In My Reform Era (Part 1)
On Congressional Reform and Oversight
Almost 7 years to the date of the publication of this article, an ambitious freshman Congressman penned an article in The Atlantic on Congressional reform. The article was warmly received by many in DC, except for Congressional leadership. Fast forward to present day and not only has there been no reform, Congress has all but abdicated its responsibilities. To call Congress broken would be an understatement. We are more than 30 days into a shutdown where millions of Americans are suffering from financial pains either through salary, benefits, or lack of physical government assistance. Even the DoD, normally immune to shutdowns, is suffering. And it’s easy, but short-sighted, to say the shutdown is simply because of members not doing their jobs today. Rather, this shutdown and all the other symptoms of a broken Congress are borne of years of legislative abdication to the Executive Branch, SCOTUS, and even to Congressional leadership to reduce the work and thinking of the rank and file. Why have hard votes when you can bury them or simply not use your Constitutional authority when its inconvenient? Why craft legislation when you can fundraise? In this article, I’ll be highlighting the reforms in Mike Gallagher’s original Atlantic article, my own suggestions as a former Hill staffer, as well some commentary on bad ideas I’ve seen on reform as well. My intent is to make this part of a series of articles on governmental reforms (with a foreign policy flavor). Going into the 2026 midterms, whole of government reform must be high on the agenda if we have any hope of maintaining our great power status and delivering on promises to the American people. Can’t fight the CCP if the government doesn’t work.
Hopefully these reform proposals ignite discussion among the 2026 candidates about how to channel their efforts into model governance upon entering office. When the Tea Party candidates took office after the 2010 wave, few knew anything about the levers of government which they’d promised to pull. Today much of the discourse around governmental reform comes in the form of expanding the power of the executive or reducing the power of SCOTUS, not reinforcing the balance of powers between the branches and ensuring the American peoples’ voices are heard and acted upon through good policy work in Congress. Congress is (supposed to be) the megaphone of the people. The House the fiery heartbeat of the people with elections every two years from 435 congressional districts and the Senate the “greatest deliberative body in the world” with 100 members supposedly less responsive to the whimsies of opinion polls through their six-year election cycle and statewide elections. In Romantic terms, the House and Senate are supposed to balance each other and work towards compromise between the brain and the heart of the American people and ensure the Executive does not act unilaterally and against the voice of the people. The Executive branch serves to execute the laws and policies delivered by the Congress on behalf of the American people at home and abroad. SCOTUS the referee between policy objectives and legal interpretations of the Constitution.
Governing’s hard, but it’s a lot harder if you’re bad at your job or are quite simply apathetic to good governance. Therefore, any reforms must drive cultural changes, first. Hyper-partisanship won’t disappear overnight, nor will the tendency to kick the can down the road in perpetuity so Congress can make their flights home. You can’t just show up to the Hill and expect leadership to do your job for you if you want to make real change.
Gallagher’s Three Proposals
Change the congressional calendar: This seems simple enough. Change the calendar to better work for both members and the people. The calendar itself varies year to year and as Gallagher points out, members are constantly flying in and out on tight schedules with little room to really sit down and work with your colleagues. His proposal for a 3 weeks on, 1 week off schedule is still a viable change reformers can embrace. I would add one additional suggestion: change the rules to require Congress to stay in session if a budget has not yet been passed by the end of the fiscal year.
Empower Committees: Back in the day, the standard committees and their chairs had a lot more influence. As Gallagher states, power was consolidated with House leadership over the decades. Enabling the rank and file to vote for committee leadership instead of by appointment also remains a viable path for reform. No notes here, this overhaul would be a big one and would require a reformist-minded Speaker willing to buck the party and give up power.
Streamline Committee Jurisdictions: The BLUF here is aligning committees to the departments they fund thereby reducing jurisdictional overlap and combining the appropriations and policy committees. Anyone who’s worked the NDAA is familiar with the nightmare where the Armed Services committees authorize funding to a specific amount and then the Appropriations committees decide they have their own (uninformed) ideas. Getting rid of the appropriations committees probably requires more juice than any reformer has, but I have some thoughts on that below.
