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There's no guarantee that Mitch McConnell will allow Jon Ossoff (left) and Raphael Warnock to take their seats in the Senate without a fight.
Next Capitol stress test for democracy: What if the Senate won't seat Georgia's winners?
Jan 07 2021
Johnson is executive director of Election Reformers Network, a nonprofit founded by international election specialists to promote electoral improvements in the United States.
<p>The Senate election results in Georgia have Democrats dancing in the streets and democracy advocates cheering another seemingly successful high stress election. Turnout was extraordinary for a runoff, election officials performed efficiently, and fears of conflict and voter intimidation proved unfounded.</p><p>But there could be trouble ahead. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock will not officially become senators, and cannot swing control of Congress to their party, until they are seated by the Senate. That normally mechanical procedure could become the next round in our never-ending partisan dogfight. </p><p>If either Republican candidate contests the results — as President Trump and his allies will surely insist — it will not be Georgia's stalwart secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, with the last word on who won. Nor will it be the Georgia Supreme Court, or even the U.S. Supreme Court. </p><p>The "Judge of the election of ... members" of the Senate, according to the Constitution, is the Senate itself. </p><p>For the vast majority of elections to both the House and Senate, this quirk — let's be more honest, this flaw — in our founding document does not pose a problem. Normally, with losers having conceded, the House and Senate dispense with a vote and permit the state-certified winners to take their seats. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>But little else has happened normally this year, and with control of the Senate in the balance and Mitch McConnell still in charge, we should not be surprised if another challenge to our democracy is ahead. </p><p>McConnell did try to protect the Electoral College count from objections, but he did so less on principle than to avoid politically difficult votes for his caucus. At least for the election between Ossoff and David Perdue, the closer of the two on Tuesday, there are certain to be GOP claims asserting Perdue's victory. McConnell will be tempted to call for the Senate to investigate before seating a winner — which would mean depriving himself of the gavel.</p><p>In a parallel situation from 23 years ago, the GOP-controlled Senate seated the state-certified winner in Louisiana, Democrat Mary Landrieu, even as an investigation dragged on for months before affirming her 5,000-vote victory. By that precedent, McConnell should arrange for a vote to seat Ossoff and Warnock as soon as their victories are certified. </p><p>Maybe the terrible events at the Capitol on Wednesday will bring a stop to such brinkmanship, but it should not be surprising if McConnell again ignores a precedent that interferes with his exercise of power. </p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>Adding to the complexity are at least two contested elections where legislative bodies are playing a role. In Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled General Assembly is refusing to seat the state-certified Democratic winner of a close state Senate election until a legal challenge is completed. </p><p>In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed that the House Administration Committee will investigate the claims of Democrat Rita Hart, who is asking the House to use its constitutional prerogative to overturn her loss in Iowa's 2nd District. Pending the outcome, the House has seated her Republican opponent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, certified by the state as the winner by a scant 6 votes. </p><p>The most legendarily bitter incident of the House using this power was 35 years ago. The Democratic majority voted to seat one of their own, Frank McCloskey of Indiana, after the state certified the winner as Republican challenger Richard McIntyre. Selective acceptance of evidence by the majority-run panel that investigated the dispute produced a four-vote McCloskey margin and led to a Republican walkout in protest. Subsequent investigations by journalists made clear McCloskey should not have been declared the winner. </p><p>Pelosi should take steps to avoid that kind of outcome in the Iowa contest — and to set a model for any Senate investigation of the Georgia elections. The House Administration Committee has seven Democrats and three Republicans, so Pelosi should see to it that a subcommittee with equal representation of both parties is given charge of the investigation. If the panel deadlocks, the victory for Republican Miller-Meeks as certified by the state should remain in force. </p><p>Doing so would put pressure on McConnell to conduct any Senate investigation in a similar bipartisan manner. And the Senate should follow both its own precedent and the House's approach to Miller-Meeks and promptly seat the state-certified winners from Georgia pending any investigation.</p><p>More broadly, there are lessons here from the fact that our Founders gave Congress judgment over the election of its own members. Writers of a constitution today would not take that path because of the clear conflict of interest and risk of abuse by the party with legislative control.</p><p>At the beginning of the world's long democracy learning curve, the Founders naively believed parties could be kept out of governing institutions, and they failed to anticipate how a political party could use this and other ways of controlling elections to keep itself in power. </p><p>France provides an instructive comparison. Its earlier constitutions followed the American example and gave its legislature the right to judge elections, which led to abuses. France's current Constitution, ratified in 1958, ended that practice and established a Constitutional Court as the definitive source of judgment on all national elections. </p><div></div><p>Our courts have moved over time to something of a similar role, but inconsistently and incompletely. Here as elsewhere our antiquated system is very vulnerable to the partisan will to hold power. That leaves us to hope that Senate Republicans improve on their track record and do the right thing. </p>
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Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images
Thanks to Sen. Josh Hawley and other Republicans, lawmakers will be forced to cast "yes or no" votes on a controversial issue — something they try to avoid, writes Burgat.
The sad upside for democracy in the Electoral College objection charade
Jan 06 2021
Burgat is director of the legislative affairs program and an assistant professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management.
<p>The House and Senate are about to convene in a joint session to count the electoral votes. With only a few exceptions, this responsibility has been a mere formality, the last box checked in the process of picking a president specified in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The meeting usually passes without fanfare or attention. </p>
<p>Not this time. There's going to be ample political drama Wednesday, the last step to formalizing Joe Biden's presidential victory. Following President Trump's incessant and unsubstantiated claims the election was rigged against him, his loyalists plan to formally object to counting the electoral votes of some states Biden won in November. </p>
<p>This not-going-to-succeed, Hail Mary effort is an attempt to deny Biden sufficient electoral votes to be sworn in, and instead set in motion a chain of events that would give Trump four more years in the White House. </p>
<p>An objection from only one member of the House and one senator forces everyone in Congress to vote. For weeks, several Trump loyalists in the House had volunteered but no senator had joined them. Many senators, including several Republicans, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/530327-mcconnell-urges-gop-senators-not-to-object-to-electoral-college-vote" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">predicted</a> not a single senator would be willing, concluding it was time to move on because the votes of all 50 states and D.C. have been legally certified and the president's lawyers have struck out in court. </p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>That all changed last week, when Josh Hawley of Missouri <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/12/30/sen-hawley-promises-to-challenge-electoral-college-results-setting-stage-for-fight/?sh=2cdcffa560b5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">announced</a> he would make at least one objection. <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/02/ted-cruz-electoral-college-challenge-453430" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eleven more Republican senators</a> led by Ted Cruz of Texas then announced their own plan for objecting.</p>
<p>This is perhaps the most egregious example yet of how far our politics has fallen: Now even our free and fair elections, a pillar of democratic governance, can't escape the partisan toxicity of our current political climate. Even worse, it's our elected members of Congress who are taking the steps to undermine our electoral processes.</p>
<p>But saying only that ignores a crucial reality: The election had already been severely undermined before it was Congress' turn to act. It has been undermined by a litany of actors in state legislatures, in courtrooms, in the media — and especially from the Oval Office. It was undermined even before Election Day. And it has been undermined with alarming success every day since, so that now <a href="https://thepoliticalinsider.com/poll-shows-over-half-of-republicans-believe-the-election-was-rigged-and-trump-rightfully-won/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">more than 65 percent</a> of Republican voters view the election as being rigged and a majority in the GOP believe Trump was the rightful winner. </p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>But precisely because much of the illiberal damage has already been done before the senators announced their ill-fated plans, there is an enormous upside for our democracy in going through with this charade.</p>
<p>The senators will produce an action that members of Congress nearly always work like hell to avoid: a straightforward "yes" or "no" vote, with every member's position on a controversial issue recorded in the Congressional Record for posterity. All lawmakers, House and Senate, will have to publicly declare, once and for all, whether they accept the certified results of the presidential election. </p>
<p>This will provide the clearest-cut answer we are likely to get from many members as to whether or not they agree with Trump, or at least say they do, that the election was rigged.</p>
<p>So the coming votes can serve as an illuminating positive — one that will tell us which lawmakers are willing to attach their name to the position that the election was a fraud and Biden is an illegitimate president. </p>
<p>Without the vote triggered by the objection, Republican lawmakers could have — and likely would have — continued to dodge questions as to their thoughts on Trump's conspiratorial claims. This is exactly why so many Republican lawmakers are upset at the senators who have decided to object, and why GOP Leader Mitch McConnell <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/530327-mcconnell-urges-gop-senators-not-to-object-to-electoral-college-vote" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">privately pressured</a> his Senate caucus not to engage with their House counterparts on the issue. </p>
<p>Now they will all have to go on record with a vote that's sure to alienate a large share of their independent and Republican constituents, not to mention fire up their Democratic constituents for elections to come. For most, it's a political no-win. </p>
<p>But voters deserve to know, for better or worse, if the people they sent to Congress are willing to oppose valid electoral votes. At this stage, getting a recorded vote on the issue is vital. In fact, if the GOP senators back away at the last minute from their protest promises, congressional Democrats should think about objecting simply to force Republicans on the record. </p>
<p>Now, as many correctly point out, even a vote to throw out electoral votes will be more about politics than about their true views on the results.</p>
