Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) Melina Mara | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Two major political scandals will rock the nation's capital next week. No one knows what or who the scandals will involve. But, in a hearing room in Washington, a bipartisan committee of congressional investigators will work to collect the facts, reassure the public, and hold those responsible for wrongdoing accountable, regardless of political affiliation. Sound like a fantasy? That's because it is. But maybe it doesn't have to be. The scandals will be invented by the organizers of the "oversight boot camp," an exclusive two-day workshop for Hill staffers designed to foster bipartisanship in congressional investigations. Powering the workshop is a simple mission, which its instructors preach like gospel: Bipartisan oversight is possible, effective and necessary. At a time when Americans and their representatives in Congress are more polarized than they have been in decades, the notion can seem hopelessly idealistic. But the organizers behind the workshop are far from naive. Instead, Elise Bean and Justin Rood are former congressional investigators from both sides of the aisle. Bean worked on the staff of Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin, and Rood worked for Oklahoma GOP Senator Tom Coburn. Bean recently published a book cataloging 15 years of bipartisan inquiry in the Senate. Before working for Coburn, Rood was an influential investigative reporter. Bean and Rood launched the boot camp in 2015 after their bosses retired, inspired to pass on the institutional knowledge they worried Congress was losing. The boot camp is hosted by the Project on Government Oversight, where Rood works, the Levin Center, where Bean works, and the Lugar Center, a D.C. think tank named after Richard Lugar, a Republican former U.S. senator from Indiana. Kurt Bardella, who served as a spokesperson for Rep. Darrell Issa while the California Republican ran the House Oversight Committee, said that he believed it was possible that Congress could pursue greater bipartisanship — but that it depended on the results of the November midterms. "Is it possible? Of course," said Bardella, a lifelong Republican who left the party late last year after the Republican National Committee endorsed Roy Moore, who was accused of sexually abusing minors, during his race for the Alabama Senate. Bardella said the success of bipartisan oversight will depend on whether Republicans "see that there is an appetite from the American people for checks and balances."

Focus on facts

During the two days that the staffers spend holed up in a congressional hearing room, they learn to fashion fact-based, credible investigations. They break up into bipartisan, bicameral groups, and work together to produce reports based on their findings. "We created this program because there are few places that have as much authority to investigate, with as little training [as Congress]," Rood said. The current Congress has been a low point in the history of oversight investigations. In particular, the House Intelligence Committee's investigation of Russian interference stands out as an example of precisely the kind of partisan gamesmanship that Rood and Bean detest. In March, a Republican on the committee told CNN that "we have lost all credibility." "We have gone completely off the rails, and now we're basically a political forum for people to leak information to drive the day's news," Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., said at the time. That committee is led by Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who recused himself from the investigation amidst an ethics scandal. Nunes was later cleared of the ethics charges, and moved to push the investigation away from President Donald Trump's finances, raising concerns among Democrats and nonpartisan watchdogs. Democrats have escalated their criticism of House Republicans since the party took control of the chamber in 2010. In July, Democrats on the House Oversight Commitee calculated that Republicans on the committee had blocked a total of 52 subpoenas since Trump was elected. Rood said that nowadays, there are fewer members of either party who are interested in "rolling up their sleeves and digging for facts and understanding the truth of what's happening." The goal of the boot camp is to change that. "While some members of Congress want a partisan food fight, many others want to solve problems and are willing to do the work needed to produce a bipartisan investigation," Bean said. By all appearances, the message has resonated. Applications for the boot camp surged 20 percent over the previous record this year, boosted by a push from the organizers to reach a wider pool. In total, more than 100 Republican and Democratic congressional staffers applied this year. The organizers declined to break down the ratio of Republican and Democratic applicants.

Good government, good oversight