Bradford Fitch

BRADFORD FITCH:

And I asked Mr. Brokaw, I said, you've got this segment every week called the Fleecing of America, that one every Friday night, and it's a negative government story. It's like you have a quota system for negative government stories. Why don't you have a similar quota system for positive government stories? And he said, Brad, we just don't cover the story the day the bank wasn't robbed.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Thedore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. A lot of people, and frankly myself included, are getting increasingly skeptical about politics today. Politicians seem to be racing to the lowest common denominator, leaving little to no room for serious substantive conversation about reasonable disagreements. Enter our guest today, Bradford Fitch, former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and author of Citizen's Handbook to Influencing Elected Officials. He shines a bit of optimism on Congress and we go behind the scenes of American government. We talk about campaign financing, gerrymandering, and when bipartisanship became a dirty word. Brad offers compelling insights into why our government may look more dysfunctional than it really is, and he shares some practical ideas for how citizens can and should, frankly, engage with their representatives. What stands out most in this conversation is his optimism, his hopeful outlook on democracy shaped by years working inside politics and it's refreshing and encouraging. I'm thrilled to share his perspective with you now.

BRADFORD FITCH:

I'm one of these kids who grew up in a really small town in rural New York and came to Washington on a school trip in the eighth grade. Kind of already was liking history at that point, but that really cemented that experience. So from a very early age, I was seeing a role in public policy, but I was leaning early on as a journalist and thought I was going to be a reporter and I was a reporter for four or five years in television reporter in Washington DC and I reasoned, well, I'll be a better reporter if I work in government for a little bit, understand how it works. So I got a job as a press secretary on Capitol Hill in my mid-twenties and they just kept promoting me and I kept staying there, so 13 years later I couldn't go back to journalism. Ironically, now I've actually come full circle. I'm actually starting to work as a print columnist in my retirement, so it's actually kind of a full circle for me.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Given that range of experience, I'm curious what you learned as a staffer on the hill that you think people don't understand. What was that experience that most Americans maybe don't appreciate about the role of Congress?

BRADFORD FITCH:

Well, I could probably answer that best by telling you an anecdote. Over the years, I supervised dozens and dozens of interns, both when I was a congressional staffer and a nonprofit leader, and at the end of the internship I would always ask the same question, what about Washington surprised you? What myth did you have, belief you had, that has been changed as a result of your three months stay? And invariably, the most common answer I got went like this: I was surprised by how thoughtful you all are about trying to make the right decision and how important constituents are to that decision-making process. I immediately saw that our responsibility as staffers and our responsibility to the member that our duty was to constituents. And it's not just a political duty because to get you reelected, although every member of Congress will say, if you don't get reelected, you can't do good. And so a big part of it also is the moral responsibility of they take their jobs very seriously. Now, I'm not trying to portray Congress as all saints. We get the occasional cad criminal, dare I say wiener elected to Congress and then it does happen. But by and large, most members of Congress are really decent people trying to do a good job for their constituents and perhaps trapped in a system that isn't really working for them.

TED ROOSEVELT:

I'm struck by the phrase, "if you don't get reelected, you can't do good," because that does set up a paradigm that often works as cover to not do good.

BRADFORD FITCH:

Political incentives are real. I mean, you don't have to look past today's headlines to realize that members of Congress sometimes change their behavior. So yeah, there's definitely a tug and a, shall we say, ethical conflict knowing that they may have to do things that is in conflict with their own conscience or even their own ideology. I look back at the number of people who voted for the recent massive bill, who immediately started denouncing it. I was like, wait a minute. That's not how it's supposed to work. You're supposed out there and cheerlead for this thing, not talk about what a dog it is you just voted for. That's really -- we were seeing some very unusual political machinations happening during this time of Trump that I hope is temporary, I think is temporary, but there's definitely some weird stuff going on.

TED ROOSEVELT:

What can Congress do to better highlight the actual kind of day-to-day work that they're doing that is benefiting their constituents?

BRADFORD FITCH:

First and foremost, they need to become better storytellers. They need to explain individual stories of people's lives that they are in improving and helping. It's remarkable. I've always been stunned that members of Congress aren't as good at storytelling as they should be. It's a little bit as what Mario Cuomo said, that you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose and that is so true and they just need to be better storytellers of the work that they're doing and I think they have to lose a little bit of the self-promotional nature that unfortunately, is a little bit part of their DNA and be a little bit more vulnerable, if you will, in the sense of showing that, yeah, I've got compassion for the other guy and the other gal. I do think there's institutional reform that has to happen as well that can make the Congress actually perform better, not just look like it's doing better, but actually do better. Budget process and appropriations process has definitely — continues to be a circus. And I'm an optimist, but just to be a little pessimistic, as long as the house majorities are so slim and five Republicans can dictate terms to the other 212 Republicans, we're going to be in a really weird space as long as we have slim majorities in the house that it's going to be a very tough picture and a very tough place to govern.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Well, it used to be a slim majority meant that you would try to pick off members of the other party. We don't live in that environment anymore. It is an all or nothing approach to policy. In your mind, what changed in Washington where we went from an environment where you could have bipartisan passage of a bill and that wasn't seen as a terrible outcome, but often a positive outcome?

BRADFORD FITCH:

People don't realize every budget that we have passed since 2011 has been passed with wide bipartisan majorities, and I'm talking about in three hundreds in the House of Representatives in the sixties in the Senate, so we do have bipartisanship. We have — in fact, right now, the only way to get anything passed in the House is through a bipartisan majority or in the Senate because you have the filibuster. So things are getting done in a bipartisan way. Going back to answer your question, what changed, I think, and this has been documented I think very well by scholars Norman Ornstein and Tom Mann in their book, It's Worse Than You Think. They pointed out that Gingrich, in making government as the villain as the enemy campaigning against government and turning government into this vile villainist thing, he made the process of governance dirty and inappropriate and vile, and I think that was part of the shift that continues to today and that cultural belief is now cemented in the American psyche in a way that is not healthy because they want government to perform well. They want things from their government. The Americans want this. We saw massive expansions of healthcare benefits under George W. Bush with Medicare Part D, the first time the prescription drugs were covered was passed in a bipartisan way in the early two thousands. We saw a massive increase in people eligible for healthcare benefits under the Affordable Care Act passed under Barack Obama with millions more Americans getting access to healthcare. People want government to perform and serve it in certain ways, yet as long as government and in some respects federal service is denigrated, that's going to be a very significant challenge.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Just to push back a little bit, I mean the Affordable Care Act, the IRA, and the Big Beautiful Bill, the sort of three biggest landmark pieces of legislation were all done in a — under a single party, right? There was no bipartisan —

BRADFORD FITCH:

Exactly. They were, and I see that point. The Big Beautiful Bill was what's called a reconciliation bill. And every four years or every eight years when there's a new president, there is a bill and it is partisan because you only need a 50% majority in the Senate to pass that. And you're right, the Affordable Care Act was not done in a bipartisan way and people have argued that it could have been. There are certainly examples of very partisan legislation being passed, but that's been going on for like 40, 50 years. Those are kind of blips at this point in history. Then you go back to the regular governing status where bipartisanship under our system of government is required. There are some people that have argued one of the problems in government is the filibuster. I support the filibuster. I don't want to become a parliament. I don't think Americans want their Congress to look like the Italian parliament. We set up a bipartisan two-party system through our founder's creation of the Constitution. It is built on compromise, and if we give up the filibuster, then we're going to be giving up compromise forever. And it's not, I don't think healthy for our nation and for our Congress.

TED ROOSEVELT:

The filibuster does seem to be more at risk each and every passing year, though.

BRADFORD FITCH:

It does, and it's also being used more, and that's one of the reasons why it is being criticized. And I think that there is definitely reform open for filibusters, especially for some of the simple things. Like right now, the Senate, under the filibuster rules is prevented from even debating a bill much less passing it. And it's like, wait, we can't even talk about this? Are you kidding? And there's a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that want the filibuster to be removed from consideration of a bill, and I would certainly favor that. But we can't just throw out 200 years of practice and the wisdom that the founders gave us simply because it's inconvenient. Liberals every four years when the Democrats control everything, want to get rid of the filibuster because the Republicans have it, and the reverse is true when the Republicans are in charge. So not a lot of consistency there, a bit of hypocrisy going on at all times, but I still think it's a healthy thing for our democracy. It requires the majority to at least respect the minority in some ways and have conversations with the minority. And again, behind closed doors, most members of Congress would agree with that philosophy of governing.

TED ROOSEVELT:

I'm curious about the Pelosi bill or what I think is now being called the HONEST Act. This is a bill that limits or restricts what people in finance would call insider trading. It's got over an 80% approval rating in the United States. Why is something like that so hard to pass? It just seems so commonsensical that if you have insider information, particularly if you work for the government, that you should not be able to trade your personal account on that information.

BRADFORD FITCH:

Well, first of all, we do have laws against insider training and members of Congress have been convicted of insider training in the last 10 years. I think the STOCK Act or whatever they're going to call it, is going to pass. I do think it's necessary. I'm an ethicist and I believe that ethics is not just doing the right thing when nobody's looking. I have absolutely never understood why members of Congress engaged in day trading. It's dumbest thing. And if I was the Chief of Staff, I would be advising, put your stuff in a blind trust. Don't look at it, don't talk to anybody about it. You're a public servant now. If you have a problem with that, there's the door. I mean, I just never understood why these people were so stupid to do this stuff, including at one point the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. I was like, what? What are you doing, dummy? I mean, this is crazy. You can't legislate stupidity, although they're going to try now. And I think we will get the Stock Act passed this Congress because it is some just common sense. You have to sacrifice a lot to be a public servant, and this is just one of them. It shouldn't be a really big deal.

TED ROOSEVELT:

The reason I bring it up is it's sort of another thing that I think the American people look at and go, God, this whole thing's just totally corrupt. If it's so hard to pass what seems very commonsensical because it's not really my impression to be honest — and I'm reasonably politically astute — it's certainly not the impression I would say of the average American citizen that this is a highly transparent body.

BRADFORD FITCH:

Part of the problem is frankly, both Hollywood and the mainstream media have incentives to portray Congress in a negative way. I had the rich opportunity on a trip to New York once when I was a press secretary for a US Senator. I was traveling with about 40 or 50 other senators and we'd set up meetings, but were really cool. I mean, I got to meet Mike Wallace and Peter Jennings and on one occasion Tom Brokaw and I asked Mr. Brokaw, I said, you've got this segment every week called the Fleecing of America that runs every Friday night, and it's a negative government story. It's like you have a quota system for negative government stories. Why don't you have a similar quota system for positive government stories? And he said, Brad, we just don't cover the story the day the bank wasn't robbed. Our media starting in the 1970s with the Watergate scandal and the rise of investigative journalism is both financially and culturally incentivized to run bad news. And so good news just doesn't break through and it's not even covered. Congress has increased funding for Alzheimer's research over the last decade by 700%. Now, Alzheimer's and dementia is a disease that's going to affect two and five Americans. Pretty sure that you're either going to have dementia or Alzheimer's or care for somebody sometime in your lifetime, and the government is really doing as good a job as it can right now. I can't find that story anywhere. And yet, here's a disease that affects tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans. The government's doing something to respond to it and nobody's covering it.

TED ROOSEVELT:

It's a fair point, but it's not just media. I mean, I think about the Affordable Care Act or the Obamacare. I mean the number of people that were beneficiaries of Obamacare but didn't recognize that they were beneficiaries of Obamacare and so were still adamant that it was a bad thing was huge. And I think it's because of the political messaging, not just the media messaging.

BRADFORD FITCH:

Well, a friend of mine had a great idea. She said, did you get an app on your iPhone? And anytime you pointed something in the street, it should tell you how government affected it and why it's there. And it could be the clean water you drink. It could be the candy bar you're eating. It could be the light post that's on the end of your walkway. I think the government does an absolutely terrible job of communicating the benefits. I was talking to a friend after when the Obama administration passed the stimulus package in 2009, that was meant to pump money into the economy, and a lot of people got jobs as a result of it, but they didn't call it the stimulus package on the signs, right? It was the American Recovery and Recuperation Act or something like that. It was a ARRA. It was the dumbest name ever. And I was literally talking to a construction, the spouse of a construction company, and the spouse said, oh yeah, we got this really big contract to lay new pipe at the Air Force base. I said, oh, you got money from the stimulus package? No, we didn't. Yeah, you did. That's where the money came from. That was a new contract to stimulate jobs and like, oh no, it can't be that we voted Republican. But the point is that Congress and government remarkably does a really bad job at communicating the benefits. And then when it trickles down, like in these states for example, that have expanded Medicaid to working poor that are now able to get access to healthcare in something like 36 states, do they know that they're getting a benefit from the Affordable Care Act? Probably not. Do they know that their state legislature had to agree to accept those federal government dollars? Probably not. All they know is that they can send their kid to a doctor now, and that's a good thing. And if the research is correct and starting in 29, some of those benefits start getting clawed back, maybe that will wake them up because Americans and most people in general are usually more aware when a benefit is being taken away rather than one is being offered.

TED ROOSEVELT:

You generally seem to lack the cynicism one would expect from somebody who's been entrenched in American government for so long. So what would you say to the criticism that since Citizens United moneyed interests have taken over the federal government. The policies that get passed are largely in support of big business at the expense of the average American. Is that too simple a way to think about things?

BRADFORD FITCH:

I have two thoughts on this that may sound in contrast with one another. One, our campaign finance system, gosh, I wish I could use a bad word here is just a real mess. Let's just call it that. It is without a doubt. We are in a pre Watergate world where Watergate was the big change and we started imposing limits on donations. I mean, literally pre Watergate, you could have a candidate walk through businesses in Las Vegas and people were literally throwing cash into a bag. And we're now to the point where you see billionaires investing tens of millions of dollars behind one candidate and could be up to 40, 50% in a house candidate race. And that was what the Watergate reforms meant to fix. So we need absolute reform and probably one of the best things we need is a 27th amendment to the Constitution. And yeah, that sounds like a too big a hurdle, but there are groups like American Promise, which is a great nonprofit that is trying to get certain work done towards that that has done a really good job. Having said that, many races these days are being funded and fueled by small dollar donations because of the viral nature of things. We have seen some recent examples that have turned the money rules everything on its head most significantly in the primary race in New York recently, where Mamdami beat the moneyed interest behind Andrew Cuomo with really good TikTok strategy and a lot of campaigners are looking at that saying, whoa, what just happened? Was that a sea change? And finally what I'll add is you imply that members of Congress are voting the way of their contributors campaign contributions, definitely get your voice heard, but you can also get your voice heard by going to telephone town halls and going to in-person town halls. When you start looking at ways to improve trust in our government and ways to show accessibility for citizens, telephone town hall meetings are in some respects, one of those magic solutions that I think is really available to Americans and they should take advantage of.

TED ROOSEVELT:

I want to reiterate that I really appreciate the optimism in this conversation and the positive view that you have on Congress. And I'm only pushing because I am genuinely curious — I genuinely want to be persuaded that the situation is not as bad as it appears to me. But that's where I really struggle is it's one thing to say yes, they're complicated decisions that politicians have to make and they're weighing all different factors, and we may not see everything that's happening behind closed doors. And then there are things that are so past what I would've thought were the bright line that says, okay, if you incite or encourage or whatever term of art, you want to use a riot on the capitol and don't take any steps to stop it for an extended period of time, that's going to be problematic for us. And yet now we're in the world of like let's purge government of anybody that was involved with prosecuting those people.

BRADFORD FITCH:

I guess I am trying to live a life that I have a foot in both camps that — I definitely have a foot in your camp. Look, I'm a Washingtonian, I'm a congressional. I live in the congressional community that has been my home for four decades. There is not a single one of us that was not painfully scarred by January 6th, whether you're on the Capitol or not. On the other hand, as I've said, I do witness on a daily basis members of Congress collaborating together. And I'll give you a recent example that most people don't know about that I just wrote about in my column and roll call. But many people know about the congressional baseball game where it's Democrats versus Republicans, very famous going back to the 1930s. What you don't know about is for nine years there has been a congressional women's softball game. And unlike the men, the women play together on the same team against the media. And I interviewed women at the game this year, which was just in mid-July in a hot steamy night at Ady Field in Washington, DC and the word, the most common word, the women I interviewed, the members of Congress, the most common word they said was fun. They were out there, they were collaborating. I remember talking to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the founder of the game, Democrat from Florida, talking about how she now has a better working relationship on the Appropriations committee with Congresswoman Republican, Stephanie by of Oklahoma because they're co-captains of the women's softball team. And so I see that too, and it's unfortunate that I'm the only one or very few of us get to see that world and get to see those collaborations happen and get to see good things that come out of it. And that you're right, that most Americans don't. And so there are dedicated public servants that I get to work with every day that restores and keeps my faith in democracy and in Congress in a good place.

TED ROOSEVELT:

If the question is sort of, are politicians working for their own power versus working for the people, I'm curious how you would respond to gerrymandering is something that is helps the people in any way.

BRADFORD FITCH:

It absolutely does not, and I'm shocked that people aren't using a better constitutional argument. The founders Hamilton, Washington and Madison wanted this done every 10 years. I'm sorry, you're arguing with General Washington's President Washington. They wanted it done every 10 years. Just follow the Constitution. I think there's a constitutional argument to made if not explicitly, it's certainly the spirit of the Constitution was that it should not be done this way and that the voters should select the members of Congress, not the members of Congress selecting their voters. So I think what's going on is blatantly unethical. We should go to an independent commission system in every state where the spirit of redistricting is trying to make districts that go together. There's a reason Iowa was one of the early adopters of the independent commissions, and there was a reason why there were so many purple districts in Iowa for so long because they weren't gerrymandering them. I think that results in a better Congress because the far left and the far right are not good at governing. They're good at yelling, and we really just need more people in the middle. I know people criticize it because I'm a moderate, but this is a country that has been a center left country moving us in a center left way. Your great grandfather probably one of the leaders of that movement with the progressive movement giving us child labor laws and the 40 hour work week and conservation laws. And I mean, I think this is the way the country has been moving since the age of Lincoln who's been in a slow center left way. And you're only going to do that when you have serious lawmakers who want to get legislation passed in a way that benefits their constituents, their states, and their nation.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Yeah, I mean, I absolutely hope you're right, and I think it's easy to be cynical and that can sort of be a negative outcome in its own right. And I just heard somebody earlier today, in fact, a political scientist talking about the fact that he feels that the Republicans and Democrats are playing soccer right now and the Republicans are basically picking up the ball and running down the field and throwing it into the goal, and the Democrats are trying to play by the rules of the game, and he was making the case that they just need to stop doing that. They need to start picking up the ball too. If they're not going to play fair, we're not going to play fair.

