When I started working in the US Senate in the mid-1990s, my then boss Senator Jeff Bingaman handed me, like he did to every incoming member of his staff, a copy of Eric Redman's book, The Dance of Legislation: An Insider's Account of the Workings of the United States Senate.
The book tells Redman's own story of then working on Senator Warren Magnuson's team and getting to know through error and success the machinery of the Senate legislative process. Redman learns that gravitational forces work differently for a Senator and his or her staff than they do for others in the administration, or the courts, or in the lobbying and advocacy arena. Senators, if they desire to, don't have to be spineless and passive -- but can make their own weather. They can write and pass laws - though successful legislating can be an excruciatingly frustrating, irrational process. In the end, Redman plays a tipping point role in getting a National Health Service bill passed.
One can overdo typologies and models in trying to describe social phenomena - but sometimes they work. When I was absorbing what I could about how the mechanics of politics and policymaking worked, I was influenced by the writing of Ripley and Franklin, who wrote Congress, the Bureaucracy and Public Policy. They suggest that there are many factors -- among them "time", the nature and number of policy actors in a decision, and the regularity or irregularity of the policy under consideration -- that effect legislative and political outcomes.
Read more: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
The book tells Redman's own story of then working on Senator Warren Magnuson's team and getting to know through error and success the machinery of the Senate legislative process. Redman learns that gravitational forces work differently for a Senator and his or her staff than they do for others in the administration, or the courts, or in the lobbying and advocacy arena. Senators, if they desire to, don't have to be spineless and passive -- but can make their own weather. They can write and pass laws - though successful legislating can be an excruciatingly frustrating, irrational process. In the end, Redman plays a tipping point role in getting a National Health Service bill passed.
One can overdo typologies and models in trying to describe social phenomena - but sometimes they work. When I was absorbing what I could about how the mechanics of politics and policymaking worked, I was influenced by the writing of Ripley and Franklin, who wrote Congress, the Bureaucracy and Public Policy. They suggest that there are many factors -- among them "time", the nature and number of policy actors in a decision, and the regularity or irregularity of the policy under consideration -- that effect legislative and political outcomes.
In other words, Ripley and Franklin argued
that structure and the context in which policy is debated and formed matters -
and Eric Redman shows that empowered political actors who understand the tools
and mechanisms of politics and legislative process can have significant impact.
This is a round about way of saying that I am
intrigued by stories of those who try to pass or change
legislation. No matter whether
the
impulse for change is outside the system - like HIV/AIDS activists were
during the Reagan administration battling for attention and resources -
or inside, like Senator Warren Magnusson's
legislative assistant -- it's nearly always a byzantine process that
changes the roster of winners and losers. It's how American style
democracy works, and I find it fascinating.
In
part because of America's and the world's growing dependence on China's
production muscle, I have been interested in what the US needs to do to
prevent its standards from being undermined by lesser standards, poor
regulation, illiterate workers, and corruption abroad. What are the
legal and regulatory adjustments that need to be made to shore up
American standards -- rather than have them slip to levels seen
elsewhere around the world?Read more: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
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