BIPARTISANSHIP AND AMERICAN UNITY | JFK Library
HEATHER CAMPION: I am Heather Campion, CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and I want to extend a warm welcome to you here in this beautiful Library and Museum. It's only one of 13 Presidential Libraries in America. It's an architectural masterpiece designed by IM Pei, and we like to say it's a national treasure right here in our midst where President Kennedy's legacy lives on.
Today, we're marking an especially important occasion because this gathering is the very first event cosponsored with our new neighbor, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, and I can't think of a more fitting occasion for the institutions that honor the lives and achievements of both President Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. It also seems fitting that you begin a conference about tackling a very big problem in our country here in this monument to a President who, along with his brothers, believed deeply in our government as an essential source for good, who had such extraordinary optimism and confidence in America, and who believed that working together Americans could do big things. We could go to the moon. We could launch the Peace Corps -- which they did, by the way, within six months of the new administration -- and we could even achieve a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
It's worth noting that in 1962, 70% of Americans said that they trusted Washington most or all of the time. Today, after decades of anti-government rhetoric and gridlock, that number is at 20%. And I should add that Americans still give John F. Kennedy the highest approval rating of any President since World War II. It's at 90%, even though only 20% of Americans today have any living memory of President Kennedy.
Both President Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy spent their lives tackling big problems, working across the aisle, and forging compromises to achieve great things. In 1958, even before he launched his historic Presidential campaign, JFK told an audience in Baltimore, "Let us not despair, but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future."
President Kennedy's brother, Ted, lived these principles every day of his magnificent Senate career. No American politician knew better the importance of bipartisanship and cooperation. We miss him still.
We are honored to have with us today the light of Senator Kennedy's life and the guiding light of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. She's a summa cum laude graduate of Tulane University, a brilliant attorney and writer, and a vision for Senator Kennedy's incredible legacy. It's my very great pleasure to introduce my good friend, Vicki Kennedy. [applause]
VICKI KENNEDY: Thank you, Heather. Thank you so much for that gracious introduction and congratulations on being named the new CEO of the JFK Library Foundation. All of us are so excited about your leadership here. And those of us at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, which is being constructed right next door, are thrilled to have you as a neighbor.
With the JFK Library, the EMK Institute, UMass-Boston and Mass Archives, Columbia Point is the place to be in Boston, a place for learning our history and experiencing and engaging in what Oliver Wendell Holmes called the actions and passions of our time.
The Edward M. Kennedy Institute is so proud to be one of the sponsors of today's National Conversation on American Unity. As I said, the building is being constructed right next door and if I do say so myself, it is going to be amazing. It reflects the vision of my late husband, Senator Edward Kennedy. Teddy loved history. He loved education. And he loved the United States Senate. He believed that knowledge and understanding of our government and our history and the Senate was the way to tap into the incredible potential of our young people and to inspire civic engagement. He believed that the future of our nation depended on it. So together, we founded the Edward M. Kennedy Institute to teach the next generation in an engaging and dynamic and empowering way about our government and the legislative process and about those who served in it, and the difference they made in our lives. We'll do this, in part, by improving Americans' understanding of the historical roles of the branches of government and educating the public about the great debates that shaped the course of our nation's history. We'll show how throughout history men and women of good will, in both parties, came together and addressed the great challenges facing our nation. They might not always have solved every issue, but almost always they tried.
The entire experience at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute will be interactive. As visitors walk into the facility, they'll receive a handheld device, a mini-tablet. Don't worry, there'll be docents there to help if a visitor needs it. And the experience is being crafted to still be meaningful to those who are not comfortable with the technology. But we'll start with the basics. What is separation of powers? What is the Senate? How does the legislative process work? How is the law made?
We'll look at who's in the Senate today, and we'll have a live feed of what's happening in the Senate at that very moment, if it's in session. Visitors will be able to tweet their views on what they're seeing or how they'd vote. They'll be able to digitally communicate with their own Senators and with each other. The entire experience will be dynamic, interactive and engaging.
The cornerstone of the Institute is a representation of the Senate chamber where visitors will be able to come in and take on the role of being a Senator. That Senate experience is supported by the interactive mobile technology, and it's being developed by software and videogame designers. As I said, it's interactive, engaging and dynamic.
In taking on the simulated roles as Senators, visitors will debate, negotiate and vote on legislation. In fact, every visitor who comes into the Institute will have the opportunity to vote on an issue of the day.
You'll be hearing more details about the Institute later this month; in fact, next week we'll give you details about when we're opening. But if you want advance information, please email me. My email address is . It's Vicki, V-I-C-K-I. We'll be opening our doors soon, and we can't wait for you to come through.
Ted Kennedy said, "We're Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I've seen it. I've lived it. And we can do it again." His vision of an institute for the United States Senate was that if we all immersed ourselves in our nation's history and relived the great debates of our time, we would be reminded of the great problems we tackled and great things we achieved, because we all came to the table and we would be renewed and re-inspired to be involved and to do it again.
That is very much the same spirit that brings us all here today. The Bipartisan Policy Center was founded by four Senate Majority Leaders – two Democrats, Tom Daschle and George Mitchell; and two Republicans, Bob Dole and Trent Lott. As the only Washington, DC-based think tank that promotes bipartisanship, the BPC works to address key challenges facing our nation.
Last year, the BPC created the Commission on Political Reform, bringing together an all- star list of national political leaders, as well as voices from many other sectors of American society – volunteer leaders, religious leaders, business executives, and academics. I'm honored to be among this group of dynamic, thoughtful individuals.
The Commission on Political Reform has two main purposes: to understand the causes and consequences of America's political divide, and to advocate for specific electoral and Congressional reforms.
Today is the fourth and final in a series of National Conversations on American Unity that the Commission has hosted around the country, beginning at the Reagan Library in California last month. We've also been at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and at Ohio State University. At each of our town hall meetings, we've heard from our in-person audiences and through Twitter and Facebook how the average citizen views its government, its leaders and the dysfunction, and how to fix it.
We want to express our appreciation to USA Today, with whom the Commission had conducted four national polls. The results of those polls have shed light on public attitudes and helped highlight the challenges our nation faces and the problems we need to address. The Commission will issue its final recommendations at a public event on June 24th in Washington. I would like to encourage each of you to continue following the work of the Commission on Twitter – #EngageUSA – and join us over the summer as we advocate for the Commission's recommendations.
But now, on with the show. It is my great pleasure to introduce our first panel, White House and Congress: How to Get Things Done. The panel will be introduced and moderated by Trey Grayson, the director of Harvard's Institute of Politics. Mr. Grayson previously served two terms as Kentucky's Secretary of State, and he is a good friend of this Library and of the EMK Institute. Ladies and gentlemen, Trey Grayson. [applause]
TREY GRAYSON: Thanks, Vicki, and to the audience for that warm introduction. It's great to be with all of you. The Institute of Politics, the EMK Institute and the John F. Kennedy Library are great friends and work well together and will continue to work well in the future. So we're glad to be here today.
We've got a great panel with us today up here on stage. And in your programs, you have detailed biographies so I'm not going to spend a lot of time going over those biographies, but just wanted to give a little one-line introduction for each of them, and then we'll dive into the conversation.
To my immediate left is Secretary Dan Glickman, who co-chairs the Commission on Political Reform, which is the reason why we're all here today. He served as Secretary of the Department of Agriculture in the Clinton Administration and 18 years in Congress. But most importantly, in my mind, he was the former director of the Institute of Politics; he had my job. So glad to have you, Dan.
Josh Bolten served as White House Chief of Staff in President George W. Bush's Administration and also served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the same administration.
Andy Card also was Chief of Staff in President George W. Bush's Administration, including the beginning of the administration during 9/11.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is a co-chair of the Commission on Political Reform, he was a Senator for many terms from the State of Mississippi.
And Governor John Sununu was the Governor of New Hampshire and later served as White House Chief of Staff for George HW Bush.
Now, you may note that Mack McLarty, who was Chief of Staff for President Clinton, was supposed to be here, but unfortunately he's ill and couldn't join us so that's why he's not with us.
As I said, the full bios are in your programs. For those online, you can Google them and see those.
So we want to invite everybody online and in the audience to join in this conversation. If you're physically here, we have a card where you can write a question, and there'll be people going around the audience. We'll grab a question, and we're going to hopefully get to one or two of those. We'll certainly get to one; hopefully more during the discussion. You can also send an email or tweet. The Twitter handle is @bpc – that's BPC for Bipartisan Policy Center – @bpc_bipartisan. And also you can use the hash tag #EngageUSA on any of your social media, and we will follow along those conversations. We're also going to be polling our audience here in person, in real time, with a grandstand question. So let's start up with a poll question. If you could put the question up on the screen so our audience members can see this. The question is: Should Congress be allowed to block the President's appointees with whom they disagree politically? So we're going to talk about this for a little bit, and while we're talking about it, if you guys want to vote, you can do so. Then, we'll come back and see what the audience's results are. You can also vote online at
So let's talk about the appointment process. Dan, why don't we start with you? You actually went through this process to become the Secretary of Agriculture.
DAN GLICKMAN: Well, I think the basic answer is, yes, Congress should be allowed to block the appointees. That's a prerogative given to them, the United States Senate, under the Constitution. And when I was nominated to be Secretary of Agriculture, I went to see young Mr. Trent Lott, who was the United States Senator, but still handsome and full of hair [laughter], who gave me some good advice.
But let me just tell you the personal example, because it'll shed some light. I'm from Kansas, but I had voted for the Tongass Timber Reform Act, which limited the cut of timber in Alaska. I noticed that my nomination wasn't going very far, and it turned out Senator Dole, who was the Majority Leader from my state, said, "We have a problem with Senators Murkowski and Stevens. They don't like your forestry policy." And I'm thinking, “I don't even have a tree in Kansas -- my forestry policy?” Well, it turned out that the policy of the Clinton/Gore Administration was not consistent with the views of Senators Murkowski and Stevens. So I went to see them and one of them said to me, "How would you like it if my policy was to eliminate all the planting of wheat in the State of Kansas? Would you feel like supporting me for Secretary of Agriculture?" So I said, "I get the point." So I went to see Bob Dole and I said, "What do I do?" He said, "Just tell them you'll be fair and I'll take care of it." And he took care of it.
I guess the point there was, yeah, they tried to block me because they had a substantive reason but the primary thing that got it through was trust – I'd been in the Congress for all those years – and you had the Senate Majority Leader who supported me, and he was able to persuade them what to do. President Clinton also had very close relationships on the Hill. Yes, they should be allowed to block if they want to. But in most cases good judgment will prevail, unless you've burned bridges beforehand and that's the thing to avoid.
TREY GRAYSON: There's a lot of talk about the appointment process – it's broken, it takes a long time to get confirmed, there's a lot of information that you have to give up about yourself for background checks. Some think it's too much and deters people. Josh, when you were in the Bush Administration, again, you went through it to become OMB Director. For Chief of Staff, you did not get confirmed for that, right?
JOSH BOLTEN: Fortunately.
TREY GRAYSON: Yeah, that's kind of nice. [laughter] So how did the process work in the Bush Administration? And is there any advice maybe that you would give the current President and the current Congress how to make it work better based upon that experience?
JOSH BOLTEN: Well, I agree with Dan and I think probably most of your – at least a lot of – poll respondents that the Congress has the right to block a nominee of the President. That shouldn't be infringed, but it should be used only in, I think, special circumstances. Dan Glickman and his hatred for trees, I think would have been [laughter] a good one.
DAN GLICKMAN: I'm the only one wearing a green tie.
JOSH BOLTEN: Yeah, you're still trying to make amends. [laughter] That seems to me the kind of good reason. But like many things, it's a situation in which good judgment has to prevail, and it can't be dictated by a rule. A Senator's objection to the President's nominee should be for really good and substantive and important reasons.
My own view, having served most of my government career in the Executive Branch, is that the President ought to be generally entitled to all of the nominees that he wants to have and that it requires something special, but there's no way to legislate what that special is that should cause a Senator to come out in opposition. I think we have to rely on the good judgment of Senators. The question is how does the public put pressure on their Senators to exercise that good judgment regularly.
One thing from my own experience, Trey, when I was going through the nomination process to be the Budget Director was that I went around and visited all the important Senators, including Trent Lott, and if you're the Budget Director they usually tell you what their budget priorities are and how important it is that they be protected and the Budget Director nominee has to say, "Absolutely, that's a very important priority." And as Bob Dole advised, "I will look at that with open eyes and treat it with full fairness." That's probably about all a Budget nominee ought to have to say.
When I went to see Senator Robert Byrd, who at the time was the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, I'd been forewarned. He didn't ask me about any particular budget priority. He was so powerful in that process that it didn't matter what the Budget Director thought about what he wanted to have done in the appropriations process. But he was very concerned. His key priority was Congressional prerogative, especially the Senate's prerogatives. Having been forewarned, I brought with me a copy of the Constitution. I had a little breast pocket copy that I still carry with me. And Byrd started to quiz me on the Constitution and the separation of powers and made me quote back to him the provision of the Constitution that says that it's the Congress's responsibility to lay taxes and spend money. And I think that's actually a good use of the confirmation process, where the Senators get to make sure that they have somebody who understands the Constitution, who understands the roles of the Executive and Legislative Branches before they let that person through.
TREY GRAYSON: Andy, what was your experience with this?
ANDY CARD: I actually went through the confirmation process to become the Secretary of Transportation under the first President Bush and like Josh, I enjoyed a very good educating session with Senator Byrd and was reminded about the prerogatives of the Senate, the appropriate responsibility that the Senate has to ratify confirmation and offered wise counsel, which I solicited and took.
But I would say that the process for me worked so well that most members did not want to vote for me, so the Majority Leader of the Senate at the time, George Mitchell, did a wonderful job and had a voice vote. So I was confirmed by a voice vote, which was unanimous. I think if it had been a roll call vote, it would not have been unanimous. But the voice vote made it very comfortable for me.
I do believe the President deserves the benefit of the doubt for all of the nominations that are submitted. I think Congress should be predisposed to give the President the team that he or she thinks they need in order to do the job. But I don't think that we should restrict speech in the Senate. So if a Senator wants to confirm or oppose the confirmation of a nominee, they should be allowed to do it for any reason they want. They should articulate those reasons, knowing that they're exercising their constitutional right of free speech and their constitutional right to have a say in the confirmation process. So I do not support restricting that speech or denying a Senator exercise, whatever reason they have for opposing a confirmation. But I do think they should work to give the President the benefit of the doubt.
TREY GRAYSON: Trent, you saw it from the other side. You got to vote on people through this process. What's your take on this?
TRENT LOTT: First of all, I can't help but just take a moment to say thank you for being here and how pleased I am to be a part of the Bipartisan Policy Center's effort and the EMK Institute board. It's going to be a great institution right next door. When Vicki Kennedy first came to see me, I didn't particularly want to do the board. You might understand why, being a conservative Republican from Mississippi [laughter], but one that worked with Senator Kennedy and learned to appreciate his legislative skills and what a great guy he was outside the Senate chamber. [laughter]
When Vicki came to see me I said, "Tell me about it." When she told me about it, the study, the history, the preservation of the Senate, and I found out there was nothing else like it in the country, I said this is a great idea, this is going to be a great asset for UMass, for Boston, and frankly for the Senate and for America. So I'm really proud to be a part of this.
As a Senator and as Majority Leader of the Senate, I have some particularly strong feelings in this area. The House has certain clear responsibilities under the Constitution and so does the Senate. The confirmation of nominees is a very important one. I thought treaties were also a very important part of our role in the Senate.
I agree with most of what's been said. I supported all these guys. I asked Dan if he had anything in his background that was bad that I needed to know about and he said no, and I said, "You'll do fine, I'll vote for you."
I do think the President is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, particularly with his Cabinet Secretaries. I do think that the confirmation process has gotten too dadblamed complicated, too much paperwork. It takes too long. Good men and women are actually discouraged from putting their professions or jobs on the line while they want to get through the process.
So generally speaking, I think most of the time I've always voted for Cabinet Secretaries. I've tried to vote for most of the President's nominees, even for lower positions. Sometimes I did oppose them, but it had to be for a very good reason, like they clearly were not qualified, or I had some particular problem with them. My senior Senator from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, always said, "If it's a matter of conscience you have to exercise that right to vote no."
I also think though that there is a greater responsibility perhaps even when it comes to judicial nominations. I do think that there's a process in the Senate where you can return a so-called blue slip, where you can say yes or no to somebody that's been nominated in your state. And if you have a personal problem with that nominee, you should be able to exercise that right.
I also think in the case of judicial nominations that principle or even philosophy does play a higher role. Having said that, I, for instance, voted for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be on the Supreme Court, even though I knew I would disagree with her philosophically and on most of her rulings. But she was qualified by experience and demeanor; and therefore I felt that I should go ahead and vote for her. By the way, I got a good bit of criticism from my state about that. One of the members of the Supreme Court that I won't mention I did vote against him because I felt like he had a conflict of interest. So that's the way these things ought to play out.
But it is important that Presidents of either party get their administration in position to do the job they were elected to do. The Senate has a clear and important role, but it should not be one of just obstruction.
TREY GRAYSON: John, you were with the Bush Administration, you were dealing with a Congress of the opposite party which created an interesting dynamic during your time there. What's your take on the appointment process?
JOHN SUNUNU: Well, I agree that Congress, the Senate in particular, should have the right to vote up or down. And I agree with virtually everything that's been said here. And I thank you very much for not introducing me as being on the far left. [laughter]
TREY GRAYSON: This is from a fellow Republican.
JOHN SUNUNU: This is an issue I had to deal with as Governor as well -- the same process functions in the states. And the point I'd like to make here is I really do believe that we have allowed the media to let us begin to think that the process of checks and balances is wrong.
One of the hardest things for me to learn as Governor – I'm an engineer and I've got a genetic commitment to efficiency -- but one of the hardest things for me to learn as Governor was that the apparent inefficiency in the constitutional process is one of its greatest strengths. We should not, out of our frustration at times, let people convince us that that checks-and-balance ought to be eroded. It forces a Governor or a President who's making appointments or trying to pass policy to sit down and negotiate, to work, to lead the legislative process, and to make the compromise that allows what comes out of it to be reflective more of what the state or the country wants than just one slice of the state or one slice of the country.
I know there's a lot of throwing around of the word "gridlock," but I do remind you: gridlock is a negative euphemism for checks and balances. And checks and balances, as in the appointment process, are extremely, extremely important. It is, in my opinion, one of the most important set of structures we have that allow the system to be as good as it is.
TREY GRAYSON: Let's take a second right now to see what the audience survey results were for our online poll: Should Congress be allowed to block the President's appointees with whom they disagree politically. They'll put the results up on the screen; we can see. Kind of divided, just like the country – 57% said no, Congress should not be allowed to block the President's appointees with whom they disagree politically; and 43% said yes.
There have been some suggestions of some potential reforms to try to improve the confirmation process -- things like time limits for where you can get an up or down vote and filibuster reform and things like that. I'll just throw this open to anybody: Do you have any thoughts on those kinds of reforms? Are there any that stand out as something that would be good, would make it better, or would actually work? And maybe the second would be, that actually could be implemented? If anybody has any thoughts; I'll just throw that out to the group. Andy?
ANDY CARD: I'd be glad to jump in. I think we actually require too many of the President's nominees to go through the process. I think there are many more candidates being nominated that you've never heard of, and they run bureaucracies that you barely know the initials of. I think many of those do not need to go through a cumbersome confirmation process. They end up being chits that are used more politically than they are a reflection of whether or not that individual is competent to serve in the position.
As a result, I think we should have fewer nominees for the requirement of going through confirmation. But that's a hard thing to give up, because the Senate likes their prerogative. But if I had a magic wand, I would suggest there maybe should be 1,000 fewer candidates that have to go through the nomination process to serve bureaucracies that are important for certain aspects of our government, but really do not define the President's performance in office. I think everyone who is nominated by the President, the people should hold the President accountable for their performance if they don't live up to expectations once they get in the job.
TREY GRAYSON: You said cutting back by 1,000. How many roughly are there in the Executive Branch that need to be confirmed?
ANDY CARD: Multiple thousands. I think it's 3,700.
TRENT LOTT: I agree with what he said. And I think the record should reflect that the Senate … I think maybe two years ago under the leadership of, I think maybe Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Senator Schumer, actually came up with a list; I think maybe around 200 that were taken off the confirmation list. I think that was a good idea, and I think it probably could do some more. I don't know if I'd go quite as far as you said, 1,000, because some of these bureaus or commissions may sound like they're not that important, but they can make a lot of difference in lives and the creation of jobs, and the environment, and all kinds of things. So I think the Senate should weigh very carefully the ones they take off that list. But I think it could clearly be reduced some more.
The other thing that absolutely should be done, the amount of paperwork that you have to fill out … You have to fill out a set of papers for, like the Judiciary Committee, if you're a Judiciary nominee. Then you have to fill out a separate set of papers for the Justice Department. You probably have to fill out another set of papers for the White House. And there are conflicts and the process is just too protracted. So I do think that we should streamline it. One set of papers should be enough. I even have been an advocate of a process that would actually require that some actions be taken by the Senate. In other words, within a period of time say yes or say no. But say something; don't let them just sit there in perpetuity.
DAN GLICKMAN: I'm not going to embarrass my friend Mark Gearan, who's sitting in the front row, but he tells the story of how he served as the chairman of the Corporation for National Service, which is Americorps and related volunteer agencies. He gets reappointed, and this job doesn't pay anything, I don't think. So he's got to go through this confirmation process and it's massive paperwork. It's an important job, but they ask him, "We want to talk to your neighbors." Mark's President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York. So who are his neighbors? It's a fraternity house! [laughter] He's, I think, living with either some trepidation as the door knocks. It just kind of shows you how the process has gotten ridiculous. You don't mind I said that? [laughter]
MARK GEARAN: They had pictures.
TREY GRAYSON: Probably did have pictures. Again, we want to invite everybody to engage on social media, #EngageUSA. It will help us follow the conversation. We actually before today reached out to ask folks in the Internet world questions that we ought to ask. So James Cavin from Philadelphia asked the following question: “To the former chiefs of staff – and we'll let the former legislators talk about this as well – can you describe your President's relationship with the Congressional leadership of both parties? Were all sides talking past one another? Or did apparent spats in public mask more constructive dialogue in private?”
And one of the things we talked about backstage is that one of the observations right now is that the relationship between the White House and Congress isn't strong. I may be putting it mildly. [laughter] And that if we had a better relationship, some of the legislative process might work better. So I'll throw that out to everybody on the panel. John?
JOHN SUNUNU: I was chief of staff for the first President Bush, and I may be mistaken but I think the numbers we had were 175 Republicans and 260 Democrats in the House, and 43 Republicans and 57 Democrats in the Senate -- a very huge margin of opposition party. But the difference was there was a President there that wanted to get things done. And just to remind you, against that set of odds, this is a President who passed a five-year budget; the clean air bill; the child care bill: the ADA – with the help of negotiating with Senator Kennedy, and I was telling Vicki about those interesting sessions I had with the Senator – the civil rights bill; the energy deregulations bill; a small welfare package.
The fact is is that a President that is willing to be engaged can make all the difference in the world. One of the statistics that I find interesting is, in that whole cycle of doing the budget, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee was Congressman Rostenkowski from Illinois, and we had – the President had – Congressman Rostenkowski into the White House 26 times to work out details. If you go back and look at the logs of the Democratic leadership coming into the White House, you will be astounded at how many times Senator Mitchell and Speaker Foley and their respective supporting members of Congress and the Senate came in.
It takes work. Good policy, good legislation, bipartisanship comes only when a President leads. It cannot happen from the bottom up. Leadership from the President creates cover for his own party to make concessions. Leadership by the President puts political pressure in a constructive way on the opposing party to come together.
We could not have gotten a five-year budget without George Bush being willing to spend the political capital, giving up on his "no new taxes" pledge to get a budget that was important for the country and to get in that budget a set of budgeting rules that in fact produced five years of surplus over the subsequent period of time. It happens when a President leads. And it can never happen – there is no way to make it happen – if a President doesn't lead.
DAN GLICKMAN: I spent six years at the Motion Picture Association. My predecessor was Jack Valenti, who was President Johnson's basically domestic policy person. Valenti told me that the first thing Johnson told him when he went to work at the White House after the assassination was, "If you get five calls and one is from me and four are from Congress, call them first." And if any of you have seen the play All the Way – which is Brian Cranston, he was in Breaking Bad and he's on Broadway now – you get a good perspective of how engaged an effective President can be with Congress. He was probably overly effective and overmicromanaging, but still knew the only way to get the process through was to work it very hard.
When President Clinton asked me to be Secretary of Agriculture, he and Leon Panetta met with me and Clinton said to me, "Your most important job is to work the Congress," even though I was in agriculture. He says, "Because you were one, you know what it's like, you know what they're thinking about. Help me, be my eyes and ears." And he was serious about that and so were his chiefs of staff. I agree with you, John, totally. A President must be engaged in this process and must listen.
JOHN SUNUNU: Bill Clinton was superb at working Congress. He had come out as a governor, had dealt with the legislature, and really, welfare reform reflects Bill Clinton's commitment to do something really contrary to the liberal wing of his party.
DAN GLICKMAN: And just one final thing. He also had the lows -- the lowest period probably of any President in a long time. And those relationships on Capitol Hill, as Trent can probably talk about, made a huge difference in his survival capabilities.
TRENT LOTT: Being on the receiving end of communications from Bill Clinton, I confirm that we stayed in regular contact. He would call at all hours of the day or night, and on more than one occasion after midnight. I always wondered what he was doing up at that time of night. [laughter] Excuse me, [laughter]
TREY GRAYSON: He was watching basketball.
TRENT LOTT: No, but one time I know he was calling about a situation in Central America. But the point was, not that he was calling after midnight or that he was calling me, but he was reaching out, he was communicating, he was asking for input.
I had to preside as the Majority Leader over his impeachment trial. As a former Whip who always counted the votes, I knew the votes were never going to be there to remove him from office. But I had a constitutional responsibility to carry out and I wanted to do it in such a way that the Senate did what the Constitution required. But at the end of the day, we did it in a proper atmosphere, and we could come out the other end and go back to work for the country, legislating. I voted all three Articles of Impeachment on a Friday. The following Thursday he called me about a piece of legislation. Never mentioned what had gone on, and we moved forward.
But I do think it's critical that Presidents of both parties reach out to the Congress, House and Senate, Republican and Democrat. I would advocate very aggressively to have regular meetings. Ronald Reagan, when he was President, we had leadership meetings just about every Thursday morning at nine o'clock. Most of the time it was Republicans, but about once a month it was bipartisan, Republican and Democratic leadership.
When President Bush 43 was President, after 9/11, Denny Hastert, the Speaker; Dick Gephardt, the Minority Leader; Tom Daschle and I met with the President weekly at seven a.m. I hated those seven o'clock breakfasts. But the point is he was informing us as to what was going on. We were telling him what we could do legislatively. We were working together.
By the way, if you go back and check the record, the highest approval rating of the Congress in history was that three months after 9/11. It went up to 84%, and it's been going down into the tank ever since.
But so, without being critical of this President or the leadership in Congress at this time, I would urge them to have more communication and more meetings than they do now. They have almost none, and that's not healthy for any of them; they can't help each other. Now, it takes give-and-take. Having been in those positions where you have to make decisions, just hard-nosed partisanship where you say, "It's my way or the highway and we're not going to do anything unless we do it our way," it won't work in a legislative body. It is part of the democratic process and we need to honor that.
You need to stand by your principles, but you have to also be a pragmatist and somebody that's committed to doing the right thing for the country, whether it's on the budget, or taxes, or energy, or environment. And you have to be able to preserve your position, but also understand what the President needs and what your colleagues have to have and find that sweet spot. It can be done.
When Clinton was President and we had control of the Congress for Republicans, we passed a balanced budget, welfare reform, tax cuts, safe drinking water, portability of insurance, and improved the quality of our military and their pay -- a pretty good day's work for a divided government.
ANDY CARD: One of the great responsibilities at the White House is legislative affairs. The people who work in the legislative affairs office have expertise in the House and the Senate. Those personalities play a big role in the personality that the President ends up taking on, and the understanding that comes from Congress. There's only one former Chief of Staff sitting at the table who worked in legislative affairs, and that was Josh Bolten, who also had been a staffer on the Senate side. So I just would like to point that the Fred McClures and the Nick Calios of the world make a difference in legislative affairs. They help to introduce the President to the responsibilities of working in partnership with that Article I in the Constitution.
TREY GRAYSON: With that introduction …
JOSH BOLTEN: Yeah. I thank Andy for what I think he intended as a compliment. [laughter] I'm also a chief of staff though who presided over some of the worst White House/Congressional relationships in history until the Obama Administration. Andy served for the first five-plus years of the Bush 43 Administration. I served for the back end as Chief of Staff, and I had a somewhat different experience.
President Bush 43 was a leader. He understood the importance of bipartisan cooperation. It was superb after 9/11; it deteriorated some after that. But even so, in his first term when Andy was Chief of Staff, there was bipartisan, important legislation on Homeland Security; on tax reform; on education reform, which he did in partnership with Ted Kennedy, a very close partnership with Ted Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind Act; and bipartisan Medicare reform -- all in that first term.
By the time that I became Chief of Staff in 2006, the relationships had deteriorated but there was still room to work on immigration reform, where once again President Bush's close partner on immigration reform was Ted Kennedy. It was a fantastic partnership. Both men knew how to put aside bitter, partisan disagreements on other issues to make accommodations on areas where there could be disagreement.
But there needs to be give-and-take at both ends, because the situation that President Bush faced -- and I think President Obama faces today -- is one in which the leadership of the other party in the Congress sees advantage in simply pulling that President down. Now, that's bound to get bad before an election, but both sides need to overcome that short-term instinct, because what's going to happen is the cycle of retaliation will just continue on, and they need to put that aside. Where they can agree and accommodate, they need to do that. Good leaders tend to rise above it.
ANDY CARD: I just want to reaffirm what you said. The vitriol that I see among some Republicans to President Obama is extraordinary. And it makes it very difficult for him to want to reach out to the Republicans in Congress. But in the same way, there was a lot of similar vitriol by the Democrats in Congress to President Bush. You can't have it both ways.
This hatred, this high intensity polarization is in large part caused by bad behavior, and we've got to try to deal with that issue. Even though I do think the President Obama could reach out more. But it's difficult when you see what the atmosphere is out there in terms of how people feel about him.
I just want to say one word about President Bush, because I'm very involved in a lot of issues involving global agriculture. President Bush and this man right here, Josh Bolten, revolutionized the world, because they created programs in Africa to deal with AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which saved millions of people from dying. It's the great legacy, I think, of the Bush Administration that's unrecognized right now. And it got bipartisan support. It's continuing on in the Obama Administration. But it was a Republican President who actually put this imprimatur on a way to bring up a whole new way of looking at the developing world, particularly in Africa.
TREY GRAYSON: Again, #EngageUSA is the hash tag. We've got some questions from the audience. This actually might be a good follow-up question. Chris Gates, who is with the Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagements, asks, “Is the current gridlock in Washington due to the conflict between Republicans and Democrats? In other words, is it partisan or ideological? Or is it Executive Branch versus Legislative Branch?”
TRENT LOTT: It's all of the above. [laughter] Times are different, first of all. And remember, the American people are part of this whole process. You elect the Congress and the Senate and the President. The votes set up what we have here with the House controlled by Republicans, the Senate by the Democrats. And the White House, of course, a Democrat.
But there is partisanship. And I've watched it over the years. Both bodies of the Congress have moved. The center is very, very narrow now. The Democrats have moved further and further to the left; Republicans have moved further and further to the right. And I never was one -- I used the expression -- to camp in the middle. I was not considered a moderate. But frankly, that's where the solutions are quite often.
You have to be prepared to move a little bit to get an agreement that's good for the country. Like on education -- it was not easy getting No Child Left Behind. It was tough all the way. But John Boehner, now Speaker of the House, worked with Ted Kennedy and President Bush; they got it done. So it is partisanship within the Congress. There is the divide between the House and the Senate. I've described it as they're like two ships passing in the night; they don't see each other. The House acts and the Senate goes "eenk," and the Senate doesn't act. Then the Senate acts, the House doesn't act. So there is that component.
Also, I've never seen less communication than what you see going on now between the Administration and the White House and the Congress. One time I even suggested to President Bush that it would be helpful if he would get Harry Reid, the Democratic Leader, to come up in an afternoon, sit down on that South Portico, and have a drink and talk things over. Then I realized that Harry Reid was a Mormon and the President didn't drink. [laughter] So that didn't work too good.
But the blame is all around. But there is a solution and that's what I always like to emphasize. I never like to make it just a downer. The solution is for men and women to decide: We're not going to put up with this. We're going to provide leadership. We're going to find a way to get this ship of state to move forward. I'm going to put my own office as Congressman or a Senator on the line, or I'm going to use the chits I've built with the President to make sure that we do things that secure the future of America, whether it's in military security policies, or whether it's energy, or whatever it is. And that's what we don't have right now, people that are willing to put their positions on the line and to lead aggressively in a way that gets a result. It's easy to lead when you're getting your way philosophically, but you've got to be able to work with the other side in the Administration or in the Congress or with the House and the Senate.
JOHN SUNUNU: Trent touched on one point though that I think we ought to talk about a little bit more and that is the responsibility of the public. I mentioned that George Herbert Walker Bush worked aggressively to get a budget passed and spent his political capital, went back on the tax issue and got a budget that was extremely important for America. And what happened? We the people voted him out.
Quite often at an event like this, somebody will stand up in the back of the room and they'll raise their hand and they'll ask the question, "When are the politicians going to have the guts to make the right hard decisions?" And I point out that that question which is intended to be an indictment of the political figures is an indictment of us. Because why should the right decisions in a democracy, why should the right decisions be hard? If they are right, there should be an overwhelming support in the public. And so the right decision should be easy if the public was doing its job. So it really suggests to me that sometimes we forget, as voters, our own responsibilities. I think that is a part of the problem in the system, that we have to be a little bit more willing to reward hard political decisions that are made for the good of the country and create a climate in which those hard decisions become easier and easier.
TREY GRAYSON: We've got a few minutes left. Let me pivot back to talking about your own experiences in holding these offices. What was maybe your fondest memory? And then you can pick whatever office you want to talk about, but for the Chiefs and then for Trent to talk about maybe a piece of legislation. What's your fondest memory of your service?
DAN GLICKMAN: Somebody once asked me what's the greatest job I had, and I haven't been able to keep jobs for very long so I've had many of them. But clearly, being a Congressman was the greatest job. My fondest memory was when I could do things for people at home when they had problems.
One of the things that sometimes gets lost -- and I'm not being holier than thou in this -- is that this is not a game. It's on the level. Our jobs are to try to do the best thing we can for the people at home. A lot of people at home don't think that people in the line of work we're in are really in the business of doing that. They think we're in the business of power and keeping our jobs and money and politics and all sorts of things.
The problem is our system was meant not to work very well. So when Hamilton and Madison and Adams got together, they wanted a system where it was almost institutionalized gridlock. They created separation of powers. They split the Congress from the President, because they didn't want one to have more power than the other. And then they feared the tyranny of the Congress, so they split that into two as well. So one foot is on the proverbial brake and one foot is on the proverbial accelerator at all times.
So for our system to work, it requires the kind of good faith, working together, compromise that Trent and the other folks here have engaged in for a long time. When you can break through that and actually get things done and you can say, "I've produced some results for the people at home," that's really the greatest thing you can do.
JOSH BOLTEN: I spent all eight years of the Bush 43 White House in the White House. I also served in the Bush 41 Administration and I've had fantastic experiences in all of those. So, Trey, it's very hard to pick out a favorite experience, except to say that it was an enormous privilege to have a chance to serve. I mean, it's very common these days to disparage public service, to have people say how awful it is, dealing with Congress, and so on. But we lose sight of the fact that public service is a great privilege. That's something, by the way, that as Chief of Staff Andy Card reminded the staff almost every day. In fact, it created rumors immediately that Andy was on his way out when in the first month he said, "Look, we can't all expect to be here beyond today. Tomorrow you may be gone, so make use of today." So I was constantly, as his deputy, battling rumors that Andy Card was leaving the White House.
TRENT LOTT: You didn't know I was stirring those rumors up. [laughter]
JOSH BOLTEN: But he was making a very important point to the White House staff, which is, remember what a privilege it is to be where you are. Take advantage of it and remember you're a custodian of the position.
So the one moment that sticks in my memory for this was on January 20, 2009, when basically the White House empties out. It's inauguration day and it is a fabulous day in the recurring cycle of the history of our country because -- especially if there's a change of parties. Up until 11:59, one bunch is in charge of the White House and the apparatus of government, and a minute later it's somebody completely different. And you feel it when you're in the White House. Andy and I have both been through this.
When you're coming or going, you feel it very keenly, just by the physical presence. I mean, the White House that had a couple days before been bustling with the whole White House staff and everything was now almost completely empty. The painters were in, the carpenters were in redoing it the way the Obama folks wanted it. They were going to be showing up in a matter of hours. And I wandered down to the Oval Office to visit with the President for the last time and I said to him, as I said most mornings, some appreciation of the privilege of serving, not to thank him, but to remind myself, and he said, "It's been the greatest privilege that a human being can have." And that was the last exchange I had with President Bush in the Oval Office. It's something I think all of us need to keep in mind as we approach public service.
ANDY CARD: The Constitution is a wonderful document, but it really is an invitation. If you accept the invitation, you accept obligations. But it's an invitation to be part of government. We're not obligated to be a part of government; we're invited. And the most powerful word in the Constitution is the first word, "We," and it's all-inclusive. So to accept the invitation or to be given the invitation which I could accept, to help serve the personification of Article II in that Constitution, was a phenomenal gift and a great privilege.
But probably the most rewarding aspect of the opportunity to serve as the President's Chief of Staff was to understand how difficult the job is. Presidents do not have the luxury of making easy decisions. If they've made an easy decision, the Chief of Staff didn't do his or her job. They make brutally tough decisions. And they have to make them with confidence, because you don't want a pessimist making the decision. You don't want to have them say, "I'm making a bad decision right now." No, they make an optimistic decision. But they are brutally tough. They are therefore very, very controversial. But there is a high expectation that the decision will be executed to live up to the President's expectation.
But it's a privilege to be there. I watched Presidents make brutally tough decisions. There are no tougher decisions than to send young men and women into harm's way where sacrifices will be invited that the President would never invite on anyone. That's a brutally tough decision. It was a privilege to be able to witness how those decisions get made. I did not agree with every decision that the Presidents I served made. I can honestly say I respected how they made the decisions, and I felt comfortable in helping to implement the decisions once they were made.
TRENT LOTT: I had a lot of wonderful experiences over 35 years working in Congress and for Congress. I worked for four years beginning of 1968, believe it or not, for a Democratic member of Congress from my hometown. He was Chairman of the Rules Committee. Sixteen years in the House, 19 years in the Senate, so I had a lot of high moments and a few low ones, too.
But the one that always I will be the proudest of was in the late '90s when we were in the final negotiations between the Congress, Republican, and President Clinton on budget and tax policy. I remember it was a Friday afternoon, and I'd been going back and forth with the President, finally made one last call. He was trying to squeeze me for a little bit more money and I said, "Mr. President, we just can't do it." Because Pete Domenici from New Mexico, the Budget Chairman in the Senate, wouldn't go any further. John Kasich, now the Governor of Ohio, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, said not another nickel for anything; this is it. I called him back and he said, "Well, I'll let you know in a few minutes." Then Erskine Bowles called, who was then the Chief of Staff, and said, "We have an agreement." That agreement, a budget agreement, balanced the budget while cutting taxes, and it led to four years of balanced budgets and surpluses. It can be done. That was the moment I will always remember the fondest.
JOHN SUNUNU: And, of course, you did it because of the budget rules that Bush 41 got for you. [laughter]
There are some gratifications that are intellectual and some that are emotional. One of the things that I will always cherish and really underscores the privilege of having been a Chief of Staff was to go to Europe with George Herbert Walker Bush in 1989 when the Soviet Union was beginning to crumble, and to go to Poland and Czechoslovakia and to Hungary and to see a President coming in there and catalyzing at each stop a more aggressive transition from the oppressive life that those countries had been living under into this new sense of freedom. And to see how artfully and deftly he handled this transition so that there was no backlash on Gorbachev, who himself was catalyzing the process. Just to be there and to be part of those emotional transitions was really what I consider one of the great privileges of having worked for that President.
TREY GRAYSON: This may end this particular panel, but it's not going to end our program this afternoon, especially for those who are watching online. We're going to take a brief break so we can shuffle the panel. We want to encourage the folks online to stick with us. The break's supposed to be about ten minutes.
The second panel is going to be moderated by Susan Page, who's the Washington bureau chief for the USA Today. It's a great panel. We want to encourage everybody to keep sending questions and comments via social media, via Twitter. It's hash tag #EngageUSA. Again, we're going to have about a ten-minute break, but before we break, please join me in thanking this excellent panel for their comments and their service. [applause]
SUSAN PAGE: Welcome back. I'm Susan Page of USA Today, and USA Today has been honored over the past year to participate in this project with the Bipartisan Policy Center and its Commission on Political Reform.
We cannot claim to have solved the issue of Congressional dysfunction and political polarization, but over the past year we have tried to foster thoughtful and productive conversation about it among policymakers and engaging a lot of Americans, including you.
Today we have another very impression group of panelists, former members of Congress and others, all members of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Commission on Political Reform. As we start, I just want to say to our panelists, thank you so much for your service to your states and our country. [applause] Let me introduce them:
The cofounder of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Vicki Kennedy. [applause]
Former Utah Senator Bob Bennett. [applause]
Former Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. [applause/cheers]
So we have a Maine contingent here, I'm gathering. [laughter]
Former Texas Congressman Charlie Gonzalez. [applause]
Former New York Congressman Floyd Flake. [applause]
And former Texas Congressman Henry Bonilla. [applause]
We have full panelist bios in your program and online, and we invite everyone in the live audience or watching here on the webcast to join our conversation. If you're physically here, you can fill out one of these cards with a question or a comment. It'll be brought up to me and I'll use some of them through this conversation. And if you're digitally here, just send us an email or a tweet. Our Twitter handle is bpc_bipartisan; use the hash tag #EngageUSA and I'll ask some of your questions and read some of your comments.
In fact, we want to start with two contrasting comments we have already gotten from Twitter. From Verna Smith, "Given unending gridlock in Congress, is it time to seriously think about term limits, some other means to kick them out for poor performance?" But a contrasting view from Doug Constant who said, "Why is division bad? I'm especially happy when Congress is in gridlock and on vacation or recess, because America is safe." [laughter]
We found both of these points of view in the new USA Today Bipartisan Policy Center's national poll that was just released on Monday, and in this short video we're going to talk about some of the poll results and some of the comments we gathered from a range of people – a mayor, a governor, two Senators, a White House policymaker – about what's going on and about possible solutions. Let's watch.
[Video is shown.]
SUSAN PAGE: Vicki Kennedy, let's start with you. Thank you so much for welcoming us here this afternoon. I know we all look forward to seeing the Edward M. Kennedy Institute when it's open.
So not a surprise: Americans hate Congress. In our poll, fewer than one in five Americans approve of Congress even a little bit. So is there one thing that could help? Not solve every problem, but is there one reform that could improve Congress's standing?
VICKI KENNEDY: I don't think there's one reform. I think it's a combination of reforms. I just want to comment on those two comments that you started off with about term limits, and also about Congress not doing anything. I want to say I disagree with both of them. Teddy used to love to quote H. L. Mencken, "For every complex problem, there's a simple, easy answer, and it's wrong." [laughter] And I think both of those comments fit in that description.
I personally am opposed to term limits because legislating takes time. It takes knowledge. It takes getting an expertise about an issue. The truth is we have elections; that's what a term limit is. Right now, over half of the United States Senate is in its first term. Over half of the House of Representatives, I think, are in their first few couple of terms. So we have an enormous amount of turnover with our elections. So I don't think term limits are the answer.
