Casey Burgat is the director of the Legislative Affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management. Prior to joining GSPM, Dr. Burgat was a Senior Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute where his research focused on issues of congressional capacity and reform. In this role, Casey wrote regularly for both scholarly and journalistic publications, including CNN, the Washington Post, Politico, and appeared on a variety of television and radio outlets. Dr. Burgat is currently finishing on a co-authored book on congressional policy procedures and strategies, to be published by the University of Michigan Press. Previously, Casey worked at the Congressional Research Service, where he served in the Executive Branch Operations and the Congress & Judiciary sections. There, he was responsible for responding to congressional requests about federal rulemaking, issues of congressional reform, the president’s role in federal budgeting, federal advisory committees, and congressional staffing. Casey is a graduate of Arizona State University, with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He also holds a master’s in political management from George Washington University and received his doctorate in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park, where his dissertation focused on the impacts of congressional staff.
“If we think of elections as referendums on those incumbents, Republicans are in a really tight spot right now, led by President Trump,” he said. “Candidates are having to work in their seats to distance themselves, to show a streak of independence to say that ‘I'm just not a vote for an unpopular president.’ States where just four years ago he was incredibly popular - being that he brought in some senators to the Senate based on his election tally. So quite a shift in a few short years.”
“Susan Collins has become more of a national figure,” notes Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs program at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. “She's kind of become the standard bearer of enabling Trump in an administration where she's supposed to be that moderate voice in a typically liberal state where she hasn't really held up to - at least on the Democratic side - up to that bargain.”
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