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Podcast: Is Congress as dysfunctional as it seems?

Podcast: Is Congress as dysfunctional as it seems?

From the outside, Congress appears broken. Bills get bogged down in partisan fights, leaders openly smear each other, and animosity between members is at an all-time high. But our guests on today’s show demonstrate that if you look a little closer, you’ll find a group of dedicated politicians working together across the aisle to craft workable legislation and get things done.

Republican Congressman Don Bacon represents Nebraska’s 2nd District. Democrat Kurt Schrader represents Oregon’s 5th District. Each man is a member of the congressional Problem Solvers Caucus, a group equally split between Democrats and Republicans who are committed to finding common ground on key issues facing the U.S.


In this surprisingly candid conversation listeners get a peek behind the curtain at what’s really going on in Congress, how the infrastructure bill was passed into law, and the harmful effect the media has on Americans’ view of politics.

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Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building

Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building on Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. If Democrats win the House in November, questions will swirl around impeaching President Trump yet again.

(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/TNS)

The Good Reasons and Bad Politics Surrounding a Third Trump Impeachment

A coalition of right-wing organizations and activists is lobbying the White House to grant mass pardons to junior staffers in the administration. “A pardon for all junior administration personnel is viewed as unlikely,” one source told the Washington Sun, “but the president could issue blanket pardons for all employees involved in particular policy areas, such as deportations, war or trade.”

Oh, just war, deportations and trade? Is that all?

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US Capitol building
The United States Capitol building with its white dome against a blue sky

Would Congressional Term Limits Make Congress Better—or Worse?

Starting in the 1990’s, the idea of putting term limits on members of Congress became a recurring idea to reform the institution and improve democracy. The idea was born out of the theory that replacing the current crop of legislators with a new batch would produce a better Congress. More than 30 years later we now have quantitative and qualitative data showing the impact of term limits.

Twenty-one state legislatures have enacted some kind of term limit on legislators since 1990. Since then, dozens of academic studies have examined the impact on such factors as: complexity of legislation, influence of lobbyists and staff on legislative outcomes, and interactions with constituent. Here are some key findings.

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Data calculations

Getty Images

Inconvenient Numbers Are a Sign the System Works

Earlier in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose 3.7 percent over the past year, a little higher than the month before, with gasoline accounting for more than half of September's increase. Rising prices are the kind of news no incumbent politician wants weeks before an election. The report was published anyway, on schedule. That is the quiet discipline of a trustworthy statistical system. It tells us what is true even when the number is unwelcome to whoever holds power.

So, do Americans trust government data? We do. But that trust is incomplete, and it has room to grow.

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The Pennsylvania state capitol building.

The Pennsylvania state capitol building.

jimfeng/Getty Images

Pennsylvania’s Bipartisan Exchange Is Rebuilding Trust in Governance

The University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics has nearly 40 years of experience working with legislators from different political parties, and it is building on this history by drawing on lessons from the successful American Congressional Exchange model, begun in 2018 at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and from state exchanges now underway in Minnesota and Michigan. The University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, in collaboration with the Bridge Alliance, has launched the Pennsylvania Legislative Exchange.

This state-based, systematic approach is designed to foster better relationships and build trust across the political aisle with the following guiding principles:

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