The second comment -- that this commenter feels safe when Congress is in gridlock and doing nothing, I think is a simple, easy answer. It ignores the reality that in this country we need to have a functional government. We have serious issues facing us. We need a budget. We have major foreign policy issues facing us right now. We've got the issues with Ukraine. We've got other issues that are out there. So when serious issues come about, if we haven't been talking to each other, why would we suddenly be able to start talking to each other?
I think one of the things we've been doing as part of this Commission is thinking of ways that we can actually have members being together, even in social settings, where they can learn about each other as people. Because it's a lot easier to come to consensus on issues or to maybe listen and hear what someone has to say if you've actually met them in a non-contentious situation.
SUSAN PAGE: The idea of term limits is so interesting. The first question we've gotten from the audience, from Haley McFarland who's a student at Northeastern University and here with us, she writes, "Do you think imposing Congressional term limits would increase productivity in Congress?" Congressman Bonilla, what do you think?
HENRY BONILLA: Well, term limits, first of all, I do not support those because in any given election you can vote your member of Congress out. So in essence you're trying to put, by advocating term limits, you're advocating putting the responsibility on someone else's shoulders, rather than your own because you can vote them out.
One comment I want to make about the video that was shown earlier and the discussion we're having here is about some factors that caused the dysfunction now. The way you talk to someone matters, whether it's in your own home, or it's in your place of business, or your church, with siblings, coworkers, whatever. And what we have now is a lot of harshness from people who have strong views.
If you look in contrast to two – just randomly – two Presidents, Reagan and Clinton, who even if they were having the most difficult time of their Presidency, with pressures, with losing political fights in Washington, with international crisis, when they came out and spoke to you publicly, they were the nicest, most optimistic people, and had an attitude like "Tomorrow's going to be better, and let's talk about this." They didn't have that tense, harsh tone that you hear from both sides now. I think one way to start the dialogue in Washington to improve it would be to just, hey, be nice with the way you communicate. A lot of us have very strong views, but again it's how you put it.
Another point I want to make is that a lot of people look at what's happening now in Washington as these elected members suddenly turn harsh and they get ugly when they get to Washington. You vote for these people. They reflect America's attitude now, unfortunately. They don't create it once they set foot, get off that plane in Washington and say, "Hey, I'm going to be mean now and dysfunctional and really ugly." They go back home and say the same thing and the people cheer them. So America really has to reflect upon itself now in how at the grassroots level they have helped create this situation in Washington and try to fix it.
SUSAN PAGE: Senator Bennett, why do you think this is happening? I mean, I think there's no question, I think all of us would agree that the tone of discouragement in Washington and in politics generally has gotten so much harsher and so much less civil. Why has that happened?
BOB BENNETT: I have a whole series of answers to that question, some of them very provocative that I won't tell you. [laughter] Because this is not the right place and the right setting.
There have been changes in the media. The Internet has made everybody into Walter Cronkite. This is an old enough crowd that you know who Walter Cronkite is. [laughter] I teach at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, and none of my students have ever heard of Walter Cronkite. [laughter]
The genius of the two-party system over American history has been to force compromise within the parties; you had to choose which party you were going to be in. Then you got into the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is the party of government. They believe government is the best instrument to solve problems. The Republican Party is the party of free markets. They believe that the free markets, left by themselves, are the best way to solve problems. They're both right, because sometimes the free markets make better decisions and sometimes the government makes better decisions.
Well, if you are a special interest and you think that government is the best place to go to get your interest met, you'll become a Democrat, and you run into other people who have become Democrats whose special interest is very different than yours. And the Democratic Party has to work out that conflict within itself. The same thing is true within the Republican Party. We do not have a European system of multiple parties where every special interest has its own party.
All right, the two-party system doesn't perform that function very well anymore. Because you have bitter fights within parties and people insisting … The rise of the word RINO, and now DINO: "You're a Republican in name only, Senator Bennett, because you disagree with me on immigration. You did the terrible thing on immigration, you voted with Teddy Kennedy." I said, "No, I didn't. I voted with the Republican President George W. Bush, who had been a border state governor, who understood the immigration problem far better than any of the rest of us. And I was delighted to have Senator Kennedy vote with us." [laughter] "No, no, no, you're a Republican in name only because you didn't agree with us as to what that should be."
That division becomes so strong that we do not have the kind of cohesion that used to take place in both parties where the leadership of both parties would sit down and say, "Okay, guys, we've got to stick together, we've got to make this thing work. We've got to compromise within ourselves and have a position. We want to pass something. That means we have to talk to some Democrats. We have to work this all out."
But the old Ronald Reagan line which, in my view, labels him a RINO: "It's better to get 80% of what you want than 20% of nothing." I remember when we were debating Medicare Part D and it was a Republican proposal from a Republican President, and there were Democrats who were saying, "No, absolutely not, it's not enough." Teddy Kennedy said, "Look, to get the Republicans to give us anything in drug treatment for Medicare, let's take it and then argue about what more we can get later on. But as long as this is on the table, let's take it."
That's the way it used to work. And now everybody has his own slice of ideology and an insistence on purity. And the two-party system isn't working nearly as well as it used to. I do have some ideas about how to deal with it, but I don't have a quick answer for fear it may be wrong. [laughter]
SUSAN PAGE: And Senator Bennett, of course, these divisions in the Republican Party cost you your seat in the Senate, and these divisions, I think, contributed to your decision, Senator Snowe, to leave the Senate. Is there something that the Congressional leadership could do to make this work better?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Well, certainly, they could obviously have communications and working across the aisle and communicating. That's especially important in the United States Senate where it requires a building of accommodation and consensus and unanimous consent to move anything forward in the United States Senate, so much of which has to occur by agreement, and because the power rests within the individual Senator in the Senate, whereas the rules of the House protect the rules of the institution, because the institution is much larger.
So it does require that cross-party, cross-leadership communication. So certainly they could allow the process to work. I mean, the fundamental factor is in the United States Senate today -- and it's true in the House of Representatives -- the process isn't working. They're not legislating. They're not having committees that are operating and functioning, where they consider legislation, report it to the floor, and then have an open debate and have an amendment process. At which point, as I think Senator Lott was mentioning earlier, you work through those issues and ultimately you reach an agreement with the other side in terms of how many more amendments.
But sometimes it's very cathartic in the Senate. You let them talk, talk, talk. I think Bob would agree with this. Just let them talk it out. Give them a month to talk it out on a particular issue. Most of the issues that are outstanding and that have been sorely neglected are ones that would require at least a month of consideration on the floor of the Senate. That's what they deserve. Let them talk it out. Let them amend the bill. Have their perspectives and the views of their constituencies represented through the course of these amendments. And ultimately you get to a point where it starts to begin to coalesce. That's how it used to work.
The fact is when I first began my legislative career in the state legislature, the first year – and it was true throughout my 34 years in Congress – the first year was devoted to legislating, understanding that politics interferes in the second year in the election cycle. But it didn't deter us in the first year about working on a number of issues that were important to the country. And it was sort of synchronized between the President and the Congress and the leadership to work it out, knowing that these were the major issues on the agenda and that they needed to be addressed.
But that's not happening today. In fact, the legislative process has been virtually abandoned, all for the politics. It's all about the next election. It isn't about what we can do to craft the best policy to solve the problems. What's absent in all of this is that they're not problem solving anymore. It's always scoring political points for the next election and to leverage one side and disadvantage the other side politically so they can capture it in that 30-second sound bite. What can they do to drive their point home so they can win that election or get somebody to run against the other side. So it all revolves around the politicalization of the process, rather than doing what is in the best interest of the country. That is what is sorely lacking. You have to return to a normal legislative process. I often threaten to go to the floor of the Senate and conduct a refresher course in how a bill becomes law, like Schoolhouse Rock!, okay? [applause]
BOB BENNETT: If I may, picking up on that very quickly, one of the reasons you need to have a refresher course on how things are done is because 50% of the folks that are there are in their first term and don't know, don't remember. That's the strongest argument possible against term limits.
SUSAN PAGE: We have a suggestion from an emailer. This is from Michelle Chestvoid and she writes, "Have responses to legislation ideas become longer, less to the point and more colorful since television cameras have started publicizing sessions? If so, the cameras should be removed, audience restricted again to members and visitors, with a synopsis of sessions being printed or tweeted." I'd like to see a synopsis of a Congressional session on Twitter in 140 characters or less.
But we want to pose a question to our audience online. You can vote at Here's our first question: “Can the Senate retain its reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body without the filibuster or other minority rights?” And we'll report those results in just a few minutes. You can post a tweet or ask a question. Use the hash tag #EngageUSA.
Let's go to the point that Senator Bennett was just making on the fact that so many members are new. We see a lot of very senior members of Congress, including the most senior member of Congress, Congressman Dingell, announcing they're going to retire at the end of this year. Congressman Gonzalez, is there a loss with so many senior members deciding not to run again with the fact that so many members are relatively junior?
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: I do think of the members that have announced their retirement, it really is a loss because these individuals have such a respect and love for the institution of Congress and especially the House, and its legitimate function in American society. That's what you lose.
