One Year in DC

Some things I've learned

I graduated college a year ago today and moved down to DC.

What a year it has been. Within months of arriving, Republicans secured a trifecta and ideas I cared about suddenly had room to move. With the release of GPT-4 and successive models, the AI boom elevated energy policy in Washington, while the budget reconciliation fight has thrust tax credits and loan programs into the spotlight. One way or another, I’ve ended up working on each of these fronts.

So, at the risk of navel-gazing, I thought I'd share a few things I've learned from one very lively year in The Swamp. Feel free to suggest your own ideas in the comments, or tell me which of my takes you hate the most.

1. There's No Efficient Market For Policy

There can be a huge problem that nobody is working on; that is not evidence that it's not a huge problem. Conversely, there can be a marginal problem swamped with policy work; that's not evidence it's really all that big of a deal.

On the upside, this means there are never-ending arbitrage opportunities in policy. Pick your workstreams wisely.

2. Personnel Really Is The Most Important Thing

The quality of staffers varies dramatically and can make or break policy efforts. Some Hill staffers are just awesome; if they like your idea, they'll take it and run with it, try to find the right cosponsors, understand where it fits procedurally, etc. Other staffers have absolutely no idea what's going on.

Staff quality doesn't always align with the Member's profile. The quality of staffers is lightly, not strongly correlated with the quality of the Member. In general, the Speaker, Majority Leader, and Minority Leader have a lot of talent on staff. But a particularly capable Member doesn't necessarily have the most standout staffers. As a result, you'll often hear that the Member is out ahead of his/her staff, or vice versa.

Staff should be paid more. The lifers know a lot and should really have a bigger team to process everything properly. The best staffers need to be able to handle both technical details and Hill politics—a difficult combination that deserves better compensation.

3. The Hill Is Not For Wonking

The conventional think tank model of Hill engagement is ineffective. It often looks like someone presenting a scholar to a staffer and saying, "Hello, here is a person who knows things." That approach rarely works. You’re pitching yourself, not your white paper.

The think tank ecosystem can be an echo chamber. If you want your ideas to succeed, you should, for the most part, not be focused on coordinating with other think tanks – you should be focused on industry groups, staffers, trades, etc. instead.

Optimize for impact, not panel invites. This may seem obvious, but this is not how most (c)(3)s are set up. Many large think tanks conceive of themselves as a "university without students," instead of a policy shop engaging with day-to-day policymaking. Others want to be a convening organization, spending resources on capital-C Conversations between capital-E Experts in Congress. And at an individual level, many think tankers simply do not like taking Hill meetings. There’s nothing wrong with this – but it is not a great strategy for driving policy change.

Always have draft text. Also, always have a 1-pager. But if there's an idea that you want a staffer to take seriously, you should write it up as mock legislation.

Think tanks can be cool, actually. Think tanks provide more freedom than lobbying firms. The pay may be (a lot) worse, but being able to chart out the policy lifecycle from idea to enactment allows you to pass your ideas into law, not your client’s.

4. There's Alpha In Doing Boring Stuff

My colleague Lars Schönander has had enormous policy success because he sends hundreds (thousands?) of FOIA requests to state and local governments to track malign foreign influence over critical infrastructure. Much of his success comes from being willing to spend hours every day emailing FOIAs to places like the San Jose Port Authority.

Similarly, my summer and early fall were spent on phone lines with state departments of environmental quality, tracking their use of flexible permits. It was objectively soul-destroying work; it also led to an executive order, a bill being enacted into law, and several other bills being introduced.

5. Self-Interest Is Complicated

A lot of powerful companies have no idea how to advocate for themselves in DC. Some of the hyperscalers simply don't lobby, as a rule. Much of the energy industry didn't organize on the IRA fight until late February for a variety of reasons too lengthy to spell out here. And many companies defer to certain public affairs shops or law firms to tell them what's happening, despite the fact that these intermediaries are often completely wrong.

Companies care more about comparative advantage than overall benefit. In general, Company X would rather have a marginal gain and see Company Y take a big loss than have a significant gain and see Company Y also benefit.

People and organizations are territorial. You can be totally aligned on policy, but if you're new on the block or represent a threat to an organization's preeminence, there will often be attempts to freeze you out. That's normal, and you kind of just have to accept it.

Most people in DC do actually believe in something. Contrary to popular belief, most people on the Hill are more motivated by ideology than cash flow.

6. State-Level Policymaking Is Its Own World

State legislators are, generally speaking, true civil servants who want to introduce laws. They're also overworked, part-time, and have no research support. That means they need help.

With technical policy like permitting reform, finding the right champion is crucial. Because state legislators rarely have staffers, you need to find a legislator who fully understands the bill they're introducing.

The policy ecosystem at the state level can be messy. Lobbyists are often allowed on the floor during votes. In some states, the entire legislature is effectively owned by one company. And lots of state think tanks are not particularly effective, with some exceptions (shoutout to the Frontier Institute in Montana).

7. Some Thoughts On Communication

You should tweet, actually. It's still the public square. I've secured interviews, made some of my closest friends, and generally gotten my name out there because of Twitter. If you can teach yourself how to tweet and handle online criticism, you should absolutely spend time on the platform.

Good writing still matters. AI may be getting very good, but the best Claude output still doesn't match the best human writing. If you want to communicate your ideas well, LLMs aren't yet good enough, in my opinion.

AI is very helpful, but only if you know your domain. LLMs can be a great assistant for drafting legislation, for example. But if you don't know what you don't know, you'll end up creating something with basic misunderstandings of how the law works. If you then hand that off to a Legislative Counsel... yikes.

8. Miscellanea

Procedure is more important than policy. It doesn't matter how good your idea is if you don't understand the fine-grained details of how bills make their way through Congress: the committees, the markups, the Rules, etc. Also, most people can't count to 60. The filibuster giveth and the filibuster taketh away.

Most people do not have a good rank order of issues by importance. It’s surprisingly difficult to differentiate between a fundamental change and a flash in the pan that doesn't really mean anything.

The system is more legible than people think.

A lot of numbers in politics are… questionable. The Joint Committee on Taxation doesn't do net present value calculations; the Congressional Budget Office can be pressured to change baseline assumptions. Budget math is many things, but pure math it is not.

The conservative welfare state is real. There is such a thing as a free lunch and it’s served daily on Massachusetts Avenue.