Ep. 1: Schoolhouse Rock: A Refresher and Reality Check for the Modern Legislative Process
For the inaugural episode of Gavel In, your hosts, Aubrey Wilson and Taylor J. Swift, pull back the curtain on Members’ and staffers’ real experiences in navigating the legislative process.
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Featured Guests
Former Congressman Brian Baird [D, WA], a psychologist turned politician, represented Washington's third Congressional district in the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2011. Following his tenure in Congress, he served as President of Antioch University Seattle and has since focused on promoting civility in politics, as evidenced by his co-authorship of the "Civility, Not Violence Pledge" and his ongoing work with various political reform organizations including the US Former Members of Congress Association.
Dr. Kevin R. Kosar, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, specializes in Congressional studies, American politics, and government reform. With a Ph.D. from New York University, Kevin's career spans roles at the R Street Institute and over a decade at the Congressional Research Service. He cofounded the Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group and currently edits UnderstandingCongress.org and hosts its podcast. Kevin has authored several books on governance and public policy, including Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform. His expertise is frequently sought by media outlets and he has testified before Congress, contributing significantly to public discourse on government effectiveness and reform.
Betsy Wright Hawkings, a veteran of Congressional operations, served as Chief of Staff to four Republican House Members over a 25-year period. Her career includes significant achievements in bipartisan legislation, such as the Congressional Accountability Act and the establishment of the 9-11 Commission. As the founding Managing Director of Democracy Fund's Principled Leadership and Effective Governance program, Betsy developed initiatives to reduce partisan gridlock and enhance Congressional effectiveness. Currently, she leads Article One Advisors, a consulting firm focused on improving Congressional function and fostering cross-ideological dialogue. A Williams College Mead Scholar, Betsy has been recognized for her public service by institutions including the Stennis Center for Public Service.
Yuri Beckelman, a seasoned Congressional staffer with nearly two decades of experience on Capitol Hill, currently serves as Chief of Staff for Representative Maxwell Frost [D, FL]. A San Francisco native, Yuri began his career as a Staff Assistant to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D, CA]. His extensive experience includes roles as Staff Director for the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and Deputy Chief of Staff to Representative Mark Takano [D, CA], where he advocated for enhancing Congress' science and technology capabilities. Yuri's career also includes time as a Senior Advisor to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, demonstrating his broad expertise in legislative affairs and commitment to improving Congressional operations
Key Tips
Bills, bills, bills
Creative bill ideas can come from a number of sources. Three of which that might not be immediately obvious are:
the Congressional casework issues your office will aim to address,
recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office, and
bills introduced in prior Congresses by Members who no longer serve in the House, known as orphaned bills.
Legislative process support
Get to know the House Parliamentarian and the Office of Legislative Counsel Team. They can offer you and your team guidance not only on the legislative process, but also on how to most impactfully draft legislation to match a Member’s intent.
Support office outreach
For learning about the intricacies of a proposed piece of legislation, utilize resources such as the Congressional Research Service, Congress.gov, Legislative Counsel, and the committee of jurisdiction to give you additional perspectives and insights of both the bill’s intent and impact on existing law.
It’s a team sport
The legislative process is a “slow burn.” Successful legislation has often been in the works – gaining support of cosponsors – over multiple Congresses prior to passage.
Notable Quotes
“Our job is to try to solve problems. That doesn’t mean you always throw a law at it. It certainly doesn’t mean you always throw money at it. But it means that you’re in a position of responsibility, so use it.”
“In the real world, thousands of bills get introduced every single year in the House. And, 100, 200, maybe 300, will actually make their way through the House and over to the Senate. And even fewer will survive the Senate – maybe only 50, maybe only 80. So you need to realize that the process frequently does not go according to the Schoolhouse Rock process.”
“Making friends in high places, being a good player for the party, is often a critical aspect of legislative success in the House of Representatives because the House is a partisan majoritarian entity…So yes, master your subject matter. Yes, build a strong constituency and support outside the chamber for this legislation. But realize that getting through the various hoops towards getting the bill out of the House and over to the Senate means making a lot of friends along the way, and preferably before you start the process.”
“The 911 Commission bill actually happened [because] it was attached to the intelligence reauthorization bill… It didn’t pass as a freestanding bill…and my job was to get the families the strongest bill that I could get them. But at the end of the day, you know, we wanted the bill – not no bill. And so managing that – figuring out how do you get the strongest bill you can get, but still get a bill – and still not have everyone blow up...It’s about building relationships on all sides so that you’ve got the credibility. And being an honest broker with all sides so that at the end of the day, you can navigate that with folks that have very different interests, and genuinely be that honest broker.”
“As a freshman Member of Congress, your committee – especially the committee you were assigned to – everyone wants you to succeed. But your committee really wants you to succeed. And you can go to generally their Member services staff (if they have a Member service which most do or someone like that) and say, ‘I’d like your help with a bill coming up with the bill. I’m new to the committee. These are the issue areas that I care about.’...They will often come up with something and come back to you and give you a bill. You still have to work that bill yourself, right? You can’t just expect that ‘They gave me a bill. This is going to the Floor.’ If you don’t spend the time building support for it, finding someone from the other party to join you – [the committee] can’t just automatically move it for you, but it is more likely to move if it’s something that they gave you. Have that conversation.”
Highlighted and Additional Resources
The original Schoolhouse Rock: “I’m Just A Bill”
House Parliamentarian: the House Parliamentarian and the Parliamentarian’s Office serves all Members and is a resource available to them and their staff. One key resource the office provides is House Practice, a guide to House Rules and procedures.
House Legislative Counsel (more commonly referred to as “Leg Counsel”): an office that supports Members in the official drafting of legislative language.
Congress.gov: a go-to public resource where all introduced legislation can be accessed and searched, going back to the records of the first Congress in 1789. When a bill is introduced and processed by the House Clerk and the Government Publishing Office, it will appear on congress.gov accompanied by a non-partisan summary which is authored by the Congressional Research Service.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO): a nonpartisan federal agency that provides budget analysis to Congress on legislative items. An introductory brochure on CBO can be accessed here.
Congressional Research Service (CRS): Congress’s in-house, nonpartisan think tank. CRS experts provide briefings, policy research, and procedural training to Members and staff. Many CRS reports are made publicly available at everycrsreport.com.
Government Accountability Office (GAO): a nonpartisan agency that is commonly referred to as “Congress’s watchdog” and known as the federal government’s auditor. It often performs analyses on government programs for Congress to ensure that taxpayer dollars are well spent.
Understanding Congress: a podcast hosted by Dr. Kevin Kosar of the American Enterprise Institute.
Further Listening
For more insights into how to navigate the ins and outs of the legislative process, check out episode 3 on “How Committees in the House Work and How to be an Effective Committee Member” and episode 4 on “House Rules: What Procedures to Become a Pro on Pronto.”
