December 18, 2006     

Conference on 'Legislating for the Future' is Broadcast on CSPAN

Toward A Do-Something Congress

View "Legislating for the Future" on CSPAN.

This summer, there was a rush in Congress to pass bills seen as beneficial to lawmakers embroiled in tough re-election contests. Issues with long-term consequences, such as Social Security, Medicare and global warming, were left on a back burner through the mid-term elections. The results of the elections were, of course, dramatic, and soon a new Congress will be installed.

Friday, December 15, marked the first in a series of unique conferences dealing with Congress' institutional barriers to legislating for the future. The series has been initiated by the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at NYU Wagner and is cosponsored by The Brookings Institution and RAND Corporation. The inaugural conference was held at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and former U.S. Representative Bill Frenzel (R-Minnesota) shared their perspectives on the problem at the opener for the conference series, which is called "Legislating for the Future."

Paul Light, Professor of Public Service at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU, presented his research on why Congress has difficulty legislating on long-term issues the public often describes as paramount, as did Sarah A. Binder, a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution; James A. Dewar, Senior Policy Analyst at RAND; and G. Calvin Mackenzie, Professor of American Government at Colby College. All the presenters discussed concrete ways to improve the decision-making capacity of "The People's Branch."

Visit NYU Wagner project and center websites related to this conference:
The Organizational Performance Initiative
John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress