in the last congress and William Timmons, both of whom have been extraordinary partners in the untaking and whose Partnership Im grateful. Thank you again and look forward to the conversation and very grateful for the recollect ok nice. L. F. ill read this one, former members of congress, the 2022 distinguished Service Award presented to former members of congress to vice chair William Timmons on june 16, 2022. Congratulations. Thank you. Ill be brief so we can get started with the conversation. But i want to say one, this is very special to be here, such a Historic Building and incredible architecture, its beautiful. Its an honor to be before the former members. Ive been working really hard the last 3 1 2 years and doing the best i can to make an impact. My Campaign Slogan was washington is broken, and i got up to d. C. And was like oh, that was a good Campaign Slogan, but i still have hope. I served for the first two years with chair kilmer and vase chair graves and they showed me that there is hope. There is hope because the select committee has been working very hard to heal the institution and mend the dysfunction and get us back to what i refer to as our objective, evidence based policymaking in a collaborative manner from a position of mutual respect. We dont do any of that right now but we can and the select committee has proven that we can and if we can do it, congress can do it, and we appreciate you alls support of our endeavor and made a lot of progress and have six more months to go and its an honor to be before you and look forward to the conversation. Thank you. [applause] l. F. so in order to facilitate this conversation, were so fortunate to have with us the senior political analyst and anchor from cnn, john avalon, hes a very noted journalist and was the editor of the daily beast for a number of years and did an incredible job of growing that publication, won many awards as he did that. Hes also a very well known author of a number of books but his latest is lincoln and the fight for peace a book just coming out this year. Please welcome john avalon. Thank you, john. John its an honor to be with you all. I feel like they put me between you all that id really have to keep you guys apart but this is a real friendship and some of the fun were going to have. I want to welcome you all formally to federal hall, and all of you i see steve israel and barbara com stock. Fergus by the way, i loved his book and used it for research i used on George Washingtons farewell address. This is really a civics base, a sacred civic place. The birthplace of the bill of rights. George washington stood and took the oater here. Lower man hatten is one of the most historic and patriotic places you possibly could be. I recall when ted cruz once said dismissably about new york values. I think a walk around Lower Manhattan reminds us how much of the history we share here and commute with it daily. Welcome. I want to ask you about what fergus talked about. How does it feel as current members of congress to be in a sacred place where the First Congress served on a day weve had hearings about january 6, what does that inspire in you . Thank you, sir. Its really special to here. Ive never been here before. Its my first time. And to be here with chair kilmer and all the former members, its really special. We have a huge burden as members of congress. I fear for the future of our country. We have neglected so many problems for so long, whether its deficit spending, whether its immigration, i have very strong concerns about our current state of national security. You can continue to list. Health care. If we cant find a way to Work Together to solve these big challenges that have been facing us for years and detects, were not going to have a country. We need to find a way to address these problems. And i think so many people in congress often let the perfect be the enemy of the good and want to win at all costs and thats not what and the men that are gathered here 200 plus years ago did, they had a common purpose and found a way to accomplish their objective and that is thats what weve got to find a way forward as well in d. C. Amen, congressman. I should come to you, chairman in the spirit of the event but what do you say to that . You know, we just heard fergus say the founders werent these extraordinary titans and yet its hard to serve in an institution where they really nailed it in terms of the founding of our country, the founding of the institution, the vision they showed is extraordinary, it really is, and the work our committee is doing is now trying to improve upon now 230 or so odd years later, trying to improve upon that institution. I also think, and as im sitting here in a room with former members of congress, since 1789 until january 6 this year, 10, 427 americans have served in this institution. And that is somewhat of a goose bump causing statistic, right . Each of you places yourself in that history and has to think about your role in it and part of the work william and i are doing and members of our committee are doing is ensure those who come after us, were trying to keen up the campsite a little bit. And god bless you for it. Sort of in the spirit of writing a mash note, the work you all are doing is important. Its detailed. It seems to be getting done. I wrote a reality check about it on cmm a few months ago because it was a sign of hope and progress. What caused you to ghettoing and have hope you could get something done in such a divided, dysfunctional environment . So maybe ill say a little bit about the genesis of the committee and then ill talk a little bit about why we took the approach we took. So this all started about four years ago about a conversation about house rules. About six months before the election of 2018, were in a weak moment because we dont know who will be in the majority and who will be in the minority which is a good way to refresh the rules when you dont know whether youll benefit or be at a advantage or disadvantage by rules changes. We had a group of members, democrats and republicans, who actually started these conversations around thinking about what how would we want to change the rules package . And we kept having issues come up that werent really rules issues, the fact we have a massive outflow of staff and really struggle as a institution to review and retain staff. Not really a rules issue but the fact were a 18th Century Institution using 21st Century Technology to solve 20th century problems. So we basically created a grab bag of other stuff, at some point someone should look at this other stuff and we put a big circle around it and realized it if you look at the history of the institution, about every 20 or 30 years or so congress realizes things arent entirely working the way they ought to and create a committee to do something about it and why in that same rules package following the election of 2018 this committee was created. And we were assigned a bunch of topics and then there were some things we decided to work on that we werent sign. The approach that we took, and started with former vice chairman graves is veryivity than what most committees in congress have very different than what most committees in congress have done. You do easy math and republicans get their half and democrats get their half and republicans use their half to hire republicans who put on red jerseys and then they spend the rest of the time fighting with each other. I approached tom graves before our committee kicked off and said crazy idea, what if we dont do that . What if we just collectively hire one staff, some be republicans and some democrats and well be in charge of hiring and we all put on jerseys that say fix congress. And he said sure, lets keep doing it. And if you watch one of our Committee Hearings on cspan, you probably have too much time on your hands. But if you watch one of our hearings on cspan, youll notice a few things. We function very differently and dont sit with republicans republicans on one side and democrats on the other but stagger our seating. If you hear something cool, you lean over and say thats kind of interesting, why dont we do something with that idea. We dont even sit on the dies. I never diaz, i never had a good conversation sitting there looking at somebodys back of the head. We sit around and try to figure out how to move things forward. Thats not cosmetic and driven the outcome our committees have come up with. Can all committees function that way . That sounds breathtaking common sense. Its congress over party. Congressman timmons, tell us about the ways youve been able to find a consensus and the forms youre most proud of and theres a list of a hundred and some are big and some are small but all of them are important. Mr. Timmons ive been on the committee 3 1 2 years and what i think is most important is time, the calendar, the schedule, floor votes. We dont have enough time in congress and any 10 minutes we can get here or there adds up and is exponential. Incentive structures. And i dont need to tell the foreign members oftentimes the incentive structures in congress arent designed to facilitate the best results. Last is relationship building. We dont do enough. We need to be more intentional about building relationships because again, we have to engage in policymaking with one another. If you dont know the person youre more inclined to be mean with them and tell them their idea is stupid and then you warrant to agree with them and if archedded them in their previous encounter theyll write you off and its over. We made a recommendation last Congress Regarding time, you need to travel less and work more, obviously in 2019 we only were in d. C. For 65 full days. Thats prepandemic. I have to go back to 2019 because thats prepandemic. And we traveled 66 case. We all know the flying day you have a bed check at 6 30 it doesnt count. When you fly out at 11 30, that doesnt count as a workday. Then you have two days most the time where all your committees and subcommittees are trying to jam it in and you have floor votes and it messes everything up and everybody still needs to fundraise and have conference and caucus. We need to be in d. C. More because that will then allow us to hopefully build relationships. I have built some of my closest relationships through this committee. I have worked with derek and dean phillips, emanuel cleaver, had a keep williams, all my friends on a number of issues and we have not our principles are intact, we have not in one way sacrificed principle but if we agree on something, we should Work Together and weve had results and thats how its supposed to be. And the other thing, this job is very challenging. All the time issue, travel issue, away from your family, a lot of people yell at you. Its been very difficult. I will say when i got to congress i had a full head of hair and looked like tom graves. Its incredible. Three years later, here it is. Thanks. But again, as i said earlier you own a yoga studio, too . A cross fit gym and yoga studio. But again, this committee gives me hope because weve shown we can do our job and we have our goal is to spread our message and show people you can Work Together and get things done and not sacrifice your principles. Theres so many false choices presented and the American People have a sense things are divided and dysfunctional. Before we get to that, drill down on a couple more specific successes because theres a list of a hundred things yall wanted to get done. How many have you gotten done so far . So our committee so far has passed 142 recommendations, 2 3 of them have either been implemented or are on the path towards implementation. We made a very conscious choice as a committee at the beginning of each of our each congress, our committee has done a bipartisan planning recreate and brought in somebody from the library of congress to talk about the history of these reform committees. And you listen to these