About the Hosts
Aubrey Wilson is POPVOX Foundation’s Director of Government Innovation. Aubrey served as former Deputy Staff Director for the Committee on House Administration (CHA) in the 118th Congress. In this role, she coordinated efforts to make the House work more effectively, including overseeing the inaugural session of CHA’s bipartisan Subcommittee on Modernization. Prior, Aubrey served as Director of Oversight and Modernization for CHA during the 117th Congress. She is a former House legislative assistant and member of the R Street Institute Governance Policy and federal affairs team.
Taylor J. Swift is POPVOX Foundation’s Director of Government Capacity. Prior to joining POPVOX Foundation, Taylor was a senior policy advisor at Demand Progress, focusing on Congressional transparency, efficiency, capacity, and modernization. Taylor also worked at the House of Representatives Democratic Caucus where he focused on congressional modernization, budget, appropriations, education, labor, environmental, and tax policy. Taylor graduated with his master’s degree from The University of Akron, working as a teaching assistant for the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.
About the Podcast
“Gavel In” is a nonpartisan explainer podcast series designed especially to mentor new Members Elect of the incoming 119th Congress, their staff, and families to help them successfully set up their new office, team, and Washington home base with ease and navigate the professional and personal challenges of life as a Representative. Gavel In guides Members-Elect about House Floor operations, office structure and hiring, budgeting, technology, security, ethics, and also the intricacies of parliamentary procedure, rules, and how a bill becomes a law.
Created by former Congressional staff from both sides of the aisle by the nonpartisan POPVOX Foundation, “Gavel In” features expert advice from former Members of Congress and their spouses and is a great complement to the House’s official New Member Orientation to ensure Members Elect get all the support they need to succeed as they embark on their new careers in Congress.
About POPVOX Foundation
With a mission to inform and empower people and make government work better for everyone, POPVOX Foundation is focused on ensuring that democratic institutions are equipped to address the “pacing problem” — the gap between emerging technologies and governance. Co-founded in 2021 and led by proud former Congressional staffers from both sides of the aisle, the team at POPVOX Foundation brings empathy, a deep respect for the Legislative branch, and diverse expertise to its efforts to modernize Congress and other governing institutions.
Transcript
Ep. 1: Schoolhouse Rock: A Refresher and Reality Check for the Modern Legislative Process
Introduction
Aubrey Wilson: Welcome to this first episode of Gavel In, a podcast series by former Congressional staffers focused on demystifying how the House of Representatives works. We've created this show for incoming House freshmen of the 119th Congress, your spouses, and your future staff as an off the Hill resource to supplement your official New Member Orientation onboarding.
We want you to be extra set up for success in your new career in Congress.
Taylor J. Swift: We’re your hosts, Aubrey Wilson and Taylor J. Swift, two recovering House staffers from both sides of the aisle who share a love for the institution. We're dedicated to supporting its ongoing evolution through our work at POPVOX Foundation. We're a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to inform and empower people and make government work better for everyone.
We also want to be super transparent. This is not official guidance.
So we created this podcast because we saw a need for Congressional Members and staff and their spouses and their teams to kind of have an additional supplemental piece for New Member Orientation. It's no secret to those that are on the Hill that those first couple of weeks is basically like drinking from a fire hose.
I guarantee that you will hear that phrase over and over and over again over the next couple of weeks and months. So we saw a need to create a podcast with interviews for Members of Congress, think tank experts, former Members, the likes of which want to have an outlet for you to have this information readily available so that you can take notes and review.
So it doesn't seem like it's all coming so fast at one time. So we saw that need and are trying to fill it to have more informal conversations via podcasts so that you can listen to it while you're traveling to DC or anywhere in between.
So really quickly, a little bit of personal background about both of us. So it's no joke. My name is actually Taylor Swift. I promise it's real. I get jokes all the time, but I just shake it off. I am a former personal staffer on the House side. I worked for two Ohio Members as an intern and then worked for House Democratic Leadership in 2019 under then Chairman Hakeem Jeffries. And while I was working on policy for the team, I actually was fortunate enough to help create the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and just absolutely fell in love with that work and have been working for the past five, six, seven years on the capacity side of building Congress as an institution to make sure that it can respond successfully to what the American people need, and also make sure that the workforce is strong so that we have a strong institution. So I'm really excited to host this podcast with you, Aubrey, how would you introduce yourself as well?
Aubrey Wilson: Thanks, Taylor. And yeah, that's such a good kickoff to the foundation for this podcast. So so yeah, so my name is Aubrey. I was also a former Congressional staffer. We joke that it's recovering Congressional staffer. But we just can't get away from this space because we love it so much.
My career in the House actually started as a Legislative Correspondent for a freshman office from Georgia and ended with me being Deputy Staff Director on the Republican side of the Committee on House Administration, where I actually had the amazing opportunity to help freshmen Member on board through New Member Orientation.
And so, from being a junior staffer all the way up through becoming a legislative staffer and then working on a committee, it's an absolute pleasure to understand all of those nuts and bolts of Congress and also just how much goes into it and what that learning curve is like. And so to be a part of this podcast, with you, Taylor, who, you know, we're two staffers who I think if you were to look at our resume, you would never know that we both, like, worked so well together.
You know, coming at this from two completely different angles. But I'm so excited because I think our amazing cross-section of guests that we have on this podcast of everyone who has so much advice for new Members and so much background and expertise to share about all these different elements of being a Member of Congress and running a Congressional office.
You know, it's really crosspartisan. And it's something that I think will help all Members out regardless of background and all staffers that regardless of background. And I'm so excited that we've been able to have the opportunity to collect all of this in one place and package it up into this podcast.
Taylor J. Swift: Over the course of our Gavel In series, some of our episode highlights will include first-hand advice on staffing up for freshman offices, the ins and outs of the Member Representational Allowance, which is the office budget, how to build a rapport and relationships across the chamber. Even navigating communication wins to your district back home. We also get into some of the wonkier stuff, the Rules of the House, how to be effective on committee, and even top best practices for engaging oversight of the Executive branch.
Aubrey Wilson: Instead of having one guest interview per topic and episode, we actually decided to break up our episodes by topic. And so for each episode, there will actually be recurring guests who share their insights and their know-how and their tips about that specific topic, and then later on might come back to talk about another topic later.
Taylor J. Swift: It's so exciting, Aubrey. And to our listeners who are going to be with us over these next couple episodes: If Aubrey and I can survive Congress, we know that you can, too. So get ready.
Podcast is in session, let’s gavel in!
Aubrey Wilson: For this episode of Gavel In, we wanted to take on the myth that passing a bill is still somewhat like the Schoolhouse Rock version, “I'm Just a Bill,” that we all heard from decades ago. However, in reality, we think that our audiences would really benefit from both a refresher and a reality check of the modern legislative process.
To get those perspectives, we asked a huge variety of guests to join us for this episode. So stick with us. We have a former Member of Congress, a Capitol Hill Chief of Staff veteran of 24 years, a current Chief of Staff, and a former CRS analyst and think tank expert who all together dispel the myths and inform incoming freshmen and staff about how a bill actually becomes a law in the modern Congress.
We wish it was as straightforward as the old Schoolhouse Rock “I'm Just a Bill” cartoon, but unfortunately there's a lot more nuance these days.
Taylor J. Swift: To Aubrey's point. Our guests walk through the tricks of the trade for helping secure support, even before working with support offices like Leg Counsel. We're going to go through the whole process from drafting legislative language to introducing a bill, gathering cosponsors, walking through the committee process, and then crossing the finish line with a vote on the House floor.
All while remembering that you have to talk to your friends over on the Senate side along the way.
Interview with Former Rep. Brian Baird [D, WA]
Taylor J. Swift: Former Representative Brian Baird, a psychologist turned politician, represented Washington's third Congressional district in the House from 1999 to 2011.
For this conversation, former Representative Brian Baird wanted us to call him Brian.
So the legislative process, especially from, you know, the beginning of an idea all the way to trying to get it enacted into law can be extremely convoluted, complicated. There are ups and downs. You know, for the Members of Congress that are freshly sworn in, that are listening to this podcast and the staff that are coming to Capitol Hill for the first time, you know, who aren't really familiar with that on-the-ground legislative process.
Can you share some insights on some best tips from thinking of an idea to all the way to trying to get it passed?
Former Rep. Brian Baird: I think it's helpful to pick, you know, to give your staff some things they can think sink their teeth into. So if you've got an issue you want to say, okay, this is the issue that's really important to me, Alice, this is yours or Joe, this is yours. And you want them to have some ownership of it.
One thing we used to say that was helpful to me, staff didn't always like it, but it was no, it's the beginning of a negotiation. And the second thing we used to say is what is the opening line of art? Why? What is Article One and what's its opening line? All legislative powers granted herein shall be vested in a Congress.
So if somebody says, “Oh, we can't do that.” You go, “Oh yes, we can.” If we can change the law, we can. So we have to approach it with, no, that's our job. Our job is to make things work better. Our job is to try to solve problems. That doesn't mean you always throw a law at it.
It certainly doesn't mean you always throw money at it, but it means that you're in a position of responsibility. So use it.
I became…one of my best friends in the institution is the former parliamentarian Charlie Johnson. I worked on things like Congressional continuity and some other things that mattered. Really subtle, complex, parliamentary issues. I spent a lot of time with the parliamentarian and, and I spent a lot of time with Legislative Counsel on bills.
You know, it's not, and I personally wanted to read the bill. I wanted to hear their draft and say, “I don't really like it, that it's saying this. I wanted to say it this way.” So an iterative process with Leg Counsel, and I think it especially gets fun and challenging, but also more rewarding if you're building a bill with a Member of the opposite party because, you know, you have to take into account their politics, their policy, their constituents, their electoral issues.
And I find that really good because it's, you know, my I can't go there, you know, let's say you'll say, I think it's really important. I, I just can't go there. Well, how about this? And if you have a good ally and colleague, that process of working together so have somebody on Leg Counsel who you can work with on your bills.
Make sure your staff is up to it that they do the homework. If staff think this is a 9 to 5, they're not the right staff, and people go crazy about that. But look, the American people have entrusted us with the responsibility to govern the country. The most important, most powerful country in the history of the world.
And that's not something you do lightly. If you think you're going to check out at five and go drink at Hawk n Dove, sorry. That's not what the job entails. The job you better, you know, if there's a bill tomorrow, we want to know what's in it. I had staff who did all nighters a number of times, and they would come in and say, “I saw this in this bill, and I know that we're working on this with these constituents, and I'm wondering if we could make an amendment to this bill to help these constituents.”
That's the kind of grit and dedication you really want. And I think you really want to select staff who are in it for that. If this is not about, you know, some easy job and then you become a lobbyist. This is really about serving the public and trying to make the country a better place.
So the staff has to be every bit invested in the process, and the give and take of the process.
Discussion and Interview with Dr. Kevin Kosar
Aubrey Wilson: I love Brian's point about giving staff ownership over their own policy areas, and also the fact that sometimes making a law isn't always the solution to a policy issue.
Taylor J. Swift: It's a really, really good point, Aubrey. I also really liked how he said that there is a challenging part of developing relationships, but also the fun part of developing relationships with other Members across the aisle. You know, he has to take into consideration the opposite party's electoral issues, their politics, their policies, their constituencies, like all of those factors, are just, you know, really, really important when trying to build relationships and getting a bill across the finish line.
Aubrey Wilson: Our next guest, who’s Dr. Kevin Kosar, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, actually also emphasizes the importance of relationships in his discussion with us as well. Not only does he go through the kind of the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, but he also walks through the different types of legislation that can be introduced on the House floor and emphasizes the role that casework can play in coming up with new bill ideas.
Taylor J. Swift: So, Kevin, I feel like most of our listeners, new Members of Congress, staffers, are familiar with Schoolhouse Rock, you know, the iconic video, but it's not really how the legislative process works anymore.
So can you walk us through the real world, behind the scenes steps of writing a bill and the legislative process?
Dr. Kevin Kosar: Sure. The Member who wants to introduce the bill needs to realize that this is going to be a lengthy journey, and that if you're successful, it may come, through unexpected means. There is the schoolhouse Rock process, where you work with Legislative Counsel to draft a bill. Approach the Speaker’s office and plead for time on the calendars that your bill may be formally introduced.
Clarify how that bill is going to be referred to committee. Depending on how you write it, it can go to one or more committees. And some committees may be friendlier than others. And then according to Schoolhouse Rock, the committee will look it over, report it out, it'll get called up for a vote and hurrah! You have a statute almost in the making, so long as the Senate then agrees.
In the real world, thousands of bills get introduced every single year in the House. And, 100, 200, maybe 300 will actually make their way through the House and over to the Senate, and even fewer will survive the Senate. Maybe only 50, maybe only 80. So you need to realize that the process frequently does not go according to the Schoolhouse Rock process.
You also have to know that at every step of the process, you need the favor of other human beings to get there. It's not just a majoritarian exercise. There are powerful people. The Speaker, who has the right to call up legislation on and put it on the calendar for a vote or not. The speaker again, can also influence the rule under which your legislation might be considered.
And that can make all the difference. And then there's the committee Chair, or perhaps Chairs, plural. If your bill has been referred to multiple places, they've got lots of discretion. They can bury your bill. They can gut your bill and make it say something completely different from what you want. They can just ignore you because they control the committee resources.
So making friends in high places, being a good player for the party is often a critical aspect of legislative success in the House of Representatives, because the House is a partisan majoritarian entity, they do not tend to pass bills, the majority, if you are not a loyal team player. So yes, master your subject matter. Yes, build a strong constituency and support outside the chamber for this legislation, but realize that getting through the various hoops towards getting the bill out of the House and over to the Senate means making a lot of friends along the way, and preferably before you start the process.
Taylor J. Swift: That is so right. There are multiple types of bills and legislation that can be taken up for consideration on the House floor. So, you know, we have regular bills, resolutions, joint resolutions. Can you just briefly walk us through what the differences are in those?
