This is Democracy: Reflections from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top staffer
“Everyone knows what Congress is,” says Jeremi at the beginning of this discussion with John A. Lawrence, the former chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Very few people know how it really works.”
Lawrence, now a professor at the University of California’s Washington Center, is the author of Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership, 2005–2010. In the lively discussion that follows, Lawrence tackles Jeremi’s opening introduction with many insights from 38 years working in Congress.
A key way the institution works, Lawrence emphasizes, is in the skills that leaders have (or don’t have) at “counting votes.” Pelosi was a master at both this and managing a diverse caucus. He explains that her ability to secure votes and maintain unity, even with thin majorities, was one of her most valuable skills as Speaker.
Lawrence notes that often people will say that Congress should function “like a business.” It can’t, he explains: “It's more like herding cats than it is a CEO giving an order…”
While the challenges of “herding cats” are many, the essential problem, Lawrence suggests, is that the members of the House and Senate have fundamentally different goals.
“Democrats tend to come into office with a long litany of policy initiatives…Democrats tend to be more pro government, pro legislative initiative, pro spending, if you will. And so they have a lot of things that have to pass Congress in order to demonstrate party success. Republicans, by contrast, have evolved into a largely anti government party, which doesn’t have a very long list of legislation. And the legislation they do have either tends to be tax reduction, which with all due respect is not the most difficult piece of legislation to pass, or legislation undoing democratic legislation.”
In his recounting of specific examples, Lawrence notes the challenge of the 2008 financial crisis and passing legislation to stabilize the economy. He emphasizes that, despite the political risks, Pelosi prioritized the country's financial health over short-term political gains. He reflects on how Pelosi worked with both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, highlighting how she managed to push through critical legislation during their administrations, including the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans in subsequent years tried to repeal some 70 times.
Lawrence’s broad concern is the amount of money in politics, particularly since the Supreme Court effectively abolished limits to big donor contributions in 2010. He notes the recent headlines that Vice President Kamala Harris has raised nearly a half billion dollars in recent weeks.
“You're already seeing reports that Vice President Harris has backed off some of the economic proposals that President Biden has made, because she’s getting pressure from some of her high end contributors,” he says.
And there’s much more in this conversation, including the rise of the Tea Party and the reshaping of the Republican Party, the role of trust in bridging ideological divides, and the many challenges ahead, regardless of who is in charge in a radically changed political environment.
“The politics of the 2020s is not the politics of the 1950s or the politics of the 1960s,” Lawrence explains. “ We have a far more realigned or aligned political structure where the parties have very little in common. Either from the standpoint of specific legislation or even philosophy and views of government.”
The conversation is as sobering as it is insightful. Take a listen, or read the transcript.
This is Democracy – Episode 277: How Congress Works