Dr. Casey Burgat

Casey Burgat is the director of the Legislative Affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management and host of its Mastering the Room podcast. Prior to joining GSPM, Dr. Burgat was a Senior Governance Fellow at the R Street Institute where his research focused on issues of congressional capacity and reform. In this role, Casey wrote regularly for both scholarly and journalistic publications, including CNN, the Washington Post, and Politico, and appeared on a variety of television and radio outlets. Dr. Burgat coauthored Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch, a textbook on all things Congress, published by the Sage/CQ Press in the fall of 2022.

Previously, Casey worked at the Congressional Research Service, where he served in the Executive Branch Operations and the Congress & Judiciary sections. There, he was responsible for responding to congressional requests about federal rulemaking, issues of congressional reform, the president’s role in federal budgeting, federal advisory committees, and congressional staffing.

Casey is a graduate of Arizona State University, with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He also holds a master’s in political management from George Washington University and received his doctorate in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park, where his dissertation focused on the impacts of congressional staff.