Dr. Kevin Kosar: Yeah, it might be. It's crude, but the simplest way to break it up is to think of appropriations bills and all other sorts. Appropriations bills are the bills that appropriate money from the Treasury to be spent. And the all other bins are everything from authorizations. Bill saying, we hereby authorize this Executive branch agency to create this program to achieve this policy result.
Like you can create subsidies for soybeans to help grow more for export or whatever. But also in that other bin is some other stuff — resolutions, a House resolution, for example, to declare September 15th of this year as national Orange and Citrus Fruits Day in America. That sort of resolution doesn't have to make its way to the Senate.
It doesn't have to go all the way to the President's desk. It's just a resolution. There is also things called joint resolutions, meaning that they have to be moved by both chambers. Those can be used both for substantive purposes, like affecting policy, but also for simply signaling or messaging purposes. So you got a lot going on over there, in that other bin.
And, some of that stuff is quite substantial and important. Some of it is used solely for the sake of either pleasing an external constituency, or for polishing a party's brand in the hopes of upping their electoral odds.
Aubrey Wilson: With each of those different types of legislative items, all of them, as you just kind of alluded to, are written slightly differently. And for anyone who's ever ventured on Congress.gov and looked through all of the different legislative items that have been introduced, a reading through a bill can be a pretty intimidating process. It's very specific, and very traditional.
And for Members and staff who have never worked in Congress before, or even in a very, you know, well supported state legislature, can you tell them a little bit about Leg Counsel and the role that they play in helping staff and Members prepare a legislative language?
Dr. Kevin Kosar: Yeah. Your job as a lawmaker is, by definition, to make laws. And so these bills are proto laws, and unsurprisingly, they're written in legalese. And that can make them very difficult to read, even if you have a law degree or have previous training in enacting or writing or understanding statutes. So first thing when you're confronted with a piece of legislation is to go into Congress.gov and see if the Congressional Research Service has created a summary, and if it has read the summary.
Next thing I would suggest doing is to look on CRS.gov for that particular subject matter. And if you search for that term and a report comes up, call the person who authored that report and say, “Hi, I'm a Member of Congress or Congressional staffer. I see you covered this issue. I'm looking at this piece of legislation, I'd like to sit down and to discuss it with you. Let's have a briefing. Let's have a Zoom. Let's talk.” They can help coach you through the legalese. You can also turn to Legislative Counsel. They're the folks who actually took the aspirations of the Member of Congress who sponsored the bill or cosponsored and milled this thing into legislation.
So they can also explain what this bill does. You might also consider reaching out to the committee that's reported it, assuming it has been reported, or to the sponsor himself, or, if he's from an opposite party, reach to somebody within your own party who's taken a position on this and ask them for their opinion. Take input from a variety of places, and then the text will eventually become a lot more clear to you, and you'll be able to develop your own understanding of what it means.
And certainly, don't be surprised, there will be interest groups, and there will be lobbyists who more than likely, at some point in time, will send you a message or a communication or come by your office in hopes of giving you their perspective on what the legislation means.
Aubrey Wilson: So we've talked a lot about legislation as part of the legislative process, obviously, and Congress is known as the body that passes bills. But you also highlighted earlier on in our conversation, about how hard it is to find success, with getting bills actually through the entire legislative process. With that being the case, what are some of the other tools that Members have in their toolbox to find progress on policy, knowing that the legislative process itself is so hard to see through from beginning to end?
Dr. Kevin Kosar: Well, if you can't get a law written, you may nonetheless be able to set the stage for the law getting written. Namely, you can raise awareness. You can get people to care about an issue who might not otherwise care. You can help build an external coalition. You can go out and do media if you [care] greatly about an issue, you can use your own trips back to your home state and district. The Franking privilege, social media accounts to engage in educational outreach. And if you get more people to care about it, then it can change the climate within the chamber and perhaps give your legislation a greater chance to succeed. But probably even more important than any of that is to make the rounds within your party and start building support there, and if you get good response and start getting Members who are saying they're willing to support you in that, then you might even go further if you need to and reach out to the other party. And if it's a non-polarized issue, not something that either party sees as something where they're going to take a stand for the sake of reelection, bipartisanship could be a healthy path to getting your legislation across the finish line.
Certainly. That's one way to do it. But it all comes back to a larger question that unfortunately, the Constitution is not going to answer for you, which is what exactly is your job? One thing you won't find in the Constitution, but has certainly developed over the long term, is that in many ways, you've become an ombudsman to the Executive branch.
The federal government touches people in so many ways, whether it's regulations affecting land use transfer programs that deliver benefits to different populations. The government touches everybody, even mail pickup and delivery. The US government is there. People have different reactions to it. Some people have unhappy experiences. Some people are frustrated. They have somebody who's trying to flee a country and they can't get on a plane because they've not been approved.
Come over, okay. You're going to be asked to help with that sort of stuff, and those constituent services to interface vis-a-vis the Executive branch to get things done, those are a way of engaging issues, where the law is kind of not working in your favor necessarily, where you can get something done and help people out and also garner some good media and, good feels along the way.
Taylor J. Swift: So you talked a few minutes ago about gathering support for an idea or legislation, both externally in your district or maybe through the media, to try to shift the Overton window on an issue or try to even propose solutions. But internal to the House, that often comes through gathering co-sponsors to legislation. So for our listeners who are kind of unaware of how that works on a day to day basis, can you kind of walk us through how Members and staff gather co-sponsors on legislation they've introduced?
Dr. Kevin Kosar: Well, I would say that if you want people to cosponsor your legislation, you've got to do a few things before then. First, you need to go make friends. And don't worry, you'll have plenty of opportunities for that because party leaders are going to call you into a lot of meetings where they're going to give you ideas about how the party would like to message certain topics, give you ideas about priorities for the House as a whole.
What might we be voting upon? What other stuff are we going to engage in? There's a lot of PR to that. But you know what? While you're at those meetings, you can go over and say hello, meet somebody, create the opportunity to have coffee with them. You just have to do that sort of retail politicking. So you can get to know, is this something they care about?
Are they going to hate this idea that you have? There's no way to know if it is not a high salience issue, like immigration or abortion or something like that. So you're going to have to feel them out and find out, is this a person who will come on board, or at least like you enough that they're not going to kneecap you as you try to advance things?
And that's just a lot of retail work. You can do that as a Member. You may also have your staff do that sort of thing. You got to socialize ideas and then both within your conference. But when the time is right, when you feel comfortable, also at the committee level, assuming you are on the committee of jurisdiction, if you're not, again, you're going to have to leverage relationships.
You care about something, but don't sit on the committee. You got to get those people to care about your issue.
Aubrey Wilson: In talking about Congress 101 and as Taylor kind of said at the beginning, you know, kind of rethinking the Schoolhouse Rock version of Congress, you actually run a long time podcast called Understanding Congress that has taken on a lot of different perspectives of the kind of the real inner workings of the chamber. Can you actually share with our guests a little bit about that program?
And, are there any episodes that particularly come to mind that you think freshmen would benefit from tuning in to listen to?
