Gridlock: Is There a Future for Bipartisanship?

A panel discussion with former Congressmen Barney Frank (Democrat, MA), Dan Lungren (Republican, CA), and Mickey Edwards (Republican, Oklahoma) on the future prospects for bipartisanship in Congress.  Moderated by Professor Nate Persily, Stanford Law School. 

This event is part of the "Ethics of Democracy" series.

Barney Frank is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served sixteen terms for the state of Massachusetts. From 2007-11, he was Chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Frank played a key role in some of the most important legislation in recent American history, most notably the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. He continues to be an outspoken activist for civil rights and sweeping financial reform outside of Congress.

Mickey Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years, serving on the House Budget and Appropriations Committees and as a chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. After leaving Congress he taught for 11 years at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government before moving on first to Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and then back to Washington, DC, as vice president of the Aspen Institute, where he directs a bipartisan fellowship for elected public officials. Among his books are “Reclaiming Conservatism” (2008 by Oxford University Press), and “The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans” (2013 by Yale University Press).

Dan Lungren served nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from California (1979 – 1989 and 2005 – 2013). In the Congress, Lungren was a member of the Judiciary, Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees, serving as ranking Republican or Chairman of the immigration and refugee, crime and cybersecurity subcommittees.  In his last term, he chaired the House Administration Committee.  He was the Republican floor leader for the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform and Control Act, the prime mover of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act and author of the anti-terrorism SAFE Ports Act. Lungren championed the cause of those suffering from human trafficking, helping facilitate a model task force approach that has become a national model.