Stuck, Stuck, Stuck, Stuck: Maya Kornberg on Congress as a Four-Alarm Fire

[00:00] Andrew Keen: Hello, my name is Andrew Keen. Welcome to Keen On America, the daily interview show about the United States. Hello everybody. It seems that America is stuck—S-T-U-C-K. Almost exactly a year ago, back in late February of 2025, did an interview with the Atlantic writer, Yoni Applebaum, about how America is stuck in a crisis of immobility. Back then he had a book out—it's been a very popular, influential book called Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. It's a critique of the problems with housing and real estate in the United States. And America, a year later, remains stuck. A year later, there's a new book out with the same title, Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress. It’s by my guest today, Maya Kornberg. Maya, before we get into Congress, can we address this issue of "stuckness," if there's such a word? I'm sure you're familiar with the Applebaum book. Is everything in America stuck? Not just Congress and real estate, but so many aspects of life? Of course, it's an issue that Ezra Klein writes about in his new book about abundance.

[01:21] Maya Kornberg: Certainly. I mean, I think the fact that both Yoni and I chose this title is telling. I think a lot of people feel that our democracy is stuck—that it is not delivering for ordinary Americans. And we've seen that in so many of the recent election campaigns and social movements that have sprung up. People want the system to work better. And so my book is an attempt to look backwards in order to chart a course forwards, to understand how we got here, how we became so stuck, and to figure out how we can unstick Congress in particular in the case of my book.

[02:04] Andrew Keen: So many other books have been written on this subject. Another book that's been very influential recently is Marc Dunkelman’s Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress and How to Bring It Back. Dunkelman was also on the show—interesting character from Brown University. All you analysts, all you observers, seem to have fallen on the same theme at the same time. I know your day job is at the Brennan Center for Justice; you're a senior fellow there. Why do you think everyone has woken up to this same problem at the same time in America?

[02:40] Maya Kornberg: Well, you know, I think that the books that you mentioned get at this same underlying feeling from different angles. So I can't speak to how they got there, but I can tell you that I've spent my entire career focused on how to make democracy work better for the people that it's meant to serve. And I think that this is a four-alarm fire for our democracy. And so in the fight for the future of our democracy, I think that there is a sense of urgency now. It's not that everything worked terrifically before. I'm a historical institutionalist; I've looked at Congress over the course of several centuries, and certainly it has not always functioned effectively. But right now, I think with everything we're seeing—with the executive abuse of power, with the threats to the future of our democracy—the title Stuck, the feeling, I think it's a sense of urgency and a call to action to take this situation seriously and to figure out a way to fix it.

[03:49] Andrew Keen: Maya, it seems to me as if you drew the short straw in life by studying Congress. Your last book—and please don't be insulted by this—sounds incredibly boring. It's called Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process. You're a smart woman, you got a PhD from Oxford. Why did you decide to dedicate much of your professional intellectual life to the study of Congress? Am I being unfair? Is it not incredibly boring?

[04:20] Maya Kornberg: Well, you know, I certainly agree with you and see that it is not the most popular institution. I mean, you don't have to look far to see that. All the polling shows how unpopular it is. The reason that I have dedicated my life to studying Congress, working with Congress, figuring out a way to make it work better is because it is the people's branch. I believe that it is the lynchpin of American democracy and the branch of government that is most in tune with people, most connected to the people, and that is why I'm excited to study it. And to your earlier point about my first book, though the title—I take your point—doesn't do it any favors...

[05:14] Andrew Keen: No, I don't mean to be too unkind. I'm sure it's a brilliant book, it's just got a terribly boring title.

[05:19] Maya Kornberg: Point taken. You know, I think the committee processes seem mundane to people, but what the point that I try to make frequently to people is that these processes matter. They matter. I think frequently what we see in the newspaper is just the most sexy, salacious thing that's happening with Congress, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you really want to understand an institution and how to fix it, you have to drill down. You have to look at the day-to-day. You have to look at, as I did in my first book, the legislative concord that bills go through the passage—that’s the committee process. You have to look at Congress 50 years back, how it got here, how we can move forward. That's my current book. And though my work is on Congress, it is a much broader message about what's wrong with our democracy. You know, the subtitle of my new book is How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change. Those are pervasive issues across American institutions, and so Congress for me is just a microcosm that I can look at that can speak to much larger distortions in our democracy and how we can fix them.