Dr. Kevin Kosar: Well, there are over 50 episodes of Understanding Congress that have been released to date. They come out once per month and realizing that Members of Congress and Hill staff are busy people, I mercifully keep them under 30 minutes a pop, and also understanding that Members and staff are swamped with politics, swamped with slanted perspectives, this podcast aims to be neutral.
Perhaps it's my CRS training, but I'm not grinding axes there. The structure of the program is, I ask a question about some discrete aspect of the Legislative branch, like “What does the Government Accountability Office do?” and then I have an expert on who could speak to it. Like, for example, GAO’s Comptroller General. He was on one of my podcasts.
I do that with all aspects of Congress, whether it's the Legislative branch, support agencies that can help you, whether it's legislative procedure or like, “What's the filibuster?” Does it have a future? What sort of stuff does it apply to? What is, you know, or organizational? What do committees do? All those topics are covered and there's enough of them that have been covered that really, I would advise a Member, who's thinking about tuning into it to just scroll through and see if anything grabs your fancy, because different Members are going to have different things that they want to achieve.
Some are going to be, you know, really into budget stuff, others are not. They're going to be more interested in constituent service stuff.
Discussion and Interview with Betsy Wright Hawkings
Aubrey Wilson: All right Taylor, let's take some time really fast and talk about Legislative Counsel, which both Brian and Kevin mentioned.
Taylor J. Swift: Absolutely, Aubrey. So I'm going to do a quick little brief. So the Office of Legislative Counsel in the House is a nonpartisan office with a bunch of public servants that help Members and staff transform their ideas into official legislative language. Basically, if you want to write a bill, you got to go to Leg Counsel and have them help you so they help staff capture all of the intent that a Member wants to have put in legislation.
Aubrey, to that point, you work directly with Leg Counsel during your time as a staffer, both for your Member and on the committee. Do you have any tips for our listeners about working with them or anything else to add?
Aubrey Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. Taylor. So as you made the comment, Legislative Counsel is this incredible institutional resource for Members that you're actually are essentially required to use not only for drafting bills, actually, but for drafting any legislative language. So it can also be for amendments. And, you know, any type of bill that you can imagine introducing. And with that, the Legislative Counsel team, if our listeners haven't had a chance to go on to Congress.gov and pull up sample bills to see how a bill is written, it definitely isn't something that is very intuitive. And so Legislative Counsel is, as you said, how Members and staff get from that idea phase of a policy change to that actual official legislative language.
The easiest track and way to work with Legislative Counsel is to make sure that your policy idea is as clear and thought out as possible before approaching them. So really make sure to emphasize the committee of jurisdiction you want the bill to go through or the policy idea to go through, because that will depend on how the bill is written.
You want to make sure that you've really thought through what agency would implement that piece of legislation. All of who you know, who the bill would affect, essentially the who, what, where, when, why, and the timeline. And so the more that you could come up with that extreme outline and the more information you get Legislative Counsel, the better the initial draft will be that they send back to you.
And then from there, you and your staffer will go back and forth with Legislative Counsel for multiple edits until you get that bill exactly where you want it to be, to make sure that it really has the intended effect, that it would if you are writing it yourself. And then not only that, but once that bill is introduced, Legislative Counsel really has to assume that that bill could be signed into law.
And so just stay aware that whether your boss is drafting, you as the boss, as a Member of Congress or as a staffer, whether you're drafting a messaging bill or a huge omnibus package, Legislative Counsel is going to take your idea with the same amount of seriousness in drafting that piece of legislation, regardless of what the intent behind it is.
And so make sure to have a lot of patience with Legislative Counsel, because, as you can imagine, they draft thousands of bills every Congress.
Looking back on what we just heard from Kevin and Brian, is there anything else that you want to hone in on?
Taylor J. Swift: That was such great advice. Honestly, just really practical, actionable insights from you, Aubrey. And to echo what you just said about, you know, Kevin and Brian, I think it really shows that Kevin talked about the reality check of how actually very few bills get signed into law and to be honest, no shade to our friends over in the Senate, but most bills go to the Senate and just don't go anywhere. And so the legislative process on its face is really challenging. And, you know, it ebbs and flows depending on where we're at in the year or even in just the appropriation cycle. Or where we're at politically. But the important thing to know is that you have experts to lean on with Leg Counsel, so make sure you utilize them effectively.
I also want to mention, before we move on, that Kevin makes some really great points about how the role of committees play in moving legislation and how their relationship building on committees is really, really important. I do want to shamelessly plug. We talked about this with Kevin in episode three titled “How to Be an Effective Committee Member.”
So make sure you check out that episode as well. Let's dive back into our interviews for some insights into the legislative success stories, and some other tools in a Member's toolbox to be an effective Member beyond the traditional legislative process.
Taylor J. Swift: Our next guest is Betsy Wright Hawkings, a veteran of the Congressional operation space, who served as Chief of Staff to four Republican House Members for over two decades, one of whom was Rep Chris Shays, who she refers to as Mr. Shays throughout the interview. Her career includes significant achievement in bipartisan legislation such as the Congressional Accountability Act and the establishment of the 9/11 Commission.
Let's go to our chat now.
Aubrey Wilson: So, Betsy, you've served as Chief of Staff for four Members of Congress over a span of two decades, and played an active role in the passage of some pretty consequential legislation during your time. Those bills have included such things as the Congressional Accountability Act, and also a bill that actually established the 9/11 Commission. For new Members and staff who are just beginning to familiarize themselves with the nuts and bolts of being active participants in the legislative process, where do you recommend that they start?
Betsy Wright Hawkings: Well, gosh. So those two bills that you mentioned were actually very different. But I think that they each exemplify two different good places to start. The Congressional Accountability Act actually belonged to a retiring Member of Congress. And one of my former bosses, learned about it, had become a cosponsor of this bill, went to this Member and said, would you mind if I reintroduced that bill in the next session after you retire? And, by the way, at that time, the bill had literally nine cosponsors. This former Member had introduced it year after year. It had sort of nine lines. It said, you know, Congress shall live by all the laws it writes. And, which is a great idea. You know, of course it should, but it wasn't really fully built out.
And this Member said certainly, of course. You know, go right ahead. Retired. Mr. Shays thought that it would be a good idea if this was a bipartisan bill which had not heretofore been, as with every piece of legislation that he wrote, he got a Democrat to introduce it with him because his theory was twofold.
Number one, if you can't get a Democrat to cosponsor your bill, you're not going to be able to pass it. Number one. Number two, as it sort of began that way, because when he first came to Congress, Democrats had been in the majority for 40 years. And then as his service went on and the majority changed to Republican, but then Democrat again and back and forth, you know, he reasoned that he might be in the majority now, but the majority could change back. And this way he would always have an advocate for his legislation, even if he was no longer in the majority. So it served twofold, right? So he always had a Democrat as a lead cosponsor.
And then he went got another Republican who was more conservative than he was and another Democrat. So then they had the four of them advocating for this bill. And over two years, they went from nine cosponsors, with the four of them working on it, to actually over 200 bipartisan cosponsors. And so actually, people don't realize this, but H.R. 1, which was the first bill that was passed, the first actual piece of legislation that was passed on opening day of the Republican Congress in 1995 and was the number one bill in the Contract with America, was actually passed unanimously with bipartisan support.
And people don't think about that. But it was because they had…he had worked for, you know, a couple of years to get bipartisan support on this bill and had also built it out, you know, had gone and researched the legislation. Which legislation was Congress actually exempting itself from? And, you know, OSHA and the civil rights laws, and, there was no Family and Medical Leave Act, actually, in 1992 when he started this effort, but you know, wage and hour laws. And, there's a veterans’ law that they were the Veterans Reemployment Act from which they were exempt, and so on and so forth. So, you know, knowing that. It gained a lot of support and, when we were able to enumerate the 11 bills, for which Congress had exempted itself, and then they built out a little bit about how it would work if Congress were under these laws. And of course, then once that bill passed, that became a whole interesting thing, trying to figure out how to get Congress to be able to go up. That's a different question. So that's the first one. Find a good idea that somebody else is, you know, and then build that out. So that's the first. And the second one was, you know, the 9/11 commission, that really grew out of casework.
We represent the district that I worked for, which was my hometown district, was the southwest corner of Connecticut. And on September 11th, we lost 81 constituents. And, so, you know, we just started out, because we went to somebody on our staff, Chris couldn't go to all of them because they were in session a lot of times for funerals. But somebody on our staff went to every funeral that we knew about, and we worked to find out about all of them. And we called, or made contact with every family so that they knew how to reach us. And, the casework that came out of that effort was, of course, unlike any kind of casework that you'd ever done before.
You know, folks, we're trying to work with insurance companies, and large companies like Cantor Fitzgerald were great helping their employees because they had so many employees and they had the resources to help their employees. But there were a lot of other people who were not in that there were a lot of other families who were not in that position.
And so, for example, we're faced with the fact that they might be the beneficiaries of a life insurance policy, but they couldn't access the life insurance policy because they didn't have any remains of their loved one. And so they couldn't prove to the life insurance company that their loved one was dead. And so they couldn't access it, just as one example. Right. And so, navigating all those issues.
It… 9/11 was just a very different kind of casework. And that led to us being involved, with the special master and the 9/11 compensation fund, family's compensation fund. And from that came the leaders of the families effort, to to really seek answers from the leadership of our country. And there were several…there were two really family groups. One were known as the “Jersey girls.” They were from New Jersey. And then there was another group of family members that were from our district. And, Chris had given them my cell phone number and they would call me pretty regularly.
And by November, you know, they were transitioning from, you know, having buried their family member to really wanting to make their family member’s life, loss of life, mean something. And so there were a couple of these ladies and they were ladies. One was a mom and one was a wife who would call me really regularly and say, you know, we need an answer. We need answers. We need answers. We need answers. And who do we need to talk to?
The Chairmen of the relevant committees were not responsive to them. They were telling them that this was really a New York problem. It was not a Foreign Affairs Committee problem. It was not an Armed Services Committee problem. There was no Homeland Security Committee, of course, at the time. That was created essentially through the commission, and..or through the commission process. But, I just have a very clear memory. Mary Fetchit, who was one of the leading family members saying to me, “Betsy, what is it going to take?” and I just said to her, “Mary, it's going to take you coming here and walking the halls and not letting folks hide from you.” And that's what she did.
And, of course, you know, we were there to support her. But there is nothing less partisan than what happened to our country, but also to, you know, the nearly 3000 families who lost loved ones that day and there was nothing that, you know, there was nothing we could do but support them. And there was nothing Carolyn Maloney, the Congresswoman from Manhattan, could do but support the 100 plus family members that she had who lost loved ones that day.
And she and Chris joined forces. They had worked together on other issues before on the Financial Services Committee and on the Oversight Committee on which they both served. And they joined forces because, again, they had the shared interests. And so they had this bond that, you know, really was sealed for the next seven years. And that's how that came to be. And she lost the Chairmanship of the Oversight Committee over it because, you know, when he was running, when he was running in ‘07 and ‘08 and was the last Republican in all of New England. She was told to stop working with him and she obviously refused because she had constituent, you know, anyway, that's a whole other story.
But that was I mean, shared interest growing out of shared constituents’ concern. And, constituents who obviously, you know, the worst thing ever in their life had happened to them. So they were not they weren't going anywhere. And, you know, there was nothing more important that was ever going to happen to us than to support them and to be there and to help them advocate for getting the answers that they needed.
And Senator Lieberman and Senator Clinton did the same, so it was a broad and mighty effort with many, many people.
Aubrey Wilson: So I think that that example is so impactful, because I think that it highlights some challenging dynamics on the Hill that happen pretty often where there's so many Members of Congress and there's so many bills that get introduced every single Congress, and there's only so much time for legislation to move on the House floor. There's only so many slots outside of getting more cosponsors on a bill.
When you have constituents who care so much about an issue and want to see action, what are some of the other actions that Members can take to get attention to the piece of legislation, to try to grease the wheels, to move it through the legislative process, outside of just boosting cosponsorship numbers?
Betsy Wright Hawkings: Well, yeah. Actually, the 9/11 Commission bill actually happened. It was attached to the intelligence reauthorization bill, that's how it happened. It didn't pass as a freestanding bill, happened as a provision of the intelligence reauthorization bill. So, you know, and that and of course, you know, so part of part of our job was, again, you know, for the family members.
Who wanted the very strongest. I mean, you know, there was, they had no interest, obviously, you know, having been through everything they'd been through, they had no interest in compromise on any level which one could completely understand. And they also wanted a bill.
And, you know, my role working with committee staff on the intelligence committee on the Senate side, who were much less close to this issue than I was, right. Who had not had the experience of going to the funerals of the dads of a nine, a seven and two year-old, you know, for one example or, you know, the funeral of two childhood friends of my own as another example. He was, you know, doing his policy job, and so he had a different interest and wanted to write the bill a different way, which was not the same as what the families wanted. And my job was to get the families the strongest bill that I could get them.
But at the end of the day, you know, we wanted the bill. Not no bill. And so managing that, you know, figuring out how do you get the strongest bill you can get, but still get a bill and still not have everyone blow up.
Right. You know. So what's my point? My point is it's about building relationships on all sides. So that you've got the credibility, you know, and being an honest broker with all sides so that at the end of the day, you can navigate that with folks that have very different interests, and genuinely be that honest broker and be able to say, you know, Mary Beverly, I really think that this is the best we're going to be able to do. And I understand that it's not the bill that we would all like, but we really need to get this bill. And this is our, this is the last moment that we've got to get this bill.
I really think we should go for it and have the rest of our efforts be focused on how do we make the commission that is going to be…you know, the most effective that they're going to be? Right? Let's go to the next stage. Right. And go from there and.
And so if you've done your job building, you know, being building those relationships, and then, like I said, going back to the Senate staffer who was finding this entire process a little annoying, if, truth be told, and say, look, you know, I'm sure you can understand how difficult this must be for these families, right? Like, you know how.
So…anyway, it all got done.
It comes down to relationships and having them trust you and not and not, you know, promising something you can't deliver.
Taylor J. Swift: So I think that's a really, really important point. And I kind of want to hone in on something you just mentioned about working across the chamber. Oftentimes you're doing tons and tons of collaborative drafting within your own chamber and working across the aisle with Members, within the House. When does, you know, when you see a path forward in a moment to really have something passed in the House.
But you also, you know, bills require to be, you know, passage for both chambers. When does working with the Senate kind of come into play? Is that something that you would recommend starting at the very beginning? Is that something? I know it's all issue contingent, but kind of just, to our listeners who are unfamiliar or kind of this is their first go around, we'd love to hear when, you know, building those relationships in the other chamber, starting to discuss the policy with Members of the Senate starts to come into play. When you see that there's a real moment for potential passage.
Betsy Wright Hawkings: The answer to your question is as soon as possible, reach out, reach out to the Senate as soon as possible and ask for their advice. Because you're going to have to take it eventually anyway, you know? So, you know, why not learn something sooner rather than later and have a little humility? You know, humility goes a long way on the Hill. It will always catch people by surprise. Every time I take that approach, which I think I didn't do enough earlier in my career, but I learned to take, I learned to as my career wore on.
Every time I took that approach, it took people by surprise. And it never was to my disadvantage. Which is why I am always surprised when people are surprised by me taking that approach now. You know, I have actually been told, you know, what are you doing by taking this approach, it's like, you know, it. Anyway, it has never served me poorly. And I wish I had taken it sooner.
Discussion and Interview with Yuri Beckelman
Aubrey Wilson: It's one thing to hear from our guests about the actual step by step process to get a bill passed into law, but it's a whole nother thing to hear these real life examples of how some of these really instrumental legislative packages and items came to fruition. And Betsy’s stories, I mean, you just you only get that from time on the Hill. It was incredible to hear her firsthand experience.
Taylor J. Swift: You're completely right, Aubrey. I really like how she brought up during her time with Rep. Shays, how their office worked with Members from New York and Connecticut to team up to help families in need. You know that that shared interest to find constituent concerns and solve problems really rang true in this discussion.
Aubrey Wilson: And on that note, our next guest is Yuri Beckelman, who is a freshman Chief of Staff for Representative Maxwell Frost from Florida. He also is a long-time friend of Taylor and I, to say the least. He was the former Staff Director of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress in the 117th Congress. At the end of listening to all the Gavel In episodes, you will be well familiar with this committee. We bring it up a lot.
Taylor J. Swift: I couldn't agree more. Aubrey. But again, we're a little biased. And like Kevin Kosar, our earlier guest mentioned, Yuri tells our listeners about how Congress is full of great people: personal office staff, committee staff, Leg branch support offices like the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the Government Accountability Office.
They're here to help you find solutions to any of the ideas that you may have. In some ways, they're an extension of your staff.
So many of our listeners are familiar with the Schoolhouse Rock version of how a bill becomes a law. “I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill.” But often we hear a lot of rumors about how the sausage actually gets made, on the Hill. So for incoming Members and their staff who really aren't familiar with that on the ground legislative process, can you walk us through some of the back-end institutional and support office steps for writing and introducing and even passing a bill?
Yuri Beckelman: So it all starts with an idea, right, when you want to do a bill, and that idea is usually either like a problem or an opportunity. You know, it comes from a constituent who says, “This is not working for me.” Or an article that says, “This is like a systemic problem” or a article that's or someone, you know, interest group that says, wouldn't it be cool if...
Right. And they're all great places to start, and sometimes you have a fully formed idea, right? Sometimes you're like, I want to do a bill that does XYZ, but I would recommend trying to avoid that. And you should generally start with, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Or what is the opportunity that I see ahead, and try to dig into it from there.
And there are all these great people who can help you understand what is the best solution or opportunity, you know, then you can take on. Right. So, you should understand the issue. You know, your staff is going to go out and they're going to start working on crafting the bill. And the first thing they're going to do is they're going to go out and they're going to talk to, if it's an issue in energy or if it's an issue in small business, they're going to go out and talk to committee staff.
They're going to have a conversation with this. The groups, specialized groups that work on the issue, that have background on the issue, you know, they're going to talk to people in your community about whether this is a real opportunity or problem and how it impacts the local community level. And then there's also these great, like, support offices that are part of Congress that are your friends, even if they are, you know, not down the hallway from me, there's the Congressional Budget Office, there's the Congressional Research Service, there's the Government Accountability Office.
They're all branches of Congress. It is their job to help you better understand the issues you want to dig into, and they will provide you support. And if you're like, well, I want to get funding for XYZ, they can tell you this is the area that it would go into. You don't have to know every single one of those things.
Neither does your staff. Your staff works on, you know, five or six issues. They're not going to know every line item and every. So they go out and they start having those conversations, and they give you an outline of what you would like to cover. And then the actual text itself is going to be written by Legislative Counsel, and they are a group of attorneys that turn your idea into legislative text.
They format it, they turn it into a bill, and that's, and then you take and you introduce it and that's it for this fun experience. It's, you can send it out in electronically, but it all ends up in this wooden box on the House floor called the Hopper. A lot of history to that. And that's the initial process, right?
It can change later on. Later on. There's a whole process for how you get things through, but that's the initial process of how do you write a bill.
Taylor J. Swift: Yeah. That's great. Let's, let's kind of dig into that a little more. So, what can you, as a Chief of Staff or your Member’s or even some of your support office staff that you mentioned? How do you keep that bill moving through the process, through the committee process, potentially to the floor?
Yuri Beckelman: So it's best if you've done some pre-work. Right. And the pre-work is like, does the chair or Ranking Member of the Committee of Jurisdiction care about this issue? Is this something that people are working on? You're also really, really important has anybody else worked on this issue, because people are very territorial, rightfully so. If someone's been working on this for six years and you introduced the exact same bill, like where did you come from and why did you come to them first?
Right. So do that background. It's important. Do you have a Member from the other party who's going to help you? Who has co-introduced this with you? That will help a lot, right? Yeah. If you have something non-controversial, it's much more likely to go through what's called the suspension calendar, which doesn't require as much of a process to get across the finish line.
Do you have national groups that have been working on this, who have endorsed your bill? Right. The more you can kind of line this up, the beginning, the better. But there's also an important point here. No bill moves if you're not willing to do the work. And so as a Member, as a staff, if you don't ask, nothing will just magically go on the House floor.
That's not how it works. If you have a bill that you think has an opportunity to move somewhere, you should go talk to your committee Chair and ask them if it can be marked up, and they'll ask you more information, or go to your leadership and ask if it's something that they can help you with. The rest of your party.
That's for now, right? Your party wants to help you, like succeed. That is, they want you to succeed. Right. And why? You know, the way that plays out in on the news is that the other party wants you to fail. That's not always true. Right? That's the big issues. We have huge disagreements on that is, that might be the truth.
But for the most part, we're trying to get things through. Keep things moving. Is a good idea, is a good idea, no matter what party it comes from. And if you start with like a problem that everyone agrees is a problem, you can get your, you know, you can get someone from the other party to champion your cause, and then their party wants them to succeed and you're now working in tandem.
But you really have to build relationships, and you have to make the ask, and you have to know when to be pushy, and you have to know when to let it, step back just a little bit and you'll find a lot of success that way. You know, oftentimes I, it's interesting when you're in the minority and you feel like you don't, you have the least amount of power. You have two really fascinating tools here. One is that the suspension calendar, which I talked about early in your learn a lot about, there is an unwritten rule that for every two bills that go on a suspension calendar from the majority, one goes from the minority. And so they're looking for bills that they can support and put on a suspension card.
And the majority is, and so they're looking for things that they can take from a minority that are not so controversial and move. And so if you can get that in front of them, they're excited about, so now they can move more of their bills right, and then the other one is the minority. It's just this great opportunity to establish who you want to be in what you want to work on.
And you should think of it as a testing ground, so that when you're in the majority, you can start, you can push things even harder. And it's a great idea to get ahead of things.
Aubrey Wilson: I want to just really compliment the fact that you really emphasize what I think as a legislative staffer, you walk away with such an appreciation of which is that Congress is really a team sport, regardless of how hard, you individually will try to push that idea, unless you get a lot of people on your bandwagon over multiple Congresses sometimes, it's really hard to have an idea come to fruition.
I know that Congress.gov is a resource that a lot of Congressional staffers know very intimately. It's kind of one of those hidden secrets that isn't so hidden. It just is well known that it is essentially an online repository of all of Congress' legislative, activity. And, on it, you know, new Members or new staffers can go back and actually see all of the bills that have been reintroduced or previously introduced in all kind of preceding Congresses to kind of farm legislative ideas.
Other outside of, you know, Congress.gov, where you can get to know what Members are really active in certain spaces or what your predecessors has or introduced, what are some other kind of idea generating resources that staff, especially new legislative staff who are taking on new issue areas for a new Member of Congress, can kind of turn to that, maybe aren't as well known outside of the walls of the House?
Yuri Beckelman: Yeah, we call those orphan bills, right? Like retiring Members of Congress. You can literally look through their list of bills. It's very sensitive, though. A lot of them will…say, I want to give this to X, Y, Z. And they're already kind of shocked. But it doesn't hurt that, like I said earlier, no one's going to do the work for you if you go and ask that Member and say, “Hey, you did this bill, could I take that over for you?”
You know, and oftentimes I'll be like, “Well, no one was working on it, so, sure. Have at it.” Really exciting, right? So you can always do that. Also, get back to the Government Accountability Office. What they do is they write reports, they say, you know, someone wants them to investigate something, and this is not working properly.
“This is from your report. Can you tell us what's happening?” They dig into it at the end of it. At the end of it, is, they give you a list of recommendations. If you did X, Y, Z, you could potentially fix this problem. And I will tell you what that x, y, z often just gets totally forgotten about.
They are such a great place to shop bills from. You can go in there, and there's just, almost every report has a list of legislative fixes that could be put in place. And you can go through that list, and then you just take it to the committee of jurisdiction, who probably knows about that report and says, “Hey, can I try to do this?”
And they'll tell you what the background is. Also, as a freshman Member of Congress, your committee, especially the committee you were assigned to, like everyone, wants you to succeed, but your committee really wants you to succeed. And you can go to generally their Member services staff, if they have a Member service that most do or someone like that and say, “I'd like your help with a bill coming up with the bill. I'm new to the committee. These are the issue areas that I care about,” and you can be as vague as you want to be. It's good to have an idea of an area, and they will tell you, “Well, here are some things that we're thinking of introducing and things that we want to move.” You just have to go and ask.
Don't demand because they owe you nothing, but they want to help you. But if you go and say, “Hey, keep us in mind,” even if they don't have something right then, they will often come up with something and come back to you and will give you a bill. You still have to work that bill yourself, right? You can't just expect that “They gave me a bill. This is going to the floor.”
If you don't spend the time building support for it, finding someone from the other party to join you, like they can't just automatically move it for you, but it is more likely to move if it's something that they gave you. Have that conversation. And you'll generally get the same thing from leadership.
Leadership has bill ideas that they've gotten from other people. And if you just go to them and say, “Hey, these are areas that we care about,” they'll probably come to you. You just need to follow up with them. Right? “Hey, we had that conversation. Have you found anything for me?”
And if you're good to them, they'll be good to you. That's the team sport aspect of this place, right. But also, be willing to like to, to try things, right? Like, that's the minority aspect and the freshman aspect. Right? Like you've got to establish who you are and and sometimes you introduce something and, you know, and this year that doesn't even become really something until six years from that within six years from now, you have enough of a history on it that you are now the person on this issue.
And that's one of the most exciting points — when you know that you hit an issue that no one else is paying attention to, and now you're the person it's. But that takes willingness to not have immediate instant gratification on an issue. Right? You have the long and the slow burn.
Discussion and Conclusion
Aubrey Wilson: Yuri’s description of the legislative process as a slow burn, paired with Betsy's personal accounts of the hurdles that she experienced during her time as a Chief working to pass such impactful pieces of legislation are honestly about as authentic of insights into the modern legislative process as we could hope for on this episode.
Taylor J. Swift: I completely agree, Aubrey. I love that both of our guests were able to tell two sides of basically the same story, meaning that like, working on a bill is an immense amount of time, but also a lot of buy-in at every single stage of the process. Yuri talked a lot about how much pre-work goes into the idea and creation of legislation, and Betsy mentioned that working with the Senate from the very start is…just really helpful, so that you can understand potential pain points down the road.
So Yuri mentioned how if you're in the minority, it's really helpful to actually work with leadership to leverage the suspension calendar to your advantage. He also mentions that working with committees can help because they can be huge advocates for moving freshman legislation, since they want you to get some of those wins.
Aubrey Wilson: Yeah, Taylor. You touched on two really key topics there, leveraging committees and knowing the ins and outs of some of the House processes can really help elevate a legislative agenda. I'm going to admit to our audience that there is a lot more to be said on both of those topics and shamelessly plug that we do have upcoming episodes of Gavel In both on how to be effective in committee and on the House Rules, so you'll definitely want to check those out.
And thank you for tuning in to Gavel In and spending some quality time with your friends at POPVOX Foundation. If you found today's episode helpful, please feel free to share it with your colleagues and be sure to go to our website, which is popvox.org/gavel to download a cheat sheet with the extra resources that were mentioned to make sure that you and your team are set up for success, both in DC and in your district.
Speaking of which, you can also go to popvox.org/futureproofing to learn how you can make a difference in your new role, to ensure that Congress itself is likewise set up for success in the long run. Follow us @popvoxfdn on X and Instagram. We're also POPVOX Foundation on LinkedIn. Thank you for your service and we'll see you in Congress.
