With Democrats poised to take back the House of Representatives in two weeks, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) highlighted last night the tough time her party has had on Capitol Hill since the Republican takeover 12 years ago.

Lofgren, who is a member of the class of 1970 and also the mother of a current Stanford senior, was elected in 1994, the year that Newt Gingrich led the Republican Party to the majority position in the House, after fifty years of Democratic control.

“What you can do in the minority is very different than what you can do in the majority,” Lofgren said.

The congresswoman said a bill she wrote to fund research into fusion power remained stalled because the Republican House would not allow any bill authored by a Democrat to come to a vote.

“With the inauguration of the Gingrich Republicans, Congress became a winner-take-all system,” Lofgren explained. “And in the last few years Speaker Hastert has announced that no bill would come before Congress unless it was approved by a majority of the majority.”

Lofgren finally broke the impasse by getting Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican who was the Chairman of the Science Committee, to incorporate it into another bill. She used it as an example of the importance of finding some sort of common ground, even with members she largely disagrees with.

The congresswoman also said she felt that it has become harder to deliberate on bills before voting begins in recent years.

“We no longer have an appropriations process,” Lofgren said. “[In the past], there were thirteen appropriations bills that came out in September and you had time to read everything.”

That changed after the federal government temporarily shut down in 1994 because the proper appropriations had not been passed. According to Lofgren, since then there has only been one massive omnibus bill, several feet thick, and representatives were not given enough time to read it.

“Given how fast some of this works, it’s just really hard to know what’s in the bills,” Lofgren said. “And you feel a responsibility, because you can’t vote against it or you’ll shut down the government.”

Sophomore Kathy Cooper, director of the Health and Human Services branch of the Roosevelt Institution, said she enjoyed Lofgren’s candor.

“I was surprised that she admitted that a lot of [congressional representatives] don’t understand the bills they vote for,” Cooper said. “And I think it’s good that she recognized how big of a problem this poses for passing decent legislation.”

Lofgren also speculated on the results of a Democratic victory in the midterm elections.

“A lot of hard feelings can be built up in a dozen years of rude and unfair treatment,” Lofgren said. “But our job is not to wallow in that, because the country does not need that.

“If the Democrats gain control, I’ll have the choice of chairing one of several subcommittees. And I think I’ll choose the immigration [one]. It’ll be interesting to try and find some common ground with people on the other side.”

Lofgren’s speech was given to a class, set up through the Public Policy Department by the Roosevelt Institute, a nation-wide student think-tank dedicated to policy research. Junior Eric Mitzenmacher, who is head of the Stanford chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, commented on the purpose of the class.

“There is this gap,” he said. “When you get to Stanford you learn enough to do basic policy work. But you can’t do your own work until you’re a senior. [This] class is designed to allow students to do policy research beyond what you can do in a normal class, but below the level of an honors thesis.”

“The idea is that the students write a ten page paper and op-ed to sell that work,” Mitzenmacher continued. “Then we use the Roosevelt apparatus to get that work into the policy world.”

The Roosevelt Institute has been reaching out to local policy-makers, including councilmen and women, mayors and agency heads to see what issues need more investigation. Often these offices don’t have enough staff to pursue every idea, and Mitzenmacher tries to see where the Roosevelt Institute can fill those gaps with student researchers.

“The mission of Roosevelt is premised on students having tons of ideas, but we don’t really know how to get them out,” said senior Anthony Sanchez. “I’ve been focusing on local open-government laws. It’s great to work on something that is so important.”

Lofgren was recruited into the Institute by her son, and she now sits on the advisory board.

“I think that this is a good group of students,” Lofgren told The Daily. “I have been impressed with the quality of their thinking and I look forward to hearing more from them.”