"Is Congress Broken?" Panel Discussion with Prof. Poirier, Kathy Dedrick and James Wallner
On Thursday, March 21st, Professor Bettina Poirier moderated a discussion that posed the question “Is Congress Broken?” The panel included Kathy Dedrick, Majority Staff Director of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and James Wallner, former Executive Director of the Senate Republican Steering Committee. Dedrick explained how infrastructure is an overall bipartisan issue that becomes partisan when actually implementing infrastructure legislation. Wallner discussed some of the core problems causing gridlock in Congress, saying specifically that we as a society have forgotten how to think about politics. Wallner discussed how parties refuse to tackle issues on a bipartisan basis when they cannot agree on those issues within in their own party. He also explained how centralized power makes parties more hesitant to take bold stances, and he described how much of the leadership today prefers to pass legislation behind closed doors out of fear that transparency with kill progress.
The students in attendance asked several thoughtful questions about the negative impact of reelection on congressional productivity, the lack of efficiency in today’s Senate, the effect of imposing potential term limits on Congress, Federal Aviation Administration oversight of the Boeing 737 grounding, and several more solution-oriented ideas and inquiries. When discussing solutions, Dedrick voiced her opinion that a large way to help the efficiency of Congress would be to empower congressional staff with better resources, expertise, and institutional knowledge.