2013: A Year of Bipartisan Moments at BPC

We know partisanship is popular and conflict tends to be celebrated, but at BPC, 2013 was all about putting policy before politics. We’re taking a final look back at the top moments from another busy year at BPC.

1. BPC celebrated our Co-founder and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s 90th Birthday on July 22. Watch the highlights here.

2. BPC’s Commission on Political Reform partnered with USA TODAY to explore the root of our nation’s polarized politics. A joint BPC-USA TODAY poll released last October found that a majority of Americans support a range of proposals aimed at easing hyperpartisanship and building confidence in elections. Read USA TODAY’s cover story on the poll and BPC’s Commission on Political Reform and watch a video here.

3. Until his confirmation as a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors in May 2012, Jerome Powell served as a visiting scholar at BPC, where he focused on state and federal fiscal issues. Last summer, Powell returned to BPC to give his first public keynote as governor on the benefits and costs of the Federal Reserve’s current monetary policy, as well as the path forward to a stronger U.S. economy. Watch the keynote remarks here.

4. BPC launched four new policy projects and initiatives in 2013:

• Immigration Task Force
• Commission on Political Reform
• Citizens for Political Reform [Bonus: Watch a video from BPC staff]
• Electric Grid Cybersecurity Initiative
• CEO Council on Health and Innovation

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5. BPC welcomed three new senior fellows to the organization. Read about them below and tweet them a belated welcome.

• Senator Olympia Snowe l @OlympiasList
• Secretary Tommy Thompson l @TommyForHealth
• Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa l @villaraigosa

6. BPC released 24 major reports in 2013. From identifying merging trends in the U.S. natural gas market to assessing the impact of the defense sequester on the economy, BPC put the “think” in think-tank. In case you missed them, we’ve linked to the materials below.

Economic Policy

• What is the Impact of the Defense Sequester on the Economy? [12-11-13]
• Immigration Reform: Implications for Growth, Budgets and Housing [10-29-13]
• From Merely Stupid to Dangerous: The Sequester’s Effects on National and Economic Security [10-11-13]
• Debt Limit Analysis [9-10-13]
• Room for Consensus: A Statement by BPC’s Immigration Task Force [8-15-13]
• Housing America’s Future: New Directions for National Policy [2-25-13]

Energy Policy

• New Dynamics of the U.S. Natural Gas Market [5-20-13]
• America’s Energy Resurgence: Sustaining Success, Confronting Challenges [2-27-13]
• Capitalizing on the Evolving Power Sector: Policies for a Modern and Reliable U.S. Electric Grid [2-7-13]

Financial Regulatory Reform

• A Better Path Forward on the Volcker Rule and the Lincoln Amendment [10-23-13]
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Measuring the Progress of a New Agency [9-24-13]
• Too Big to Fail: The Path to a Solution [5-14-13]
• Analysis of the Nominations Process for Financial Regulators [4-4-13]

Foreign Policy and Homeland Security

• The Roots of Turkish Conduct: Understanding the Evolution of Turkish Policy in the Middle East [12-18-13]
• From Rhetoric to Reality: Reframing U.S. Turkey Policy [10-23-13]
• Jihadist Terrorism: A Threat Assessment [9-9-13]
• U.S.-Turkish Cooperation Toward a Post-Assad Syria [5-2-13]

Governance

• Making Federalism Work: The Governors’ Council Medicaid Recommendations [5-8-13]
• A Brief History of Congressional Reform Efforts [2-22-13]

Health

• Formal Response to the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act [8-31-13]
• A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-wide Cost Containment [4-18-13]
• An Oversight Framework for Assuring Patient Safety in Health Information Technology [2-13-13]
• Better Health Care Worker Demand Projections: A Twenty-First Century Approach [2-5-13]
• The Complexities of National Health Care Workforce Planning: A review of current data and methodologies and recommendations for future studies [2-5-13]