Working Effectively with Congress

This panel on working effectively with Congress had a deeply knowledgeable veteran lineup: Neal Denton, Vice President, Government Relations and Public Policy, American Red Cross; The Honorable Martin Frost, Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center; John McNulty III, Chief, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, U.S. Marshals Service; Moderator: Kenneth Gold, Director, Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University

Kenneth Gold kicked off the session with some sobering statistics:

Hill Staffers
1980: 8,000
Now: 20-22K

Registered Lobbyists
1982: >1000
2006: 15-35K (120K+ individuals working in lobbying)

Congressional approval rating: 23% approval rating of

Congressional incumbent return rate in 2004 election: 99%

Email + postal mail received in Congressional offices in 2005: 200 million+

Earmarks in Transportation bill
1982: 10
2005: 6000+

Here are some highlights from the conversation:

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Congressional and Political Effects on Federal Managers

Federal agencies are facing a massive budget crunch and the chances of resolving these resource issues in the near future appear to be slim. Working with Congress is critical since the legislative branch appropriates federal government resources. Here’s an overview of Congressional campaign season from The Hotline’s John Mercurio:

- Nomination battles: Conventional wisdom is that this is the year for Democrats.
- However, both republicans and democrats have seen very divisive primaries and nominations, often letting the “less than best” candidate get the nomination for both parties. The result is that many races have both sides being less competitive than expected.
- International factors to consider: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, gas prices.
- Indictment factor: Tom Delay, Conrad Burns, Enron – the Democrats are pushing a “culture of corruption” campaign on the Hill. But many people believe the corruption is on both sides of the aisle.
- Immigration debate: Can a compromise be reached?

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Posted by Scott Karp at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Importance of Networking

The session on networking explored interactions between political appointees and career civil servants, the role of the office of the inspector general in this environment, and the rise of informal versus formal networks. Panelists Phyllis Fong of the Department of Agriculture, Joseph Ferrara of Georgetown University, and Barry White of the Council for Excellence in Government generally agreed that networking is a key tool that political appointees (PAs), career civil servants (CSSs) and Inspector Generals (IGs) must use to resolve difficult issues and complete missions.

The panel kicked off with some general rules of Washington networks:

-All administrations change, and nothing is permanent. That extends to political control, and Republican and Democratic preeminence is always time-limited, even if it doesn’t seem that way at the time.
-Everyone comes back to Washington—and the next time they’ll be a bit more experienced than last time. For example, in 1992 the new Clinton team was the Carter team with more grey hair.
-Networking has always been extremely important. Everyone is so focused on their respective jobs that there is a real need to be able to branch out to other “specialists” in the government to get a very important job done. This reality becomes more pronounced the farther up in the ranks you go.

A key element of networking in the federal government is the interactions between political appointees (PA) and Career Civil Servants (CCS):

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