Ross Baker is Distinguished Professor of Political science at Rutgers University but he is far from a conventional academic.  He also fits comfortably into the worlds of journalism and politics as a member of the Board of Contributors of USA Today and as adviser to members of the U.S. Congress.

After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, he served as a Research Associate at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. before coming to Rutgers. During this time, he wrote regularly for the Outlook section of The Washington Post.

Early in his career, while on leave from Rutgers, he served on the staffs of three U.S. Senators. After that experience, he wrote his first book on Congress, Friend and Foe in the United States Senate.

He returned to Washington several years later to serve as a consultant to the Chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives where he wrote A Short History of the Democratic Caucus.

With experience now in both chambers of Congress, he wrote House and Senate, a standard source on the differences between the two bodies and The New Fat Cats about the rise of political action committees established by members of Congress.

During this time, he contributed regularly to the editorial pages of The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and The Arizona Republic and was contributing editor to American Demographics, a Dow-Jones publication

He received a Fulbright grant to the Swedish Institute of International Politics in Stockholm and was guest editor of one of the Institute’s Swedish-language journals..

In 2000, he was invited to join the staff of Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and in 2004 he spent his sabbatical leave in the office of Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. During this time that he became a regular commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition.

In 2008, the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate invited Prof. Baker to spend semester in his office as scholar-in-residence. Senator Reid renewed the invitation in 2012. The two experiences provided the background for his most recent book, Is Bipartisanship Dead? which was published in 2015.

Professor Baker is a widely-admired public speaker who has spoken before civic and business groups and government agencies ranging from the Office of Personnel Management to the Central Intelligence Agency. He is also a member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary since 2001 where he is a flotilla staff officer for public affairs.

SPEECH TOPICS:

Congress and the President versus the Constitution   The two political branches of our federal government often act as if the Constitution doesn’t exist. The President stretches his executive powers beyond the recognition of the Founding fathers  and Congress often usurps the powers of the states. Both institutions try to get away with as much as they can without having the Supreme Court blow the whistle.

A Terrible Way to Pick a President.   Almost everything having to do with our picking a president seems dysfunctional, illogical, and unduly complicated from the nomination process to the Electoral College. There’s got to be a better way, but what is it?

The Constitution’s Unhappily conjoined twins.   Congressmen are from Mercury, Senators are from Pluto. They work at a different pace, follow different but equally arcane rules, respond to very different constituencies and generally can’t get along well enough to do their job even when both houses are controlled by the same party. is this the way it has to be?