“Working Congress” brings together several retired Congressmen to look at how the current congress works, or doesn’t work. In a series of essays (the individual retirees don’t interact with each others writing) the ex-Congressmen point out flaws in how things are currently done, and make suggestions on how they could be fixed.
Things discussed include gerrymandering of districts, the lack of familiarity between Congressmen of different parties (the viewing them as ‘enemy’), non-representative districts, the lack of middle ground as parties move to the extremes, the lack of compromise and discussion replaced the reliance on a sound bite, the work towards defeating the other party rather than governing, and the continual focus on the next election cycle. Each of these (and others) are discussed, often with examples, quotes and research data to back up the claims, before providing possible solutions.
Some solutions are much more plausible than others, but even if the solutions are not likely to happen (in some cases the horse has bolted and we will never get it back) having the discussion about the issues and the solutions is important. This book creates some great points of discussion.
Narration by Jim Seybert is good and what I would hope for from a non-fiction book. He is clear and well paced, occasionally changing the flow to provide emphasis where the text requires it. He manages to convey the message and the feeling of the written word very well.