The Arc of Power
Inside Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership, 2005-2010

Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 7:00 pm
The Byrd Center will welcome John A. Lawrence for a book talk on The Arc of Power: Inside Nancy Pelosi's Speakership, 2005-2010, on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 7:00 pm. The event will take place in-person in the Byrd Center's Auditorium and will be streamed live on Zoom. 

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.
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Arc of Power provides a valuable account of the strategies, machinations, and challenges of congressional leaders as they gain, exercise, and lose power. Utilizing the voices of the men and women involved in the often—but not always—partisan clashes, this book examines the role of personalities, factions, parties, and political institutions in the formulation of national policy on key issues. Lawrence artfully demonstrates the challenges presented by intraparty factional disagreements when writing complex legislation and illustrates the institutional tensions between the House and Senate, and Congress and the White House, when the government is unified under one party or divided.
Please click below to RSVP and indicate if you plan to attend in-person or wish to receive the link to view the livestream of John Lawrence's book talk.
John A. Lawrence spent 38 years as a senior congressional staff member, the last eight as chief of staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He has an A.B. from Oberlin College, and a Ph.D. in history from Berkeley, and since 2013, has been a visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Center. He blogs on national politics and Congress at DOMEocracy, speaks widely on current political issues and trends, and has published in the New York Times, Politico Magazine, and The Atlantic.

This event presented by the Byrd Center with support from: