Podcasts about insecure majorities congress

Frances E. Lee is professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. In addition to In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, she is author or coauthor most recently of The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era and Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign. Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. His books, in addition to In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, include Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage, and Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk, Frances Lee, and Stephen Macedo discuss school closures during COVID, why Republicans and Democrats reacted differently to the pandemic, why institutions failed, and why as a consequence institutions lost the public's trust. Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

States are holding primaries. The Democrats and Republicans will convene in July and August but it has already been decided that the presidential race will be a rematch. Former President Donald Trump will challenge President Joe Biden. To take stock of where the race stands five months out, we have two experts on the presidency. Dr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. Meena and Dan are the co-editors of a new De Gruyter Series in Presidential Politics, Leadership, and Policy Making. The first volume is Evaluating the Obama Presidency: From Transformational Goals to Governing Realities (De Gruyter, 2024) edited by Meena Bose and Paul Fritz. It includes a chapter on presidential leverage and Obama's decision making on Syria by Dan Ponder and Jeff VanDenBerg. Previously, Meena joined the podcast to discuss her book Executive Policymaking: The Role of the OMB in the Presidency (co-authored with Andrew Rudalevige) and Dan also chatted with Lilly about his book Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State. They are also veterans of Postscript and we are thrilled to welcome them back to talk about the 2024 presidential race. During the podcast, we mentioned: Frances Lee's Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (U of Chicago, 2016) Elaine Kamarck's Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates (Brookings, 2016) and Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again (Brookings, 2016) Ezra Klein's New York Times opinion piece “The Democrats have a better option than Biden,” 21 February 2024 Ezra Klein's interview with Elaine Kamarck, “Here's How An Open Democratic Convention Would Work,” New York Times, 21 February 2024 Peter Baker's “For Democrats Pining for an Alternative, Biden Team Has a Message: Get Over It,” New York Times, 2 March 2024 University of Chicago's GenForward Poll (June 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

States are holding primaries. The Democrats and Republicans will convene in July and August but it has already been decided that the presidential race will be a rematch. Former President Donald Trump will challenge President Joe Biden. To take stock of where the race stands five months out, we have two experts on the presidency. Dr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. Meena and Dan are the co-editors of a new De Gruyter Series in Presidential Politics, Leadership, and Policy Making. The first volume is Evaluating the Obama Presidency: From Transformational Goals to Governing Realities (De Gruyter, 2024) edited by Meena Bose and Paul Fritz. It includes a chapter on presidential leverage and Obama's decision making on Syria by Dan Ponder and Jeff VanDenBerg. Previously, Meena joined the podcast to discuss her book Executive Policymaking: The Role of the OMB in the Presidency (co-authored with Andrew Rudalevige) and Dan also chatted with Lilly about his book Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State. They are also veterans of Postscript and we are thrilled to welcome them back to talk about the 2024 presidential race. During the podcast, we mentioned: Frances Lee's Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (U of Chicago, 2016) Elaine Kamarck's Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates (Brookings, 2016) and Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again (Brookings, 2016) Ezra Klein's New York Times opinion piece “The Democrats have a better option than Biden,” 21 February 2024 Ezra Klein's interview with Elaine Kamarck, “Here's How An Open Democratic Convention Would Work,” New York Times, 21 February 2024 Peter Baker's “For Democrats Pining for an Alternative, Biden Team Has a Message: Get Over It,” New York Times, 2 March 2024 University of Chicago's GenForward Poll (June 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

States are holding primaries. The Democrats and Republicans will convene in July and August but it has already been decided that the presidential race will be a rematch. Former President Donald Trump will challenge President Joe Biden. To take stock of where the race stands five months out, we have two experts on the presidency. Dr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. Meena and Dan are the co-editors of a new De Gruyter Series in Presidential Politics, Leadership, and Policy Making. The first volume is Evaluating the Obama Presidency: From Transformational Goals to Governing Realities (De Gruyter, 2024) edited by Meena Bose and Paul Fritz. It includes a chapter on presidential leverage and Obama's decision making on Syria by Dan Ponder and Jeff VanDenBerg. Previously, Meena joined the podcast to discuss her book Executive Policymaking: The Role of the OMB in the Presidency (co-authored with Andrew Rudalevige) and Dan also chatted with Lilly about his book Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State. They are also veterans of Postscript and we are thrilled to welcome them back to talk about the 2024 presidential race. During the podcast, we mentioned: Frances Lee's Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (U of Chicago, 2016) Elaine Kamarck's Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates (Brookings, 2016) and Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again (Brookings, 2016) Ezra Klein's New York Times opinion piece “The Democrats have a better option than Biden,” 21 February 2024 Ezra Klein's interview with Elaine Kamarck, “Here's How An Open Democratic Convention Would Work,” New York Times, 21 February 2024 Peter Baker's “For Democrats Pining for an Alternative, Biden Team Has a Message: Get Over It,” New York Times, 2 March 2024 University of Chicago's GenForward Poll (June 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

States are holding primaries. The Democrats and Republicans will convene in July and August but it has already been decided that the presidential race will be a rematch. Former President Donald Trump will challenge President Joe Biden. To take stock of where the race stands five months out, we have two experts on the presidency. Dr. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Dr. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University. Meena and Dan are the co-editors of a new De Gruyter Series in Presidential Politics, Leadership, and Policy Making. The first volume is Evaluating the Obama Presidency: From Transformational Goals to Governing Realities (De Gruyter, 2024) edited by Meena Bose and Paul Fritz. It includes a chapter on presidential leverage and Obama's decision making on Syria by Dan Ponder and Jeff VanDenBerg. Previously, Meena joined the podcast to discuss her book Executive Policymaking: The Role of the OMB in the Presidency (co-authored with Andrew Rudalevige) and Dan also chatted with Lilly about his book Presidential Leverage: Presidents, Approval, and the American State. They are also veterans of Postscript and we are thrilled to welcome them back to talk about the 2024 presidential race. During the podcast, we mentioned: Frances Lee's Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (U of Chicago, 2016) Elaine Kamarck's Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates (Brookings, 2016) and Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again (Brookings, 2016) Ezra Klein's New York Times opinion piece “The Democrats have a better option than Biden,” 21 February 2024 Ezra Klein's interview with Elaine Kamarck, “Here's How An Open Democratic Convention Would Work,” New York Times, 21 February 2024 Peter Baker's “For Democrats Pining for an Alternative, Biden Team Has a Message: Get Over It,” New York Times, 2 March 2024 University of Chicago's GenForward Poll (June 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of the most talked-about issues in Congress these days are not about the substance of policies or bills being debated on the floor. Instead, the focus is on the partisan conflict between the parties and the endless debate about whether individual members of Congress will break with party ranks on any particular vote. This behavior allows the parties to emphasize the differences between them, which makes it easier to court donors and hold voter attention.Some amount of competition between the parties is necessary in a healthy democracy, but have things gone too far? Frances E. Lee joins us this week to explain.Lee is jointly appointed in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where she is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs. She is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era with James M. Curry.Additional InformationLee's book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual CampaignHer lecture at Penn State on lawmaking in a polarized eraLee's websiteRelated EpisodesCongressional oversight and making America pragmatic againUnpacking political polarization

There are few conversations I’ve had on this show that are quite as relevant to our current political moment as this one with Princeton political scientist Frances Lee. Joe Biden will occupy the White House come January, but pending the results of two runoff Senate elections in Georgia, Democrats either won’t control the Senate at all or will face a 50-50 split. In either case, an important question looms large over the incoming administration: Will Republican senators negotiate with Biden in good faith? Lee’s work is an indispensable framework for thinking about that inquiry. In her most recent book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, Lee makes a point that sounds strange when you hear it but changes everything once you understand it. For most of American history, American politics has been under one-party rule. For decades, that party was the Republican Party. Then, for decades more, it was the Democratic Party. It’s only in the past few decades that control of Congress began flipping back and forth every few years, that presidential elections became routinely decided by a few percentage points, that both parties are always this close to gaining or losing the majority. That kind of close competition, Lee writes, makes the daily compromises of bipartisan governance literally irrational. "Confrontation fits our strategy,” Dick Cheney once said. "Polarization often has very beneficial results. If everything is handled through compromise and conciliation, if there are no real issues dividing us from the Democrats, why should the country change and make us the majority?” Why indeed? This is a conversation about that question, about how the system we have incentivizes a politics of confrontation we don’t seem to want and makes steady, stable governance a thing of the past. . Book Recommendations: The Imprint of Congress by David R. Mayhew Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time by Ira Katznelson Congress's Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers by Josh Chafetz Credits: Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld Researcher - Roge Karma Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas. New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere) Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julia argues that we need to pay greater attention to the informal norms surrounding the filibuster and cites a 2012 article she authored with Jennifer K. Smith (“Unwritten Rules: Informal Institutions in Established Democracies”). She also references a 2016 book by Matt Grossman and Dave Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats.James references work by Gregory J. Wawro and Eric Schickler (Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate) to highlight the fact that the Senate was able to legislate before its members adopted the current cloture rule to end debate in 1917. He also cites Frances Lee’s book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, to support his claim that the observed behavior of senators at present does not align with the conventional wisdom on how we think they are behaving. Finally, James contends that there are numerous ways that Senate majorities can get around the filibuster and cites Molly Reynolds ' book, Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate.Lee mentions Jonathan Bernstein’s proposal to give the majority party one “Superbill” in each Congress that cannot be filibustered.The open letter written by 70 former senators is available here. James’ response is available here.

