Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-272) and index.
Contents:
Foreword: About the authors : two beginnings, one old political hand and one new -- Preface to the second edition -- Preface to the first edition: Outline of The committee -- Hope and change meets the Hill -- Cap-and-trade bill : American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 -- Confronting Waterloo? : the historic moment for health care reform -- A big turn in tobacco road -- From presidential "shakedown" to congressional apology : the politics of committee oversight of BP's Deepwater Horizon crisis -- When ideological fidelity trumps the common good : the politics that ended the grand bargain -- Beyond the historic 111th Congress -- Appendix: Committee on Energy and Commerce major accomplishments of the 111th Congress.
Summary:
"For three years while serving as a senior adviser to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce--one of the most powerful committees in Congress--Bruce C. Wolpe kept a diary, a senior staffer's look at how committees develop and promote legislation. With its insider's view of the rough-and-tumble politics of cap-and-trade, healthcare reform, tobacco, oversight, and the debt ceiling agreement, The Committee uniquely melds the art of politics and policymaking with the theory and literature of political science. The authors engage with the important questions that political science asks about committee power, partisanship, and the strategies used to build winning policy coalitions both in the Committee and on the floor of the House. In this new edition, the authors revisit the relationship between the executive and Congress in the wake of the sweeping changes wrought by the Trump administration, as well as thoughts about how that relationship will change again as President Biden faces a 117th Congress that is strikingly similar to Obama's 111th. The insider politics and strategies about moving legislation in Congress, from internal and external coalition building to a chairman's role in framing policy narratives, will captivate both novice and die-hard readers of politics."--Publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.