<p>Those who vote against the real Electoral College tally — 306 for Biden, 232 for Trump — see their action as the best way to endear themselves to Trump's incredibly stable populist base, knowing full well that there won't be enough Senate or House votes to actually upend the election.</p><p>Because they know their effort ultimately won't succeed, they can see their votes as a low-cost way to shore up their MAGA bonafides — to stave off a primary challenge from the right when they next run for the Senate, or, for Hawley and Cruz, to take up Trump's populist mantle ahead of likely 2024 presidential runs. </p>
<p>Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska exposed this calculus when he <a href="https://ijr.org/sasse-not-my-colleagues-claimed-election-fraudulent-private/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">posted this</a> on Facebook last week: "When we talk in private, I haven't heard a single congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent. Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will 'look' to President Trump's ardent supporters."</p>
<div></div><p>No matter the reason — they believe in the unfounded allegations of fraud or solely in their own political benefit — the depressing levels of distrust in the 2020 election mean every member of Congress should have to go on record for or against the outcome. The alternative is far too easy. </p>
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Megan Varner
Vice President Pence has tried, unsuccessfully, to explain his role in counting the electoral votes to President Trump.
Trump puts fresh pressure on Pence to break the rules and upend the election
Jan 05 2021
President Trump on Tuesday ratcheted up the pressure on Vice President Pence to join in his unprecedented plot to so discredit democracy that they purloin themselves a second term.
Pence continued to remain quiet and out of sight, a day ahead of the joint session of Congress to formally tabulate the 306 legally certified electoral votes making Joe Biden the 46th president and Kamala Harris the 49th vice president. Pence is supposed to preside in his role as president of the Senate and his office made definitive only Tuesday morning that he will show up at the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
"The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors," Trump declared falsely on Tuesday, magnifying on Twitter the wholly incorrect belief that Pence can wield his gavel at will to overturn the results of the election.
<p>"Totally untrue," William & Mary law professor Rebecca Green said. "That's just now how the law works."<br></p><p>Trump's tweet about Pence came half an hour after another tweet urging his supporters to come to Washington to protest the Electoral College count, essentially seditious calls by an incumbent president to disrupt the orderly ascension of his successor. Thousands of his allies are already in town, many thousands more are expected, and the D.C. National Guard has been mobilized to keep order.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>On Monday night Trump used the final rally of the 2020 campaign — meant to excite supporters in Georgia ahead of twin Senate elections that will decide the partisan balance of power at the Capitol — to apply another measure of public arm-twisting on the vice president.</p><p>"I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you," Trump told the crowd, which responded with cheers. "Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him as much."</p><p>Pence has made sometimes obsequious loyalty to his boss the defining characteristic of his term. Unless he chooses to duck the moment, the House and Senate meeting to count the votes will put him at the center of the clear choice facing every Republican in the room — between continued fealty to Trump or a sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.</p><p>A law enacted in 1877, which sets the rules for the day, makes clear Pence has no choice but to take the second course. The presiding officer's role is that of a master of ceremonies, not an arbiter of disputes. He helps open the envelopes containing the electoral votes of the 50 states and announce their contents. He assigns the House and Senate to spend two hours debating any challenges supported by at least one lawmaker from each chamber. He announces their decisions and, when the disputes are ended, he announces the electoral vote grand totals.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>Pence is expected to carry out the script and has not said or done anything to signal he will exceed his limited authority by siding with the Trump loyalists working to delay and disrupt the count with unfounded claims against the integrity of the electoral votes in five states central to Biden's victory. </p><p>The vice president "shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election," his office said in a statement last week, and "welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th."</p><p>Should Pence decide at the final hour not to appear (or when he steps of the podium during a session that may well stretch into Thursday morning) the gavel would be taken by the longest serving GOP senator, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Something similar hasn't happened since 1969, when Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended a foreign dignitary's funeral overseas rather than announce that he'd lost to Richard Nixon.</p><p>In recent weeks, Trump has become keenly interested in the presiding officer's role but still does not understand it. Last month, he signaled his approval when GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas filed a quickly dismissed lawsuit designed to get Pence to overturn the election results. Aboard Air Force One on his way to Florida for Christmas, he retweeted a supporter's entreaty for Pence to refuse to accept the Electoral College results. </p><p>Pence — who went to the Capitol on Sunday to meet with Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough — has reportedly sought to explain the process to the president in hopes of diffusing the pressure on him, which clearly has not worked. Pence and Trump met in the Oval Office on Monday just before the president headed to Georgia.</p>
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Rep. Rodney Davis said the Modernization Committee has been "the first opportunity in over a decade to take a deep, internal look at how the House functions."
Why the 'Fix Congress' committee should be allowed to keep at it
Dec 21 2020
Tudor is a policy advocate at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for reducing executive power as part of its efforts to combat authoritarianism in American government.
<p>In September, after nearly two years of work, the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress released its <a href="https://modernizecongress.house.gov/final-report" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">final report</a> — a package of eight dozen recommendations to help make Congress more effective and responsive to the public. </p><p>As the majority Democrats map out their priorities for the new Congress, they should commit to the committee's reauthorization.</p><p>Much has been written about the committee's work as a bipartisan bright spot. Its members are <a href="https://modernizecongress.house.gov/news/in-the-news/a-starting-point" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">laudatory</a> about the space it provided for cross-aisle <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/a-bipartisan-committee-has-ideas-to-make-congress-more-bipartisan--and-lawmakers-are-listening/2019/12/28/a84dae32-28ce-11ea-b2ca-2e72667c1741_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cooperation</a>, and <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/congress/the-modernization-of-congress" target="_self">outside</a><a href="https://www.issueone.org/issue-one-applauds-the-house-for-its-vote-to-fix-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> advocates</a> have <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/demandprogress/letters/2020-11-16-Continuation_of_the_Select_Committee_on_the_Modernization_of_Congress_in_the_117th_Congress.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">applauded</a> the output: bundles of detailed recommendations that would genuinely improve how the House does its job, from reforms to the budget process and regulatory oversight to staff retention and administrative efficiencies. There is little doubt about the quality of the committee's product.</p><p>But there are other compelling reasons that House Democrats should support reauthorization. Beyond the obvious need for more high-quality ideas, sustaining (or making <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/gridlock/a-permanent-committee-to-improve-Congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">permanent</a>) the Modernization Committee would also be good politics.</p><p>First, a congressional reform panel gives members interested in the health of the institution a structured place to funnel their expertise.</p><p>Political scientist Roger H. Davidson once coined these reform-minded members "procedural entrepreneurs." In every era, he <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/439768?read-now=1&seq=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">observed</a>, "at least a few members of Congress cultivate a lively interest in the institution itself: how Congress works, how its virtues can be nurtured, how its effectiveness can be improved." Davidson was studying the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. But the observation still holds true. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Some members now, as then, are particularly drawn to the machinery of the institution, but only rarely have an avenue to do much about it. "Internal House operations have always interested me," <a href="https://modernizecongress.house.gov/final-report" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">says</a> GOP Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, and yet his assignment to the Modernization Committee was "the first opportunity in over a decade to take a deep, internal look at how the House functions." </p><p>Providing that opportunity at all times is important. The absence of a dedicated space to study, debate and propose reforms does not do away with calls for reform — but it does risk making those calls more unwieldy and, potentially, fractious. </p><p>For example, the arrival of the so-called Watergate Babies, the huge class of House members elected after President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 on a commitment to make the government more honest and transparent, precipitated a period of bitter intraparty battles. The newcomers arrived with fresh and incredulous eyes, and with the help of elder reformers adopted a sweeping agenda to remake Congress. It was a distinctly <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-class-74-congress-after-watergate-and-the-roots-partisanship" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">confrontational</a> approach, where reforms were not so much thoughtfully studied and debated as decreed and relentlessly fought for. </p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>Those that came to pass — from televised committee sessions to floor procedures allowing more votes on divisive issues — generated a range of <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/26/congress-broke-american-politics-218544" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">unintended consequences</a>. </p><p>The virtue of a Modernization Committee is not only that it tackles tough institutional issues, but that it provides an insulated and contained space for doing so. Reform topics that are politically tricky (<a href="https://modernizecongress.house.gov/imo/media/doc/ModernizationCommittee_10152020r1Compressed%20(newest%20gpo%20report).pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">earmarks</a>), have thorny partisan histories (<a href="https://modernizecongress.house.gov/final-report/chapter/recommendation/reestablish-an-improved-office-of-technology-assessment-ota-to-study-and-recommend-emerging-technologies-provide-nonpartisan-information-and-policy-analysis-to-member-offices-support-legislative-branch-agencies-in-their-examination-of-new-technologies-focus-on-general-oversight-and-policy-and-facilitate-peer-reviews-of-potential-new-technologies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the Office of Technology Assessment</a>), or are genuinely complex (<a href="https://modernizecongress.house.gov/final-report/chapter/recommendation/require-a-biennial-budget-resolution-while-maintaining-annual-appropriations-bills" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">biennial budgeting</a>) enjoy a holding space for careful treatment by reform-minded members.</p><p>Second, while the Modernization Committee's work may not strike the same political points as members' work on health care, jobs or climate change, it still pays political dividends. </p><p>Coverage <a href="https://www.ptleader.com/stories/6th-district-voters-send-kilmer-back-for-fifth-term-in-congress-2020-election,72159" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in local papers</a> has been congratulatory and approving. A newspaper in the western Washington district of Derek Kilmer, the committee's Democratic chairman, framed the panel's work as promoting "civility and bipartisanship," for example. And while it's unlikely many voters care about the congressional calendar or hearing formats, most <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo51795068.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">do care</a> that the people they send to Congress are making concerted efforts to improve <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/compromise-still-works-in-congress-and-with-voters/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">through compromise</a> a broken branch of government. </p><p>Perhaps most importantly, the Modernization Committee represents a distinctly better approach for updating Congress than past waves of reform — and one less likely to so radically upset existing power structures that the reforms are put to bed quickly.</p><p>The history of <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20031020_RL31835_871c33a8137cba0d3cbe25f2337dd292f6b156e0.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">legislative reform</a> is characterized by big bursts of energy followed by murky legacies. </p><p>The 1946 law <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/79th-congress/session-2/c79s2ch753.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reorganizing Congress</a> — which included radical budget reforms, streamlining committee jurisdictions and the start of merit-based staffing — was historic in ambition. In practice, though, most of its cornerstone changes were scuttled. Senior members jettisoned the budget reforms; committee members didn't much care for more independent staff; and a proliferation of subcommittees limited the law's capacity to rein in a sprawling committee system. </p><p>Then, as now, a special panel had been formed and given just two years to propose improvements. Its short lifespan put it under significant pressure. Most of its ideas were imported from political scientists and were not the product of internal deliberation and compromise. And the committee was neither truly representative of the membership nor meaningfully engaged the regular committees that would be responsible for turning proposed reforms into reality. And so the approach destined the law's far-reaching provisions to<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/439768?read-now=1&seq=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> disappointment</a>. </p><p>Adaptive changes that stick require time to socialize and iterate. They benefit from internal grappling among those who will be affected. Like any complex body, Congress is more amenable to disciplined and incremental changes than hurried and sweeping ones. </p><p>The Modernization Committee, under <a href="https://kilmer.house.gov/news/press-releases/kilmer-honored-for-work-to-reform-congress-and-reduce-the-role-of-money-in-politics" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">celebrated</a><a href="https://kilmer.house.gov/news/press-releases/us-chamber-recognizes-rep-kilmer-with-spirit-of-enterprise-award" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> leadership</a>, has made strenuous efforts to involve members across the institution in its work. It has demonstrably committed to careful study and deliberation of ideas — and worked collaboratively with the committees responsible for implementing its 97 proposals.</p><p>To cut its lifespan short now would be to terminate a worthwhile experiment that seems to be on a different path than its predecessors.</p><p>The politics of change never suggest good odds, especially at the Capitol. And the congressional history of select committees that push through big changes don't enjoy rosy histories. Reauthorizing the Modernization Committee would signal support for a different, smarter approach. It's a safe bet for any party committed to better government.</p>
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