Your Leading Experts on Congress
The Government Affairs Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has been the nation's leading provider of congressional education for over fifty years. For information on our courses, please click here >>
Learn about the Certificate Program in Legislative Studies. Click here >>
Quality training is an important aspect of advancing government. Click here >>
How to best represent your organization before Congress. Click here >>
Stay in touch with the Institute’s leading experts on Congress. Click here >>
This core course provides a comprehensive look at congressional processes and organization, and at...
September 20 - 23, 2021 ***Online Instruction***
This course is designed to assist participants in identifying, analyzing, and following legislation at the...
October 4-5, 2021
The formulation and enactment of the annual federal budget is a highly complex process...
October 6-7, 2021
Sign up to receive email updates.
Read our blog dedicated to providing practical and academic perspectives on congressional policy, politics, and procedure.
Kristin Nicholson | July 7, 2021
Dear Friends, I hope everyone had a wonderful July 4th holiday. This week finds relative...
Katina Slavkova | July 7, 2021
Halfway through its first session, the 117th Congress finds itself in familiar territory, one that...
Kristin Nicholson | June 4, 2021
Dear Friends, President Biden released his Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal a week ago, setting...
Kristin Nicholson became the Director of the Government Affairs Institute in February 2017. Prior to joining GAI, she spent two decades on Capitol Hill, where she served for sixteen years as Chief of Staff to Congressman Jim Langevin (D-RI), a senior member of the House Committees on Armed Services and Homeland Security.
Worth H. Hester, M.P.A., joined the faculty of GAI in 1988 as a Presidential Management Fellow and took the job of Assistant Director in 1999. During seven years of government service, he served as an Employee Development Specialist, Program Analyst, and Legislative Analyst for a Member of Congress.
Mark B. Harkins joined the Government Affairs Institute as a Senior Fellow in July 2013 after having been a guest lecturer numerous times back to 2005. Prior to joining GAI, Mark was a government relations professional for more than five years where he focused on the representation of corporate, nonprofit and government clients before Congress and the Executive Branch.
Joshua C. Huder, Ph.D., joined the Government Affairs Institute as a Senior Fellow in 2013. He has taught courses on American government, advanced legislative process, and other American politics courses. He has provided political analysis to several news outlets, including the Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, Newsweek, Bloomberg News, CNN, the Washington Examiner, U.S. News, Al-Jazeera, Yahoo News, and is a regular contributor for the Christian Science Monitor.
Laura Blessing, Ph.D. joined the Government Affairs Institute as a Senior Fellow in 2015. Prior to coming to GAI, she earned her PhD from the University of Virginia, where she was also a Miller Center National Fellow and a fellow for the Bankard Fund for Political Economy. Her dissertation covers the politics and development of tax policy; her interests include policy, institutions, and political parties.
Matt Glassman, Ph.D., joined the Government Affairs Institute as a Senior Fellow in 2017. He has taught courses on and off the Hill on American government, congressional process, congressional-presidential, and congressional leadership. Prior to joining GAI, Matt worked on the Hill at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) for ten years.
Katina joined the Government Affairs Institute in February 2008 as Educational Programs Coordinator. Over the time that she has been with GAI, Katina has taken on many different responsibilities by advancing to her current roles as the Director of the Certificate in Legislative Studies program and a Fellow position that is part
