The topic of today’s episode is “Reforming Congress for the 21st Century.” My guest is Representative Derek Kilmer, Congressman of the 6th district of Washington State. He was first elected to Congress in 2012. Before that, Mr. Kilmer served in his home State’s legislature, worked for the Economic Development Board for Tacoma Pierce County, and was a consultant for McKinsey & Company. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and earned a doctorate from the University of Oxford in England. Of particular relevance for our conversation today, Representative Kilmer has been the co-chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress for the past two years. In autumn 2020, this committee released 97 recommendations for updating the legislature, which you can see at modernizecongress.house.gov, and we’ll hear more about those recommendations shortly.
Kevin:
Chairman Kilmer, welcome to the program.
Derek Kilmer:
Thanks a bunch, Kevin, and congrats on the new podcast.
Kevin:
Thank you. You arrived to Congress in early 2013. When did you first notice that the House of Representatives was in need of some 21st century upgrades? And what in particular stuck out to you?
Derek Kilmer:
I was going to say, even before I arrived, I came from a mostly functional state legislature. So it was a bit of a shock to the system to come to Congress. I was conscious even when I was running for this job, that according to public opinion polling, Congress was less popular than head lice, colonoscopies and the rock band, Nickelback. And when I got here, it was pretty clear right out of the gate that Congress is a fixer-upper. Literally, my first week on the job, we had a group that went to the Pentagon on that first week. It was new members of the Foreign Affairs committee and of the Armed Services Committee, on which I served. After that trip to the Pentagon, we rolled into the Capitol and it was like seven o’clock at night. So I stood up on the bus and said, “Hey, I’m going to go grab a burger.”
Derek Kilmer:
And we had a few Democrats and a few Republicans sitting up at a burger joint on Pennsylvania Avenue. Good stuff, burgers, delicious. And we’re having a conversation. About 45 minutes in, I said, “It seems like we ought to be able to get some stuff done.” One of my colleagues, who was a Republican from a deep red district, unfortunately could probably tell this story with a member from a deep blue district, but it wasn’t. It was someone from a deep red district. He said, “Derek, I like you.” He said, “But here’s what you don’t understand.” He said, “I won my seat by defeating a Republican incumbent. And I ran against him as not being conservative enough.” He said, “My first vote, when I got to Congress was a vote against John Boehner for Speaker.” And he said, “I sent out a press release after that vote,” and said, “I voted against him because he’s too compromising, too willing to work with Democrats.”
Derek Kilmer:
And he said, “Derek, here’s what you don’t get.” He said, “I like you. But my constituents didn’t send me here to work with you. They sent me here to stop you.” That was week one on the job. And I walked out of that burger joint and I called up my wife and I said, “I have two reactions to this. One, how incredibly honest and forthcoming. And second, Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?” Because that was a sort of an alarming way to start. And listen, in my first term, there was a government shutdown. In this past term, there was another one too. And too often in Congress, we’ve seen partisanship really rather than progress. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Congress is punching below its weight in a whole lot of ways. You see it in the massive turnover of staff.
Derek Kilmer:
You see it in the oversized voice of lobbyists. You see it in government shutdowns. You see it in an overall lack of civility. You see it in little ways too. The fact that new members of Congress are handed a pager, but not given cybersecurity training. In our committee, spoke with members and staff, who really highlighted the need for Congress to fix itself. To improve everything from technology, to processes, and just help members better serve their constituents. And at the end of the day, that was really what drove every decision that we made on our committee. We wanted to make Congress work better for the American people.
Kevin:
You’ve spent time in the private sector. You’ve also had experience in the state legislature. From where you sit, what factors have caused the House’s organization and operations to fall behind times?
Derek Kilmer:
I keep thinking about early on in this process, I was sent a commencement speech that was given by a former cabinet secretary, a guy named John Gardner. He gave a commencement speech at Cornell University. And he spoke about the importance of being loving critics of the institutions in which a person works. And he contrasted that with two problems. He said, “Sometimes people are uncritical lovers. They go about their business sort of smothering their institutions without really thinking about how to improve them.” And that’s one of the problem Congress faces. Congress doesn’t think about performance enough. Functional organizations regularly think about their performance to understand what’s working and what’s not working, both internally and how external forces are impacting them. And they do that more than once every 20 or 30 years, which has really been the approach in Congress.
