Jeff Bingaman — Breakdown: Lessons for a Congress in Crisis - with Dana Milbank

Jeff Bingaman gives a book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

In his thirty-year career representing the citizens of New Mexico in the US Senate, Jeff Bingaman witnessed great things accomplished through the legislative process. He also had a front-row seat for the breakdown of governing norms and the radical increases in polarization and partisanship that now plague what was once called the world's greatest deliberative body. Breakdown: Lessons for a Congress in Crisis traces the development of congressional dysfunction over more than three decades and provides eight case studies that examine how the crisis affects our government's ability to meet major policy challenges. We didn't always have a Senate that failed in its basic public obligations, including catalyzing a robust economy, confronting climate change, improving health care, fixing education, preserving public lands, and avoiding unnecessary wars. We do now.

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Jeff Bingaman served as a US Senator from New Mexico for five terms (1983-2013). A native of Silver City, New Mexico, he attended Harvard College and Stanford Law School. He then joined the US Army Reserve from 1968 to 1974 and was elected as the New Mexico Attorney General from 1979 through 1982. In the Senate he served on the Finance Committee; the Armed Services Committee; the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; the Joint Economic Committee; and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where he served as its chair. Jeff and his wife, Anne, live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Bingaman is in conversation with, Dana Milbank, a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist for the Washington Post. He has also been a contributor to CNN and MSNBC and is the author of the national bestseller The Destructionists, Homo Politicus, Tears of a Clown, O Is for Obama, and Smashmouth. He lives in Washington, DC.

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.