Congress Is in Session

IT'S JUST A COUPLE OF CLASSES into the spring semester, and the uniqueness of David King’s “U.S. Congress and Lawmaking” class is already being felt.

“I need a volunteer,” King, lecturer in public policy and associate director of the Institute of Politics, says, walking over to a wooden table a few feet from the podium where he has just finished his lecture. None of the students raises a hand, so he nominates Kent Grasso MPP 2005, who happens to be in his line of vision as he looks up the center aisle.

“Come on down, Kent,” King says. He motions to the table and tells Grasso to climb up and sit in the plastic chair that he has placed on top, facing the class.

“Pretend you’re driving,” King says, then alternates between telling Grasso to brake and hit the gas.

“Where do you think I’m going with this?” King finally says, looking back to the class. No one is sure, but everyone is clearly interested in the answer. King taps Grasso’s right sneaker. “In the world of Mayhew and Fenno, what’s the gas pedal?”

A bunch of students, the ones who have kept up with the readings, are starting to catch on. A few yell out, “Reelection.”

King looks happy. “You’ve been paying attention. To Mayhew and Fenno, the gas pedal is powering us forward, but I want you to know that reelection is really the brake.
Reelection is what keeps you from going into certain places. The gas pedal should be your ideology.”

The exercise may seem like “overteaching,” as King jokes, but it’s the main reason that most of the students signed on for the class, which King has been teaching for the past 14 years. Part straight lecture, part hands-on theater, the class simulates an actual legislative session, with each student taking on the persona of a lobbyist, reporter, or congressperson, complete with an insider’s newspaper, committee hearings, an all-night legislative session, and the election of a new speaker of the House. (Until this happens, King serves as the outgoing speaker of what he has named the “Legislature of North America.”)

Although the main focus of the class is on getting inside the mind-set of a member of Congress, King’s intention isn’t to convince every student to run for office some day. Some, he knows, will run. Others will work as staff members. And a few who were convinced they wanted to run will decide, after the semester is over, that a political life isn’t for them. (King likes to tell the story about one eager former student who planned to run for a legislative seat in New York. At the end of the semester, he shook King’s hand and thanked him for saving him $2 million. The student went on instead to start a nonprofit focused on getting more progressives into government.)

For Betsy Hosler MPA 2006, the class allowed her to rethink some of the preconceived notions she had about elected officials.

“It’s easy to be judgmental about how representatives function until you try to do it yourself,” she says. “In the first class, I said I didn’t trust people in politics. Now I’m no longer thinking they’re all corrupt. The structure of the institution is the problem. Being in the middle of it and seeing your best intentions fall apart really drove this home.”

Being idealistic and not playing partisan hardball was something students struggled with throughout the semester. About a month into the class, after political affiliations have been chosen, King tells the students to stand up: Those in the majority party (the Democrats) will sit in the middle section, the minority party on the right side, and lobbyists and reporters on the left. Each section is divided by an aisle.

“From this point on, I encourage you to speak across the aisle,” King says. “But remember, the fact that you’re divided by an aisle can make a difference.”

Many students express anger that the real U.S. Congress has been plagued by partisanship and vow not to let the aisle affect them, but by the end of the semester, the aisle’s differences come out during the all-night legislative session. In trying to push and protect bills, harsh words are thrown around. One angry student even sits on the podium and refuses to move.

In class the next morning, King asks the students to assess the night. There is emotion in their voices.

Joyce Hayes MPA 2005 says she was surprised by the divide that erupted. “If it’s this hard for people to do that when there are no stakes, no wonder the real Congress is so partisan.”

King reminds them that politics is not easy.

“In politics, there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. You have to be tough. Then you have to have a very short memory,” he says. “But never forget that in the long run, Democrats and Republicans, you’re going to need each other.” — LH