What do you think?
Rate this book
Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress
Why fifty years of changemaking and reform haven't fixed Congress—and what that reveals about American democracy.
Congress, the central democratic institution in the United States, is hanging on by a thread. On January 6, 2021, a violent attack on the Capitol Building left five people dead, and threats and attacks against politicians are on the rise. In Stuck, Maya Kornberg chronicles the efforts of congressional reformers over the last fifty years and documents the mounting forces that have kept their reforms from creating meaningful change.
The "Watergate babies" of 1974, the Contract with America conservatives of 1994, and the historic 2018 class fueled by backlash to Donald Trump all represent younger, more diverse, and less entrenched members who arrived in Washington energized and idealistic. Kornberg reveals the ways Congress has become increasingly inhospitable to change. Political violence, astronomical campaign costs, relentless fundraising demands, shrinking staff, and centralized party leadership all constrain the ability of new members to legislate and represent their constituents. Social media, while offering new platforms for political expression, has also heightened harassment and fueled a performative culture that rewards spectacle over substance.
Bolstered by dozens of interviews, congressional records, and the voices of lawmakers past and present—including Henry Waxman, Toby Moffett, Phil English, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Lauren Underwood—Stuck offers a sobering portrait of a legislative body paralyzed by its own internal dynamics. Kornberg also outlines tangible reforms that could restore Congress's capacity to function and amplify the power of its newest members. At a time when Americans are losing faith in democracy's most representative institution, Stuck makes the case for how it could be saved.
Congress, the central democratic institution in the United States, is hanging on by a thread. On January 6, 2021, a violent attack on the Capitol Building left five people dead, and threats and attacks against politicians are on the rise. In Stuck, Maya Kornberg chronicles the efforts of congressional reformers over the last fifty years and documents the mounting forces that have kept their reforms from creating meaningful change.
The "Watergate babies" of 1974, the Contract with America conservatives of 1994, and the historic 2018 class fueled by backlash to Donald Trump all represent younger, more diverse, and less entrenched members who arrived in Washington energized and idealistic. Kornberg reveals the ways Congress has become increasingly inhospitable to change. Political violence, astronomical campaign costs, relentless fundraising demands, shrinking staff, and centralized party leadership all constrain the ability of new members to legislate and represent their constituents. Social media, while offering new platforms for political expression, has also heightened harassment and fueled a performative culture that rewards spectacle over substance.
Bolstered by dozens of interviews, congressional records, and the voices of lawmakers past and present—including Henry Waxman, Toby Moffett, Phil English, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Lauren Underwood—Stuck offers a sobering portrait of a legislative body paralyzed by its own internal dynamics. Kornberg also outlines tangible reforms that could restore Congress's capacity to function and amplify the power of its newest members. At a time when Americans are losing faith in democracy's most representative institution, Stuck makes the case for how it could be saved.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published March 10, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 20, 2026
In order to go forward by unsticking the gridlock in Congress, we must understand how we got here and what can be done about it. If you seek answers, this is your book. The author dissects the latest large freshmen classes (1974, 1994, and 2018) in order to learn what inspired them to run, how they found Congress, and what they accomplished.
As a former Minnesota House of Representative member, I was shocked to learn members of Congress don't have the basic resources we did.
As a former Minnesota House of Representative member, I was shocked to learn members of Congress don't have the basic resources we did.
July 26, 2026
As I wrote elsewhere:
If you were to gently press your fingertips on Congress’ wrist, you might feel a slight pulse these days. Some House and Senate members are trying to stop a deranged president from erratically prosecuting his unwinnable war against Iran, five months after his imagined quick victory never materialized. These belated and insufficient efforts to assert congressional war powers are at least reminding GOP leadership of their constitutional obligations as public anger deepens over dead U.S. soldiers and galloping oil prices.
When future historians write the story of the second Trump administration, they will be able to fill chapters with Congress’ disgraceful descent into irrelevance. The origins of this surrender as a coequal branch stretch back decades, but it has reached its nadir under the craven, cultish Republican deference shown to President Donald Trump. Democrats may embarrass cabinet officers during congressional hearings, but until more Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) start voting with republican virtue, the rogue executive will behave with the confidence that he has carte blanche.
The 119th Congress has not only failed to check the executive during an illegal war. A bipartisan majority in both chambers has continued to fund Israel’s genocidal campaigns in Gaza and southern Lebanon. To enable Trump’s promised brutalization of immigrants, Congress approved a massive funding increase for ICE, whose untrained, unhinged agents shoot to death, assault, or imprison “illegals” or people mistaken as such. A few dissenting votes notwithstanding, Senate Republicans confirmed every one of Trump’s wholly unqualified cabinet picks (would-be attorney general Matt Gaetz withdrew before a likely rejection). Four have since departed for various reasons, none positive.
The legislative branch has capitulated on tariffs, too, allowing Trump to exercise bogus “emergency” powers to raise or lower tariffs as he wishes, punishing a longtime ally here, carving out a self-dealing exception there. Only the courts have provided some relief. Congress groveled as the administration dismantled agencies such as USAID, which was torn apart by a heinous Elon Musk, increasing death and misery for the world’s poorest inhabitants. And Republicans on Capitol Hill have stood by while the president and his family engaged in open corruption and personal-enrichment of historic proportions. Watergate, normalized. In a healthy republic, President Trump would have been impeached and convicted months ago.
Democrats are scarcely less partisan, incompetent, and unpopular. Indeed, modern oversight of the executive branch means accountability only when the president belongs to the opposing party. Our republic will be doomed if future Democratic-led congresses allow Democratic presidents to get away with what Republicans are now tolerating from Trump.
Yet hyperpartisanship is not the sole reason for Congress’ decrepitude as a coequal branch.
In Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress, a concise study of the legislative branch’s inner workings and external pressures, the Brennan Center’s Maya Kornberg identifies how and when dysfunction seeped in. Kornberg was my guest on today’s podcast episode, where she discussed why Congress is at a historic low in “terms of its productivity, the number of days it’s meeting, the number of bills it’s passing, and a near historic low in popularity.”
Individual members’ offices and congressional committees are simply outmanned by the executive branch. For instance, the maximum number of staffers per office hasn’t changed in decades, even though the size of individual constituencies has grown with the U.S. population. And, during the Gingrich revolution of the mid-1990s, committee staffs were slashed.
“The capacity issue is one that people don’t often realize,” Kornberg says. “There’s been a cap on the number of staff that members can hire in their personal offices, and that cap has not changed since the mid-1970s, even though constituencies have grown tremendously and members are dealing with even more complex policy issues. “They’re only allowed to hire eighteen staff each, and they don’t have a very large budget.”
On congressional committee staffing: “We have a Congress today that has several thousand fewer professional staff than it did a few decades ago… It started in the 1990s when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House. He was instrumental in gutting committee staff, slashing that by a third, defunding entire congressional support agencies, and cutting staffing to others. Congress has not recovered. So there’s a lot of anger [directed] at a Congress that isn’t standing up to the executive. But when you have a Congress that, according to a recent metric, has one hundred twenty times less funding than the executive branch and many fewer professional staffers, it’s just hard for it to hold its own,” she says.
Also discussed in the podcast with Maya Kornberg: “Watergate babies” of 1974 midterms; War Powers Act of 1973; 1994 midterms; money in politics; fundraising pressure; how legislation is actually written vs. public perception; perverse social media incentives; and much else.
If you were to gently press your fingertips on Congress’ wrist, you might feel a slight pulse these days. Some House and Senate members are trying to stop a deranged president from erratically prosecuting his unwinnable war against Iran, five months after his imagined quick victory never materialized. These belated and insufficient efforts to assert congressional war powers are at least reminding GOP leadership of their constitutional obligations as public anger deepens over dead U.S. soldiers and galloping oil prices.
When future historians write the story of the second Trump administration, they will be able to fill chapters with Congress’ disgraceful descent into irrelevance. The origins of this surrender as a coequal branch stretch back decades, but it has reached its nadir under the craven, cultish Republican deference shown to President Donald Trump. Democrats may embarrass cabinet officers during congressional hearings, but until more Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) start voting with republican virtue, the rogue executive will behave with the confidence that he has carte blanche.
The 119th Congress has not only failed to check the executive during an illegal war. A bipartisan majority in both chambers has continued to fund Israel’s genocidal campaigns in Gaza and southern Lebanon. To enable Trump’s promised brutalization of immigrants, Congress approved a massive funding increase for ICE, whose untrained, unhinged agents shoot to death, assault, or imprison “illegals” or people mistaken as such. A few dissenting votes notwithstanding, Senate Republicans confirmed every one of Trump’s wholly unqualified cabinet picks (would-be attorney general Matt Gaetz withdrew before a likely rejection). Four have since departed for various reasons, none positive.
The legislative branch has capitulated on tariffs, too, allowing Trump to exercise bogus “emergency” powers to raise or lower tariffs as he wishes, punishing a longtime ally here, carving out a self-dealing exception there. Only the courts have provided some relief. Congress groveled as the administration dismantled agencies such as USAID, which was torn apart by a heinous Elon Musk, increasing death and misery for the world’s poorest inhabitants. And Republicans on Capitol Hill have stood by while the president and his family engaged in open corruption and personal-enrichment of historic proportions. Watergate, normalized. In a healthy republic, President Trump would have been impeached and convicted months ago.
Democrats are scarcely less partisan, incompetent, and unpopular. Indeed, modern oversight of the executive branch means accountability only when the president belongs to the opposing party. Our republic will be doomed if future Democratic-led congresses allow Democratic presidents to get away with what Republicans are now tolerating from Trump.
Yet hyperpartisanship is not the sole reason for Congress’ decrepitude as a coequal branch.
In Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress, a concise study of the legislative branch’s inner workings and external pressures, the Brennan Center’s Maya Kornberg identifies how and when dysfunction seeped in. Kornberg was my guest on today’s podcast episode, where she discussed why Congress is at a historic low in “terms of its productivity, the number of days it’s meeting, the number of bills it’s passing, and a near historic low in popularity.”
Individual members’ offices and congressional committees are simply outmanned by the executive branch. For instance, the maximum number of staffers per office hasn’t changed in decades, even though the size of individual constituencies has grown with the U.S. population. And, during the Gingrich revolution of the mid-1990s, committee staffs were slashed.
“The capacity issue is one that people don’t often realize,” Kornberg says. “There’s been a cap on the number of staff that members can hire in their personal offices, and that cap has not changed since the mid-1970s, even though constituencies have grown tremendously and members are dealing with even more complex policy issues. “They’re only allowed to hire eighteen staff each, and they don’t have a very large budget.”
On congressional committee staffing: “We have a Congress today that has several thousand fewer professional staff than it did a few decades ago… It started in the 1990s when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House. He was instrumental in gutting committee staff, slashing that by a third, defunding entire congressional support agencies, and cutting staffing to others. Congress has not recovered. So there’s a lot of anger [directed] at a Congress that isn’t standing up to the executive. But when you have a Congress that, according to a recent metric, has one hundred twenty times less funding than the executive branch and many fewer professional staffers, it’s just hard for it to hold its own,” she says.
Also discussed in the podcast with Maya Kornberg: “Watergate babies” of 1974 midterms; War Powers Act of 1973; 1994 midterms; money in politics; fundraising pressure; how legislation is actually written vs. public perception; perverse social media incentives; and much else.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews