The Rebuild Congress Initiative (RCI) aims to help Congress again fulfill — and be seen and appreciated for fulfilling — its Constitutional role as an independent and co-equal branch of government. That means a Congress able to initiate action, exercise independent judgment on policy, assert its prerogatives (including control of all government spending and any decision to go to war), provide robust oversight of the executive branch and its entire bureaucracy, and generally function as a responsible and responsive deliberative body representing the whole of the electorate. In such a body individual Members should be empowered to bring their full abilities and best judgment to the service of their country and their constituents more than any party, donor, or other interest.
RCI is a collaboration between the Harvard Negotiation Project and Issue One, one of the nation’s leading nonprofit and bipartisan organizations focused on political reform and government ethics that has recruited more than 200 former members of Congress to its bipartisan ReFormers Caucus to advocate on behalf of democracy reform. The Rebuild Congress Initiative is led by HNP Co-Founder and Distinguished Fellow Bruce Patton.
To pursue its objective, RCI is bringing together Members of Congress to explore and develop actionable strategies for addressing the systemic challenges that are preventing Congress as an institution from fulfilling its duties as an independent and coequal branch of our government. The RCI team comes to this effort with no predetermined policy prescriptions. The RCI team is facilitating wide-ranging deliberative sessions with Members from across the political spectrum — from conservatives in the Freedom Caucus to liberals in the Progressive Caucus and all those in between.
For more information, see www.rebuildcongress.org.
