Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress

Hear Maya Kornberg explain how campaign costs, party power, violence, and social media fuel dysfunction in Congress — and how we might fix it.

Why haven’t decades of reform made Congress work better? In her new book, Stuck, political scientist and Brennan Center for Justice Senior Fellow Maya Kornberg examines why waves of idealistic, reform-minded lawmakers — from the post-Watergate class of 1974 to the diverse cohort elected in 2018 — have repeatedly found themselves constrained by Congress’s internal dynamics.

Join the Goldman School of Public Policy for a conversation with Kornberg and Edley Center on Law and Democracy executive director, Catherine E. Lhamon, about how rising campaign costs, centralized party power, political violence, and the pressures of social media have made Congress increasingly inhospitable to change—and what it might take to fix the dysfunction in our nation’s Capitol.

Co-hosted by the Goldman School of Public Policy and UC Berkeley Law’s Edley Center on Law and Democracy.

This event is part of the Goldman School of Public Policy’s Democracy Book Club series, which features authors whose work enriches our understanding of democracy by examining the institutions, policies, and civic traditions that shape democratic life.

RSVP here.