Gaius Publius Interviews Alan Grayson: How To Be Effective In a Republican Congress
Alan Grayson is a three-term Democratic congressman from Florida, having just been re-elected in 2012. Grayson is easily the most effective Democrat in Congress, progressive or otherwise, having passed 33 pieces of legislation in the previous House session alone.
In this pre-recorded conversation with Gaius Publius, he reveals how he "cracked the nut" that allows him to get progressive legislation passed. Part of his secret — his goal is to be a person who "gets things done for the progressive movement," not a person who introduces bills and "then does nothing" with them. In the last two weeks of the last Congress alone, for example, he passed 15 progressive amendments.
Grayson discusses what he learned in his one term away from Congress (he lost re-election in 2010); how he deals with Democratic leaders when those leaders want the wrong thing; what he thinks of the current global climate situat
