Beginning a brand new job might be intimidating and demanding — what are the unwritten guidelines, whom can I ask for assist? Equally, the primary day of college might be each thrilling and just a little daunting — will I do effectively, the place I’ll sit at lunch? Mix the 2 and you’ve got a way of what newly elected members of Congress are experiencing proper now.
Each two years since 1972, the Institute of Politics tries to ease that transition by inviting first-year lawmakers to Harvard Kennedy College for an intensive three-day briefing about what they’ll count on as soon as they’re sworn into workplace.
This 12 months’s program, held Dec. 8-10, supplied 37 new members from each events a chance to speak to present and former lawmakers and listen to from Harvard college on key home and worldwide coverage subjects together with economics, nationwide safety, and synthetic intelligence. The occasion included an deal with by Kennedy College Dean Jeremy Weinstein, who additionally took questions.
Veteran lawmakers, corresponding to Republican Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Democrat Cheri Bustos of Illinois (who held workplace from 2013 to 2023), offered new members steerage on media protection, efficient messaging, and methods to handle relationships with their new “classmates.”
“One of many issues that was notably essential … was the message that that we heard time and time once more from present and former members concerning the significance of kindness and collegiality towards our colleagues on the opposite aspect of the aisle,” stated Consultant-elect Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat.
The primary brazenly transgender lady elected to Congress, McBride was the main target of nationwide information protection when Home Speaker Mike Johnson modified Home guidelines on the urging of some Republican lawmakers to limit restrooms to organic intercourse.
“Simply as People each single day go into workplaces with individuals with totally different backgrounds and totally different views however discover a technique to work along with kindness and collaboration, we too ought to summon that primary frequent sense and primary frequent decency to work with our colleagues, no matter our occasion affiliation or ideology, in ways in which replicate the type of variety of thought and variety of expertise that we see in workplaces throughout the nation,” stated McBride.
Michael Baumgartner, M.P.A./I.D. ’02, a Republican in Washington state’s fifth district, stated whereas he’s “actually proud” to be an HKS graduate, he was hesitant to publicize that he was attending due to what he known as the College’s “unwelcoming status” on the best relating to conservative viewpoints.
“And so, I used to be actually happy to listen to the dean recommit to viewpoint variety and mental variety and to creating positive that conservative Republicans really feel like they’ve a spot on the Kennedy College, too,” he stated.
Whereas happy with Republican management of Congress and the White Home, Baumgartner famous the occasion’s razor-thin margin within the Home and in addition the short-term nature of political victories.
“So, although we’re going to be in cost this session, it could not all the time be that approach,” he stated. “And I hope a number of the contacts and relationships that I made on the Harvard orientation will likely be useful if within the occasion that we’re not within the majority.”
Consultant-elect Janelle Bynum, a Democrat who flipped a Republican-held seat in Oregon’s fifth district to change into the state’s first Black member of Congress, stated that there have been two panels she discovered “very useful.”
“The primary was the one on AI. That simply spun up plenty of totally different ideas like ethical authority and who will get to take part in that analysis or in that ecosystem; the monetary affect of what’s being developed in AI.
“I’m all the time considering, ‘How can we use a know-how that is probably not being deployed to our profit proper now, however how can we shift that or how can we [get it to] do extra good than it’s doing?” stated Bynum, who additionally credited a discuss polls and Gen Z voters with John Della Volpe, the IOP’s director of polling.
The institute’s director, Setti Warren, stated that fostering bipartisanship is among the convention’s principal aims.
“Bringing individuals from throughout the aisle collectively … is extraordinarily essential to us, giving them a chance to forge relationships in a spot that’s not Washington, D.C.,” he stated.
Requested about her hopes and expectations for the brand new Congress, Bynum stated, “The important thing phrase that has been rising for me is governance. I hope Democrats and Republicans take severely the necessity to govern” relatively than squabbling or attention-seeking.
“Like, do the work.”
