Adjourn at 10:35 for preliminary meetings. Harrison Steck-- Shaheen from 2025 -- will be present to provide guidance and answer questions. From my presidency course, recruit a president and cabinet members.
For your write-ups, explain how what you learn this week could guide your activity in the simulation.
Questions on the assignment?
- BLUF
- DC research
For Monday, read Davidson, ch. 10.
Expertise and acceptable sources of information.
- "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"
- Stipulated knowledge and CBO.
- Knowledge levels of members.
Repeated interactions
- Short-term: confidence building
- Longer term: reputations, grudges, and the Favor Bank
- How does partisanship hinder interaction? Workaround: working groups or "gangs."
The Secret or Shadow Congress
The final two-plus years of the Trump administration, for example, began with a government shutdown and featured two presidential impeachments. But they also saw the passage of a major conservation bill, a new trade agreement, significant criminal-justice reform, and several pandemic-relief packages.In 2022: The House overwhelmingly passed legislation to reform the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service. Days later the Senate approved, without a single vote in opposition, a bill proposed in response to the #MeToo movement that bans the use of forced arbitration in workplace sexual-harassment and assault cases. A bipartisan group of senators also announced an agreement on a long-stalled reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely clearing the way for its passage.
One key is the presence of institutionalists (Cole and DeLauro -- and Thune!)
Another key is privacy
Think about the downsides of public meetings
- Who actually attends (or watches) and takes notes?
- How do members behave? What kindsof questions do they ask?
A third key is the range of potential beneficiaries:
Suspension of the rules gets around germaneness issues.
More recent examples:
