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Kevin R. Kosar and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, two of the nation’s leading experts in the workings of the U.S. federal government, governance, and interbranch relations, will present in tandem on the state of the federal government, federalism and U.S. elections. The program concludes the Chautauqua Lecture Series weeklong exploration of “The 2026 Election: What’s at Stake?,” a five-part series at Chautauqua in partnership with the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution, with each program featuring experts from both organizations.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas is a visiting fellow in Governance Studies and director of the Initiative on Improving Interbranch Relations and Government. She also serves as a practitioner senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and on the Advisory Board of the White House Transition Project. Tenpas’ research addresses the intersection between the presidency and politics, focusing on presidential personnel, Senate-confirmed appointments, transitions, re-election campaigns and trends in presidential travel and polling. Her studies of White House staffing include an original database that tracks turnover rates among senior staffers. In addition, she has written or coauthored pieces on key units within the White House (Office of Political Affairs, Staff Secretary, Counsel’s Office, Faith-based and Community Initiatives and the Office of the First Lady).

Tenpas is author of Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the Presidential Campaign, and has published articles, book chapters, blog posts, op-eds and papers on a variety of presidency-related topics. Her insights on the presidency have been quoted in major newspapers, and she has appeared on numerous television and radio outlets in the United States and abroad.

Tenpas’ academic positions have included the directorship of the University of Pennsylvania’s Washington Semester Program, senior fellow at the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis, and an associate professorship in the Department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida. While there, she won an undergraduate teaching award, directed the Political Science Honors Program and the Washington, D.C. internship program. Tenpas earned her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 1985, and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Virginia.

Kevin R. Kosar is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies the U.S. Congress, the administrative state, American politics, election reform, and the U.S. Postal Service. He edits UnderstandingCongress.org and hosts the “Understanding Congress” podcast. Before joining AEI, Kosar was at the R Street Institute, where he served as vice president of policy, vice president of research partnerships, and senior fellow and director of the Governance Project. He also cofounded the Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group, a transpartisan project to strengthen the legislative branch.

Earlier, Kosar spent more than a decade working for the Congressional Research Service, where he focused on a wide range of public administration issues. He has also taught public policy at New York University and lectured on public administration at Metropolitan College of New York. His books include Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform; Unleashing Opportunity: Policy Reforms for an Accountable Administrative State; Moonshine: A Global History; Ronald Reagan and Education Policy; Whiskey: A Global History; Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education Standards; and Bridging the Gap: Higher Education and Career-Centered Welfare Reform. He also wrote the prefaces to the recently republished The Unheavenly City Revisited and Government Project by Edward C. Banfield.

Kosar has testified before Congress and has been widely published in scholarly journals; his articles and opinion pieces have appeared in a number of popular press outlets and he has made a number of broadcast appearances. He earned a doctorate and a master’s in politics from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Ohio State University.

This program is made possible by the generous support of The Gwin Family Fund.