Congress is spending the holiday season working through a series of bills that are critical to a functioning government and President Biden’s agenda, efforts that have been marked by partisan positioning. But the group of lawmakers tasked with improving operations in the House has a new set of recommendations that could inject some civility and collaboration into the legislative process.
The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress convened Wednesday morning and approved its seventh round of proposals, focusing in part on “building a more collaborative Congress where civil discourse is the norm rather than the exception,” said the committee’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington.
This set also includes proposals for strengthening congressional support agencies and a concept to encourage evidence-based policymaking.
Among 25 recommendations approved Wednesday by the modernization committee, 14 are designed to create a more collaborative environment. They cover a range of engagements, from orientation for new lawmakers to committee activity to shared resources.
“The very purpose of Congress is to bring together representatives of the people throughout this nation — with a myriad of interests, cultures, and outlooks — to solve common problems,” the Congressional Management Foundation said in a statement after the vote. “Without civil relationships, productive collaboration among Members and staff, and the highest-possible quality support from Legislative Branch agencies, Congress cannot develop public policy that truly meets the needs and aspirations of the People.”
According to Susan Curran, the committee’s communications director, the civility and cooperation recommendations do not require further legislative action and could be implemented at any time. That goes for some of the proposals related to congressional support agencies.
“The chair and vice chair are very focused on ensuring these recs are put into action and we have been working with these various partners as we drafted the recs to ensure they were implementable,” Curran said, referring to offices and agencies that provide administrative and research support for Congress.
Fourteen recommendations focus on greater civility and cooperation. They include:
- Promoting civility, collaboration, and leadership skills at orientation events for new members of Congress and through a proposed Congressional Leadership Academy and Congressional Staff Academy.
- Hosting bipartisan committee events and expanding the Library of Congress’ events to build better relationships among members.
- Providing ongoing support for members and staff who want to build better relationships across the aisle.
- Developing tools that would make collaboration easier.
- Creating bipartisan websites for committees.
- Designating bipartisan co-working space for congressional staff.
- Establishing a task force through which the House and Senate could develop joint rules that expedite passage of widely supported, bipartisan legislation.
All of those recommendations were passed unanimously, with the exception of the proposals urging institutional support for collaboration, co-working space and the task force. One proposal, to allow two lawmakers to be designated as first sponsors of a bill as long as they represent different parties, did not receive two-thirds support required for committee approval.
Ten additional recommendations, all approved unanimously, would improve the ability of three congressional agencies — Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office and Congressional Research Service — to support lawmakers.
And a final recommendation, to create a bipartisan and bicameral Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, also received unanimous support.
“This committee is not attempting to dictate how members should represent their constituents; these recommendations are about trying to refocus Congress’s attention away from the bickering and on to solving America’s biggest challenges,” said the committee’s vice chairman, Republican Rep. Williams Timmons of South Carolina. “If implemented, members will spend more time conducting oversight and ensuring government works efficiently, that our support agencies like the Congressional Budget Office help us better understand and tackle the nation’s debt, and that as a nation our laws will be based on facts and not opinions.”
In June, the committee began hearing from experts on these issues, including academics, representatives of nonprofits, fellow lawmakers and other federal officials.
This round of proposals builds on 117 that the committee had already approved since its creation in January 2019.
According to a report issued by the committee, more than 60 percent of the 97 recommendations adopted by the 116th Congress (2019-20) have been implemented or are in progress. Another 20 recommendations were issued earlier this year. All of this year’s recommendations are available on the committee’s website.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.