Derek Kilmer:
And unfortunately, Congress shouldn’t be different in terms of thinking about its function. And Secretary Gardner also said there were what he referred to as, “Unloving critics.” The story of the last 30 years is people treating Congress like the piñata at the party. The most popular thing a politician can do is bash Congress. But if it’s done in a way that’s focused on demolition, not improvement, that’s a problem too. So what you’ve seen because of those two forces is really decay.
Derek Kilmer:
Why is that a problem? Well, when Congress lacks the capacity to tackle real problems, what fills the void is the executive branch, or lobbyists, or problems just not getting solved. And none of that serves the interest of the American people. And so I think it’s really clear that efforts, like the one our committee undertook, where we had members, Democrats and Republicans, who viewed these problems through the lens of loving critics, folks who wanted to actually make the institution work better for the American people. I think that effort was really important.
Kevin:
Let’s talk about your work as the co-chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. For listeners who are unfamiliar with the committee, can you briefly explain when and why did this special committee get created and how did you come to be the co-chair?
Derek Kilmer:
Really, every few decades or so Congress takes a look inward and decides things aren’t working the way they ought to. And we ought to fix ourselves. And the last select committee like ours was in 1992. Congress forms these bipartisan select committees. They charge them with figuring out what problems are and what recommended solutions might look like. Our committee is really the latest incarnation of that. I was invited by Speaker Pelosi to lead the committee. Had a terrific partnership with our vice-chair, Tom Graves, from Georgia. And the committee was set up as part of the house rules package last year. It was truly bipartisan. Six Democrats, six Republicans. We were originally given one year to do our work. And then we were actually extended through the end of the 116th Congress. And we were set up in the rules package with a pretty broad mandate.
Derek Kilmer:
We were tasked with looking at everything from house rules and procedures, to technology, to the recruitment retention and diversity of staff. We were tasked with looking at constituent communication. We’ve also looked at issues that don’t necessarily fit neatly into the mandate that was laid out in the rules package, but that we felt were important. Things like civility, and continuity of government, which obviously this past year we learned is increasingly important. And the common thread, as I mentioned earlier, is just making Congress work better for the American people. And not only is that really important, that was the heart of all of our work.
Kevin:
The select committee recently released 97 recommendations to reform Congress. Now, we don’t have time here to discuss all 97. But among them, are there some favorites there for you? Or are there ones that you think are particularly important to get Congress back on track?
Derek Kilmer:
There’s a whole bunch. Let me just call out a few that I think are particularly valuable. We made a number of recommendations related to the budget and appropriations process. I think sometimes the government shutdowns, and the continuing resolutions and the failure to pass spending bills, forget about on time, sometimes not at all, is probably one of the most acute problems and one of the most significant problems that is very evident to the American people. And so we made a number of recommendations in that space just to try to get that process on track. Some of the recommendations we made were about boosting congressional capacity, including trying to recruit, retain, and have more diverse staffs. Some of the strength of this institution are the staff who work here. But it’s hard for people to invest in improving the institution when the institution doesn’t invest in them.
Derek Kilmer:
And unfortunately, you see massive turnover. The median tenure in House office for a specific position is about two years. And part of the reason that’s problematic is when people move on, you lose knowledge, you lose capacity. And what fills that void too often is either the executive branch or lobbyists. And again, that doesn’t serve the interests of the American people. So a number of the recommendations we made were in the service of addressing that problem. Some of our recommendations were focused on modernizing how Congress uses technology. One of my colleagues described Congress as an 18th century institution using 20th century technology to solve 21st century problems. I think that’s a pretty accurate depiction of what happens in Congress too often. And our capacity for using innovation for onboarding new technologies, both to solve problems and to communicate with our constituents, is not where it ought to be.
Derek Kilmer:
And so we made a number of recommendations in that space. Some of our recommendations were focused on civility and on bipartisan collaboration. Listen, the founders didn’t expect that members of Congress were going to sit around the table and sing Kumbaya. But there was an expectation that things would at least move forward when there was agreement. And too often that’s just not happening. And so we made a number of recommendations in that space. And then I guess the final thing I will mention is many of the proposed forms we made were through the lens of the constitution and restoring Congress’s Article One responsibilities. The founders wanted Congress to be a co-equal branch of government. They wanted the people’s House to be functional. So a number of the recommendations we made were really in the service of trying to restore those responsibilities, to reclaim those responsibilities in keeping with the founder’s intent.
Kevin:
What comes next for these 97 proposed reforms?
Derek Kilmer:
Good question. The committee doesn’t have legislative authority. But we actually already turned about 30 of our recommendations into legislation, which passed the House in March. By the way, this is the first time that a committee like ours has done that. No other reform committee has turned recommendations into legislation during its tenure. And that was intentional, because our members said, “Listen, we don’t want to just produce a report. We want to produce change.” And with that in mind, we actually plan to do the same thing with our remaining recommendations. We’re working right now on introducing the remaining recommendations as legislation. And we’re going to work hard to pass that and see to it that our work actually gets implemented. Because again, it doesn’t do us a whole lot of good if we’re just making recommendations that go into the ether. We actually want to see improvements made so that Congress starts punching at its weight at least.
Kevin:
I’d suggest that one of the most important reforms did not appear in the committee’s report. Instead, it was modeled by the committee. The select committee operated in a astonishingly bipartisan way and worked to achieve unanimity in each of these recommendations that it put out. From where I sit, that’s not how committees tend to work. How did you guys make that happen?
Derek Kilmer:
Early on, vice-chair Graves and I, made some important, but significant decisions. One was that we would have one staff, with one budget and one office. Traditionally, when Congress forms a committee, the committee gets its funds and you divide by two or by two-thirds, goes to the majority, and one-thirds to the minority. And in the majority… I’m in the majority now. Democrats use their money to hire people with a democratic background, who put on blue jerseys. Republicans use their funds to hire people with a Republican background, who put on red jerseys. And then they spend the rest of the couple of years duking it out with each other. And frankly, the challenges were significant enough that we just didn’t have the time or the resources to do that. And on top of that… And Tom and I had this conversation right out of the gate.
Derek Kilmer:
I fundamentally believe that if you’re going to make systemic change, it needs to be bipartisan. Not just in terms of organizational change, but I would argue you’ve seen this when Congress lurches from passing some significant legislation, to then when the majority flips, a bunch of focus on trying to repeal that legislation. And I think at some point that gets exhausting for the American people. So Tom and I made a decision upfront, no blue jerseys, no red jerseys. We would hire one staff that would put on fixed Congress jerseys. And some of them were people with a Democratic background and some were people with a Republican background. We also made a number of recommendations about how committees could work better, and foster more collaboration and productivity, but we modeled those recommendations ourselves. For example, right out of the gate, we had a bipartisan agenda setting retreat. Something we’ve suggested that other committees do as well.
Derek Kilmer:
And it was really an opportunity, one, to establish a positive and bipartisan approach from the outset. But two, functional organizations decide up front, what do we want to get done? So we had that collaborative conversation. Vice-chair Graves and I worked really as partners, as our committee members did. We formed a number of bipartisan working groups around issues like technology, and staffing, and civility and schedule and calendar, where we had Democrats and Republicans on the committee kind of spin off and collaborate on developing recommendations. We regularly met as a full committee, sometimes not in open public hearing, but in private, to go through, okay, here are potential recommendations we can make. And where we had pushback or concerns was an exercise in trying to get to yes. And figure out, okay, if we can’t do it that way, what if we did it this way?
Derek Kilmer:
It was really an opportunity to have honest conversations and tough debates out of public view, no grand standing for cameras. But just trying to build trust and solve problems. We also experimented with some things that were small, but not insignificant. For example, if you were to watch one of our hearings on C-SPAN, you can’t tell who the Democrats and who the Republicans are. In part, because we mixed seating. We had Democrats sitting side-by-side, not on opposite sides of the diocese. And what was cool about that is you’d be in the midst of a hearing and you’d hear something interesting. And you would lean over to the colleague sitting next to you and say, “Well, that’s kind of interesting. What do you think about that?” And the colleague sitting next to you was someone from a different party. And that really encouraged more bipartisan dialogue and far more civility.
