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Item Description

Winner will receive Act of Congress: How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't.

An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works—and doesn’t—that
follows the dramatic journey of the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in
response to the Great Crash of 2008.

The founding fathers expected
Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most
power. When Congress is broken—as its justifiably dismal approval ratings
suggest—so is our democracy. Here, Robert G. Kaiser, whose long and
distinguished career at The Washington Post has made him as keen and
knowledgeable an observer of Congress as we have, takes us behind the sound
bites to expose the protocols, players, and politics of the House and
Senate—revealing both the triumphs of the system and (more often) its
fundamental flaws.

 Act of Congress tells the story of the
Dodd-Frank Act, named for the two men who made it possible: Congressman Barney
Frank, brilliant and sometimes abrasive, who mastered the details of financial
reform, and Senator Chris Dodd, who worked patiently for months to fulfill his
vision of a Senate that could still work on a bipartisan basis. Both Frank and
Dodd collaborated with Kaiser throughout their legislative efforts and allowed
their staffs to share every step of the drafting and deal making that produced
the 1,500-page law that transformed America’s financial sector.

Kaiser
explains how lobbying affects a bill—or fails to. We follow staff members more
influential than most senators and congressmen. We see how Congress members
protect their own turf, often without regard for what might best serve the
country—more eager to court television cameras than legislate on complicated
issues about which many of them remain ignorant. Kaiser shows how ferocious
partisanship regularly overwhelms all other considerations, though occasionally
individual integrity prevails.
Act of Congress, as entertaining as it
is enlightening, is an indispensable guide to a vital piece of our political
system desperately in need of reform.

Description and image from Amazon.com.

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