[06:33] Andrew Keen: Yeah, and we'll get to the money, the media, and the violence in a few minutes. In the Dunkelman book, Dunkelman is sort of ambivalently nostalgic about Robert Moses, the great urban planner of New York, of course the subject of Robert Caro's masterpiece, The Power Broker. Do you have equivalents of Robert Moses in Congress? Tip O'Neill, LBJ... when you think about Congress, do you look back to find congressmen—of course they tended to be men—who actually made a difference, who weren't stuck?

[07:11] Maya Kornberg: Certainly. So, I mean, first, obviously I've read all of Robert Caro's books, including his books about LBJ, who was obviously a monumental figure in Congress. This book is based on conversations with dozens of former and current members of Congress, and it really showcases their work, their voices, and their strategies to be effective reformers. And so I look at, for example, folks like Henry Waxman, who was in Congress for four decades and who I would describe as a congressional chameleon of sorts. He figured out how to navigate the system in a way that allowed him to—to really make the tobacco industry accountable, to pass monumental health and environmental legislation, to get things done in the 80s even when he was working in a Congress where, you know, the Reagan administration was very much against many of the things that he was trying to push forward. So again, folks like that, folks who understand how to navigate the system in a savvy way and move forward their agenda and deliver for their constituents—those are folks that I think that we can learn from. And again, you don't have to look only to the past; I also showcase current members like Andy Kim, like Lauren Underwood, people who came to Congress recently. Lauren Underwood, another example, comes to Congress in 2018 at a time when it's an extremely centralized and leadership-driven body, and understands that if she's going to move forward maternal healthcare legislation—which matters a lot to her, having lost a friend who died several weeks after giving birth—she needs to partner with a senior member in a leadership-driven house. And so she and Alma Adams start the Black Maternal Health Caucus. To me, this is just yet another example of understanding to work within the current system, understanding how you navigate it in order to push forward an agenda that matters to you. So I think that there are countless examples of that both in Congress and in the book, and that gives me hope that we can move forward and that there is always room to move Congress—it is shaped and reshaped by these people, by these reformers.

[09:56] Andrew Keen: You mentioned Henry Waxman as one of your models, and then Lauren Underwood, a more recent congresswoman from Illinois's 14th Congressional District. They're both Democrats. Is this a bipartisan issue? I know you also cover some Republicans like Phil English. Is the vitality, potentially at least, is it as evident on the Republican side as it is on the Democratic side?

[10:24] Maya Kornberg: I mean, certainly you're right that the two examples that I gave are Democrats, but the book explores different kinds of waves of reformers that came to Congress, including the class of '94, the Republican Revolution. They came to Congress after the Democrats had controlled the House for 40 years and really shook things up. They campaigned on "Change" campaigns, on wanting to fix Congress with the "Contract with America." So this is definitely something that is bipartisan, both in terms of members who've had impacts on the institution and members who've understood how to work the institution. You know, Newt Gingrich, obviously a notorious member who I talk about in this book and my first book, is someone who, though many may not agree with all the changes that he made in Congress, really left a stamp. I mean, he gutted congressional support agencies, he changed the way that committee processes work. He came in and he made a lot of the changes to the institution that he sought to make when he became Speaker. And again, he did this, I think, by understanding the institution and how to change it. And that's the point, and there's members from both sides who are able to do this, and I think that's what it takes to be a savvy reformer.

[11:51] Andrew Keen: The Economist recently ran an interesting but rather depressing series of pieces on the misery of being an American legislator. They had one piece about the "crummiest job in Washington: Congressman is getting worse." I'm curious, firstly, do you agree that it's one of the crummiest jobs? I'm sure there are worse jobs, of course; clearly cleaning the bathrooms is significantly worse. But firstly, is it true that these are pretty miserable jobs? And secondly, are most of the Congress people that you talked to—I mean, you clearly have access on both sides of the aisle—are they miserable? Are they frustrated? Do they regret choosing this career, if it is indeed a career?

[12:37] Maya Kornberg: So, I think that one of the things that the book speaks to is that this is one of the hardest moments in modern history to be in Congress. And that is because of all of these distortions that have made it this way. Members of Congress now have to contend with just astronomical campaign costs because of Buckley v. Valeo in the 70s, because of the Citizens United decision in 2010. The way in which money has flooded campaigns has shifted pathways to power in Congress. So now, not only do they have to constantly worry about fundraising for their campaign, they have to pay what's called "dues" to the party, basically pay to get onto good committees, to get onto leadership positions. It's a pay-to-play system even in Congress. So I've had members tell me, "I spend every mealtime making fundraising calls." Think about how miserable that must be. They just can't manage to do everything that they need to do in their job, which is in and of itself very demanding, and constantly fundraise at the same time. So there's that piece of it. Then they have to contend with the fact that they are facing record-high threats and violence against them and their families. I mean, we've all seen the headlines about the tragic assassinations of Minnesota lawmaker—of political activist Charlie Kirk, of attacks on members of Congress like Ilhan Omar at town halls. This has unfortunately become the new normal. The U.S. Capitol Police just released a report showing that last year, yet again, the numbers of threats against members of Congress rose, after several years where it's just been rising and rising and rising. And so this is a scary and draining reality to be faced with. And we are seeing many retirements from Congress. And so while I can't speak to people's subjective experiences of the job, I think that the retirements speak to this—they speak to what a grind it is. And for members who came to Congress to make change, to deliver for their constituents, it's equally, I think, disheartening to come to Congress and see that, you know, as a rank-and-file member right now, it's very difficult to push things forward. You have a leadership-driven house where party leaders are sitting down with lobbyists, writing a bill—and obviously this is not the case every time, but in all too many instances that's how it happens. Then the bills are just pushed down, bypassing this kind of "Schoolhouse Rock" version of how a bill becomes a law where you go to committee, you get to deliberate on it, and then you vote. It's pushed straight to a vote in some instances without them even having a chance to read the legislation. And so that to me is just yet another obstacle that they face. So they are fundraising day in and day out, facing threats and violence, and...

[15:53] Andrew Keen: And of course, this comes to the subtitle of your book: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress. You've already talked a little bit about money. You wrote an interesting piece for The Hill late last year; "In a Congress Full of Millionaires, Raising Money Becomes the Job" was the headline. Does that mean, really, that the only people who can have successful careers in Congress are people who already have money, and "paying for play" doesn't really involve a lot of sacrifice?

[16:25] Maya Kornberg: Unfortunately, I think that that's a reality that we have to reckon with right now. One of the things that I argue for in the book is a pay raise for members of Congress. Now, this might not be a popular policy given how unpopular, as you mentioned earlier in our conversation, Congress is right now. But Congress has not received a pay raise in 15 years, even the COLA adjustments, the inflation raises, they have not received. And so they have a salary of $174,000 and they have to maintain—in many cases—two residences now, because unlike in the 90s when they all used to live in Washington, they don't do that anymore. They're maintaining two residences, they, you know, are facing just a tremendous workload. And many of them have to support families, have to support medical bills, have to support all the things that a person needs to...

[17:29] Andrew Keen: I take your point on the pay raise. In fact, I've heard similar arguments about Members of Parliament in the UK. How much does a Congress person get, and does the money go up if you've been there longer? In other words, are they incentivized to stay longer and longer, or did Pelosi get the same amount as a first-term Congress person?

[17:51] Maya Kornberg: So, members of Congress get the same salary.

[17:56] Andrew Keen: How much is it?

[17:58] Maya Kornberg: $174,000 in the House.

[18:01] Andrew Keen: Which to some Americans—I mean, I'm out here in Silicon Valley, that's not a lot of money—but to some Americans in the Midwest, that's a lot of money.

[18:11] Maya Kornberg: Certainly. And you know, The New York Times just had a really interesting—this was a few years ago—but an interesting series of exit interviews with members, and they talk about pay raises. And some members who represent poorer rural communities say, "How can I come back to my constituents where the average salary is $30,000 a year and say I deserve more money, I'm earning 174?" But the reality is D.C., like the Bay Area, like other parts of the country, is extremely expensive. And so that's what you have to reckon with right now is the reality that they're faced with and the cost of living in the city that they work.

[18:56] Andrew Keen: Speaking of other expensive parts of the country, you're in Brooklyn near Park Slope. Second part of the problem you argue is media. You yourself, I think, have some experience of this. You ran recently in a Park Slope City Council campaign and you got involved in the third rail of American politics: Gaza and Israel. Is there a bigger, broader cultural problem, Maya, in America that some subjects just can't be discussed? I mean, obviously Gaza-Palestine-Israel is a particularly difficult one which I'm guessing most Congress people don't have to address. But there's the Trump issue, there's MAGA, there's immigration. Is the problem in a broad—I take your point on the money—but is the problem also broader in a cultural sense? It goes beyond media, or perhaps media is just a mirror on American society.

[19:53] Maya Kornberg: No, you know, thank you for mentioning that because it's something that I definitely experienced first-hand as a recent candidate myself. And I think that we see on a larger scale in Congress. You know, in my recent Council campaign, you know, it's the New York City Council, it is not the State Department, and I actually made a point of saying I want to talk about local topics. I'm running because I have a child in daycare and it is extremely hard to afford to raise a family here. I'm running because I want us to be able to empower city governments to stand up to the, you know, the tremendous abuses of power that we're seeing on a national scale. And yet the media latches onto whatever the most salacious angle was. And so despite my best efforts to not make a local City Council campaign about kind of some sort of foreign policy State Department conversation, which is not the reason that I was running...

[21:03] Andrew Keen: And it even got into your big local newspaper, The New York Times, which is quite an achievement; you must be half-proud, half-horrified by that.

[21:12] Maya Kornberg: Well, The New York Times, I think, is a great example because they want to connect local races to broader national stories. And that's not always the story when you're thinking about a local race. And so again to tie it back to Congress and some of what I write about in the book, the media latches onto the most salacious angle, right? And so there's a tendency to create these soundbite moments. If you want to get their attention, if that's your goal, then you're going to necessarily be prioritizing spectacle over actual policy making. So I have a chapter in the book called "Kings and Prophets." And it's about the use of social media in Congress. And it makes the point that, to circle back to what I was saying earlier, many members right now of Congress do not have the power that they once had when you look back at the class of '74 as I do at the beginning of my book...

[22:20] Andrew Keen: This was the post-Watergate class.

[22:22] Maya Kornberg: Yes, exactly, the "Watergate babies" as they're known. Right now, if you look at members who are coming to Congress, they don't have the power to drive legislation that they once had. So what they can do is become "prophets," as I call it, and they have the power of the megaphone. And they can take a soundbite from a hearing and use it to fundraise, and use it to get attention, and use it to campaign. But what are going to be the most clickbaity moments? It's going to be on these hot-button issues. And so to tie it back, you know, you mentioned Gaza-Israel-Palestine—that’s one hot-button issue, certainly, that's clickbaity, and that sells newspapers, and there are others. And so I think we have to think seriously about a system that incentivizes just the most salacious kind of clickbait moments.

[23:14] Andrew Keen: And speaking of salaciousness, we haven't brought up the T-word yet: Trump. When it comes to salacious spectacle, he's a master. I wonder what you make of the recent Trump-Marjorie Green standoff. I think many people were surprised that Green took such an aggressive stance against Trump and he pushed back, and of course now she's announced she's leaving Congress. What does that tell us? Is Trump himself a product of the "stuckness" of Congress, or is he the cause of it, or a little bit of both? And how does this play into the whole Marjorie Taylor Green episode? I mean, she seems to me—I'm not particularly keen on her politics—but she has the energy, I would guess, of a reformer, perhaps like that class of '74, the Watergate class.

[24:08] Maya Kornberg: Well, she certainly knows how to get attention and have a brand, I would say, like other prophets, and make a statement. As does Donald Trump; that's the world that he comes from. He does not come from the world of Congress. Unlike presidents like LBJ and so many others who were able to effectively work with Congress because they had actual legislative experience, he does not. And so I think, to your point, you know, I am most concerned about the kind of—not necessarily whether or not Trump is a product or not; I actually think he's less a product of Congress than many other presidents who at least came through Congress. I'm more concerned with how Congress can stand up to him as a brand. We are seeing right now, as we've seen before in American history—with FDR, with Nixon, with others—a president that is pushing the bounds of executive overreach, and we need a Congress that can stand up to him and be trying to reclaim power of the purse, reclaim war powers, reclaim these essential congressional authorities that the president is usurping.

[25:32] Andrew Keen: As we speak, Maya, the Supreme Court has announced they've made a ruling on Trump's tariffs, which I don't think he's going to be particularly happy about. How's the Supreme Court, and perhaps other branches of government you haven't mentioned—the Senate either—have they stepped into the vacuum? Have they acquired the powers or implicitly, at least, the responsibilities of Congress as Congress becomes stuck?

[26:01] Maya Kornberg: So what we have seen over the past few decades is Congress ceding power to the executive. According to a recent stat, also Congress now has 120 times less funding than the executive. The president plays a much larger role in things like budget negotiations than presidents once did. And of course Trump accelerated this process with his impoundments, as they're known—fundraising freezes, refusing to disburse funds that Congress had already appropriated in many cases. So this is, I think, a decades-long process. And as I mentioned, it is, I think, a direct result of the fact that Congress is not resourced to stand up. Same with war powers. Congress constitutionally has the right to declare war, and yet it hasn't since World War II. And we've seen Trump now accelerate this process, you know, with recent attacks on Iran, on Venezuela, that were conducted without congressional approval. And so again, this is a decades-long process that Trump is accelerating, where Congress is ceding power because it does not have the resources to stand up, because it is stuck, and the executive is just filling the void. And so that is what the book speaks to; it speaks to the urgency especially right now, where we have Trump in the White House and threats to the future of our democracy—the urgency of Congress strengthening itself and standing up right now.

[27:43] Andrew Keen: That urgency, of course, everyone talks about in terms of Trump; some people believe he's in the business of destroying American democracy. But there are others, particularly out here in Silicon Valley, who believe that a longer-term threat to American democracy is Big Tech. You wrote an interesting piece for Slate a couple of years ago about how Congress is woefully unprepared to regulate tech. Do you think in 20, 50 years when we look back at this period and the failure of Congress to assert itself, that perhaps Trump might be a footnote whereas the big story will be Big Tech and particularly AI? Does that particularly concern you, Congress's failure to stand up to Big Tech, to the Googles and the OpenAIs of the world?

[28:31] Maya Kornberg: Yes, I mean, I think that's terrifying. In the book I talk about social media also as a vector for abuse for members and the desperate need to regulate social media. The piece that you mentioned in Slate, I argue for Congress to reorganize its committee system so that it finally has a committee to regulate the tech industry.

[29:00] Andrew Keen: Which seems like a—sorry to jump in here, Maya—it seems like a no-brainer. Why wouldn't they have a special...

[29:06] Maya Kornberg: Well, it seems like it should be a no-brainer, but I think you'd be surprised to hear that in the House they haven't reorganized committee jurisdictions since the early 70s before the internet existed. That's how, you know, stuck we're talking here. How are you going to regulate an American economy that has changed so dramatically over the past 50 years if you don't have committees that are organized in a way that allows you to do that? So what we see right now, and we saw this at various hearings on social media, is that half the Senate is in a hearing questioning Mark Zuckerberg. When everyone's responsible for something, then no one is responsible—we know that from any organization. Things fall through the cracks. You need a group that's responsible, you need professional staff, you know, that are working with them, you need an organized kind of body that is in charge of this. And we don't see that for tech. So that, paired with the tremendous power of the tech lobby and everything that I mentioned earlier about the distorting power of money and of course the distorting power of lobbying in general, has created I think an untenable situation. And so again, as with Congress and the future of our democracy, it could not be more urgent to handle this. I think that there are glimmers of hope; we've seen the recent court hearings and news about the different ways that social media is starting to be held accountable for its detrimental effects on young people. But certainly more needs to be done, and certainly Congress needs to rise to the occasion and organize itself to take action.

[30:54] Andrew Keen: Yeah, it's astonishing that the committees weren't reorganized—well, were last time reorganized was before anyone even knew what email was or the internet. We have a book coming up later this year by the Yale academic, Samuel Moyn, called Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Power and Wealth and What to Do About It. You mentioned Henry Waxman, who is no longer in office. When we think of this so-called gerontocracy, we often think of Congress, particularly somebody like Nancy Pelosi. How problematic is this gerontocracy in Congress? On the one hand you say people are quitting because the job's so miserable, but on the other hand people still think that most Congress people are part of this reactionary gerontocracy in America, whether it's on the left or the right, whether it's Pelosi or Republicans.

[31:54] Maya Kornberg: I mean, certainly we have a Congress where gerontocracy is an issue. When you have a House where the average age is late 50s and in the Senate it's even older, average age in the 60s, that is not representative of the American population. Of course there's many other ways in which Congress is not yet descriptively representative of the American population, even though we've been seeing increasingly diverse Congresses over the past several years. And so when you have that, of course it is problematic to say that you have a body that actually represents people. Now, I think part of the reason that you have that is again, it's an issue of access. Running for office is extremely expensive and there are many barriers to doing it. As you mentioned I recently ran and I was fortunate to be running in a city where there is small donor public financing. Ninety percent of my campaign was funded by small donors, and the city has a program where it matches these donations. Things like that allow council members, allow candidates, allow members of Congress—if we were to implement it on a national scale—to focus on constituents, to focus on other things rather than fundraising. I didn't have to spend all my time fundraising because of the public financing and matching system. And so if we did something like this on a national scale, I think that that could help. But right now we have a system where just the barrier of the amount of money that you would have to raise is prohibitive for many people, and I think particularly for groups that have less access to wealth in the United States—for women, for communities of color, for working-class Americans, and for young Americans. You're going to see it be much harder to run for Congress so you shouldn't be surprised that who's in Congress are older, whiter, and more wealthy than many of the people that they represent.

[34:16] Andrew Keen: Speaking of women and whiteness, you wrote a piece a couple of years ago for Newsweek arguing that there are more chairmen named Mike than women committee leaders in Congress. Is this another part of the problem of why we're stuck—not enough women in Congress? Do they get stuff done? Probably the most famous Congress person these days is AOC, a hero to many on the left, a great enemy to people on the right, but certainly a memorable person in either context.

[34:52] Maya Kornberg: So there's a lot of focus on getting more women elected, which as I mentioned there's a pipeline problem and I think we need to be thinking about that. And we also need to be thinking about pipelines to building power for women once they are elected. And that's what I talk about in that piece and in my book. So when you have a system where, for example, you have to pay to get onto certain committees and you have to pay to get to leadership positions, then women who, as I mentioned, face fundraising challenges—we know that they're more likely to raise money from small donors, we know that they're more likely to face different barriers in fundraising—you're going to see those same barriers manifest when it comes to leadership positions. And that's just one of many obstacles that are faced. So at the time that I wrote that Newsweek piece a few years ago, it was indeed true that you had more chairmen named Mike in Congress than women committee leaders. And that should matter to us because committee leadership positions do allow you to push forward your agenda and have power in a way that would elevate not just women legislators but also the communities that they represent more broadly. So I think that we need to be thinking about how Congress as an institution, once people get there and are elected, can actually be empowering in an equitable way different communities to rise to leadership positions.

[36:26] Andrew Keen: More Mayas in other words than Mikes in future. Finally, Maya—maybe one day you will find yourself in Congress; that would be the ultimate irony, paradox, probably the final punishment of the gods for you for spending your life studying this thing. We did a show last week with Hélène Landemore, very influential political theorist at Yale University, who has given up on the central institutions of government: Congress, even the courts and the presidency. She's committed her career to going back to more direct forms of democracy, particularly citizen assemblies. And they've become increasingly popular. What's your take on this citizen assembly fashion these days for people who have become more and more pessimistic about Congress? Can they go hand-in-hand, or could Landemore have a point and that citizen assemblies for better or worse in the 21st century are an alternative to the profound dysfunctionality of Congress?

[37:34] Maya Kornberg: So I would argue that they can and should go hand-in-hand. I am familiar not just with Hélène and with citizen assemblies but also with so many other examples of deliberative democracy and ways to bring citizens into the legislative process. And you have examples of that around the world of citizens being allowed to offer comments on bills more directly, which you don't have here in the committee process. On deliberative forums where citizens can gather and make their voices heard, we saw this in France, we've seen this in Ireland, we've seen this in other instances, and it allows government to then be more responsive to citizen concerns. So I think that I would love to see a Congress where there are more channels for citizens to get involved, where there are more ways for them to—beyond flying to Washington and testifying at a hearing—to say, "This is what I think." Part of the issue that we have right now in Congress is that originally when Congress started, members were representing a few tens of thousands of constituents. Now they're representing nearly a million constituents, and yet we have not increased the number of members of the House, and certainly not in the Senate. And so you don't only do not have direct representation, you have very few ways for them to make their voices heard in the process or get in touch with their member. So I'd love to see more open committee hearing processes, more ways for citizens to send in their concerns, to send in comments on legislation, for more ways for citizens to get involved. That to me is something we can learn from different examples around the world and a way that we can bring in so much of the goodness and the benefit of these direct democracy practices into a representative democracy system that we have and that I believe in.

[39:46] Andrew Keen: We have a book coming up later this year by the Yale academic, Samuel Moyn, called Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Power and Wealth and What to Do About It. You mentioned Henry Waxman, who is no longer in office. When we think of this so-called gerontocracy, we often think of Congress, particularly somebody like Nancy Pelosi. How problematic is this gerontocracy in Congress? On the one hand you say people are quitting because the job's so miserable, but on the other hand people still think that most Congress people are part of this reactionary gerontocracy in America, whether it's on the left or the right, whether it's Pelosi or Republicans.

[40:26] Maya Kornberg: I mean, certainly we have a Congress where gerontocracy is an issue. When you have a House where the average age is late 50s and in the Senate it's even older, average age in the 60s, that is not representative of the American population. Of course there's many other ways in which Congress is not yet descriptively representative of the American population, even though we've been seeing increasingly diverse Congresses over the past several years. And so when you have that, of course it is problematic to say that you have a body that actually represents people. Now, I think part of the reason that you have that is again, it's an issue of access. Running for office is extremely expensive and there are many barriers to doing it. As you mentioned I recently ran and I was fortunate to be running in a city where there is small donor public financing. Ninety percent of my campaign was funded by small donors, and the city has a program where it matches these donations. Things like that allow council members, allow candidates, allow members of Congress—if we were to implement it on a national scale—to focus on constituents, to focus on other things rather than fundraising. I didn't have to spend all my time fundraising because of the public financing and matching system. And so if we did something like this on a national scale, I think that that could help. But right now we have a system where just the barrier of the amount of money that you would have to raise is prohibitive for many people, and I think particularly for groups that have less access to wealth in the United States—for women, for communities of color, for working-class Americans, and for young Americans. You're going to see it be much harder to run for Congress so you shouldn't be surprised that who's in Congress are older, whiter, and more wealthy than many of the people that they represent.

[43:08] Andrew Keen: Finally, Maya, we of course have the midterms coming up in November. You're clearly not someone who sees these in purely partisan terms. What, in terms of your argument in Stuck, what would you like most of all to come out of these midterms? Is it conceivable that we'll get a new class of Watergate-style babies or Tea Party babies who will be energized to change everything, or are you less ambitious? What is the most realistic hope in terms of your broader argument in Stuck for the upcoming midterms?

[43:52] Maya Kornberg: Yeah, so when you look at times in history when people were able to unstick such a sticky institution, it is those times when there was broad public frustration and a kind of a wave of new reformers who came in. Obviously I am not a psychic; I don't know what will happen yet in the midterms, and things change very quickly in political campaigns. But if we do indeed have another wave come in as a result of kind of similar widespread frustration to what we saw in Watergate, to what we saw in 1994, in 2018, and so many other moments, then there will be a moment to harness this to make those institutional changes that Congress needs, to pass campaign finance reform, to be making changes that make members and their families and their staff more safe in the face of political violence, to be resourcing Congress and organizing it in a way where it can regulate tech, in a way where it is ready to do those things. So my hope is that if there is indeed a new wave of reformers, that they can—just as we saw in Watergate and in other classes—kind of learn from that and harness that collective power and that energy to really unstick this institution that is not working as effectively as it could.

[45:26] Andrew Keen: There you have it—we’re stuck. Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress. It's out already, by Maya Kornberg, but she's in the business of unsticking it. I hope you're successful, Maya. Thank you so much for having me—for chatting today.

[45:46] Maya Kornberg: Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat today.

[45:49] Andrew Keen: Hi, this is Andrew again. Thank you so much for listening or watching the show. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe. We're on Substack, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all the places. And I'd be very curious as to your comments as well on what you think of the show, how it can be improved, and the kinds of guests that you would enjoy hearing or listening to in future. Thank you again.