Judy Kurtz at The Hill:

Now, StoryCorps’s One Small Step, in partnership with The Hill, is going a step further, by facilitating conversations in Congress. The new project pairs up lawmakers, along with senior staff members at the Capitol, for chats with their political opposites.   The political odd couples engage in 30-minute talks with each other, either in-person or virtually.  [Dave] Isay, a Peabody Award winner, admitted he was at first “very resistant” to trying to take One Small Step to the halls of Congress: “I think that we all have our own biases. [Mine] was that members of Congress couldn’t and wouldn’t do this and wouldn’t be able to get off their script.”  Larry Kramer, the president of the Hewlett Foundation, funded the project and ultimately was able to convince Isay to give the congressional sit-downs a go.   One of the first conversations, which debuted at an event hosted by StoryCorps and The Hill earlier this month, happened between Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).