Presidents are more powerful, more partisan, and less popular. Why? What is the best way to build a more responsible and effective presidency?

On September 24–25, 2025, UVA’s nonpartisan Miller Center of Public Affairs convenes presidential experts—dozens of leading Democrats and Republicans, scholars from across the country, and top journalists—for the second Conference on the American Presidency, a series of constructive conversations about the modern presidency.

In these discussions we pick up where our 2023 conference left off.

On the one hand, recent presidents from both parties have expanded the scope of presidential authority, often to address pressing challenges. Increasingly, they have used these powers to deliver for the core elements of the political party that helped elect them.

On the other hand, these same presidents have struggled to sustain majority approval ratings. Moreover, large majorities of Americans across party lines and across time express concern about how presidents use their authority.

In conversations over two days, panels of leading experts will discuss the causes and implications of these trends, what we might expect in the rest of the current administration, what might come in future administrations of either party, and what the country might do to promote a more responsible and effective presidency.

The conference brings together senior practitioners who served in past Democratic and Republican administrations, former and current members of Congress, former Supreme Court clerks, leading scholars, and journalists who study and cover the American presidency and our political institutions.

We look forward to citizen participation in this undertaking. If you have ideas you would like to share, please address them to our conference team at millercenter@virginia.edu.

For more in-depth information about the Conference on the American Presidency that took place at the Miller Center in 2023, watch the conversations and read the essays that informed the discussions.