Read the Roll Call article entitled “Outside groups call on Congress to buck the trend and invest in itself” by Justin Papp published in Roll Call on April 9, 2025. The article highlights Jim Townsend’s testimony before the U.S. House Appropriations Committee Legislative Branch Subcommittee.
“James Townsend, a former Michigan state legislator and director of the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University, argued that striving for bipartisan harmony could actually save Congress money.
Creating bipartisan committee websites and authoring bipartisan reports, as well as hiring certain administrative staff on a bipartisan basis, would be simple ways of saving taxpayer dollars and making Congress more efficient, Townsend said.
“Really good oversight and fact-finding work is done on a bipartisan basis because you get a greater breadth of information,” said Townsend. “You get viewpoints coming from different sides, all in pursuit of the facts and trying to reach some consensus on how to move forward.”
