2013 Breaux Symposium to Take Place in Washington, D.C., Wednesday

BATON ROUGE – The annual LSU John Breaux Symposium will head to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, May 15, for a daylong discussion among former members of Congress and congressional scholars on ways to make Congress work again.
 

This year’s symposium, sponsored by the Manship School’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs, is co-sponsored by the United States Association of Former Members of Congress and George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. The symposium will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the City View Room of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
 

Former U.S. Sen. John Breaux, D-La., will moderate the symposium’s opening session, a discussion of practical ways for Congress to work more cooperatively. That session will include former Senate Majority Leaders Trent Lott, R-Miss. and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.; former Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn.; former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla.; and Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash.
 

“Most agree that Congress is broken and many members have either forgotten or never learned how to transcend party labels and ideology to get things done,” said Robert Mann, director of the Reilly Center. “The purpose of this symposium is to discuss and agree upon a series of practical steps that members, new and old, could take to break through the partisan gridlock.”
 

In addition to the former congressional members, the scholars participating will be:
 

• Susan Herbst, president of the University of Connecticut and author of “Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics.”
• Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University who has served on the staffs of former Sens. Walter F. Mondale, Birch Bayh and Frank Church, and as a senior adviser to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy and former Sen. Chuck Hagel. He is author of several books about Congress including “Friend and Foe in the U.S. Senate.” 
• Brian Fife, a public policy professor at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne and author of “Reforming the Electoral Process in America: Toward More Democracy in the 21st Century.”
• Frances E. Lee, professor of American politics at the University of Maryland and author of “Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate.”

For more information about the symposium, contact Tara Brown in the LSU Reilly Center at thamme1@lsu.edu or Dava Guerin at the United States Association of Former Members of Congress at 215-262-9020.