historians talk about well, in the failed effort of this year well, youre like i dont want to be one of those. And one of the Key Takeaways were the committees with the most success really focused on implementation. As an example, let me give you an example of some of the things weve gotten across the finish line. I think one of the certainly former members of congress will agree, a lot of the success and progress made in the institution is a consequence of the capacity of staff. We really rely on having capable people who are able to solve problems for the American People and yet the institution struggles to recruit and retain and have diverse staff. So among the recommendations weve made has been one, try to boost capacity and make sure were doing a better job of providing adequate compensation and benefits to staff, which just in this last spending bill, you saw Office Budgets get a decent boost so the institution could better compensate its team members. Thats not for us, thats for the American People because in the absence of that, what youve seen is about a threeyear tenure among congressional staff. So every time someone develops expertise they hit the road. Hopefully this will help hang on to people better. Beyond that, also the professional development, both of staff and of members. I had it never been until i got to congress in an institution that didnt have any professional Development Opportunities with the exception of freshmen orientation, there was nothing. One of our recommendations was one, to build out a Staff Academy that provided professional Development Opportunities for staff members. That has happened. And they just kicked off a Member Academy to start providing members of congress with professional Development Opportunities. In a nonpartisan way, right . In a nonpartisan way, absolutely. Thats one area. And ill mention two others. I think theres been real concern about the degree to which congress as the first branch of government, article 1 under under the constitution has devolved power to the executive branch. And one of the things we worked on was trying to in the budget and appropriations process is include the power of the purse including ability of members of congress direct spending towards efforts in their district, recognizing there had been a flawed process previously, all the earmarked process, we said lets not replicate that and have a new process that restores article 1 authorities but has a greater level of transparency, that has a greater level of efficiency, that has a greater level of accountability, and that is limited in scope. And our committee made that recommendation and the appropriations bill that was passed two months ago includes, for most members, projects and investments in their district. What that means for me as a member is two Affordable Housing projects getting built in tacoma and three tribes getting washed off the planet getting federal help to try to move to higher ground. Thats what were talking about. And the third area that i will mention is along the lines that william mentioned, we ended up really double clicking on issues related to civility and collaboration within the institution. That was not a topic we were assigned but the reality is a lot of the challenges that bedeviled the institution is not the consequence of rules but the consequence of norms. I came out of a state legislature where every bill was taken up under a rule and i can count maybe five or six times that was abused and someone used those rules for political point scoring. Now imagine that in congress. Its almost laughable it too be limited in that way. And yet thats not a rules issue, thats a norms issue. You dont have a rule that says dont be a jerk. And so part of the work that weve undertaken is trying to figure out, how do you foster a more civil and collaborative environment . Ill give you a quick example. We had a hearing where we invited in and actually leading up to the hearing, we talked to everyone you could think of, we talked to political scientists and Management Consultants and organizational psychologists and marriage counselors, literally. We talked to sports coaches, we talked to i thought about consulting an exorcist to figure out how to get an institution not to be the Jerry Springer show. Ill give you a quick example. One of the most interesting conversations we had was with a former sports coach. What do you have when you have members of the team that are trying to torpedo the team . He said well, i cut him. I said we dont have that option. We bench them. I said we dont have that option either. Let me ask you something, how do you do new player orientation . We dont have new players but new member orientation. How do you do it . Thats actually a really interesting question. When you talk to new members what they tell you we do it entirely the wrong way. We show up for orientation and say democrats get on this bus and republicans get on that bus. Most of the one of our recommendations is a doing that. That seems so simple. I think really important. Quickset is usually important and i think most viewers would be shocked to hear that orientation is as partisan divided as it is. Every time i talked to in next member of congress they always eventually get to the place where they say we need more constructive compromise. And some will say i wish i did that a little bit more when i was in office and i know thats Healthy People feel when they are running. They may have their own partisan arguments that i know South Carolina, i say that with affection, but what im wondering is how does the perspective help you appeal to the better angle of your colleague when the gravitational pull in your words drive people to be more divided, to not find ways to collaborate and compromise constructively for the country . I think it all comes back to relationships. I have great relationships and i do my best to build relationships across the aisle. If there is a very touchy issue and people