[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




     RETHINKING CONGRESSIONAL CULTURE: LESSONS FROM THE FIELDS OF 
           ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

           SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                                 of the

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 24, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-08

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Modernization of 
                                Congress



                 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]







                    Available via http://govinfo.gov


                                ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

48-595                    WASHINGTON : 2022

















           SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                    DEREK KILMER, Washington, Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina,
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri              Vice Chair
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BOB LATTA, Ohio
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota             RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia             DAVE JOYCE, Ohio
                                     GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
                                     BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas

                            COMMITTEE STAFF

                     Yuri Beckelman, Staff Director
                Derek Harley, Republican Staff Director









                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Chairman Derek Kilmer
      Oral Statement.............................................     1
Vice Chairman William Timmons
      Oral Statement.............................................     3

                               Witnesses

Dr. Kristina Miler, Associate Professor, University of Maryland
      Oral Statement.............................................     4
      Written Statement..........................................     7
Dr. Adam Grant, The Saul P. Steinberg Professor of Management, 
    University of Pennsylvania
      Oral Statement.............................................    17
Dr. Bill Doherty, Professor, University of Minnesota
      Oral Statement.............................................    19
      Written Statement..........................................    22
Ms. Amanda Ripley, Journalist and Author
      Oral Statement.............................................    24
      Written Statement..........................................    26
Discussion.......................................................    32




 
     RETHINKING CONGRESSIONAL CULTURE: LESSONS FROM THE FIELDS OF 
           ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION

                              ----------                              


                        THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
                            Select Committee on the
                                 Modernization of Congress,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:00 a.m., in Room 
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Derek Kilmer 
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Kilmer, Cleaver, Perlmutter, 
Phillips, Williams of Georgia, Timmons, Rodney Davis of 
Illinois, Latta, Reschenthaler, Van Duyne, and Joyce.
    The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time, and I now recognize myself 
for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
    So over the past several months, I have been grappling with 
the question of how to effectively chair a bipartisan committee 
in an environment that incentivizes partisanship. As we all 
know, partisanship isn't new. And when we have engaged in 
constructive conflict, it is not necessarily bad, but, today, a 
lot of what happens in Congress doesn't feel very constructive. 
It feels frustrating at best and maddening at worst. And that 
feeling, by the way, is bipartisan. I haven't met anyone who 
actually enjoys working in a dysfunctional environment.
    So rather than just accept this as the way things are, I 
have been thinking a lot about what it would take to make 
things better, and spending a lot of time talking to people who 
know far more about this stuff than I do. I have talked to 
experts in organizational psychology and conflict resolution 
and strategic negotiations and cultural change. I have talked 
to trauma therapists and marriage counselors and sports coaches 
who were tasked with turning losing teams into winning ones. 
And my goal has been to learn from people with deep expertise 
in working through various forms of dysfunction.
    Many of them don't know the inside baseball of Congress, 
and, frankly, that has been refreshing too. There has been an 
optimism to these conversations that gives me hope.
    I went into these discussions looking for solutions and 
encountered a common theme in the advice that I was given. 
First, define the problem. That is what we tried to do with our 
hearing last week. The committee heard from experts who 
explained how society has become more polarized and more 
distrustful of institutions over the past several decades. In 
many ways, Congress reflects these trends, and we talked about 
what that means for the institution. The bottom line is that 
Members today are often rewarded for hostile rather than 
productive behaviors and actions.
    All this is to say I don't know that we are dealing with 
broken rules and procedures so much as we are dealing with 
broken norms. And this is really tricky, because we can't 
legislate behavioral change or pass rules saying that Members 
have to be nice to each other. So the question, then, becomes 
how does Congress change its incentive structure to one that 
encourages and maybe even rewards civility and consensus 
building.
    I want it to be clear that this isn't about trying to 
reclaim some version of bipartisanship that supposedly existed 
in the past. Congress needs to approach this challenge with a 
very clear understanding of the current environment and give 
thoughtful consideration to what norms make sense today, 
because unless society deems a particular norm desirable, the 
pressure to adhere to that norm does not exist.
    So, today, we are going to hear from experts who have 
dedicated their professional lives to understanding conflict 
and to helping people find motivation and meaning in their 
careers and personal lives. We know that a lot of Members feel 
frustrated in trying to do the jobs they were elected to do. We 
also know that the internal mechanisms we have previously 
relied upon to help us solve institutional problems aren't 
working, so maybe it is time to consider new ideas and fresh 
approaches.
    Maybe Congress can learn from the techniques used by 
experts who work closely with opposing factions on corporate 
boards or in foreign governments or in rival gangs and even 
within families. So I am really looking forward to this 
discussion and to hearing what our witnesses today recommend.
    As with our hearing last week, the Select Committee will 
once again make use of the committee rules we adopted earlier 
this year that give us the flexibility to experiment with how 
we structure our hearings. Our goal is to encourage thoughtful 
discussion and the civil exchange of ideas and opinions.
    So in accordance with clause 2(j) of House rule XI, we will 
allow up to 30 minutes of extended questioning per witness and, 
without objection, these 2 hours will not be strictly 
segregated between the witnesses, which we will allow for up to 
2 hours of back and forth exchanges between members and the 
witnesses. That is the most formal part of this.
    Vice Chair Timmons and I will manage the time to ensure 
that every member has equal opportunity to participate. Any 
member who wishes to speak should signal their request to me or 
Vice Chair Timmons. Additionally, members who wish to claim 
their individual 5 minutes to question each witness pursuant to 
clause 2(j)(2) of rule XI will be permitted to do so following 
the 2 hours of extended questioning.
    So, with that, I would like to now invite Vice Chair 
Timmons to share some opening remarks.
    Mr. Timmons. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I just want to first thank you each for taking the time to 
come and meet with us and discuss this very important topic. I 
believe that this is probably the most important work that this 
committee is going to undertake this Congress. We are very 
fortunate that we are even here. Obviously, this was originally 
a 1-year and then we got an extra year. Now we have got 2 whole 
years, and it is great. We are going to make a lot of progress, 
and I think this is the area that has the potential for the 
greatest impact to fix this dysfunctional institution.
    We have talked about it a lot. I have thought about it a 
lot over the last 2.5 years, and currently, in my mind, I have 
kind of put this conversation of civility into three 
categories, and that is incentive structure, time, and 
relationship building.
    So incentive structure. We have got to facilitate the right 
objective, collaboration, policymaking. Right now, the loudest 
voice is the one that is heard and it is rewarded, and the 
loudest voice is never going to be the one that solves the 
problem. So whether that is budget reform, committee structure, 
Member empowerment, that is the incentive structure, and that 
is an important area.
    And then time is another one. In 2019, we were here for 65 
full working days, 66 fly in, fly out days. We are never going 
to get anything done if we are only here 65 days a year. So 
that is another important one.
    We have talked about the calendar and the schedule, 
deconflicting our days when we are here because, as you can 
see, we have 12 members on this committee, and they all want to 
be here, but they are all in other subcommittees or full 
committees, and we are just constantly pulled in so many 
directions. So I think that is an important area. And then 
predictability for floor votes. Honestly, just the chaos 
surrounding random votes being called and the challenges on the 
floor. So that is an area.
    And then the last one is building on the first two, 
relationship building, bipartisan meeting space. We have got to 
facilitate collaboration. So these are the things that we are 
thinking about right now, and I would love for you all to build 
on that, to add to it, to suggest something totally new. But I 
just really appreciate you all taking the time to be here. This 
is very important work.
    And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Here we go. So I am now going to invite each 
witness to give 5 minutes of oral testimony. Witnesses are 
reminded that your written statements will be made part of the 
record.
    Our first witness today is Kristina Miler. Dr. Miler is an 
associate professor in the Department of Government and 
Politics at the University of Maryland. Her work focuses on 
political representation in the U.S. Congress, especially the 
extent to which the interests of unorganized citizens and 
organized interests are represented in the lawmaking process. 
Her current research examines cooperation and conflict in the 
U.S. House through the lens of organizational psychology. She 
is the author of ``Poor Representation: Congress and the 
Politics of Poverty in the United States,'' and of 
``Constituency Representation in Congress: The View from 
Capitol Hill.''

    STATEMENTS OF DR. KRISTINA MILER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, 
 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND; DR. ADAM GRANT, THE SAUL P. STEINBERG 
 PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA; DR. BILL 
  DOHERTY, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA; AND MS. AMANDA 
                 RIPLEY, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR

                  STATEMENT OF KRISTINA MILER

    Dr. Miler, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Miler. All right. Thank you.
    Good morning, Chairman Kilmer, Vice Chairman Timmons, and 
members of the Select Committee. My name is Kris Miler, and I 
am an associate professor of government and politics at the 
University of Maryland. And I want to thank you for the 
opportunity to speak with you today.
    Although I am a political scientist, I believe there are 
many important aspects of Congress that benefit from an 
interdisciplinary approach, and congressional culture is one 
such topic. My testimony will draw upon research I conducted 
with colleagues in political science and organizational 
psychology where we spoke with 60 Members and staff across both 
parties to better understand Congress as a workplace.
    Scholars of organizational climate and culture highlight 
two key approaches to cooperation and conflict. The first is 
called the collaborative conflict culture, where individuals 
are encouraged to use dialogue, negotiation, joint problem 
solving, and this type of cooperative behavior is rewarded. The 
second is called dominating conflict culture, where conflict is 
promoted and the merits of winning are publicly emphasized and 
rewarded.
    In the case of Congress, there is evidence of both cultures 
coexisting. When looking at the climate within the parties, 
there is an expectation that Members will express their 
preferences and differences. There are established norms of how 
this is to be done, and there is also a shared commitment to 
get to yes. However, when looking at the climate across the two 
parties, there is a widespread perception that cooperation is 
not valued, and, in fact, on prominent legislation, it is 
strongly discouraged.
    When party leaders believe an issue has electoral 
implications, especially for which party controls the majority, 
it is going to be very challenging to change the us versus them 
win-or-lose culture. This is not to discourage efforts to make 
it less combative but to recognize the political realities.
    There is, however, a lot else that Congress does that is 
neither internal to parties nor high stakes party votes, and 
this is where I think efforts to improve congressional culture 
may see the biggest returns. In particular, there are three 
areas that warrant further consideration: personal 
relationships, shared interests, and committees.
    First, to think about the importance of personal 
relationships. As the witnesses last week spoke about, there 
are numerous reasons why nostalgia and calls to make Congress 
more like it used to be are neither realistic nor necessarily 
desirable. However, the key is that personal relationships can 
reveal common experiences and interests, and that then those 
can generate policy conversations and lead to collaborative 
proposals.
    Recommendations made by this committee have already taken 
important steps to promote personal relationship building among 
Members, including through bipartisan retreats. Congress can 
further ensure that existing events for Members and staff 
ranging from codels to orientation and training sessions are 
designed to be bipartisan.
    Additionally, efforts can be made to increase the groups of 
legislators that are brought together in ways to find other 
than party. For instance, we might think about holding a 
monthly State delegation meeting, or the recommended 
cybersecurity training sessions could be arranged by cohort. 
Party leaders could also take steps to be more supportive of 
collaboration in those smaller and less visible issues. For 
instance, the creation of a bipartisan outreach chair within 
each party's leadership structure would signal to Members that 
even party leaders expect Members to work across the aisle 
sometimes.
    Shared interests are the second point here. Shared 
interests already serve as an important foundation for a lot of 
the bipartisan outreach that occurs between Members of 
Congress. Sometimes those are personal interests. Sometimes 
those are rooted in constituencies.
    So, today, I would like to call attention to the existing 
framework of congressional Member organizations or caucuses as 
an underused venue for promoting a more cooperative climate 
across the aisle.
    My own research, as well as that of other scholars, shows 
more than 400 CMOs in the House, with the vast majority of 
those focused by policy issue. Additionally, there are a 
growing number of caucuses defined by a moderate approach and 
deliberately bipartisan in nature. These groups are an 
important tool for identifying who to work with from the other 
party.
    I encourage Congress to consider not only publicizing 
caucuses to the membership as they are notoriously hard to find 
a record of, but also increase support in terms of staff and 
meeting space.
    Another suggestion is simply to give caucuses official 
House websites. One might also consider legislative incentives 
to promote collaboration, such as giving each caucus one bill 
per Congress that would be guaranteed floor consideration.
    Finally, I want to talk about the important role of 
committees as combining both personal relationships and shared 
interests. Committees are where bipartisan relationships often 
begin, and legislative collaboration is most frequent with 
committee colleagues. However, committees vary in the degree to 
which they foster cooperation across the aisle. Some of this 
variation is due to policy issue area, but a second important 
factor are the committee leaders. Some committee leaders are 
seen as setting the tone for bipartisan cooperation. Where 
leaders model cooperative behavior, Members are more likely to 
perceive that collaboration, and civility are valued by their 
leadership.
    This committee has already made and put into action a 
number of important recommendations. Given the importance of 
committee leaders in setting the tone, it may be fruitful to 
institute a leadership training session for each pair of 
committee leaders at the start of a new Congress to give them 
the tools they need to create a cooperative climate in their 
committee.
    Another suggestion is for committee leaders to more 
formally incentivize collaborative behavior among committee 
members by considering cooperative behavior when determining 
subcommittee positions, the scheduling of hearings, or other 
committee decisions. If Members see that collaborative 
legislative work gets a leg up, that is indeed a valuable 
reward.
    In closing, I want to reiterate my appreciation to this 
committee for all of the work that you have done and for 
continuing to advance this important conversation. Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Miler follows:]
  

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    The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Miler.
    Our next witness is Adam Grant. Dr. Grant is an 
organizational psychologist and a leading expert on how we can 
find motivation and meaning and live more generous and creative 
lives. He has been recognized as one of the world's 10 most 
influential management thinkers and one of Fortune's 40 under 
40. Dr. Grant is the author of five books that have been 
translated into 35 languages, and also hosts WorkLife, a chart-
topping original podcast which I listen to when I walk to the 
Capitol. He has received awards for distinguished scholarly 
achievement from the Academy of Management, the American 
Psychological Association, and the National Science Foundation, 
and has been recognized as one of the world's most cited, most 
prolific, and most influential researchers in business and 
economics. I believe he also scored a 10 out of 10 from Room 
Rater.
    So, Dr. Grant, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
present your testimony.

                    STATEMENT OF ADAM GRANT

    Mr. Grant. Thank you, Chair Kilmer and Vice Chair Timmons, 
members of the committee, and staff.
    It is a great honor and also a daunting challenge to figure 
out how to improve the culture of Congress, and I just want to 
start with three points. None of these are going to have 
anything to do with incentives, in part because that is not my 
expertise as a psychologist, and in part because I think there 
are lots of others who can speak to those dynamics.
    I want to talk about the norms and the values that Chair 
Kilmer referenced earlier. The place I might start as an 
outsider to Congress is with onboarding. I know that every 
great culture has an onboarding program, and one of the things 
that happens during onboarding is stories are told. Culture is 
communicated through the stories we tell, but it is also 
created through the stories we tell.
    There was an experiment done a few years ago where new 
hires are given a chance to engage with stories about things 
that have happened that make up the culture of the 
organization. And if you hear a story about a junior person 
doing something that is above and beyond to uphold the values, 
that is more likely to prompt you to collaborate and to go 
above and beyond to try to support the organization's mission. 
And if you hear that same story coming from a senior leader, it 
is the people at low levels who don't necessarily have a lot of 
power or status living the culture that actually inspires new 
members to follow suit.
    On the flip side, senior people violating the culture do 
the most harm. If I am a brandnew hire to an organization and I 
learn about people at the very top who are engaging in 
behaviors that in some way conflict with our core values and 
our norms, then I am more likely to go and deviate.
    So I think it would be interesting to spend some time 
pondering, what stories do we tell as people join Congress 
about what really happens here, and how do we find the junior 
Members who are upholding the values, and make sure that we 
don't put too much emphasis on the values violating the senior 
people when we set the tone for the culture.
    Then I guess the second thing I would think about is 
building trust. I believe we get it wrong when we think about 
what it takes to build trust. We assume that trust comes from 
frequent interaction. My experience and my data tell me that 
trust depends more on the intensity of interaction between 
people.
    If you interact every week for an hour, you can stay at the 
surface level. If you spend a whole day together, you end up 
going much deeper. You are more likely to become vulnerable. 
You are more likely to open up. And that experience of being 
vulnerable leads you to decide, okay, I must trust these 
people. Otherwise, why in the world did I just share that. And 
that is how bonds begin to develop.
    A couple of examples. One is there is a camp called Seeds 
of Peace, where Israeli and Palestinian teenagers gather 
together for the summer. Psychologists have studied what 
happens when you get randomly assigned to a bunk or a 
discussion group with somebody from the opposite country. And 
it turns out that just sharing that deep interaction together 
for a short period of time is enough to increase your 
likelihood of developing a friendship across that aisle by 11 
to 15 times.
    Another place where I have seen this intensity dynamic at 
play is with astronauts building trust. This is going to sound 
like a joke. It is not. I was studying a group of astronauts. 
They were an American, an Italian, and a Russian that were 
supposed to put their lives in each other's hands on the space 
station. And the American and the Russian had grown up in their 
respective militaries trained to shoot each other. Not an easy 
context to build trust. Might sound a little familiar to some 
of you.
    One of the ways that NASA prepared them for this experience 
was they sent them to get lost for 11 days in the wilderness 
together. They had to navigate unexpected turns. They had to 
figure out how to survive. And in that process, they suffered 
adversity together. They learned that they could count on each 
other. And those kinds of deep experiences together are pretty 
critical for discovering that you do, in fact, have something 
in common.
    I don't think all commonalities are created equal. It is 
not enough to just know that we are fellow Americans. We 
actually need uncommon commonalities. In the case of 
astronauts, it was sitting down to tell their origin stories 
and talk about the day that they decided they wanted to go to 
outer space. After sharing those stories, they realized, I now 
have something in common that only a few hundred people in all 
of human history can truly understand.
    So I think we need that intense interaction to experience 
the vulnerability and the rare similarities that allow us to 
feel that we can trust each other.
    And then the last point I want to make has to do with how 
we solve problems. Psychologists have recently documented a 
pattern called solution aversion, where if somebody brings you 
a solution and you don't like it, your first impulse is to 
dismiss or deny the existence of the problem altogether.
    My understanding of Congress is that agendas are driven by 
solutions, but I think conversations should be guided by 
problems. If we start by defining the problem we are trying to 
solve, whether or not we agree on how to tackle it, we can 
begin building consensus around diagnosing what the critical 
issues are that need to be fixed, and so a little bit more 
likely that we are on the same page. We also then gain some 
practice-building consensus, because we may not always agree on 
policies or bills, but we can agree that some of the problems 
we are trying to solve are critical and dire for our Nation.
    With that, I will cede the floor.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Grant.
    Our next witness is William Doherty, a co-founder of Braver 
Angels, and the creator of the Braver Angels' workshop approach 
to bridging political divides. He is a professor and director 
of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program in the Department of 
Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. Dr. 
Doherty's areas of interest include democratic community 
building with families, citizen healthcare, marriage, 
fatherhood, families dealing with chronic illness, and marriage 
and couples therapy. He is an academic leader in his field, 
author of 12 books, past president of the National Council on 
Family Relations, and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement 
Award from the American Family Therapy Academy.
    Dr. Doherty, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                  STATEMENT OF WILLIAM DOHERTY

    Mr. Doherty. Thank you.
    I am honored to speak with you. I wear two hats today, one 
as the University of Minnesota professor who teaches and 
practices marriage and family therapy, and one as co-founder of 
the nonprofit Braver Angels, which has done over a thousand 
workshops around the country since 2016 to help depolarize reds 
and blues, conservatives and liberals, and others.
    I have been asked to focus on what we have learned in 
Braver Angels that could be helpful to Congress.
    We have learned that carefully designed structures for 
group process and one-to-one conversations can lower rancor and 
produce more understanding across partisan differences. For 
example, in our red/blue workshop, we use what is called a 
fishbowl activity, where people on one side, reds or blues, sit 
in a circle with the other group sitting in an outer circle. 
Those in the outer circle just listen and observe. Those in the 
middle answer two questions: Why are your side's values and 
policies good for the country? And what reservation--what are 
your reservations or concerns about your own side? I will 
repeat those questions. Why are your side's values and policies 
good for the country? And what are your reservations or 
concerns about your own side?
    Then the two groups shift positions. The outer group moves 
to the inner, and the inner to the out. They answer the same 
questions.
    This is followed by one-to-one and whole group conversation 
around these two questions: What did you learn about how the 
other side sees themselves? And did you see anything in common? 
I will repeat those questions. What did you learn about how the 
other side sees themselves? And did you see anything in common?
    Activities such as this, which require structured sharing 
and encourage careful listening, including showing humility 
about one's own side, do yield measurable changes in attitudes 
and behaviors, according to an outside academic research study 
that followed participants for 6 months.
    We have extended this group process to structured one-to-
one conversations between reds and blues, White people and 
people of color, rural and urban people, and young and old.
    So what are the implications for Congress? Fortunately, we 
gained some experience with the elected officials in Minnesota, 
Maryland, and New Jersey. In terms of Congress, we did a red/
blue workshop with the Minnesota staff members of 
Representative Dean Phillips and Representative Pete Stauber. 
And we are piloting new ways to do congressional townhalls and 
other conversations with constituents.
    Based on this work, I have three recommendations to the 
Select Committee for how Congress can foster depolarization. 
First, promote Braver Angels red/blue workshops for 
congressional staffs and committee staffs. I suggest beginning 
with the staffs of members of this Select Committee.
    Second, invite Members of Congress to do Braver Angels one-
to-one red/blue conversations. These are private, structured, 
two 1-hour self-facilitated conversations where people talk 
about things such as what life experiences have influenced 
their attitudes and beliefs about public policy and the public 
good. We found that question, what life experiences tell us a 
story about what you have experienced in your life that have 
led you to believe what you believe and to choose what you have 
chosen. I was thinking about the astronauts and how many people 
in the world who are sitting where you are sitting, and there 
are life stories that you can tell one another about how you 
got there. Perhaps members of this committee could go first 
with these one-to-one conversations.
    Third, encourage Members of Congress to adopt new methods 
for townhalls and other conversations with groups of 
constituents in order to model depolarization back in their 
districts. Representative Phillips and I will be piloting one 
of these constituent conversations in August with cross-
sections of conservative and liberal constituents in Minnesota, 
with the goal of finding common ground on local concerns that 
they would like Congress to know about.
    If I may be blunt, current congressional townhalls and 
similar events are using 19th century designs. It is time for 
modernization.
    For all of these action steps, Braver Angels has trained, 
committed volunteers all over the country to help make them 
possible. When we did our first skills workshop with members of 
the Minnesota legislature, I asked them why they decided to 
participate. The main reason, based on the door knocking they 
had done--which, you know, as you know, in local legislatures, 
they knock on doors--what they were hearing from constituents 
was this: Please stop fighting all the time and get things 
done.
    And as a citizen participant in one of our red/blue 
workshops said, neither side is going to finally vanquish the 
other, so we better figure out how to get along and run the 
country together.
    I will end with my marriage therapy hat on. Like a couple 
who remain responsible for their children no matter what 
happens to their own relationship, reds and blues cannot simply 
walk away from each other. Neither side can divorce and move to 
a different country. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, it is our 
republic, if we can keep it.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The statement of Mr. Doherty follows:]

       [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Sorry. I keep turning off my microphone when 
I mean to turn it on.
    Thank you, Dr. Doherty.
    Our final witness is Amanda Ripley. Ms. Ripley is an 
investigative journalist and a best-selling author. Her most 
recent book is ``High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We 
Get Out.'' I read it on my plane flight here, and it is 
terrific. I told her I would be her hype man. In her books and 
magazine writing, Ms. Ripley combines storytelling with data to 
help illuminate hard problems and solutions. She has also 
written about how journalists could do a better job covering 
controversy in an age of outrage. Ms. Ripley has spoken at the 
Pentagon, the U.S. Senate, the State Department, and the 
Department of Homeland Security, as well as conferences on 
leadership, conflict resolution, and education.
    Ms. Ripley, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF AMANDA RIPLEY

    Ms. Ripley. Chair Kilmer, Vice Chair Timmons, and members 
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today and for holding this hearing at all.
    There is a lot about Congress, I should say, that I don't 
understand, but I think I may understand the predicament that 
you are in, albeit from a slightly different vantage point.
    I have been a journalist for two decades, starting at 
Congressional Quarterly and moving to Time Magazine, The 
Atlantic, and other places. But in recent years, I have had to 
admit that something is broken in my profession. The 
conventions of journalism are not functioning the way they are 
supposed to. Unfortunately, my profession, like yours, is 
distrusted by many millions of Americans.
    What I have learned is that journalists, like politicians, 
are trapped in a special category of conflict called high 
conflict. High conflict operates differently from normal 
conflict. Arguing the facts doesn't work in high conflict. Our 
brains behave differently. We make more mistakes. The us versus 
them dynamic takes over, and the conflict takes on a life of 
its own.
    All of us are susceptible to high conflict. It is very hard 
to resist, and any intuitive thing we do to try to end the high 
conflict usually makes it worse.
    So what does work? For my last book, I spent 4 years 
following people who have gotten out of other high conflicts, 
in local politics, street gangs, even civil wars, and I am now 
convinced that it can be done. I have seen it happen again and 
again.
    First, before anything else, it helps to just recognize 
this distinction. High conflict is the problem, not simply 
conflict. We don't need unity or even bipartisanship nearly as 
much as we need what might be called good conflict.
    In homage to what your late colleague John Lewis called 
good trouble, good conflict is necessary. It is stressful and 
heated. Anger flares up, but so does curiosity. More questions 
get asked. People disagree profoundly without dehumanizing one 
another. There is movement that you can actually see in the 
data that conflict is going somewhere. And everyone I know who 
has experienced good conflict finds it strangely exhilarating. 
You feel open, able to be surprised, even as you continue to 
fight for what you hold dear.
    Second, institutions can cultivate good conflict 
systematically. In global conflict zones, one of the most 
proven ways to do this is to intentionally spotlight, light up 
other group identities outside of the conflict. Often this 
means reviving people's identities as citizens or parents or 
even sports fans.
    In Colombia's civil war, one of the most effective 
interventions was a simple public service announcement that 
aired during national team soccer games, inviting rebel 
fighters to come home and watch the next game with their 
families. In the 9 years those ads ran, the messaging led to 10 
times the normal number of desertions the day after the game.
    So I would urge you to experiment with anything that blurs 
the lines between you, including rank choice voting, bipartisan 
retreats with family members, other things you have discussed. 
High conflict is fueled by conflict entrepreneurs, people who 
exploit conflict for their own ends. Good conflict is fueled by 
relationships and curiosity.
    Another proven way to interrupt high conflict is through 
nonaggression pacts, which are sort of like starter peace 
treaties. In Chicago today, most gang violence starts on social 
media with incendiary posts that lead to acts of revenge. So 
organizations like Chicago CRED help rival gang members 
negotiate social media rules of engagement, vowing they will 
not disrespect or humiliate one another on Facebook, for 
example. When those pacts get violated, and they always do, 
then there is a process in place to complain and rectify the 
situation without escalating the conflict.
    Of course, political parties are not gangs, and the 
metaphor has its limits, but given that so much political 
conflict escalates through social media today, it is worth 
considering whether simple rules of engagement could help slow 
down high conflict here as well and incentivize good conflict.
    Finally, be on the lookout for saturation points. These are 
interruptions in high conflict when the losses start to seem 
heavier than the gains. Usually it happens after a shock or 
some unexpected shift in the dynamics.
    With a couple in a custody dispute, a saturation point 
might happen if a child gets sick. The priorities can realign. 
The identities can shift. With gang members, it might happen 
during a snowstorm, which creates a sudden peace. In politics, 
it can happen after an electoral loss or a riot. But the 
saturation point must be recognized and seized or it will pass. 
So prepare now for those moments. It is possible to shift out 
of high conflict and into good conflict. Humans have managed 
this in much more dangerous conditions than we are currently in 
today, but the longer we wait, the harder it will get.
    I thank you and the members and staff of the committee for 
leaning into these hard conversations and for inviting me to 
contribute.
    [The statement of Ms. Ripley follows:]

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    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Ripley.
    We are now going to move into Q&A. And for those who 
weren't here for our last hearing, the rules of our committee 
allow us to be a little flexible about how we approach this, 
rather than having each member kind of take 5 minutes and 
speechifying.
    Our hope was just to pull some of the threads that we heard 
today. Vice Chair Timmons and I and the staff identified a few 
at least, and there are probably some others that we want to 
pull, this notion of how do you change up incentivizes to move 
from high conflict to good conflict.
    Another thread being sort of a lot of the institution is 
designed for conflict. I mean, we are literally separated by an 
aisle. Our committees sit, you know, with Democrats on one side 
and Republicans on the other. So pulling on that thread. Issues 
related to how we have difficult conversations, which I think 
came up in a number of your testimonies. And then also, just 
figuring out how as an institution we start from a place of 
objectivity, right, so that we are engaging more on fact and on 
identifying a problem and trying to move forward in finding 
solutions, to Dr. Grant's point.
    So, with that, I will start by just recognizing myself and 
Vice Chair Timmons to begin 2 hours of extended questioning of 
the witnesses. Any member who wishes to speak should just 
signal their request to either me or Vice Chair Timmons. You 
can raise a hand. I think we have a member on remotely as well, 
so feel free to use the raise hand function.
    I want to just kick things off by trying to get at how we 
change up the incentives. So I fully embrace this notion of 
there is a difference between good conflict and bad conflict. 
And, Ms. Ripley, you mentioned in your book getting stuck in 
the tar pits or the tar sands, and I feel like as an 
institution, that often happens here.
    So how do we instill an approach in Congress that is more 
geared towards good conflict when so much of the institution 
seems dedicated to high conflict? And how do you change up the 
rewards for Members of Congress and for staffs and for 
committees? Give us some thoughts about how to change things 
up.
    And I don't direct this to anyone in particular. Feel free 
to chime in if you have got a thought here.
    Ms. Ripley. I am just very quickly going to start with the 
most--maybe the most obvious reward, which is nonviolence. 
Nobody in this institution wants to get hurt or wants their 
family to get hurt, I am pretty sure. That is the same 
incentive that drives all kinds of people, including gang 
members, to take the risk to step out of high conflict. So 
that, to me, is a fundamental one that should be fairly obvious 
but maybe is worth repeating.
    We know from the research that when Members of Congress, 
and actually anyone, condemns violence publicly, it reduces 
people's support for violence. So your words really matter. And 
that would be something to consider if you did so perhaps have 
a rules of engagement that you negotiated for social media, 
right. So that would be a sort of baseline goal. And reward, I 
think, is peace.
    The Chairman. You touched in your testimony on this notion 
of conflict entrepreneurs, though, right? In this institution--
you know, there are ways to go more viral on social media. 
There are ways to get more press attention, and it usually is 
not having a collaborative bipartisan conversation. So I am 
just trying to think through how to change incentives.
    Ms. Miler. I feel like eyes are on me.
    So I don't have all the answers on a platter, but I do 
think there are perhaps ways. You know, some of this, as has 
been talked about before, is bigger than Congress, and that is 
really hard, and it may feel like a cop-out to say it. But, 
obviously, all of you as Representatives as well as legislators 
go back to your constituents and to your districts and feel 
incentives and rewards, and, you know, called upon by your 
constituents to respond or not respond in certain ways.
    And so that is part of the equation that, at least for me, 
is beyond my area of expertise as somebody who focuses more on 
Congress rather than the national public. But I think it has to 
be acknowledged, because that electoral connection, as we call 
it in political science, that accountability, that fact that 
you are here as the voice of the people who sent you here is 
fundamental to all of your relationships, to your job, and to 
this workplace.
    And so some of what perhaps needs to be talked about 
perhaps by others is that dynamic. And I think Dr. Doherty's 
comments and his experiences working with citizens and 
constituents perhaps is a very important place. Not that I am 
shifting the answer to you, but I think you could certainly 
speak to that part of it.
    In terms of the institution itself, you know, some of it 
may be very simple things. You know, I mentioned things like 
giving bipartisan caucuses official websites, right. Right now, 
it is really hard for your constituents to find out when you 
are doing this stuff. There is not an active Twitter account 
for all of those situations. Yet individual Members, some of 
them with louder voices than others, do have active social 
media and websites and so forth.
    So some of it may be a series of small steps, none of which 
feels like it is going to change the world. But if there are 
constituents out there who want to be able to know about this, 
when you get positive feedback in your districts about this 
type of work that you are doing here, that needs to be 
amplified, right. And so how can the institution support you in 
amplifying that message? And some of that comes about in 
technology, some of it comes in staff or in interns that are 
particularly devoted to making this part of the congressional 
voice louder than some of the others.
    Mr. Doherty. I will take that cue and say that when 
constituents want cooperation and not--or want good conflict 
and not high conflict, they will ask for it, and many of them 
do.
    I mentioned in my testimony that when members of the 
legislature of Minnesota were door knocking, a number of them 
said more than any other issue they heard, and more than taxes 
and more than crime, more than anything else they heard was 
gridlock, paralysis. And that encouraged them to come to, you 
know, a workshop. And then when I returned later--there is a 
civility caucus in the Minnesota legislature--a number of 
members of the legislature said they had heard from 
constituents that they were pleased. Thank you for going to 
something. Thank you for being on the Civility Caucus.
    So the incentives have to change in lots of directions, and 
we have to hold up that larger goal that we are not sending you 
to Congress to be a gladiator for a partisan group, that is a 
piece of it, but to be a legislator or be a policymaker for 
representing all of us. And so that has to change at the 
grassroots. We can't just expect you all to do it and then 
sacrifice yourselves at the next election.
    The Chairman. Dr. Grant, did you want to weigh in on this 
before I kick it over to Vice Chair Timmons?
    Mr. Grant. I would love to. Thank you, Chair Kilmer.
    I wonder about a structural incentive that could be put in 
place, which----
    The Chairman. Sorry, we lost your audio there for a second.
    Mr. Grant. Do you have me now?
    The Chairman. We have you now.
    Mr. Grant. Okay. Good. Like a bad cell phone commercial. 
Here we go.
    I think it might be interesting to think about incentives 
to seek help. I think we have all had the experience of being 
better at resolving other people's conflicts than our own, and 
there is a whole psychology to explain why that is. When you 
are solving your own problems, you are often stuck in the weeds 
and entrenched in your own position. When you look at other 
people's problems, you zoom out from a distance, and you are 
more likely to see the big picture.
    There are professional conflict mediators who could add a 
lot of value in Congress. There are independent organizations, 
like Crisis Management Initiative, that come in to try to 
resolve conflicts between warring factions. And I would say it 
would be great to find out more about what kinds of incentives 
that you could bring to the table that would encourage people 
to pause and say, you know what, we are not qualified or at 
least capable right now of stepping out of our own problems to 
solve them. We need a third-party mediator to facilitate this 
conversation.
    The Chairman. Vice Chair Timmons, and then I have got Mr. 
Davis on the list.
    Mr. Timmons. Sure.
    Thank you. That was wonderful testimony. I really 
appreciate it.
    You know, I keep thinking about this whole concept around, 
you know, incentives and relationship building. We have talked 
a lot about that through each of your testimony. I really like 
Dr. Miler's concept surrounding maybe floor time or hearings 
for either a caucus or a bill that has a certain number of 
bipartisan sponsors. That is a really good incentive. I don't 
know what that number would be, maybe if you get 50 Rs and 50 
Ds for a hearing and then, you know, 100 or 130 Rs and 130 Ds 
for a guaranteed floor vote, something like that could kind of 
push it in the right direction.
    And I also really like the idea of--I guess, would you call 
them depolarizing exercises? Is that what--what is the actual 
title of--what do you call it? Is that it, depolarizing 
exercises?
    Anything we can do to get people to kind of sit down and 
understand what motivates them and build that relationship so 
they can have the conversation based off of mutual respect 
based on policy, you know, and you agree on the problem. And I 
think the biggest challenge is we don't often agree on the 
problem, or we talk past each other on the solution, at the 
very least.
    I am going to have more thoughts later, but I know that 
some of the members may have to come and go, so I am going to 
stop there and turn it over to other members. But I really 
appreciate it. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Go ahead, Mr. Davis.
    Mr. Davis. Typical. Oh, it is working now. Okay. I just 
thought Derek wanted to shut me up, which is the epitome of 
bipartisanship, obviously.
    Look, this committee, I like to think it is like the 
conscience of how do we get to that point of bipartisanship. 
How do we get people talking again? And, unfortunately, 
Congress isn't made up of the members of this committee. We 
have just been selected outside of a small group, and I would 
like to think we were probably selected because we are more 
bipartisan, because we can understand our differences in our 
districts and understand how we can come together.
    And I have got to--actually, it pains me sometimes to do 
this, but Chairman Kilmer and Vice Chair Timmons, previous Vice 
Chair Graves, have done a great job in moving this process 
along. But my biggest fear is, as we keep going, that even this 
committee will probably become more partisan. And I hope we 
strive to make sure that that does not happen. But no one can 
control Perlmutter, so, I mean, that is what happens.
    I really enjoyed your comments, Ms. Ripley. And, you know, 
I look at your opening statement, and everything you mentioned 
in high conflict is this institution. But I am thankful too you 
recognize it in your profession. You talk about nonaggression 
pacts. As somebody who has, you know, won a district that has 
been very competitive in every election, I like to think I 
represent my constituents, so I believe they want people who 
are bipartisan.
    But there just seems to be a lot of talk when you get to 
Congress about nonaggression pacts, but, you know, politics 
decides to get in the way as you are here longer, and then 
ambition gets in the way. So those nonaggression pacts seem to 
go away, maybe similar to what gang warfare or gang battles are 
like and gang nonaggression pacts.
    You know, there is a lot of talk about social media too. 
And this is why I want to start with you, Ms. Ripley. It was 
recently this week I saw a study about Twitter that went and 
looked at all of the Twitter users and put it into a political 
perspective, and said that Twitter users would make up the 
second most Democratic district in the Nation if you put them 
together as constituencies.
    So I can tell you as somebody who gets asked a lot of 
questions by journalists back home especially, I think they put 
an overreliance on social media and the five people who may be 
on social media all the time criticizing any one Member of 
Congress so that we then have to answer those questions. What 
can we do to help educate your profession on how partisan some 
of the techniques the journalists use may be damaging the 
fabric of this institution?
    Ms. Ripley. I am glad that you asked, because I do think 
part of creating new incentives has to involve the news media, 
right. Like, that is part of what is driving these incentives. 
I often think that there should be a warning that pops up when 
journalists open Twitter that says 8 out of 10 Americans do not 
use this service, just as a reminder. It is like cigarettes, 
you know, and just because it does really work.
    And just basic human psychology is you--it is not designed 
for us to calibrate those messages. The ones that are negative 
are searing, right, and so you get very sensitive to being 
attacked on Twitter. And there are--you know, there are 
conservatives on Twitter as well.
    Mr. Davis. Oh, absolutely.
    Ms. Ripley. But, in any case, there is only--like, very 
active is left and very active is right is like 20 percent of 
the country, but they are more than twice as likely to post 
about politics on social media, so you get this really 
distorted view. And, again, it is just not human-sized. Like, 
we can't calibrate it.
    So I think there are some people working on sort of 
overlays for Twitter, which I am--I have beta tested a couple 
and I am very excited about, but I would encourage more of that 
to help us see. Like, there is one that puts a little--just a 
label. And, again, you opt into it. It is not Twitter doing it. 
It is like a label that says, you know, this is probably a bot, 
or it says, this person posts extreme content that is not 
representative of--whatever you want. You can come up with any 
algorithm you want. It is not going to be perfect, but it helps 
us--I found when I used it, I immediately was able to let 
things roll that I might not have otherwise.
    So there are some--you know, Dr. Grant can maybe speak more 
to this, right, but there are some basic ways we know that 
are--the way we process information has almost nothing to do 
with the way it is displayed to us as journalists and also 
politicians. So there are better ways to collect feedback than 
Twitter for sure, and I think that the news media needs to get 
more creative. And it is hard to generalize about the news 
media, but get more creative about covering political conflict.
    Mr. Davis. I have opened this up. I am not going to ask 
another question, so if anybody else wants to answer or respond 
to this.
    The Chairman. Dr. Grant, go ahead.
    Mr. Grant. I will just build on Ms. Ripley's comments. I 
think the Duke Polarization Lab has done particularly 
interesting work here, where they will offer you a Twitter 
filter that tells you how partisan and ideological your posts 
are. They give you a probability that you are being trolled. 
They show you a bipartisanship leader board. They give you the 
bot signal as well. And I think maybe most important for 
Congress, they give you feedback about whether you are in an 
echo chamber, based on who you follow and who you tend to 
engage with.
    And I think we need that kind of calibration to figure out, 
am I listening to a representative group of people or am I 
falling victim to what most of us are, which is empirically, 10 
percent of Twitter users drive 97 percent of the tweets that 
reference national politics. And so I think we need to balance 
that out.
    Mr. Davis. Speaking of balance, I mean, I think there is 
some concern on how that balance on social media across all 
platforms is. And I certainly hope we can continue to work 
together, because I think what discussion all of you bring up 
is very important to us in fixing this place, and that is all 
of us around this table. That is our goal.
    And, thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. I will yield 
back.
    Mr. Doherty. Could I add something, Congressman Davis?
    Mr. Davis. Go ahead.
    Mr. Doherty. One of my themes here is going to be it has 
got to also be at the grassroots, and so we as a people are 
just learning how to use social media to try to----
    The Chairman. Is your mike on?
    Mr. Doherty. Pardon me?
    The Chairman. Is your mike on?
    Mr. Doherty. Yeah.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Doherty. Yeah. As a people, we are just learning to use 
this tool. And so not just the vertical stuff of people to you, 
but we need to learn together. And I will just mention that the 
newest workshop Braver Angels is coming out with soon is on 
depolarizing our social media relationships with one another. 
Because you know the people that are going after you are going 
after their family members and their friends, so it is got to 
be at that level as well.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Miler. May I add one last bit?
    The Chairman. Yeah, go ahead.
    Ms. Miler. Is the mike--we are okay?
    I think one--two points that I just wanted to build upon 
the comments that the other panelists have mentioned. So one is 
that these facts about the distortion on Twitter, those should 
be part of freshmen orientation, right, in sessions about how 
to handle social media in your office and training your staff. 
Let's bring in some of that information perhaps, because when 
we all sit here and hear that, if we are not the ones familiar 
with the statistics, you go, whoa, really, 90 percent and 10 
percent, huh, that is striking. And maybe those are just small 
pieces of information along the way to have a 20-minute session 
as part of orientation that talks about this distorting view 
that can occur.
    And, again, I do recognize I am stepping outside of my 
expertise by speaking to social media, but perhaps that is one 
thing.
    I think the only other comment that I would make is that 
Members of Congress are incentivized through elections, not 
through social media. And so the reason that social media 
becomes so large is because of the belief that it affects 
representation and it affects elections. And so I think keeping 
that as part of the conversation as we talk about social media, 
obviously, it is not going away, and so it continues to be an 
important part of communication both for you out to your 
constituents and for constituents to you. But I think there 
would be fairly widespread consensus that it is not the ideal 
relationship to have with your constituents, right, is talking 
through social media.
    And so to think about how to balance that and to the extent 
that it matters, it is because it matters in some ways going 
back to incentives, as the chair and the vice chair have both 
mentioned, right. It is the electoral incentives that occurs 
there, and to think about other ways to maybe buttress social 
media so that it doesn't feel so much bigger than everything 
else.
    The Chairman. Anyone else want to pull on this thread 
before we----
    Go ahead. It is just really hard to see whether the 
microphones are on or off, so apologies.
    Ms. Van Duyne. I appreciate what you are saying, bringing 
into the conversation elections and campaigns. I think that 
does tend to prioritize a lot of the agendas and conversations 
while we are here, because while it is great to have 
conversations about how to deescalate and work together, the 
fact is, is that every 2 years, it is very tribal, and it is 
one side against another side, and it is very--it is a team.
    You know, Mayor Cleaver, you know, we were both mayors. And 
I don't know, but in my case, it was nonpartisan. You know, you 
didn't have an R or a D next to your name. And the discussions 
that we had had to do--they focused purely on the policy 
decisions that you were making. They tended to be much more 
clear, much more thoughtful. Not that we didn't have 
disagreements, but once you put an R or a D next to your name, 
good Lord.
    I mean, the people who were following me on social media, 
never met before, never had I represented, never really had 
even seen me in a meeting. But all of a sudden, they had these 
very strong ideas of what I stood for and what I didn't do, and 
that plays into it.
    And I don't know how you overcome the every 2-year fight, 
because, you know, look, I am a freshman. I am completely 
novice at this. I have done it on a local basis. But there was 
a good friend of mine who was mayor of St. Louis, and he had 
said, the longer you are in politics, the harder it is because, 
you know, supporters come and go, enemies accumulate. And I 
would say the same thing. When I decided to run in a partisan 
seat, I got all of the Republicans' enemies, not just, you 
know, mine.
    How do you see us being able to overcome and have 
conversations at policy levels where you are keeping the 
campaigns where the parties get so intricately involved? How do 
you keep that out and separate? And if you can answer this 
question, you know, I will be the first to pay.
    Ms. Miler. I feel an obligation that somebody has to turn 
on the mike here.
    So I wish I had the perfect answer and we could make this, 
you know, barter here, but I think you have really hit on 
something. It is really difficult. And I think in part it goes 
to a larger challenge in that all of you have multiple aspects 
of your jobs. You are legislators, which is what we are trying 
to, in large part, talk about here. How do we engage in better 
policy conversation and legislating. You are Representatives. 
You have to go back. You are campaigners all the time. And, you 
know, short of turning 2 years into a longer term, which I am 
not necessarily sure, A, will ever happen, or, B, would really 
solve the problems that you are talking about, there is a real 
challenge in that distinction between your legislative hat and 
your electoral hats. And I think that does have to be 
recognized in the role of the parties, and the national parties 
have good and bad to them.
    You know, there is a lot of ways in which scholars find 
that they mobilize voters, they bring people into politics and 
good things, but what you describe is the other hand of that.
    And so I am going to a little bit punt here and say, again, 
right, the issue of the constituency and how to shape how 
voters see and perceive the information they get through the 
media, the way that they are able to process it, you know, the 
parties are going to be involved in elections. And the 
challenge is are there elements that can be made attractive or 
the ways in which cooperation, compromise, bipartisanship, 
reasonableness can be brought to the front in an election.
    And so when we hear, as we have here, that constituents 
want bipartisanship, that they want things to be done, how do 
we elevate that above the partisan rhetoric that occurs in the 
election. And I will also pay for anybody who has the answer.
    The Chairman. I saw Mr. Latta and then Mr. Cleaver. At some 
point, I do want us to dive into that topic, right, so this 
whole question of--you know, even the work that Braver Angels 
does, I am not surprised that Dean Phillips participated in 
that. He is someone deeply invested in fostering those sorts of 
bipartisan relationships.
    I think the trickier question for us is, as an institution, 
how do we encourage those difficult conversations? How do we 
encourage that sort of trust building? And I think that may be 
a thread that Mr. Latta was going to pull on, but----
    [Inaudible.]
    The Chairman. That is all right. We are just talking. Go 
ahead. And then Mr. Cleaver and then Mr. Perlmutter.
    There we go.
    Mr. Latta. All right. There we go.
    I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee. I am the 
ranker on telecommunications, and a lot of times our mikes 
don't work.
    But, first, thanks for being with us today. I appreciate 
all your comments and the discussion today.
    And, you know, we are in a very interesting time in this 
country, and I think that we have heard from the members about, 
especially what you have also brought up about social media. 
You know, it is interesting, you are back home, and people will 
bring up a topic, and I will say, just out of curiosity, did 
you get that off the internet? And they will say yes. And I 
will say, you know, every so often, everything that is on the 
internet is not true. And they say, yes, it is because you 
can't put anything on the internet that is not true. And you 
see members shaking their heads here because we hear that.
    So a lot of things are out there, but, you know--and I know 
in my years, not only here but also in the Ohio legislature, in 
the senate and the house, I live kind in life of C's, from 
civility, collegiality, collaboration, cooperation, camaraderie 
out there. And it is also difficult because, again, you know, 
it has been brought up about how people back home, when we hear 
this, that they would like, you know, bipartisanship and things 
like that, and I will start asking questions as to what, and 
they say, I don't agree with any of that. I say, well, what--
tell me--when you want me to start agreeing, just start saying 
it, and you will go through it.
    So it is difficult, because, again, we have changed in how 
people are getting their news and everything else in this 
country. Pardon me.
    So, you know, it puts us in an interesting time. But, you 
know, one of the things I know that we were talking about too 
is about what do we do with our staffs and it is time. You 
know, we were in an 8.5 hour markup yesterday, so pretty much I 
sat across the hallway in the Energy and Commerce Committee 
markup, and to get us to be in the same spot at the same time 
is very, very difficult. I will tell people, if you are going 
to get members in, you better get it done in 15 minutes because 
we are going to start losing people.
    But, you know, how do we--you know, again, with our staffs 
too looking at having, you know, the depolarizing workshops and 
one-on-one facilitated, how do we get people there? Because, 
again, time around here is our biggest enemy. I mean, you know, 
a lot of us, short days are what we consider maybe a 12-hour, 
and a natural day might be 13, 14, 15 hours when you are here, 
and then you go back to your districts, and you are in the car.
    So, you know, how do we get folks together? And my first 
question is, you know, just on how do we get people, from 
Members to staff, to be able to get to these and to see the 
significance in what we need to do. You know, it is when it is 
mandated, we have certain things we have to do that are 
mandated. It is like, if you don't get it done, then you are in 
trouble, if you don't take this one thing once or twice a year, 
and our staff says you have got to do this. But, you know, 
maybe this across to all of you, but I just ask that question.
    Mr. Doherty. Well, what I would say, Congressman, is some 
of the things that I am talking about could be done between 
sessions. You know, you are not here all the time. We can also 
use Zoom. When we did Congressman Stauber and Congressman 
Phillips' staffs, we did it between sessions when they had a 
day. As Dr. Grant said, when they have a day, then you can do a 
deep dive.
    So I wouldn't try to do it--I can see what you are all 
doing now. I see you are running around, and that would be--I 
don't see that perhaps as workable. But there are perhaps other 
times in the year when you have a little more downtime. Just a 
thought.
    And the thing about the one-to-ones that I suggested that 
Members of Congress do, it is two one-hours. Your staffs can 
schedule two one-hours at some point. And if you can't do it 
now, you could do it on Zoom in between sessions. My advice.
    Mr. Latta. Anybody else like to answer on that?
    Mr. Grant. Well, I will just add something that might be 
interesting for the in-between time, which is--I know that this 
is a swear word in some parts of government, but performance 
management. Where is that for Congress? Who sits you down twice 
a year and lets you know, these are the things that you did 
well that made Congress work better, and here are the ways that 
you undermined our collective mission and hurt our country.
    I wonder if you could take some of the time when you are 
not in session and identify a group of ideally bipartisans who 
are respected across parties who could be tasked with doing 
that independent feedback and trying to hold people accountable 
a little bit for the contributions they make as well as for 
what they subtract.
    The Chairman. Can you say more? What would that look like? 
Can you put a little bit more meat on that bone?
    Mr. Grant. Yeah, so I guess the starting point for me would 
be to say, let's take a group--let's do a survey of all 435 
Members of Congress, and let's find out who are the most 
respected Members across parties. Ideally, we find out who is 
trusted by the opposite party. Then we get a group of, let's 
say, five to seven of those people. And they are tasked with 
doing a review of each Member of Congress. Their performance, 
their behavior on social media, and trying to evaluate whether 
the behavior either lives up to or violates the values and 
norms that you have set forth.
    And I don't think that that feedback is always as powerful 
as an incentive. But we do have pretty extensive evidence that 
when you are given feedback by people who are in positions of 
power who you trust, respect, or look up to, that does move 
your behavior. It is something that you pay attention to. And I 
think it is at least an experiment I would be very curious to 
run.
    The Chairman. So I want to kick it over to Mr. Cleaver, but 
I will mention, I shared that I have also been talking to 
sports coaches and, you know, all starts of folks just trying 
to get my head around this. Interestingly enough, one of the 
sports coaches I talked to, he was talking about how he turned 
around his team. One, Dr. Grant, you said it was all about on-
boarding the freshman. That was how they set culture and 
changed the culture of the team. But, two, he said we had--
well, you just described was how he described the players 
council. He said we had rules. Right? But we had team rules. 
Rules are what governed us when we are at our worst, right, to 
keep us from running afoul of the rules. And then he said, we 
have norms. We have culture that was governed by a player's 
council, which was the most respected players. Who wouldn't 
send you to the corner office to get yelled at, but who would 
pull you aside and say, you have kind of run afoul of, you 
know, kind of the team culture that we are trying to build.
    So I just--I mention that because it so coincides with the 
feedback you just gave. So.
    Mr. Grant. Can I add to that briefly?
    The Chairman. Yes. Please. And then Mr. Cleaver. Go ahead.
    Mr. Grant. Thanks, Chair Kilmer. I spent sometime with 
Norwegian Olympics Ski Team. These are the best skiers in the 
world. They are fiercely competitive. They call themselves the 
attacking Vikings. But one of the norms is when you finish a 
race, you give a course report radioing up to the person who 
got to ski after you to try to prepare them as best as you can. 
And there is a strong distance set up to do that, which is if 
you do that in the Olympics, you might give away your Gold 
Medal. But they do it because they want Norwegians to beat 
Austrians. All the other countries that they are performing 
against. When they socialize you into that team, if you don't 
live by those collaborative norms, the most decorated skier on 
the team pulls you aside and says, this is not who they are, 
this is not how we do things. And then if that behavior is 
repeated, you are banned from the lunch table. They will build 
a coalition to exclude you. And what they are trying to do is 
use peer accountability mechanisms to get people to move in 
line. And most of the athletes ultimately decide it is easier 
to work with the team than against them.
    The Chairman. Mr. Cleaver and then Mr. Perlmutter.
    Mr. Cleaver. Yes, I want to follow up a little on what you 
said. I have a question for you. I would like for you to 
consider something I am going to say.
    I played football, and my teammates elected me captain the 
senior year. And before the vote, the coach, Irving Garnett, 
said--before we vote, Cleaver come to the office. And I went 
into his office. And he said, I just want to let you know that 
if they vote, yes, which they are going to do, if you get put 
out of a single game for fighting, I am removing you from 
captain. I will still let you play, but you will never be the 
captain of this team again.
    I spoke at a banquet in Fort Worth, Texas, and looked out 
and there he was sitting. And I said, this is the most 
significant man other than my father in my life, my coach. I 
say that not to--for any athletic purposes, I can barely walk--
but I think for my coach, top person, the most powerful person 
said, if you do this, you are out had a great influence on me. 
I never had--I grew up in public housing. So if you don't learn 
to fight, I got a muscle because Chancey Bogan hit me on the 
mouth with a brick where it cut through it. So you got to 
fight. And I did.
    But from the top person who was in charge of what I really 
wanted to do, what I loved almost as much as I loved the world 
said, you do this, and you are out. I guess the point I am 
making is that if that happened around here, maybe, maybe, just 
maybe. But that is just one little thing, I will say this, and 
I am done--I am through talking for today.
    I think some of my colleagues have said me heard me before. 
There are agencies, organizations that score us on everything 
we do. You know, many people would say I have a thousand, 1,000 
percent NRA vote. And, you know, they give the organized 
labor--children's labor--the Children Defense Fund, I mean, 
everybody. Except there is not a single organization that 
monitors and scores us for decency and for civility. And so, it 
is easy to come to the conclusion that that is not important, 
because everything else was scored. Yeah, you can go on the 
computer and find out what organization scored all of us, any 
time, except on civility. I am finished.
    The Chairman. Go ahead.
    Ms. Ripley. I am so excited that you have said that. And I 
have been talking to editors of mine about this exact thing. 
And can we score Members of Congress? There is different words 
for it, right? But, like, basically, just decency. I like that 
word. I think that is a good one. And then we get into the 
weeds about what--how do we do that, would it be machine 
learning, and would it be fair? And you can really--these are 
like actually really important and hard questions. So I don't 
mean to suggest they are not.
    But I would love to hear from you all about what those 
metrics would be. You know? Because, again, part of this has to 
come from interest groups and news media incentivizing 
different things. And we thought about what we can easily rank 
conflict entrepreneurs in Congress. Right? But would we be 
regarding that in a perverse way, right? And would it not be 
surprising.
    You know, but there has got to be a way, I agree with you, 
to at least surface people who are doing something differently 
and amplify that work. So I am--you know, I would love to hear 
any ideas you all have.
    Mr. Cleaver. Well, that which we praise inspires us to do 
more of that which was praised. I--you know.
    Go ahead.
    Ms. Miler. I also think as somebody who uses a lot of 
various scores and is familiar with some of these metrics, I 
think you point out something really important, which is that 
recently there are some scores about effectiveness, we have 
scores for bipartisanship even, but not for stability. And so 
really you right to call our attention to the absence of that 
type of metric.
    And, immediately, I launch into social science brain, and I 
start thinking about, oh, what goes into that metric? Right? 
How do we measure that? How do we measure that fairly in a way 
that everybody, not just on this committee, but all of your 
colleagues in the full chamber would accept as being, accurate 
as being fair, as you noted, and honest.
    And I think the difficulty of the task doesn't mean that it 
is not worth pursuing. And it is exciting to hear that you are 
actively in conversation about it, and this is something that 
could be developed.
    But I do think that those details are critically important 
because developing a civility index that might be perceived by 
one party or the other as being bias would undue the benefit to 
which you call our attention. And so, hopefully, bringing it 
up, we will get some, you know, sharp minds both on this 
committee, in journalism, perhaps, in political science and 
other disciplines as well to think about that.
    And maybe having a lot of different metrics together, you 
know, they will be stronger as a web of measures than any one 
single measure. So, thank you.
    Mr. Doherty. Thank you. I would like to follow up on that 
by saying that what we have learned in this work is that any 
decision has to be shared by reds and blues. So our leadership 
is half red, half blue. So who is the ``we''? If the ``we'' is 
journalist, blue. If the ``we'' is political scientist, blue. 
Okay.
    If it is one caucus versus--so it has got the ``we'' who 
would develop this, which is very exciting, has to be people 
who are half and half on each side. There may be some in the 
middle and some others. And so I think you are bringing up 
something really important. It has to be done carefully, but 
who does it is key?
    Can I say one other thing about sports, because that is one 
of our themes here is we are in the midst of the NBA playoffs.
    Ms. Williams. Go Hawks.
    Mr. Doherty. I saw that last night. For Milwaukee--okay. 
That is an aside. But they are fierce competitors, but when the 
season is over, they care about the sport, about the game. They 
care about whether we want to watch these teams, whether we 
trust them. And so there is a way in which--going back to this 
issue of you compete--you have to compete hard. But there is 
another way in which if people don't trust Congress, what are 
you running for, right?
    And so the sports analogy makes sense to me because the 
leaders--the people I admire most in those sports are the ones 
who represent all of the players, who represent the legacy, who 
care about the sport, not just about their own particular 
winning. So.
    The Chairman. Mr. Perlmutter. And then I have got Mr. 
Phillips and then Ms. Williams.
    Mr. Perlmutter. All of that is a lot heavier than where I 
was going. But let me, I want to try to piece together our 
hearing from a few days ago and today, and I think it works. 
You know, we have been talking about, in our last hearing, 
about empowering individual Members so that we feel more 
worthwhile. That what we are doing is worthwhile. And to incent 
dialogue, conversation, good conflict.
    And, you know--I tell you--and your gladiator legislator 
thing, that really hit home because that is talking about sort 
of the gladiator side of this thing--the duking it out, the 
competition, the rough stuff we got to go through. But we are 
here to legislate in a perfect world. And it is fun when you 
actually can legislate.
    And so we were talking about open rules or not. And we 
brought it up--I am on the Rules Committee. And you may have 
seen over time, you know, us not do open rules as much, not 
allow for as many amendments.
    Joe Morelle suggested--and I am just throwing this out 
there to everybody, that in the New York legislature, they 
allowed the sponsor to agree or disagree with amendments. And 
if the sponsor did not agree with the amendment, it didn't get 
put on.
    Now, you might not get enough votes to pass the thing, but 
it gives--it just reminded me--it gives each of us a little 
more power as to what we are doing, and it would--William would 
say, look, I--you know, within the context of germaneness, you 
know, I would like to add X amendment. Now, he and I are 
talking. And it isn't only leadership saying what is allowed, 
what is not allowed. I don't know.
    I want to try to come with a structural approach that 
empowers individuals and incense conversation in a good 
conflict kind of sense. Because if you are having these kinds 
of conversations, everybody is buying into it here.
    I don't know. I don't mean to do a filibuster, but I am 
just curious if you have any comments on that?
    Ms. Miler. I think what you describe is exactly the types 
of innovation that we need to think about, right? Similarly, as 
we were discussing earlier, the possibility of providing a 
pathway to bills that demonstrate bipartisan support or 
guaranteeing active caucuses, because I know there are many, 
with some more active than others.
    You know, one bill, they can have one priority of Congress 
that will get us basically a fast track in the procedures. I 
think--I mean, some of these are going to be more workable than 
others, but they all need to be discussed.
    I think one of the challenges that we face as we put us all 
in the same group together to use the ``we,'' trying to think 
about solutions is, as was talked about last week, is the rise 
of omnibus legislation. So when we don't have the sponsor of 
the bill as you just described, it doesn't really control it. 
It is unlikely that they have a freestanding bill coming to the 
House floor on which then they can give their yay or nay on a 
particular amendment.
    And so that kind of builds into that broader challenge of 
whether we try to revise and move away from this dependence on 
omnibus legislation. Or as whether the panelists last week were 
talking about, there is also an approach which is to say 
omnibus is here to stay. This where we currently work. We can't 
go back to the Congress of the 1970s, and so let's make the 
omnibus process, you know, improve it.
    And so I think as we come up with particular ideas and 
reforms, some of that is going to come down to how do we see 
the omnibus? Is this a permanent feature of our modern 
Congress? In which case that type of proposal is going to be 
more limited in its application. Or if we roll back the 
omnibus, then something like that is something that can 
leapfrog to the top of ideas, because, you know, that might be 
something that a lot of Members would be really pleased to 
support.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Well, one of the reasons I brought it up, 
and then I will leave this is that we are trying to avoid sort 
of the gotcha amendments, the gladiator piece of this thing 
where it is a constructive--you know, look, if he comes up with 
an amendment, I may not love it, but I can deal with it, and I 
get his vote? I don't care if I have gotten his vote versus his 
vote or her vote, I have got a vote. And that is kind of how 
our legislature in Colorado worked. You know, we--35 of us. And 
you don't care where you get the votes, you just want the votes 
to get your bill done. And it is very different than this 
place.
    The Chairman. Well, so, I want to invite others to take a 
swing at that pitch because I think the issue that Mr. 
Perlmutter is raising is one of the clearest examples of broken 
culture. Right? So both of us came out of State--and I 
mentioned this to Dr. Grant when I first talked to him about 
this problem. Both of us came out of State legislature. Every 
bill that was brought up in my State legislature was brought up 
under an open rule. There has been a few amendment that was all 
germane to the subject. You could offer it, it would debated, 
it would be voted on. And I could think of 8 years in Olympia, 
maybe five, maybe six times where I was politicized. When 
someone said, I am going to play gotcha with this, so I can 
bludgeon you during a campaign.
    But other than that, people--if they wanted to 
constructively change a bill, they would offer an amendment to 
try to constructively change the bill. You mentioned that in 
this town, and that seems like I am joking, right? That it is 
laughable that that would happen here. And, unfortunately, and 
this is without regard to party, both sides do this.
    You know, what ends up happening is we have a very closed 
process. So the minority feels like they have been sidelined. 
And as I have shared in this committee before, like legislator 
sideline is not dissimilar to the Kilmer family puppy when we 
don't keep it constructively engaged. It chews the furniture. 
Right? Like, that is what happens. And so there is a lot of 
furniture chewing that happens in the U.S. Capitol.
    So does anyone else want to take a swing at Mr. 
Perlmutter's question of how--you know, are there ways--you 
know, if we recommend open rule right now--that is basically 
saying, I invite you to put your head into the mouth of the 
lion as the culture currently exists. So do you have thoughts 
on how we might more constructively engage Members so that, you 
know, on the floor, for amendments, those sorts of things, the 
idea that Mr. Perlmutter had or, I guess, Mr. Morelle had from 
New York, or you got any other ideas? And then I will take it 
over to Mr. Phillips.
    Ms. Ripley. Again, I don't know the specifics of Congress, 
like you do, or like my colleagues here do. But I can say that 
there is a--it is a chicken and egg situation. So in high 
conflict, everyone is some various level of miserable. And 
everybody--it pulls you in, but you also want out.
    So there is a paradox in high conflict. So everybody wants 
something else on some level. So the more you experience agency 
and effectiveness and getting little things done, the more you 
want of that. Right? So is there a way given institution the 
institution and the rules you have to sort of start small and 
get people at experience? It also comes with encounters that 
are well-managed.
    We are like Braver Angels where--and especially good when 
you have a common problem you are working on across the divide. 
So I actually think it would have this positive feedback loop 
of not only do you feel more agency, not only do you feel more 
efficacy so you are getting incentivized to do more, but it 
also breaks down some of the prejudices between groups when you 
are in encounters with a common problem.
    So there is a lot--there is a lot to that that makes sense. 
And it is the kind of thing where the more--this is the most 
misunderstood thing, I think, about--at least there was a big 
surprise for me. All over the world, when people finally 
experience good conflict, even in war zones, they want more. It 
is like almost addictive.
    Would you agree with that? Once you experience it, 
especially when you have been so deprived of it, like you just 
are like, wow. There is a euphoria that comes from actually--
even as you continue to deeply disagree. So.
    The Chairman. Mr. Phillips, do you want to take it?
    Mr. Phillips. I do, Mr. Chair. First, let me start by 
saying, I love this, this hearing, and this construct with my 
colleagues and these witness and this subject re-inspire my 
faith in this institution and the opportunity we can to do 
better.
    I want to respond to a couple of notions that have been 
thrown about, first of which, is a sports metaphor. As a 
Minnesotan, I have to inject hockey, of course, into the 
conversation. One of the most beautiful elements of hockey is 
that after the N--or the third party period of a battle between 
two sides, both teams line up and they shake hands. That is the 
tradition. It is a beautiful, important part of the sport. I 
did it since before I could talk. And I could just envision 
when we open a new Congress and when we close, can you imagine 
200 or so Members on each side of the aisle, getting in line 
and simply shaking hands to begin a Congress and to end it. You 
know, symbolism matters, and visuals matter, and I think that 
would be a beautiful thing for us to consider.
    Scoring civility, I love that notion. I think one of the 
great ways to do so is to simply ask the other side to score 
the other side. Right? Ask Members on the left side of the 
aisle to score those on the right and vice versa. It gives us 
an incentive to be decent to one another. If you want to score 
high in the civility scoreboard, if you will, maybe rank 1 
through 5, and it gives us a small incentive, but a meaningful 
one to score each other.
    Last, and perhaps equally importantly, you know, we are not 
going to put an end to conflict entrepreneurs, we are not going 
to end anger-tainment, we are not going to change all the 
perverse incentives that exist in this institution, and we 
probably sure as heck can affect the political duopoly of 
Republicans and Democrats, and the political industrial 
conflicts that survive--not just survive, thrives by dividing 
us.
    So my question--and, Mr. Grant, you talk about trust. And 
what we can affect, I think, is trust quite easily, actually. 
So, you know, Dr. Doherty, I would love it if you would share 
with my colleagues what you heard, Braver Angels heard, after 
you did that retreat with Representative Stauber's staff and my 
staff. I think better coming from you than from me. If you 
could start with that.
    Mr. Doherty. Yes. Thank you. What really came out of that 
was this awareness of many more commonalities than they had 
realized. So I will give you an example. When we did the life 
experiences exercise----
    Mr. Phillips. Yeah.
    Mr. Doherty [continuing]. What life experiences have 
influenced your approach to public policy and the public good. 
What they discovered was that how many of them on each side had 
religious roots to their interest and passion for making--for 
social change. And that those who work--who came out of college 
with those ideals, those were more conservative, moved in one 
direction and took up issues of abortion and pro life, for 
example. Those who were more liberal moved into social justice 
and poverty area. But the roots system was similar. The root 
system was similar. That was something that was not expected.
    The second thing is in all of the workshops we do, we do a 
humility part. Okay? So one of the things that we did was have 
each group separately come up with two issues that their Member 
of Congress cares a lot about, and then to ask these questions, 
how is this stereotype misunderstood, demagogued by others? So 
mining was one. Immigration was another. Okay? And then--so 
that was the first question.
    The second question was, well, fix--respond to those 
stereotypes. Respond. What do you really think.
    And then the third one was how could this policy run 
aground? Or what are some downsides? Well, what are some 
possible unintended consequences? How might it end up in 10 
years not working as well as you would like? And then they all 
nailed the third one. Then all nailed the third one. Everybody 
who would say behind closed doors, yeah, you know, we don't 
know how--what it is going to cost eventually. We don't know 10 
years how it is going to look. This is our best shot at it.
    So my point is that when they were able to articulate both 
what they love and also what their concerns are, humility, 
there was a powerful connection. There was a ``we'' that formed 
there.
    I hope you have heard that from them. That is what I 
observed.
    Mr. Phillips. I sure did. But like I said, I think it is 
stronger coming from you than from me. I just want to reenforce 
that, because having seen the effect that this had on our 
staffs, recognizing how we could embed that into the culture 
here is really powerful stuff.
    And we all know, we can't work with people we don't trust, 
and we can't trust people we don't know. And sadly this 
institution very much focuses on separation on day one. It 
really does. The efforts to get us to know each other and tell 
our life--by the way, telling a life story is so illuminating 
and so informative because it expresses why we might see things 
a little bit differently. And when we do that, we always find 
something that unifies us.
    So I just continue to implore that we bake that into day 
one here, and not just with new Members, but with staff. 
Because we all know how powerful staffs that know each other 
and respect each other and trust one another can get things 
done here too.
    So to the extent that we might consider that and embedding 
this into our orientation program, I think would be one of the 
most extraordinary, fundamental, prospective changes we could 
possibly make for the country. So thank you.
    The Chairman. Do you want to chime in again? Go ahead, Dr. 
Miler. And then I got you, Ms. Ripley.
    Ms. Miler. I apologize. I want to add one small point about 
staff, which is that in other research on congressional 
capacity, I have looked a lot at staff and staff knowledge and 
staff satisfaction and retention. And I think one little perk 
to set here--it is more than a little perk really--is that this 
would also improve staff-Member satisfaction, and it would help 
retain staff. And that is something that will serve the 
institution better if we can reduce some of the turnover and 
kind of build that institutional knowledge in productive and 
cooperative ways, I think everybody will really benefit from 
that. So just a thumbs-up for that one.
    Mr. Phillips. Here, here. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Go ahead. Ms. Williams.
    Ms. Williams. First, I couldn't agree more with a lot of 
the conversations that is being held. We all view life through 
our lived experiences, and that is what--that will give us a 
problem when we start looking at the ratings, because civility 
is also going to mean something very different to different 
people based on their lived experiences.
    And Ms. Ripley, I did not have the good fortune of reading 
the book before I came to this hearing. But now I feel like I 
need to buy it because I want to explore more of this notion of 
the good conflict versus the work that we have that has come to 
mean something completely different now on bipartisanship. 
Because bipartisanship now to me has come to how do we really 
not get much done at all, and we are not moving the needle. So 
I feel like my people are still being left out and left behind, 
because if we are working in a bipartisan fashion, then that 
means that we are not--that we are not able to do some of the 
things that are actually making progress. Because all of the 
bipartisan conversations get so watered down that nothing is 
actually happening.
    So I want to explore more of the notion of continuing to 
get into this good trouble, because we all have an obligation 
to speak up and to serve our people that we are here to 
represent, but in this notion of good conflict. And I guess 
the--where the dividing line is and how do we get into this 
good trouble, because we should be having robust conversations 
and debates in Congress.
    But we should also be listening to each other and learning 
from that, because these robust debates shouldn't be gotcha 
moments and shouldn't be cheap political hits, but actually 
trying to get to this commonality so that we are advancing 
policies that serve all the people.
    And I would just love to hear more about how are you all 
going to help us get there, besides telling everybody to read 
this book.
    Ms. Ripley. Other than reading my book, of course. No, I 
think, yeah, this is the thing is what is the distinction? I 
have found it is actually not hard to tell the difference 
between good conflict and high conflict. So some of the things 
that characterize good conflict are that we may not expect with 
like bipartisanship or unity. You can have good conflict and 
have a lot of anger. Right? You can have sadness. You can have 
fear. All of that is good.
    Like in the research on emotions and conflict, we can work 
with those. Anger is actually really important because it 
suggests that you want the other person to be better.
    Where you get into high conflict, you see things like 
humiliation. Humiliation is probably the key most under-
appreciated accelerant for high conflict, anything that makes 
someone feel like they have been brought low, especially 
publicly. So that is one to avoid, because you are basically 
handing a weapon to your opponent when you humiliate them.
    And contempt, disgust, right? Dehumanization, those things 
are high conflict. And there are other things, but those are 
some of the--so, again, to your point, we have to get out of 
this trap of thinking it is what we are doing or unity. Those 
are not----
    And, again, to the point of rankings, right? I am sort of 
less interested at this point in which--when I make my own--
cast my own votes which Members are bipartisan, and which are 
this, and which are that. I am more interested in which ones 
are decent to each other and are not conflict entrepreneurs. 
And it is hard to know that unless you are really a student of 
politics in Congress.
    So, yeah, I think there are ways to tell the difference, 
and there are ways to cultivate. You need to create guardrails 
in your institution so that you don't fall into high conflict, 
especially when your institution is designed to create it like 
this one. Right? So there is a lot guardrails that have that--
and one of them is relationships.
    Very quickly, I will just end with, I had the privilege of 
following a group of very progressive New Yorkers from a 
synagogue on the Upper West Side called B'nai Jeshurun who were 
very frustrated after Trump won his election and very 
distraught and didn't know any Trump supporters. And they ended 
up through a series of strange events going to spend three 
nights in the homes of conservative Christian corrections 
officers in rural Michigan, because there was someone who knew 
both groups and was trusted.
    So they go--and, by the way, there was a lot of trepidation 
on both sides, as you might imagine. People couldn't sleep the 
night before. Both sides thought this was crazy. You know, 
conservators in Michigan thought there was--what if it is 
Antifa coming into their homes, you know? And never mind it is 
mostly like older Jewish women, and then they are Jewish. But 
the New Yorkers felt like, what are we doing? It is crazy. We 
are, you know, literally putting our heads into the mouths of 
lions. And they went--and I got to sort of watch, do a ride-
along on this.
    And they went to a firing range, and they went to dinner, 
and they had really hard conversations across big divides with 
some ground rules, right? And it was almost like--a couple of 
things happened that might be relevant.
    First of all, all the things we disagree about--let's say 
it is a big pie, like we have a big cherry pie here, right? And 
there is some percentage of it that is like deep. Profound real 
disagreement. I don't know what that is. Maybe it is 50 
percent.
    And then there is this percentage that we think we disagree 
about, but we actually are totally misunderstanding each other. 
That is a mysterious and intriguing percentage. I guarantee you 
it is bigger than we think. It is not everything, but that 
would come up, right? Like the conservatives would be like, 
wait, you actually are okay with having a border for the 
country? And the liberals would be like we are okay with that, 
you know, and vice versa. There were these moments of like--
because they have been fed totally different news diets and 
stereotypes about each right?
    And then there is a percentage of things that they actually 
would agree on if they had the same set of facts. Right? That 
is another slice of pie. We don't know how big it is, but I am 
curious. And the last piece of pie that is intriguing to me is 
the percentage of things neither of them actually knows what to 
think about, has a lot of internal conflict about, and is torn 
about because these are hard problems, you know. And once you 
are in a safe space, you are able--with relationships, you are 
able to surface that complexity and contradiction.
    So one of the conservative corrections officers came over 
to me at some point about 2 days in and she pulled me aside and 
she said, you know what is really weird? I am starting to 
actually like these people. And it is--it is a feeling that 
comes over you before you even articulate it. Like a feeling 
like, wow, I do not agree with many things these people are 
saying, and I am kind of enjoying this.
    So, anyway, that was an example of good conflict that was 
created on purpose across a big divide.
    Ms. Williams. Thank you. And I think something that I would 
welcome all of my colleagues and the panelists today, cheering 
on my Atlanta Hawks would be a good way for us to come 
together. And, you know.
    Mr. Phillips. I will second that point.
    Ms. Miler. May I add one comment on this? I think one of 
the things that this conversation really got me thinking about 
is the difference between compromise and common ground. And I 
think that those get muddled, even amongst congressional 
scholars, and probably in your own conversations with 
yourselves and your staff. And I think this notion of the false 
dichotomy of unity or high conflict, right--perhaps sometimes 
we are not looking for everybody to agree. Right? That is 
common ground.
    And as you noted, there are things that just isn't going to 
occur, but that doesn't mean we can't find compromise, which is 
a very different concept, right? And so I would also--it 
reminds me of your story about kind of a moment, right? Those 
are compromises. That is not necessarily common ground. It is 
a, ``Could I get this thing on there, too, and you will get my 
vote?'' Right? And that is about maybe not getting your pure 
dream bill, but getting most of what you want and letting some 
other people get some of what they want.
    And so it might be helpful to be mindful about that 
difference when we talk about things and when we set up our 
goals for the incentives that we have, because those lead us 
sometimes on the same path and perhaps sometimes on different 
paths.
    The Chairman. Dr. Grant, did you want to chime in on this 
topic too?
    Mr. Grant. Yeah, I just--I wanted to add that I went 
through conflict mediation training about two decades ago, and 
I think it is something that every Member of Congress should be 
required to do. One of the most useful skills that I was taught 
that I find myself applying all the time was just to defuse and 
neutralize, an attempt to drag me into high conflict. So if 
somebody were to try to humiliate me, and the perceived wisdom 
is that I could actually step out and talk about the rules of 
the game a little bit, and say, ``Hey, it seems like you might 
be trying to humiliate me right now. Is that what you are 
trying to accomplish? Because I thought you were above that, 
but I am not sure, let me know.''
    And we see this when we study expert negotiators that they 
will very gently label the behavior of the other side and then 
test and summarize their understanding and give them a chance 
to disown it. And the moment that you signal that you know what 
the person is up to is the moment that you pull them out of the 
fray a little bit, and you are able to have a conversation 
about the conversation. Right? What are the rules of 
engagement? What kind of norms of civility do we want to 
follow? And I think those kind of interpersonal skills might 
come in handy for some Members of Congress, but you all would 
know better than I do.
    The Chairman. Well, I think one of the things each of you, 
in one way or another, has highlighted is the opportunity for 
Members of Congress to get training, right, on what you should 
know about social media, on what you should--you know, how to 
negotiate. You know, our committee has made some 
recommendation--this is the first place I have ever worked 
where as an employee of this institution, other than freshman 
orientation, there is not any structured professional 
development, at all. Which I think is bonkers. Right?
    So I think this is--you have given us some, I think, good 
material here----
    Mr. Doherty. Could I add one thing here.
    The Chairman [continuing]. Yes. And then I got you, Mr. 
Joyce.
    Mr. Doherty. I got this really important question about 
having sharp, a good conflict that isn't just watered down. I 
am really glad you raised that. Because people can think, well, 
I will just sort of find the mushy middle and sort of--what we 
have learned in Braver Angels is that you can have sharp, well-
defined disagreement. We have a whole debate series, and the 
key thing is the guardrails.
    So if you and I are in a debate, you speak your views, I 
speak my views, I try to listen to yours and vice versa. People 
ask us questions. But I don't try to characterize your views. 
Particularly, I don't try to characterize your motives. If 
there is one key thing that I have learned in all of this is 
stick to the issues, stick to the values, don't characterize 
the motives of the other person, and don't use my terms to 
describe their position.
    Now, maybe in an election, I would, okay, if I am 
competing, okay, because we have to draw sharp differences. But 
if we are legislating, don't use my terms for what you are 
doing. Use your terms. Use my terms and don't attack your 
motives.
    So we have had debates on questions like resolve, the 
election was stolen. A recent one that sort of took my breath 
away was resolve, that sometimes violence could be necessary to 
bring about a larger good. Oh, my goodness. And then you have 
people on either side who rationally discuss that and don't 
attack the other person's motives and don't characterize the 
other person's position.
    And out of 2 hours, people find some--I love what you said 
because they find, well, we are not even close, but oh, 
actually, we are close here, and on that one I misunderstood 
your views.
    But if you set the guardrails of the process, the 
container, and somebody has to hold that, somebody has to hold 
that, then you can have sharp differences. At the end of it, we 
both have influenced each other, even if we don't agree.
    The Chairman. I want to bring Mr. Joyce in on this. I will 
say, just in response to what you just said, Mr. Cleaver has 
often raised the fact that the rules of the House, if we 
enforce them--like, the rules say you are not allowed to impugn 
the motives of your colleagues. And, yet, watch floor debate 
and see how often someone says, you know----
    Mr. Doherty. And somebody should be empowered to say ``out 
of line.''
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Mr. Perlmutter. The chair or the Speaker is supposed to do 
that.
    The Chairman. Yeah. Mr. Joyce
    Mr. Joyce. Thank you. First, Dr. Doherty, in getting 
prepared for this hearing, it was interesting to find that I 
actually have a chapter in northeastern Ohio for--and I 
appreciate that you--what your organization is doing about 
bringing--reminding folks of the commonalities we have. And I 
think if people would take the time to listen in this town--and 
unfortunately, we have got a lot of talkers, not so many 
listeners. But when you listen, you are able to get to those 
commonalities.
    But the one thing that I found in my ninth year now is, 
unfortunately, we say remember driven, but most of the big 
things that have gone through are coming--are more, start in 
the Speaker's office and will come down. And with that being 
the case, what do you think it would take to incentivize 
leadership to start being more partisan or bipartisan? We are 
partisan. We know that. But being more bipartisan and get to 
that buy it folks.
    I am a guy who got here in November of 2012 who is already 
on the D triple C hit list, number one, and I already had my 
opponent for 14. And, you know, it became an us-against-them 
thing. And it is not supposed to be. You know, I don't--you 
know, having been a lawyer--a recovering lawyer now--but having 
been a lawyer, you are used to the negotiation of going back 
and forth, and things don't just necessarily happen.
    You have to listen to folks, and we would take the offers 
back and forth and work through those problems. And I have 
never seen leadership take the time to incentivize that, just 
throw it out there as an ending one, since we have talked about 
the individuals coming forward. If we are going to be tap-down 
driven, how do we get buy-in from leadership, other than 
changing leadership completely, I get that.
    The Chairman. Anyone want to take a swing at that pitch?
    Mr. Doherty. Well, it is outside of my expertise. But if I 
am a leader and of an organization that the public does not 
trust, maybe I should try something different.
    Mr. Joyce. Fine with me.
    The Chairman. Mr. Joyce, you want to--any other terms you 
want to pull there?
    Mr. Joyce. We talked about it.
    Ms. Miler. I am tempted to leave it on that note because I 
think you nailed it. But at the risk of overstaying, I think 
one of the things that is interesting in the research that I 
did with both political scientists and organizational 
psychologists what had emerged was that party leaders are 
actually very good at actively managing conflict within their 
party. They demonstrate a lot of the things that organizational 
psychologists look for in letting dissent be voiced in these 
norms or guardrails that, you know, when you are in your own 
party caucus, it stays in the caucus room, you give your 
leadership a heads-up.
    But there is an expectation that there will be dissent. And 
leaders have certain tools and techniques that they use to get 
you on board and to let you know when it is okay to not be on 
board. And so there is a skill set there that everybody, both 
the leadership, and Members of both parties have honed when 
they are within their own party.
    And so that is the really B side of it. But the challenge 
really comes when we start looking across the parties on high 
salience issues. On low salience issues, what we found what 
Members and staff told us is that leadership neither encourage 
nor discourage. They just kind of--they were too busy deal with 
the small issues. But that was a gift to Members, because that 
gave Members this space to cooperate on the things that 
mattered to their district.
    And maybe a Member of the other party has a district with 
needs like yours, and that is the place. Or maybe it is common 
personal experience or life stories, and that brings you to a 
place. And then their leadership is just kind of hands off. The 
challenge is the slice of the pie, the desire the pie analogy 
that there is a high salience issue across the party, right?
    And I think there we come back to the challenge of 
elections, and the leader's role in those places and in really 
discouraging and actively working against colleagues across the 
aisle, like putting folks on a hit list right off the bat, or 
what have you.
    It is a function of what one of my colleagues, Dr. Frances 
Lee, who has spoken with you before has talked about is this 
constant competition to win the majority. And competition is 
good. I mean, we seek it many ways in political life. But one 
of the challenges is that when that really--as we get more 
competitive, winning the competition becomes focal to both 
sides more at the time. And so when one party dominates or the 
other, of course, one side likes it and one doesn't, but 
everybody kind of knows how it is going to play out.
    When you have always every 2 years, something could change. 
This could be our year to win or to lose. I think it really 
makes that electoral context for party leaders very salient. 
And as I said in my opening remarks, I think that that slice of 
the pie is the toughest one to figure out, right? It is going 
to be really hard to change the us versus them, the win-lose. 
Because at least as our elections are structured, there is win 
and lose. And so that to me is the toughest challenge, not to 
say that we shouldn't tackle it, but, hopefully, maybe we can 
build up to that challenge by, you know, addressing some of the 
other areas, first, that might give us a better handle on that. 
Thank you.
    The Chairman. Mr. Timmons.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to get back 
how we disincentivize conflict entrepreneurs. So we have talked 
about a number of different ways. I liked the idea of civility 
scoring--Mr. Cleaver talked about that--more bipartisanship 
scoring, more methods of making people proud to be 
collaborative to solve problems and to facilitate hard 
discussions.
    What other thoughts do you all have in this area? I think 
it has got to be intra-party policing. And there is mentorship. 
There is leadership. There is all these different ways to try 
to help address conflict entrepreneurs. And I think orientation 
is an important part, training is an important part. So do you 
have any additional thoughts on the subject of disincentivizing 
conflict entrepreneurs?
    Ms. Miler. I have one thought that I think brings together 
your question and Ms. Williams' question as well about--and the 
notion of humiliation that Ms. Ripley mentioned, and that is 
there may be instances, for example, on committees and bringing 
in trust where this is always tricky because we want 
transparency, but sometimes that encourages the gotcha moments. 
It encourages those humiliation moments that can go out, 
whether social media or not.
    And so maybe, you know, there might be instances where 
committees could opt for attendance only. Right? So they are 
showing accountability of you knowing up to do the work, and 
you can still tell your constituents you were there, but maybe 
not everything is on the record in certain moments.
    So there can be moments to have some of those frank 
conversations where there is not the gotcha dynamic or 
posturing. Right? There may be opportunities to try and find a 
new balance between that accountability that is so important to 
Americans' trust in our congressional institution.
    So I don't want to lose sight of that. But to also 
acknowledge what I am hearing from you and from others that, 
you know, sometimes everything having the spotlight on, it 
makes it really hard to have these conversations. And from what 
I am hearing from my colleagues on the panel, that creating 
those spaces can be valuable. So maybe there is small moments 
like that that could help defuse and build some of that 
dynamic.
    Ms. Ripley. I was just going to add to that. I mean it 
pains me as a reporter to endorse the idea of more confidential 
meetings with politicians, but I think that is just true. It is 
just human psychology. It needs to be in places where no one is 
performing. Right? And many more of those places.
    So then the other thing is the opposite of that, like the 
storytelling point of view, part of how we got here was through 
national media and politicians modeling high conflict as 
entertainment.
    But there are other ways you can tell stories. There is a 
show in Canada called Political Blind Date. Has anyone heard of 
this show? So it is actually pretty successful. And there is 
one like it in the U.K. where they take politicians across the 
aisle and they would spend the day together. They don't know 
who it is going to be until they get there.
    And they do something together that is relevant. Like if 
one is against legalizing marijuana and the other is for it, 
they visit like a marijuana, you know, processing factory, and 
they go on a bike ride. I mean, they do things. It is a little 
cheesy, but, actually, because one on one, it is harder to be 
really demeaning, you know. And even though there are cameras 
there, right, it is a one-on-one encounter, and there are these 
moments that are kind of good television, believe it or not. It 
is the opposite of what we expect. So I am sure you are all 
eager to sign up for this show. I am trying to get an option in 
the U.S. So.
    The Chairman. We are just happy this hearing is on C-SPAN, 
honestly. The fact that they are covering--thank you, C-SPAN. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Timmons. I am going to follow up on one quick example. 
So I was invited on a commission delegation trip with a number 
of Senators about 6 months into my first term. I actually 
barely knew the Members of the House Republican parties. So I 
didn't know anybody in the Senate.
    And I was on this plane for 6 or 7 hours, and I got to 
speaking with one of them at length. We had a lot in common. 
And we really developed a relationship. And I actually didn't 
know he was a Democrat. And we talked about it. And then I got 
off the plane, and I Googled him, and I was like, oh, he is a 
Democrat, wow.
    So I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, it is a very 
challenging thing to recreate, but it is just a perfect example 
of how, I mean, we have so much in common, we agreed on a lot. 
And we built a relationship without the whims of politics.
    So I just think that is a focus that we have to make, 
because you are not going to be mean to somebody that you have 
a mutual respect relationship from, and I think that is really 
what is missing in Congress. Because I don't know a lot of my 
colleagues across the aisle. And there is just so many people 
here. I mean, you know, it is very challenging. So it is 
something I think we need to----
    The Chairman. Dr. Grant, can I bring you in on this too?
    Mr. Grant. Sure. I was speaking a little bit about the 
research that psychologists and sociologists are doing on moral 
reframing which is the idea of learning to speak the language 
of other people as opposed to just your own. I think there is, 
you know, there is so much divide. For example, when we talk 
about climate change, I hear liberals constantly trying to 
advance it in terms of protecting the planet for future 
generations. Why not reframe that as the data shows this works 
better if you are speaking to somebody who is conservative and 
say, we are here to protect God's Earth, or we need to maintain 
the purity of our planet?
    And this is a skill set that I think all of us could learn. 
I think it is a lot easier to appeal the values people already 
hold than it is to change them.
    And let me just tell you a quick story that I think 
illustrates this. There was a college student named Paul Butler 
who went to St. Lucia a couple decades ago, long before the 
environmental movement. And he found out that there was a 
parrot there that was in danger of extinction. And he decided 
he wanted to save it. He started a very simple campaign that 
said, Save the St. Lucia Parrot. Now there is only one problem 
with this campaign. He made it up. There is no such thing as a 
St. Lucia parrot. This is just a parrot that happens to live in 
St. Lucia. But the moment he called it the St. Lucia parrot, 
people started saying, this is our bird, and he activated their 
national pride.
    I think his strategy has now been applied in a couple 
hundred places to save dozens and dozens of animals. And the 
formula is very simple, it saved the blank, blank. The first 
blank is the name of the place. The second blank is the name of 
the animal.
    And I think that that skill set, right, of just 
understanding what the audience already values and then 
connecting it to your idea, it helps you move toward common 
ground, and the conflict entrepreneurs then don't have a lot to 
work with.
    Mr. Doherty. One thing to add, I am sure on your trip, Mr. 
Timmons, you broke bread a lot. In every religious tradition 
that I know of, a common meal is part of the connecter. And 
that would be one--this is one way to humanize each other.
    Mr. Timmons. Alcohol does that.
    Mr. Doherty. Potato chips. Okay. And so that would be a 
simple way. Because it is hard to demonize somebody you break 
bread with regularly. It is hard to demonize them.
    Mr. Cleaver. Dr. King did that magnificently. I mean, the 
day before he was assassinated, he had gotten in a big argument 
with Jesse Jackson. And if you go to the Lorraine Motel, one of 
the things you see is that the lunch that Dr. King had ordered 
on the table petrified. And--but he always did it, if he had an 
argument with Shuttlesworth, he said, let's have lunch the next 
day.
    So I do think that it is power, there is power in breaking 
bread together. I don't know we--we rarely ever, ever do that 
unless maybe it is a codel. And that is because this place is 
messed up.
    And so everywhere in America they had lunch except here. I 
mean, you know--you know, you might have two hearings from 
11:00 to 1:00 that run from--so we don't--I mean we do--a lot 
of this, the things we do I think we practiced to do it on 
ourselves--do it to ourselves. I mean we--you know, I have said 
enough about it.
    The Chairman. Go ahead.
    Ms. Ripley. There is so much low-hanging fruit here. I 
mean, the fact that you all don't eat together, ever, is 
astounding to me. Like that seems like a fixable problem. And, 
yeah, it is one of the conditions that leads to good conflict, 
having food together is very basic. Music. Starting a meeting 
with music. Right, like, there is some basic things that are 
just like low-hanging fruit. Right?
    And maybe there can be meals that are influenced by a 
certain region of the country or State. Right? Or ways that you 
are again blurring the lines between Democrat and Republican 
based on something that is real and resonate for people.
    And I would just add that it is not only that it is harder 
to--there is so many benefits. It is not only harder to 
demonize or be mean to someone you have a relationship with, 
that is true. And you know more deeply what is actually--what 
is actually driving them, right?
    So the St. Lucia parrot example, like, you are able to 
figure out what are the words and perspectives that are going 
to resonate with this person because you understand what you 
actually disagree about, which is a huge deal.
    You know, most conflicts are not about the thing we say 
they are about. There is an understory to conflict. So, you 
know, when married couples, right, fight about money, it is 
about a hundred other things, right?
    And there is a million examples of this from people who 
work with couples. But it is never about the thing we fight 
about. So we figure what is it about? And it may take 6 hours 
on flight, but you can get there. So you are able to get more 
done because you know what is actually going on with them, 
really, not just what they are saying.
    And the third benefit of these relationships that is very 
tangible is that you can help when the crises happen, you can 
call them and find out what is actually going on. So the way 
you prevent political violence all over the world, and the U.S. 
has spent a lot of money on this trying to help other countries 
do this, is to have relationships across divide so you can 
snuff out rumors and fake news and false information, and 
disinformation so that things do not escalate very quickly. So 
there is like lots of really--beyond, you know, it is just 
nice. Lots of really good benefits.
    The Chairman. Go ahead, Dr. Grant.
    Mr. Grant. If I could just make one more point before I 
have to exit for my next meeting. I think one of the virtues of 
having a large organization of 435 people is you have lots of 
subcultures. You have lots of different kinds of relationships 
and collaborations represented across Congress.
    And one of the things we often study in psychology is the 
idea that you don't necessarily have to start with the 
problems. In some cases, you can look for the bright spots. The 
pockets of excellence where people are actually trying to make 
progress and advance toward meaningful solutions, I think this 
committee might be an example of that.
    But I would love to see a poll done of Congress of what are 
some of the proudest moments that you have experienced during 
your time here where people actually thought about what was 
good for the country as opposed to their own base, or their 
agenda, or their own party.
    And then as you identify the people that are responsible 
for those moments, some of the practices and habits that have 
driven them, you can begin to crystalize those into values and 
norms, and then spread them into orientation, into training, 
and ideally give the people responsible as well leadership 
roles because they are culture carriers.
    And I think if you find those pockets of excellence, you 
are in a better position then to make sure that they scale 
across the organization. Thank you for having me.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    I feel like that is a good place to stick the landing on 
this hearing.
    With that, I want to thank all of our witnesses for their 
testimony.
    And I would like to thank our committee members for their 
participation.
    I also want to thank our staff for pulling together such 
great witnesses and for securing the Armed Services room. And 
C-SPAN, thanks again.
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit additional written questions for the 
witnesses to the chair, which will be forwarded to the 
witnesses for their response. I ask our witnesses to please 
respond as promptly as you are able.
    And without objection, all members will have 5 legislative 
days within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair 
for inclusion in the record. Phew. With that, we are adjourned. 
Thanks, everybody.
    [Whereupon, at 1:01 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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