Last week, Congress's newbies attended the biennial prep course at Harvard's Kennedy School to learn all about Washington quirks and public policy.
One seminar caught our attention: "Building Relationships with the Administration and Congressional Leadership." The panel of experts included Katie Beirne Fallon, a former aide to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) who now heads the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.
A White House aide would say only that Fallon discussed "building collaborative relationships between the White House and members of Congress" and provided "practical advice about navigating the White House and administration." (So just repeating the program title. Ever so helpful.)
But we talked to panel moderator Dan Meyer, who had Fallon's job in the George W. Bush administration, about what she advised.
"Katie did a nice job outlining the points of entry," Meyer said. "Keep in context that when there is the dysfunction, it's at the leadership level and there's not a lot of opportunity for newly elected members to engage with the White House on major policy issues."
But Fallon's office is really, as it turns out, a service organization. Each congressional office, regardless of party, is assigned to a member of her team as its point person. "Our advice was make the time to sit down with this person, they can be your point of entry, give them a chance to help you solve your problems," Meyer said. "She was inviting them to have a relationship with these folks."
(If you want to see President Obama, we might suggest hanging around Politics and Prose in case he drops by. Or a local burger joint. Oh, and never let your chief of staff secretly listen in on conversations with him if you ever get that level of access.)
Some on the Hill would argue that the onus is on the president to reach out to Congress, not the other way around.
Our colleague Juliet Eilperin reported last week that the White House knows its only hope of accomplishing anything (that isn't an executive action) in the next two years is to improve relations with the Hill. So Obama is name-dropping lawmakers in public speeches (that's something he had to learn?), and his staff is inviting them to the White House more often and offering use of the presidential box at the Kennedy Center. As any relationship counselor will tell you, it's the little things.
It's a good start, but the White House has six years of tension to knead out. And with members of Congress talking censure and impeachment, it might take more than tickets to see "The Nutcracker" for everyone to suddenly get along.
The panelists also discussed ways lawmakers could work better among themselves. Coming off a campaign where voters decried Washington dysfunction, the newly elected were eager for practical tips on how to improve camaraderie.
They suggested that new members of Congress go to the gym — "It's a great place to meet colleagues," Meyer said. Go to dinner with members of the other party — "The key is to get to know folks." He also suggested going on bipartisan congressional delegations. (Which is fine as long as you remember the Loop rules.)
"A lot of the acrimony comes when you challenge motives," Meyer said. "It's hard to do that when you have a personal relationship."
A vacancy at USAID
Rajiv "Raj" Shah, who as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development coordinated the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, is said to be leaving his post, and chatter has it that the announcement could come this week.
Shah joined the Obama administration almost at the beginning, in April 2009, working first in the Agriculture Department before President Obama nominated him to head USAID at the end of 2009. Before that, he worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Shah, in an interview last month with The Post about dealing with Ebola in Liberia, said he had political aspirations but didn't know what he'd do when he left USAID.
Under Shah, USAID, which has long been criticized for funding projects overseas that don't do what they promised, started leveraging private business and moved away from using U.S. contractors in favor of shoring up local initiatives in the various countries. It's a move that drew both praise and criticism.
"These are nothing but rumors," a USAID spokesman said. "Dr. Shah remains just as committed today to USAID's important work and mission as he was five years ago when he began an ambitious reform agenda that has led to better, faster and more cost-effective solutions to end global poverty on behalf of the American people."
But who's counting?
Former Washington Post columnist James Glassman was roundly derided for a bestseller he co-authored in 1999 called "Dow 36,000," in which he predicted a "wealth explosion" that would send the Dow Jones industrial average, then around 9000, soaring to 36,000 in the next three to five years.
Alas, the Bush recession hit and the Dow fell below 8000 when Barack Obama took office 10 years later. "I was wrong," Glassman acknowledged later in a Wall Street Journal piece.
In a March 2009 interview with our colleague Carlos Lozada, Glassman, asked if he still thought the Dow would hit 36,000, said: "I have no doubt about that. I think that is absolutely true. But I'm not going to tell you what date." (Probably a wise idea.)
We were reminded of the famous prediction when the Dow closed Friday just below 18,000, which means, to all of you who pooh-poohed that book title, we're halfway there. And with job numbers up and gas prices falling below $2 a gallon in some places, the bull market may continue. Took only 15 years to get halfway there, so maybe by 2030?
We asked Glassman to comment on the possibility his prediction may come true. He e-mailed: "Not yet. Ping me in six months when we get to 36,000."
Glassman gave Lozada another rosy prediction, about Iraq. (Glassman worked in the Bush administration as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, a key position in the U.S. "war of ideas" with Muslim extremists.)
"So what has the war in Iraq done for the war of ideas?" Lozada asked him.
"I think ultimately the war in Iraq will be beneficial to the war of ideas," Glassman said, "in the sense that a functioning democracy that we hope will be stable and prosperous now exists in the Middle East, and is showing other nations . . . what a democracy looks like." Well, kinda ugly right now.
Still, in this town, half-right is pretty darn good.
— With Colby Itkowitz
Twitter: @KamenInTheLoop, @ColbyItkowitz
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