are stepping out and getting aggressive in the media and causing problems you go and say hey have you thought about this . Can we work on it in this way . What about changing this or approaching this in a different manner. If they are your friend, which hopefully they are, you talk through it and you find a way to move forward together, but you at least have that conversation. I have seen at moderate peoples approach to different issues because, again, it is really easy to say mean eggs about somebody and their idea but, unfortunately the environment kind of facilitates it. That goes back to an issue of the media and the transition of really journalism because of technology. It is a different world than it was 20 or 30 years ago. I think being able to move the ball forward, that is what we have been focused on. We made a lot of progress and i think we have more work to do. Im optimistic. There is always going to be more work to do on the civility front, thats for sure. If you want to tell some of that stuff, people please, it can be done. That will change some of the structure. What is still on your to do list this congress . What do you think you can get done . We are at 142 recommendations. Our plan is to get to 200. We are looking at hearings related to technology that i think will drive as a committee we just yesterday, or two days ago, had a discussion about 30 recommendations related to everything from how do you improve, how district offices are set up and how they can serve their constituents and get evidenced based policymaking so some of the work in the next six months is pushing out for the recommendations. I think one thing i think will get past, as a just procedural house . We will pass these as recommendations and the question you just asked leads to the second thing. Then we have to focus on implementation. Part of the next six month is going to be focused on implementation and part of the next two years probably is going to be focused on implementation. If you think about the stuff we have proposed, it looks different depending on the recommendation. Some can be dealt with through the appropriations bill. Some of it can be dealt with in the next rules package. Some can be done by the speaker. Ensure that we can hang on to senior staff members. Some of this will require, so for example, we made as a committee about eight or nine recommendations related to reforming the budget because i will tell you what in terms of issues affecting the congress it really hits my district. My biggest employer is the federal government. So when there is a Government Shutdown it really sticks it to a district like mine. So we made eight or nine recommendations focused on budget appropriations. That will require legislation we are introducing that will need to pass the house and the senate. So it just depends. We are going to keep pushing on all of these because i keep checking its like that old saturday night live commercial, the bank that only makes change and there tagline is we make change, its what we do. That should be our committee mo tto our goal is not to make recommendations, its to make change. I like that. This is an Election Year and i love it, you are getting things done. This was created it sounds like an initially when no one knew it was going to be in control but if control of the house moves do you have the assurance that the important work of this committee will continue . First, the rules package is going to get a lot of recommendations through. I hope whoever the next speaker is will make it a priority. I think it needs to change. That was too easy. It was right there. I am very optimistic that its going to be a priority if the pendulum does swing. We are going to be really focusing on making sure that the next rules package has as many of our recommendations as possible. Implementation has been a core component of our Work Together and over the next expense we are going to be focused on continuing and making sure that the next speaker, however it is, is making this a priority. Then the question becomes will happens after that and i think that is an important discussion. We kind of agree it could be a subcommittee on House Administration and let someone else continue the implementation process, monitor to make sure it is not falling on deaf ears. No matter what happens, next congress, i am optimistic that the two of us will continue to work on getting these recommendations. I just dont know any other subcommittee that can point to 100 items to answer they got on. That is a record of success. Im going to stick with you for a second. I so you have a masters degree in cybersecurity which is very cool. Part of modernization is technology, what do you think needs to be updated with regards to cybersecurity in congress . Everything. That is an acceptable answer. We have a lot that dont understand technology. So the senate is way worse. The senate is way worse. But, you know we made a lot of strides. One of the big things that i am focused on right now as we are trying to create, it is essentially a program that conflicts with schedules to allow members, most members serve on fiveandahalf committees or subcommittees and when they are overpumping you are just running around. Nobody in Congress Defends their idea, they dont have to. Most of the time when you are in committee you do your five minutes of theater and then you leave. Nobody asks you questions, you just pontificate about what your meeting of life is and run away. You need to have to sit there and listen to other peoples ideas and you have to defend your ideas and when i was in the senate in South Carolina it didnt take long when someone proposed an idea for someone to say thats a bad idea or thats a good idea. But we dont do that. We dont have an exchange of ideas. We dont learn from a different perspective and im hopeful that if you are in the chair for that debate, for that dialogue that at some point youll say i never thought of it that way. That makes