Contact Rose Garrity is Penn Washington’s Business Administrator. Rose comes to Penn Washingtonr as a member of the University of Penn family, previously serving as the Finance Administrative Coordinator with the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI). She was a key member of the PCI team during the Center’s transformation into a driving force for technological…
Contact Michael Jaeger serves as a Multimedia Specialist at Penn Washington, where he develops and manages web content while supporting critical back-end operations. With extensive experience in both technology and academic environments, he brings a unique blend of technical expertise and institutional knowledge to his role. Michael is passionate about the intersection of public policy…
Five-day work weeks. Bringing more bills to the floor. More debate with plenty of opportunity for members to offer amendments? Is John Thune channeling the “Fixing Congress” agenda? The Senate’s new Republican leader is certainly sending signals that he intends to restore the upper chamber as a functioning and deliberative legislative body. The tentative schedule…
Nothing sustains a political blood feud more than memories of outrageous injustices. Democrats have never gotten over the refusal of Senate Republicans to take up the Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Republicans still nurse a deep grudge over the impeachment of President Trump over a ham-handed and failed attempt to get Ukrainian officials to…
From one angle of view, the Republican sweep of the White House and—as now appears likely—both houses of Congress will offer a temporary reprieve from the political dysfunction of recent years. We’ve had plenty of recent experience with such one-party “trifectas”—Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1992, George W. Bush in 2000, Barack Obama…
Americans have pretty much had it with politics. According to a recent Pew Research poll, two-thirds of Americans express little or no confidence in the American political system. Less than half think voting is a very effective way to change the country for the better, perhaps because two-thirds are dissatisfied with the candidates they have to…
Paul Kane of The Washington Post recently featured the work of Fixing Congress at Penn Washington in his article about lawmakers’ desires to change how the legislative body functions. He discussed how a potential Democratic House majority, led by a new generation of leaders, could bring about reforms to address a broken system. Kane also highlighted Fixing Congress’…
About the Author Steven Pearlstein was a Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for the Washington Post. He is now the Robinson Professor of Public Affairs at George Mason University and a senior fellow at Penn Washington’s Fixing Congress Initiative. According to recent polls, more than three quarters of Americans believe democracy is on the line in this year’s presidential…
The Senior Fellows will lead two programs focusing on higher education and Congress and policy. Penn Washington, which serves as the physical and programmatic home for the University of Pennsylvania in the nation’s capital, is pleased to appoint distinguished scholars, The New York Times best-selling author Julian Zelizer and Pulitzer Prize-winning business and economics columnist Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post, as…
In a recent article by Carl Hulse of The New York Times, the focus was on the ongoing challenges that Congress faces. The piece sheds light on the structural issues that hinder legislative progress, as discussed at the inaugural “Fixing Congrees” seminar held at Penn Washington. Former lawmakers highlighted institutiPennsylvania’ssuch as short workweeks, deep-seated partisan…