Derek Kilmer:
And I think that was helpful for our committee and something I think could be useful for other committees too. Let me just say one other thing on this front. The reality is everybody gives something up when you take that approach, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. The majority party, when you take this approach, gives up the ability to just steamroll over the minority. And that is a sacrifice. Sure. But I think we actually got a far bit more done because we took this approach. The minority party in agreeing to collaborate, gives up the ability to just vote no. When everybody has skin in the game, you actually feel some sense of ownership. And I actually think that’s pretty instructive, certainly not just for our committee, but hopefully for the work of the Congress as well going forward.
Kevin:
Absolutely. Now, we know public approval of Congress is quite low. John Q and Jane Q public tenants think that Congress is excessively partisan and it’s dysfunctional. With that audience in mind, have your constituents back home in Washington taken an interest in your work on reforming Congress? Have they shown some support for it?
Derek Kilmer:
Yeah, I think so. I will tell you, and Kevin, I appreciate you elevating this work by having a podcast about it. Weren’t exactly leading cable news over the last two years. If you think about the life of our committee, we started during the longest government shutdown in American history. We functioned over the course of an impeachment proceeding. And then functioned over the course of a global pandemic and economic meltdown. And so not always the most viral committee on social media. But having said that, my constituents were really interested in our committees work.
Derek Kilmer:
And listen, when I got to Congress, I was conscious of the fact that every time I was home, people would ask me how I’m doing as though I’ve been diagnosed with a terminal disease. You got a lot of that kind of, “How are you?” And I think people are hopeful. They’re exhausted seeing some of the dysfunction and are hopeful that things could improve. And that’s, I think why there was such interest in this. It was a recognition that we can make things better and better. If when we work together, we can make things better. And I think that engendered hope for a lot of folks, and that’s why we’re going to keep pushing to see some of these reforms actually happen.
Kevin:
Well, you’ve poured a huge amount of time into congressional reform over the last two years. Do you intend to keep the shoulder to the wheel and keep working on congressional reform? And are there incoming or other legislators out there who have an appetite for this sort of low salience, but institution building work?
Derek Kilmer:
Yeah. We have gotten a ton of positive feedback and new ideas from our fellow legislators. There are a number of very engaged members on both sides of the aisle, who’ve asked how they can keep the reform work going. As I understand it, the freshman class is actually sending a letter to leadership along those lines. I feel pretty strongly that there’s still a lot of work to be done. We accomplished a lot over the past two years. And as I mentioned, working on organizational performance, isn’t a… You check the box and then you come back to it 20 or 30 years later. A lot of the problems that Congress has also don’t have quick solutions.
Derek Kilmer:
And so our hope is that rather than sideline some of the important work that we’re doing for a few decades until the next select committees is formed. I’m hopeful that Congress could actually prioritize these efforts and just do this work of assessing and adjusting how we do things as a matter of course. And I also think that there are fresh opportunities to discuss modernization. And we are working to continue these efforts. I think that we set a great example of how members can work productively and with civility across party lines. That’s no small thing, as you mentioned. And given how politically tumultuous the past year or so has been, I know it’s something that people have paid attention to. So I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to do this work. As you mentioned, there are a whole bunch of legislators who are coming in or who are newer members, who really are invested in wanting to be a part of an organization that’s more functional. And I want that too.
Kevin:
Yeah. It seems to me that anywhere else in society, whether we’re talking about individuals or private firms, getting better is something you work at continually. You learn more, you shed bad habits, you reorganize. We do this in our lives. And this is what private companies do. This is how they stay up and functioning, relevant. But Congress instead has had this kind of episodic approach to reform. Which is burst of activity, then go silent for a few decades, slide into anachronism and then suddenly a frenetic burst of activity instead of somebody continually beavering away to make reform a continuous process.
Derek Kilmer:
Yeah. I think there’s a better way. And we’re going to keep pushing for that.
Kevin:
Chairman Kilmer, Thank you so much for joining me on the program.
Derek Kilmer:
You bet, Kevin. Thanks for having me. I also just want to give a quick plug for your listeners to check out our website. Our final reports on there. You can read more about our recommendations to make the House work better. And you can find all of it on modernizecongress.house.gov. Thanks again for having me.
Kevin:
You’re welcome. Thank you.
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