Tony’s Thoughts on Congressional Reform in the New Era:
Appropriations and Policy Reconciliation:
As I said, it’s probably too much of an ask to get rid of the Appropriations committees. There’s too much money and power associated with those roles that no one would give them up voluntarily even with a reformist minded leadership. Instead, we can change the appropriations process. Split the NDAA process into policy and appropriations (imagine a similar process for other committees). The “clean” policy bill (without funding authorizations) can go to the floor by itself (and the appropriations committees will no longer be able to insert policy into their own bills). Each committee will retain their voice in funding levels. But before a funding bill can come to the floor, it should require a joint vote of approval between the two authorizing and appropriating committees. If the vote does not pass, or is not expected to pass, then the committees enter their own mini-reconciliation until a deal is reached. This might sound messy, but it will enable better cross-talk between the policy-minded members and the appropriators. It will also get rid of the member habit of bragging about authorizations instead of appropriations (thereby scoring the political points without doing the real work).
Term limits or age limits?
Term and age limits come up a lot in both the general public’s and DC’s discourse. The members are too old and their staff keep them around far beyond the point of humane treatment. But are term limits and age limits both politically viable and effective? Well, let’s start with term limits. I’m actually opposed because it’s an artificial impasse to expertise on the Hill when voters already have the ability to vote them out every cycle. It can take a decade just to get a good handle on the system. Why kick someone out just when they’re making headway? As for age limits, they’re very much needed. Older members rely on control of the party system and name recognition to dodge retirement even when it’s clear they’re no longer helpful. The retired population is still a voting population and deserves representation in Congress, though. I’d therefore propose age limits of 70 for the House. Thus each gets five years beyond the current US retirement age of 65. According to Pew, at the start of 2025 there were 117 Members of Congress above the age of 70. That means at least 1 in 5 Members of Congress were beyond the US retirement age, 137 Members of Congress were in the 60-69 age group. 254 Members of Congress, nearly half of all members, are either in the retirement age range or approaching it rapidly. In 2024, the Democratic Party in particular had a reckoning with its gerontocracy. You can’t expect the gerontocracy to solve the problem of the gerontocracy.
No Leaving Til the Job is Done:
Like I mentioned earlier, the House and Senate should not be allowed to go into recess at the end of the fiscal year until they pass funding bills for the entire USG. It’s as easy as writing that into the rules of that Congress. I actually think this is the easiest change to make for a reformist-minded wave because it doesn’t threaten anyone’s power and is solid messaging. On the other hand, Congress really likes flying home instead of doing their job.
Incentivizing Committee Attendance:
In our efforts to give power back to committee leadership and the rank and file, a reformist minded movement would use either a party funding or Congressional rule to tie committee hearing attendance to eligibility for committee assignments and leadership roles. There’s not a particular number I have in mind here but requiring a member to have attended say….80% of a committee’s hearings in the previous year (there are legitimate conflicts sometimes) to their eligibility to campaign for a committee leadership assignment would bring some rigor to a Congress that also loves dipping on meetings for fundraising or literally anything else. I recall once a fellow staffer asked me (they were new) how they could help their boss contribute to defense policy, I politely told them they could start by showing up. I didn’t hear from that staffer again.
On Expanding the legislative body
I’ve seen some commentary out there from folks who don’t know the Hill well and think that the solution is to make the House and/or Senate even larger. Now, I will say that it is rather arbitrary to be capped at 435 members of the House. However, I don’t know if you’ve seen the talent pool out there but the problem isn’t that there aren’t enough backbenchers in the House. Watering the House voting blocs even further will only make the system even worse. We have to focus on improving what we already have.
On Paying Congressional Staff
Congressional staff put up with a lot, and if you want to attract more decent talent to put up with the chaos, then they have to be paid well (this includes interns). No, you’ll never be able to match a lobbyist’s salary but you’ll have a steady stream of people with good ideas and youthful energy. With the exception of being a committee staffer (PSM), most staff roles in the House and Senate belong to the youth and the knowledge and networks they gain (in the right hands) can go a long way to improving the whole of government. If you pay the bottom of the barrel, that’s what you’ll get.
In the end, fixing Congress is an attritional fight. You won’t fix it magically overnight and it takes passionate and knowledgeable staff and members to work together for long hours, days, and years. But you can start by shaping the culture of the Congress through these reforms. In coming weeks and months, I’ll have more articles on reforming the various departments and oversight of the Executive branch. I’ll also be talking about this and other topics on our new podcast: Second Breakfast, it’s all about defense policy, tech, and teaching staffers and others things they’d never otherwise get to learn about the natsec world.
If you would like to read more about the future of US-China conflict, the challenges of modern war and policymaking, check out my novel, EX SUPRA. It’s all about the world after the fall of Taiwan, an isolationist and hyper-partisan America, and World War III. It was nominated for a Prometheus Award for best science fiction novel and there’s a sequel in the works! Don’t forget to share and subscribe!