Necessary & Proper Podcast

This is the first episode in a six part series featuring live discussions from our Restoring Article I conference on March 22, 2018. This panel featured insights from former Congressman and current Club for Growth President David McIntosh, former Congressman Tom Davis, and Congressman Barry Loudermilk.

Christopher Scalia discusses the book he recently edited with Ed Whelan, Scalia Speaks, which is a collection of Justice Antonin Scalia's speeches. A speech the Justice delivered to Congress in 2011 is the focus of the conversation.

This is the final episode in our series highlighting the best live panels the Initiative hosted in Washington D.C. in 2017. The recording is of our December 15 panel featuring discussion with Michael Bopp, Machalagh Carr, Hon. Neil Eggleston, and our Moderator, Amanda Neely.

This is the second episode of from our three part series highlighting the best live panels the Initiative hosted in Washington D.C. in 2017. This recording is from November 22 and features a panel discussion with former Congressman Chris Shays and Weekly Standard Senior Writer Jay Cost.

This is the first in a three part series highlighting the best live panels the Initiative hosted in Washington D.C. in 2017. This recording is from September 22 and features a panel discussion with David Hoppe and Prof. Frances Lee on the Congressional budget process.

The Article I Initiative partnered with the Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group and the Regulatory Transparency Project for a discussion with David Schoenbrod, New York Law School Professor and author of DC Confidential: Inside the Five Tricks of Washington. Hon. Susan Dudley, Director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, moderated the conversation, engaging Professor Schoenbrod's argument that Congress created a "regulatory mess" by commanding agencies to impose duties needed to protect the public. He contends that in doing so, legislators got credit for protecting voters but shifted to the agencies blame for the burdens of protection.

Professor Schoenbrod also alleges that these same legislators later lobbied not to impose these unpopular burdens while simultaneously blaming the agencies for failing to deliver the statutorily-required protection. In recent years some members of Congress have sought on several occasions to address these problems with various bills including the "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny" or REINS Act. Professor Schoenbrod rejects the idea that the problem originated in the agencies and offers his own alternative solutions.

Chris Connelly, hill veteran and current Chief of Staff for Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler, (MO-4), joined us to offer his thoughts on the role of a Chief of Staff in the U.S. House of Representatives, how Congress has changed in the last 20 years, and suggested reforms.

Adam J. White, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Director of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, offered his analysis of the administrative state and discussed possible legislative solutions.

Christopher DeMuth, Distinguished Fellow at the Hudson Institute, discusses the current state of the 115th Congress and outlines many of its historical challenges. He also analyzes what he calls Congress' "dilemma of fiscal restraint."

Former Congressional Research Service (CRS) analyst Kevin Kosar offers his inside perspective on how Congress has changed over the last couple decades and how CRS and the Congress could be more effective.