Welcome to the Politics and Sausage Making!

My name is Mark Strand. I recently retired as the President of the Congressional Institute, where I served from 2007 to 2023. Prior to that, I spent 24 years working on Capitol Hill in both the House and Senate, most recently as Chief of Staff for Senator Jim Talent of Missouri. I am currently an Adjunct Professor of Legislative Affairs at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. I am the author of the book Surviving Inside Congress and was honored to be a 2017 Harvard Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School Institute of Politics.

So, I have been around the block a few times.

Otto Von Bismarck supposedly said, “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” The Politics and Sausage Making blog will enthusiastically violate this maxim by closely examining the procedures, tactics, and strategies that make up the legislative process.

Explaining why Congress does what it does, is important, not only so you can understand how things get done - but, maybe more importantly, why so little is accomplished. I will spend a lot of time looking at ideas to reform Congress and help restore its Article One powers under the Constitution. Every country has a Chief Executive, whether it is a President or Prime Minister, King, Queen or Emperor, or Chairman of the Politburo. But you can only have a democracy if a healthy legislature holds the Executive accountable. Otherwise, you end up with unchecked Executive power, which would take us down the road toward authoritarianism. 

The Sausage Factory was a blog I had as President of the Congressional Institute. I retired in June 2023 and will continue this blog here on Substack as Politics and Sausage Making. I have imported many past articles, some written with my colleague Tim Lang at the Congressional Institute. Hopefully, they will contain helpful information for people who want to see Congress succeed and keep our democracy strong.

I look forward to hearing from you.