BRADFORD FITCH:

So the ethicist in me cringes at that. The more crass way this played out was when you had a Republican primary in a purple district and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would spend money on the more extreme Republican candidate in order for them to have a more beatable candidate and basically violating some levels the spirit with which you were created. So there's a part of me, the ethicist in me says, no, don't get down in the mud. On the other hand, I do understand the sentiment because if you really truly believe that one party is hurting constituents and hurting people, and there's a lot of evidence t hat this bill that was passed by the Republican majority and signed by President Trump is going to have a massive negative effect on millions of people with regard to healthcare, food stamps, other services. And so I can certainly understand, also as an ethicist, that you say, well, if that's the case, I have an ethical responsibility to use every means of it, my disposal in order to block that from happening. Because we're literally talking about lives are at stake, and if you say to yourself, that is what I'm fighting for, therefore I should engage in mid session redistricting New York and Maryland and in California, I'm not going to sit there and put on my high hat and say, oh, no, boohoo, you shouldn't do that. I acknowledge it.

TED ROOSEVELT:

If the thesis is right, and I agree with this thesis, that most Americans would like to see a more moderate political system and more bipartisan compromises happen, what can citizens do to encourage it, to help bring It more to bear?

BRADFORD FITCH:

So first, I think you have to realize that the system will work for you and first engage. Go to your members of Congress's Town Hall, many sign up for their e-newsletter. They will often invite e-newsletter subscribers to every telephone town hall meeting. Listen to them and hear them interact with citizens so that you can, first of all, appreciate that your — the lawmakers working for you are trying to do the best job they can. Second, I think also engagement maybe with people who share your common view, the trade association or the nonprofit that you believe in. There are groups out there that are looking for chapter participants throughout the country, and it could be everything from Fair Vote is working on Rank Choice voting to American Promise, which is working on a constitutional amendment to take money out of politics, and there's also growing opportunities to just engage with others through civil conversations. The National Institute for Civil Discourse has a wonderful collaborative program, and it doesn't matter if you're left or right, there are groups on both sides of the aisle that are reaching out and trying to find Americans who want to improve our government and society, and they're giving them a place to share that voice.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Brad, we ask everybody on this podcast, the final question is, what makes a good citizen in your mind?

BRADFORD FITCH:

First of all, one that believes that citizenship goes beyond simple voting. That's not your only responsibility. Citizenship is a two-way street in our democracy. The National Conference on Citizenship is a wonderful nonprofit organization that engages citizen engagement with an annual index, and you can go to their website and see the myriad of different ways that you can get involved. It can be everything from volunteering at your church to run a food drive, to participating in elections and being an election observer from writing a letter to the editor about something that you care about, to helping elected official that you happen to believe in.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Brad, thank you so much. I really genuinely enjoyed this conversation a tremendous amount. I really, really appreciate your optimism and your positive outlook, and it's something that frankly is we need a lot more of.

BRADFORD FITCH:

Thank you again for the opportunity. I'm honored to be on a podcast with TR. I'm honored to be on a podcast that had Liz Cheney on it. I'm like, holy cow. Wow. I've arrived now.

TED ROOSEVELT:

There you go. Yeah. I'm still not quite sure why she joined our podcast, but it was very cool.

BRADFORD FITCH:

Thank you, sir.

TED ROOSEVELT:

Brad, it was so great to talk to you. Thank you for sharing your insider insights and for tempering my cynicism too. I really appreciate your stories and we should all follow your advice and speak up to our representatives on the things that matter to us. Most listeners, the second edition to Bradford Fitch's book, citizens' Handbook to Influencing Elected Officials is out this fall. It's a very practical guide to help transform us from passive critics to engage participants fulfilling TR's vision of Citizenship, and an act of duty Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts and Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming Presidential Library at trlibrary.com.