a little sense. However can slow my preconceived position on this with what they just said that make sense . I want to double down on that with the time we have left. If i goes back to i think the big picture of what is confronting congress. People feel that congress is divided and dysfunctional. It leaves them to be cynical when democracy is being challenged around the world. Being here in a place where as fergus points out they didnt have Political Parties. And they got a lot done. Order the kinds of reforms that you will think could be done to help heal the hyperpartisan polarization that is clearly killing our country . Is striking that there is, there are a number of issues that are not in the jurisdiction that we drive. Everything from how much social media divides us to the role of money in politics. Fergus just spoke about the First Congress that members have represented 30,000 constituents will represent between seven and 800,000. It is really complicated. I actually do think there are Structural Reforms that are outside of our committees jurisdiction but that are important, including the role of money in politics, bipartisan gerrymandering. Thank you for telling us the dereliction of that. We have to have a system where voters choose elected officials rather than elected officials choosing their voters. You see places that get for our blue or for or read. It makes it very challenging because people say i still remember my first week in congress i saw done with one of my colleagues. Two democrats and two republicans went out for burgers and 45 minutes into the mill i said phils likes we should be able to get some of this figured out. One of my colleagues just happened to be a republican from the midwest. He said i really like you and he said but here is what you dont get i won my seat by defeating a republican incumbent. He said the first foot i cast when i got here was a vote against john boehner for speaker of the house. He is to compromising. I said i was applauded in my district for that fat. A set of iq you but my constituents didnt send me here to work with you they sent her to stop you. I worked out walked out and called my wife and said how incredibly honest and my god. This is a real problem. So there is, i wish i could tell you that we could that the work of this committee could dramatically alter that. I think we have made some in part recommendations that provide some targeted interventions to change up some of those incentives but there are some big outside forces including money in politics and social media that. Make the type of progress that i think all of us want challenging and we have to get to those issues too. What is your take on that question . Based in your knowledge of the institution . Should or can . Lets go shed and then can. Should and then can we spent a lot of time trying to figure out why congress is so dysfunctional. Its a terrible term but its very accurate. The question becomes how do we as the problem the congress or is the problem the country . Is it the country divided or is congress doing something wrong . I think the root cause of all of this is this. If you go back to the Printing Press when it was created it took generations for people to appreciate that some idiot can get a Printing Press and print something. That wasnt the case it took literally generations for people to say the printed word is no less accurate they had the spoken word and with technology, what we have seen is journalism is dying. The subscriptionbased model that our newspaper printed newspapers relied on has gone to the internet. And has gone too click and now you have different Media Outlets that are catering to people that will click on them to sell advertising. That model is not good. It facilitates bad outcomes. It creates an argument over facts. We literally argue over science. I mean, postcovid, who is your doctor, whos your doctor . They disagree so we disagree. We entered this era or technology has given everybody a platform and has allowed just ideas to be hard that may not be sure. It is hard to decipher what is true and what is not true ended till we can grow past the challenges associated with technology, the Technology Challenge of someone being able to say on social media that they would never say in the grocery store. That didnt happen 30 or 40 years ago. We were a different culture. So we have to get better at managing technology and managing the new normal human and or action. Just because youre talking about technology, first of all if there were algorithm reforms, that could incentivize better behavior and a better conversation. But theyre all laws and bills in place that could address that. And should. There were partisan newspapers and foundress times too. You mentioned the debate over facts and science and evidencebased. I want to ask you about this, given that today was the third day of the hearing and given that you voted like 147 of your colleagues not to certify the vote was that about constituent pressure, peer pressure, or belief on your part . This is an externally complicated issue. I have written a seven page legal opinion on it. I wrote it myself. If you look at the history of the vote to certify or not certify, if you look at what happened in the last president ial election whether we should have that vote is one conversation but given the history of the vote in previous congresses and given the facts, circumstances under that were present in the last president ial election thompson voted against certifying bush. Raskin voted against certifying trump. I mean, a. But if you read the ninth circuit of arizona the dissenting opinion, thousands, if not tens of thousands of people were allowed to vote that should not have been allowed to vote because a federal judge overturned the duly elected representatives. Is that voter fraud . If you vote and you were not legally entitled to vote i dont know what else to call it. That is more than enough to justify the vote to not just certify. We could go on for hours. Georgia, you have a decree thats not legal. If you look at the opinion, Justice Thomas when the Supreme Court did not take up the pennsylvania case, he said what is going to stop this from happening again is if we dont do anything about it. This is probably the starkest argument, the Supreme Court only ruled on the merits. On one case for the last president ial election people and even talk about this. For South Carolina, a federal judge overruled the recently passed covid friendly voting laws in South Carolina. It went back and forth and the Supreme Court unanimously overturned her. So the laws that were enacted that allowed the people to vote, that changed the voting laws because of covid would have been returned had they now my argument, they would have been overturned had they gotten to the Supreme Court prior to the election. After the election there is nothing they could do. When i say people say the big lie it is so complicated. And trump oversimplified it. I colleagues across the aisle of simplified it. Its in the middle. We have had these hearings and i think you recognize that all the republicans testify that the president wasnt telling the truth. You are making a different point and you clearly believe it sincerely, still. So i guess here is the bigger question beyond all that. Given that that is such a fundamental divide about facts, which is relevant in this room, if you sincerely believe that and you sincerely to on that particular issue you clearly have gotten a lot done together how do you think we as a country and you is colleagues can get this country had legitimate dialogue. We are taking the extreme position of the left and of the right. Stop the steal is an oversimplification of a complex legal argument that justifies not to certify. The big lie is also an oversupply vacation of trumps overstuffed some suffocation. We need to engage in a collaborative manner. That is what we are supposed to do. We are not doing a very good job of that. You never want to agree with those three things. How do you think, just given the time what is your prescription for how we can grow past this is a country and you as an institution . Let me talk about one thing specific to our committee and one thing not specific. Specific to our committee, this is hard. For those of you have served in the institution, this created more tension in an already tense institution. We did something on our committee. We started our planning retreat with three hours in which we brought in someone with expertise in conflict resolution and we just talked about it. We had an honest conversation about it which frankly i dont think has happened anywhere else in the United States house but it happened in our committee. At the start of this congress i sat down with everyone of the Committee Members and of the 11, 8 mentioned i am worried about how january 6 is going to play into the work of our committee but three years from now when you can agree on what to have dinner gets thrown back in your face. So i thought it was important that we should just have a conversation is a committee about it. So that brings me to the general point. I think we have to get better as a country about having to conversations about things that we dont have full agreement on. I had two things happen earlier that have last fall. And into the winter. First in my district, unfortunately there was an attack on a religious institution. We had an an Islamic Center burnt to the ground. We sold to buddhist faith leaders get beat up outside a temple. We saw a church get vandalized and in the spirit of something good coming of something bad, the Interfaith Community held a solidarity event to say that is not what we are about. Part of living in a diverse democracy as we have to be able to live next together who think, look, and pray differently than we do. It was really inspiring. One of the faith leaders came up to me and said it was a really good hour but if we are going to do this right we are going to have an ongoing conversation. He asked as their federal support for Something Like that i said not really. Later, i got invited to an event. They did not want to talk to be me about gymnasiums losing money. All of the conflict that you will see in washington, d. C. Is showing up in our ymca. Even fights break out. It has become so that we cant ignore it so we hired a consultant there they are training our staff and board we are going to start posting events to have dialogue about tough conversations. He said is there federal support for Something Like that . I said not really. Because we did this committee, there was a report called our common purpose about refreshing american democracy. Chapter four of it focused on what they call civic bridge building. The United States currently spends millions of dollars trying to foster social cohesion and build civic bridges. We dont to adhere. We have introduced a bill, 10 democrats i am the lead sponsor, 10 republicans. Lets actually provide some support to these hyper local efforts, the ymca, the interfaith groups that are trying to do the right thing to not have the Jerry Springer show but rather to have dialogue across our differences. Our founders did not present that we were going to agree with each other on everything. They knew we wouldnt. But they presumed we would be able to live together. I think we have to work at that and the federal government has got to support that as we worked to build a more perfect union. The fact you are both cosponsoring it and the fact that you embody that conversation in this work and at the fact that you are getting so much done together and building Real Relationships and friendships is incredibly helpful. People should take notice to it and thank you for the work and made that sent forth more ripples of hope. Also more Civic Education please for places like this and for all of us. Thank you so much. [applause] okay. Welcome. Uh, our audience in the classroom anou