April 12, 2007
Reforming Congress: Can "The Broken Branch" be Mended?
Case Center for Policy Studies Presents:
A Conversation with Scott Lilly
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Thursday, April 12, 2007
4:30―6:00 p.m.
Clark Hall, Room 309
Case Western Reserve University
Download MP3 Audio (length: 1:39:26)
Download Real Player Media Audio
Download Windows Media Audio
The Democrats won the 2006 congressional elections in part because of Congressional scandals. Two of Washington's senior scholarly commentators on politics, Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein, have called Congress, "the broken branch." But what's really broken, and can it be mended?
Scott Lilly has served as both Staff Director and Minority Staff Director of the House Appropriations Committee, as Executive Director of the Joint Economics Committee, as Executive Director of the Democratic Study Group (DSG), and as Chief of Staff to Representative David Obey. In those positions he has been a close observer of and participant in both efforts to reform Congress, in which the DSG and Rep. Obey have often taken the lead, and how Congress does its most basic work, exercising its power of the purse. He will comment on current criticisms of Congress, on what the Democrats did upon taking control and on what might still be done. Then we will have an open discussion with questions from Professor White and the audience.
More About Our Guest
Scott Lilly is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who writes and does research in wide range of areas including governance, federal budgeting, national security and the economy. He joined the Center in March of 2004 after 31 years of service with the United States Congress. He served as Clerk and Staff Director of the House Appropriations Committee, Minority Staff Director of that Committee, Executive Director of the House Democratic Study Group, Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee and Chief of Staff in the Office of Congressman David Obey.
Prior to his service with the Congress, Lilly served as Director of Campaign Services for the Democratic National Committee, Central States Coordinator in the McGovern Presidential Campaign and as a bill drafter for the Missouri legislature.
He served two years in the U.S. Army and is a graduate of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University.
During his career, he has been engaged in a wide array of policy matters ranging across the entire spectrum of government activities. These have included counterterrorism, homeland security, efforts to reform American schools and the financing of federal scientific activities. He has worked on various efforts to reform the legislative process in Congress and served as a political and legislative strategist to the Democratic members of the Appropriations Committee and the House Democratic Leadership.
A transcript of this program is also available in PDF format.
Posted by: Heidi Cool April 12, 2007 11:51 AM | Category: Case Center for Policy Studies , College of Arts and Sciences , Congress , Federal Government , United States , legislature , podcasts , politics
Trackbacks
Trackback URL for this entry is: http://blog.case.edu/policy/mt-tb.cgi/15009Post a comment
Posted by: hac4 (Heidi Cool) April 12, 2007 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback
Comments