The following article by David Hawkings was posted on the Roll Call website July 26, 2018:
Remembering the root causes of Hill dysfunction will surely be easier than correcting them
Thirty years covering Congress leave me totally convinced the institution is more badly broken today than at any other point in my career, which means getting asked time and again to enumerate the causes for the deepening dysfunction.
Proposing how to cure the place of its metastasizing polarization and partisanship is up to the politicians who work there. But decoding what ails Capitol Hill is the central work of today’s congressional correspondent. And after plumbing the topic with hundreds of people in recent years — senators and House members, staffers and think tankers, lobbyists and advocates — I have reduced what’s a pretty complex diagnosis to five elements.
And they can be readily remembered, using this alliterative mnemonic: Money, maps, media, mingling and masochism.