James L. Sundquist (1915–2016)

The 90 year old private Brookings Institution devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level was at one time focused on bringing our Constitution into the 21st Century. Nothing happened. Now, with a Government and Press which is dominated by one faction, the nonpartisan Brookings staff is one of the last voices for "public service" that actually understands what that phrase means.
Sundquist saw the "deadlock" between the two major parties as a fundamental "problem". Now, of show more course, the entire government is controlled by one faction and there is no "deadlock", yet, the Congress is palpably dysfunctional, the President has expressly declared war against civil rights, and the court is over-ruling or cancelling the will of voters. These current problems seem equally "fundamental" and have superceded the 1986 problems identified in this work.
Still, had the work on Constitutional reform taken place in the 1980s, it is possible that we would not be facing the crises we have today. show less