Lee reminds Julia and James that the original First Amendment to the Constitution proposed by James Madison in 1789 concerned apportionment and traces the present issue to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. He also mentions the cube root law to highlight the extent to which the United States is a global outlier when it comes to the size of Congress’s lower chamber.James cites Federalist 58 when suggesting that increasing the size of the House is unlikely to empower its rank-and-file members and argues that the reform will further centralize power in the party leadership. He references Thomas Jefferson’s idea of a ward republic and Hannah Arendt’s council system when considering what a truly participatory politics looks like. He mentions John Aldrich’s work on parties in the first Congress to highlight the impact of party heterogeneity on centralization in the House.Lee cites Frances Lee’s book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign when considering the impact that a bigger House could have on Congress and its two political parties. He references his new book, Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

The Founding Fathers made sure to put checks in place that would prevent a president from becoming a king. But Professor Larry Jacobs explains that when it comes to foreign policy, the president goes largely unchecked. Next, Professor Frances Lee outlines the ways Congress has rebuked presidential power, even under the current administration. And finally, Professor Keith Whittington takes us to the courts, which have been skeptical of many of President Trump’s executive orders. For More on this Topic: Read Jacobs’ book, Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation Find Lee’s book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign Check out Whittington’s book, Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History Find more on the website for the conference, A Republic, If We Can Keep It, organized by the Cornell Center for the Study of Inequality with lead organizer Suzanne Mettler.

Frances Lee is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Lee is professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. For much of the 20th century, Democrats were in the majority. Republicans had little chance to win back control, and Democrats had little fear of losing it. By the 1980s, things began to shift, and ever since, majority control has been on the line. The consequence of this changing political landscape is the subject of Lee's new book. She shows how this new competition for control drives both parties to focus on undercutting the opposition. Rather than a strategy of bipartisan cooperation to win policy victories, Insecure Majorities reveals the rise of party messaging and strategic communications as the way of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frances Lee is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Lee is professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. For much of the 20th century, Democrats were in the majority. Republicans had little chance to win back control, and Democrats had little fear of losing it. By the 1980s, things began to shift, and ever since, majority control has been on the line. The consequence of this changing political landscape is the subject of Lee’s new book. She shows how this new competition for control drives both parties to focus on undercutting the opposition. Rather than a strategy of bipartisan cooperation to win policy victories, Insecure Majorities reveals the rise of party messaging and strategic communications as the way of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frances Lee is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Lee is professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. For much of the 20th century, Democrats were in the majority. Republicans had little chance to win back control, and Democrats had little fear of losing it. By the 1980s, things began to shift, and ever since, majority control has been on the line. The consequence of this changing political landscape is the subject of Lee’s new book. She shows how this new competition for control drives both parties to focus on undercutting the opposition. Rather than a strategy of bipartisan cooperation to win policy victories, Insecure Majorities reveals the rise of party messaging and strategic communications as the way of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frances Lee is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Lee is professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. For much of the 20th century, Democrats were in the majority. Republicans had little chance to win... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frances Lee is the author of Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Lee is professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. For much of the 20th century, Democrats were in the majority. Republicans had little chance to win back control, and Democrats had little fear of losing it. By the 1980s, things began to shift, and ever since, majority control has been on the line. The consequence of this changing political landscape is the subject of Lee’s new book. She shows how this new competition for control drives both parties to focus on undercutting the opposition. Rather than a strategy of bipartisan cooperation to win policy victories, Insecure Majorities reveals the rise of party messaging and strategic communications as the way of Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices