Arc of Power: The First Pelosi Speakership and the Coming Mid-Term Election
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Join us for a book talk with John Lawrence, author of "Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership, 2005-2010". Lunch will be served.
Drawing from his thousands of pages of notes written while serving as Chief of Staff to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, John Lawrence has written a narrative documenting his insider perspective from 2005 to 2010. These momentous years included furious political and legislative battles over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the economic recession, the 2008 presidential election, the productive first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, as well as many key legislative products, such as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the Affordable Care Act, and Wall Street reform.
Lawrence offers valuable insights into the differing and often conflicting role played by the House and Senate given their design and composition, and shows how even a House led by powerful individuals is frequently undercut by the Senate, and how that weakness especially impacts the political power of minority populations.
Speaker
John A. Lawrence served for 38 years as a senior staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives, the last eight as Chief of Staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). He is a visiting professor at the University of California (Washington Campus). He is the author of Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership 2005-2010 (2022) and The Class of '74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship (2018) that Kirkus Review called “an essential work of congressional history.” He has also published numerous Sherlock Holmes pastiches including the collection The Undiscovered Archives of Sherlock Holmes (2022) and the forthcoming The Affair at Mayerling Lodge (2023). He graduated from Oberlin College and has a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley. He blogs on Congress and public affairs at DOMEocracy.
Moderator
Bruce E. Cain - Spence and Cleone Eccles Family Director, Bill Lane Center for the American West, Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Political Science