Now, who replaces them is going to be important. But I think one source of where we are today as a result of what happened is you have individuals that are being elected that don't have a love, respect for the institution or the role of government. They actually are elected on a platform to make sure that there's gridlock and that government will not function. And if they could reduce the number of legislative days to three or four, they probably would.
Now, that sounds like an extreme statement, but I assure you, a close analysis of what is going on -- because you don't even have the Speaker of the House, now, that's the individual that was elected by the majority party. They don't even vest that individual anymore with authority to go out there and broker and negotiate, if we were negotiating and compromising and forming consensus. I think that's the real issue.
But yes, I think it is a great loss. Now, there are some people who will say, "Well, Mr. Dingell was there 50-something years. And Mr. Waxman was there 40 years. And George Miller was there …" But I'm going to tell you something: Those were very, very effective legislators. You may disagree with them, but in large measure most of those that will be leaving were real craftsmen, individuals, like I said, that we all learn from. If we took those lessons … That's my fear is what's left of that kind of legacy. Will it suffer or will someone else carry on? I know that Floyd and Henry and others that have served in the House believe that there are individuals that will pick up that mantle and carry forward. But I am concerned about it.
SUSAN PAGE: Congressman Flake, here's an email we've gotten from Gavin Airlick of Syracuse, New York who writes, "How often do members from across the aisle get together and socialize with one another without the specific purpose of discussing or debating political issues? Do you think that the lack of friendly, personalized interaction among Congressional officials outside of the political arena is a contributor to the current gridlock? And if so, what steps can be taken to facilitate this type of interaction?"
So tell us, how often would that happen, that members of Congress get together not to talk about politics, but to forge some kind of personal relationship? And would it make a difference?
FLOYD FLAKE: Yeah, it would make a great difference. When I came into the Congress, the elder Bush was the President. Relationships were much better. During that season while he was there, one of the things that he did, he was in the gym with us; he exercised in the gym with the members. The connection between people makes the difference. That connection somehow got lost somewhere between the years I started and the years I finished.
One of the things I bring to the table is an understanding of how you deal with people, how you make people work. I was dean of students and dean of the chapel here at BU for eight years. And if you can deal with that many young people, helping them to understand the things that are difficult to them, I learned in that environment that it is always possible to help people, bring them to such a level of understanding about that which they have difficulties and problems with. And I do believe that much of that could work in a political environment. But it takes a person who has that ability to help people understand not only who you are, but help them to understand who they are.
I think in the Congress our problem is too many do not understand who they are. They don't understand what it means once you get elected to this office. And the thing that they think makes them who they are, in many instances, is not really the thing that ultimately gives them the power, or a sense of who they really are in working in an environment where you learn how to do a deal, how to make the deal, how to make the deal work, how to pull people in, so that together you can make something greater than it would be if you tried to do it by yourself.
SUSAN PAGE: Does the President make much difference? We're talking about Congressional function and dysfunction. How much difference can a President make if a President's very engaged? Senator Snowe, what do you think?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Oh, the President's role is paramount. You can't have the Legislative and Executive Branches operating as parallel universes. Unfortunately, the intersection between the two branches has been diminished and that's unfortunate because ultimately it requires that kind of communication and collaboration and builds stronger relationships when they get to know one another, irrespective of the differences.
In the past, and I know Senator Lott was speaking to this earlier, but during Reagan's Administration, for example, there were regular bipartisan leadership meetings at the White House with the President and then biweekly leadership dinners at the White House. President Reagan was very much engaged and weighed in with members of Congress and also specifically with leadership.
That's an important issue going forward on both sides. It requires the support of both the leadership and the President in working together, hand in glove, on the issues that matter to this country. Does that mean to say they're not going to have differences? No. But they have to communicate and they have to be understanding of one another's perspective and that simply isn't happening.
That's something that we as people have to demand in the future. I think that that's a level of accountability that has to be elicited from people who are running for these offices to ensure that they are going to make their government work. You can't have both branches working separately and independently of one another as has been the case.
HENRY BONILLA: Susan, if you look at the most recent Bush Presidency, working with Ted Kennedy to get an education bill done. Before that, Bill Clinton worked with Republicans to pass a free trade agreement, NAFTA. Before that, you had Tip O'Neill working with Reagan to pass legislation. You're just not seeing that anymore. But in each of those cases -- you asked about the President's influence -- the Presidents in those cases made a special effort to have those relationships with the Congress and vice versa. And for some reason that has stopped.
When you have to sit next to someone in the White House or on Capitol Hill, look them in the eye and talk about an issue, you feel it more. And if you have a difference, it's going to be a true difference before you bring … rather than go make a speech in front of the TV cameras. That's different than looking someone in the eye who's sincerely come to you to try to work out some agreement. It sets the table for something to actually get done at the end of the day, versus each one individually racing up to the podium to make a speech that's going to look good on television.
SUSAN PAGE: President Obama does not, I think it's fair to say, have very good relations with members of Congress, including Democratic members, not just Republican members, now in his sixth year. Is there time for him to change that? Could the remainder of his second term be different and more productive if there were things that he did? Vicki Kennedy, what do you think?
VICKI KENNEDY: Oh, I think there's definitely time to change it. And I would hope that he would continue to reach out.
I was also struck by something Henry said early on about just civility and people talking to each other in a nice way. I think we have to also acknowledge that we have had members of Congress actually decline Presidential invitations. I've never heard of that before. I think that's a place where the people need to speak out and say to their members of Congress, “When the President of the United States invites you to the White House, you go.” And they should be held accountable, not be lauded for not speaking to the President of the United States. Or if someone calls the President a liar during a speech, that shouldn't be something to be celebrated. Those are such acts of incivility that we should be speaking out about that.
I think that there's a lot of incivility and blame to go around, but I think the people need to speak out and say, “This isn't what we want of our government. This isn't what we want of our elected representatives, and we need everybody to continue to– you want you to break bread together.” Because a lot happens over a dinner table. We talk about families staying together and eating together and having good relationships; the same is true of a good working relationship between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, but also among legislators.
SUSAN PAGE: I agree. I found it remarkable that people turn down White House invitations, because you're not just dissing the current President. It seems like you're dissing the institution of the Presidency when you do that, or when you refuse to have a conversation. So why has that happened?
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: Susan, I really think for many Republicans a photo of that Republican next to President Obama will cost you the primary. I mean, because it's happened in every primary since 2010. And for us not to discuss that environment, which is very obvious after 2010 … I'm a Democrat and I'm not blaming all the Republicans, and I think the President could make a greater concerted effort at times and establish those relationships. But we should not fool ourselves. This is not George W. Bush's term; it's not Clinton's term; it's not George HW Bush's term. This is in a different environment. I still blame leadership in large measure for not trying to rein in that kind of behavior. But I'm not real sure what leadership is going to do in the way of discipline or correction. But what do you do with that political environment that is so poisoned that you have individuals, as Vicki has said, that would actually turn down an invitation to go and meet with the President and go to the White House?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Well, it gets back to valuing compromising consensus, frankly. I mean, it's not even heralded in the media because it's all: you're on one side or the other. They don't want any of the gray areas and sorting through the issues, because that doesn't generate a lot of ratings, unfortunately. That's what also has happened -- whether it's through cable networks or any other form of a media -- the point is people want to know "Are you on one side or the other?" I always used to feel like I was defined through MSNBC and Fox News and that was it. Basically, that's what it's come down to, sort of sorting out, instead of saying, “Wait a minute, why aren't you working out that issue for all of us?”
At the end of the day, we're all going to have differences. The question is how are you going to get over those differences and solve the problem? And that's not what's happening today for this country. So it's going to be up to all of us to get involved in these elections in real time and demand that. It gets back to what you were saying, Charlie, is the fact that it doesn't become punitive because of the primaries and the focus on primaries, but rather you've got now a broader support among the population for compromise and consensus. That's why reforms have to take place that we're focusing on as well.
SUSAN PAGE: And, of course, even if you don't believe in compromise and don't want to compromise, you can believe in civil discourse or talking to the other side.
Well, let's report on the results of our first online audience question. The question was: “Can the Senate retain its reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body without the filibuster or other minority rights?” And here's what you told us: No, 77%; yes, 23%. So a lot of consensus among those who are watching in the audience to maintain filibuster and be sure to protect minority rights.
We want to pose a second question to our online audience. This question is: “Would you support a two-year budget so that Congress can focus on budget issues half as often, leaving time to conduct real oversight?” You can vote at and we'll report the results in just a moment.
Here's a question from the audience from Malachi Donovan, who is a Boston College High School student who's in the audience. She writes: “What role does gerrymandering play in Congressional dysfunction. And I ask that particularly because of the conversation that we just had about members who would be crucified in their district for talking to the President, because it's such a Republican district. Has gerrymandering had the effect of kind of setting us up for this kind of lack of function, or for this kind of dysfunction?” Congressman Flake, what do you think?
FLOYD FLAKE: I think gerrymandering plays a major role when you think about how you shape a district, how you shape the districts and persons wanting to be in a particular place and not another and perhaps getting elected and then find that their district is not capable of providing for them in the way that other districts might be able to do so. It is a difficult process when you get to drawing the lines. People draw the lines in their best interests. In many instances, it destroys a great deal of what made a district strong in the first place, because you take so much away from it, so much out of it, and it's extremely difficult to build it back. I have not seen it built back in my years. It's very difficult.
SUSAN PAGE: You look at a place like Texas. Lots of gerrymandering there, Congressman Gonzalez.
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: Well, there is some evidence of that. [laughter] Henry and I, we've been in lawsuits in Texas. I was so tired of taking that witness stand. But I'll tell you, there is the political consideration. As the Reverend was alluding to, what you're trying to do is get as many seats as you could possibly win, that's what it comes down to. That's the political angle.
But as a minority, I will tell you that what enters the picture will be minority districts. And you could say, “Well, when you create that, are you creating a democratic district?” And that's been a legal argument for a long time because the answer is generally yes, because of voting patterns and such. So sometimes there are these compromises, but actually it is out of respect, legally speaking, of the minorities' rights to be able to elect someone of their choice. It might be a Republican, might be a Democrat; most likely it'll be Democrat. So it's not as easy as I'd like to present to you. But definitely there has to be a better way of arriving at Congressional districts every ten years.
HENRY BONILLA: Some of the biggest political fights in this country are over redistricting. We have discussed in meetings with this group over the past year some reforms that might be considered to take that out of the equation. The state of Iowa, for example, writes them about as independently as one can possibly do and that versus our home state, Charlie, where it's done by the state legislature, the governor gets involved, outside interests get involved, and it is a bloodbath every ten years.
SUSAN PAGE: So what are the odds that Texas would agree to non-partisan redistricting?
HENRY BONILLA: That's something that the state legislature has to agree to, and they're up for reelection this year. So I can't tell you off hand but I think at least they ought to consider it, because again we have an example of one state that has done it pretty objectively thus far. Another consideration might be what California does, where you have jungle primaries and you don't have individual primaries of Republicans and Democrats and let everybody run in one pile.
SUSAN PAGE: And a jungle primary is where just the first two finishers run for office, even if they're both Republicans or both Democrats.
HENRY BONILLA: And if you don't get majority, you have a runoff. It might be two Republicans, it might be two Democrats. So clearly, there are some ideas that should be considered by states to take this ugly fight out of the equation after every census.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: There are a dozen states already that have adopted independent redistricting commissions. Frankly, you don't have to change every state in the country, you just need to change enough to alter the political equilibrium in the House of Representatives having more competitive seats. I mean, depending on which study you look at. I know Nate Silver, for example, conducted a study last year, and he concluded there are 35 seats out of 435 that were competitive, their vote. There was another one with 21 seats out of 435. That gives you an idea to the degree to which these districts have been significantly altered to fit the political.
SUSAN PAGE: And in California, of course, it was the citizens who passed a referendum requiring non-partisan redistricting. It wasn't the legislature that decided they'd give up some of their power.
Here's kind of a radical idea from a tweet, I think, from George Sanders of Larchmont, New York, who wrote: "Would you ever support approval voting, the simplest, no-cost solution to help mitigate polarized politics?" Approval voting would be where you go to an election and you can vote for more than one candidate, and it's the candidate who has the broadest acceptability who would win the office. What do you think, Vicki Kennedy? Or Senator Bennett, you're kind of shaking your head.
BOB BENNETT: No. [laughter]
VICKI KENNEDY: I agree.
BOB BENNETT: They have a form of that in Nevada.
SUSAN PAGE: In where?
BOB BENNETT: In Nevada you can vote "none of the above." And "none of the above" never gets more than 4-5% of the vote. But "none of the above" has determined the outcome of the election. I think Harry Reid would not be the Senator from Nevada if they hadn't had "none of the above" on the ballot. Because people who don't like Harry, but they don't like this opponent either, so they just say "none of the above," and if they were forced to make a choice, then they probably would have voted for Harry's opponent.
Harry happens to be a friend of mine. He did a lot of wonderful things for me while I was in the Senate. People would say to me, "Harry Reid is evil," and I say, "You like my record and all of the good things I did for Utah?" "Oh, yeah, you're a terrific Senator." "Well, I couldn't have gotten any of it done without the behind-the-scenes support of Harry Reid who was a fellow Westerner and understands that we Westerners stick together." And he'd say, "Okay, I can help move that through." So naturally, I'm very careful about saying nasty things about Harry Reid, because I'm going to need him the next time something comes up.
But the idea of having a generic "We hate everybody," "None of the above," or "I disapprove," that's a copout. Pick a side, make a choice. Don't give us this airy, fairy "I don't like them all."
SUSAN PAGE: So a no to approval voting, I gather, for our panel. We're sorry to the guy who sent that in. [laughter]
Here's a question on Twitter from Lonnie Turner of New Carrollton, Maryland who writes: "What is the line between acceptable minority opposition and blatant obstructionism?" And I wonder if where that line is depends on which side of the line you're on, whether you're the party in power or not. Congressman Flake, is there a line? Are we stepping over the line these days?
FLOYD FLAKE: I think there's a line. I cannot see how there cannot be. There's always a party, and there's always another party. There's always a group, there's always another group. There are always people who have their ideas about what the politics are, and another group who has a different idea. You're always going to have those kinds of challenges. It's not going to be easy to change it, because this has been the way it's been so long for so many years. Anything that's different to them would seem to be that you're just tearing up that which they truly believe in and that would cause another degree of problems that we might not be able to solve.
SUSAN PAGE: Congressman Gonzalez, where do you decide where the line is between taking a principled stand and being obstructionist? How do we know when someone's on one side of that line or the other?
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: I'll say something that's pretty dangerous, I guess. And that is: If you're always voting that party line and you're just voting basically because it's the Republican bill or something, you're probably going to run into some problems. You're going to vote against every amendment in committee because it's a Republican. I mean, I think that's probably the easiest line that you could probably draw, and it would be some line of demarcation.
I always thought in our wildest dreams as we sat there and you have the big scoreboard – there is 435 of us, and the Senator will tell you it's a lot easier to call out 100 names than it is 435. So we vote electronically and the lights are going on, and I used to think, wouldn't it be great, on a real controversial piece of legislation, we could vote but no one would know that that was your vote. Now, you're legally entitled to vote. I wonder what that vote tally would look like. Boy, you'd have some real bipartisanship going on. But no, I really do think if you always do not entertain the idea from the other side of the aisle, you vote against it because of the origin, I think that's probably the easiest thing to identify. In my view.
SUSAN PAGE: We're going to give the results of our second online audience question in just a minute, about a two-year budget, but Senator Snowe, you served on the Budget Committee. So do you think the idea of a two-year budget makes sense? Would it change the way things work? And would we have less of this kind of cliffhanger stuff that we've had the last couple years?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Just getting a budget would be remarkable these days. [laughter] But that's another story. I do think a two-year budget would be a significant reform. In fact, Pete Domenici, who chaired the committee and was ranking member of the Budget Committee for many years and is a senior fellow of the Bipartisan Policy Center, introduced biannual budgets back in 1999. I've advocated it since I first came to the House of Representatives. Because it would give the opportunity through Congress to establish a two-year budget process and have a two-year resolution, two years for appropriation and then go back in and engage in aggressive oversight of government programs and how they're functioning, what we can do to make them different, what works, what doesn't work. The kind of oversight that's absolutely vital and essential. So that gives, I think, the opportunity through the biannual budget for Congress and the committees to weigh in in that regard. Then make adjustments through supplementals so they don't have to always address all of the 12 appropriations simultaneously, but go back in if there has to be adjustments made on any one of the individual appropriations over the two-year process.
Just to understand how bad the budget process is – we already know that from the shutdown that occurred, and ultimately reached a de minimis agreement – we have not had a budget in the United States Senate for three consecutive years. It wasn't until this last agreement in December that they ultimately even reached a resolution.
But on the appropriations side, of the 12 appropriations, we haven't had 12 appropriations passed before the fiscal year of October 1st since 1996, which was under Senator Trent Lott's leadership as Majority Leader and Senator Daschle as Minority Leader. And only 13 appropriation bills have passed since 2001. Only 13 total, not in one year, but total. Just to give you the degree to which this current process has failed. So it would add significantly, I think, to improving it and getting them on a course of evaluating federal programs.
SUSAN PAGE: So what are the odds of a two-year budget process?
BOB BENNETT: I think they're very good. We have an example. The Murray-Ryan budget is a two-year budget. We've actually done it. Let's see what happens in this two- year period.
SUSAN PAGE: Do you take this as a kind of a green shoot of spring that they were able in December to reach a two-year budget deal?
BOB BENNETT: I think they did it without realizing what they were doing. [laughter] Could I go back to the previous question? We kind of went over it very quickly, but it's a very, very significant point, which is where do you draw the line between principled opposition and absolute obstructionism. There wasn't anybody who had stronger principled opposition than Teddy Kennedy to many of the positions that Republican Presidents took, and he was very outspoken about it.
I go back in history. Ratification of the Constitution was one of the most bitter, divisive fights we ever had. Everybody thinks, “Oh, they came out of Philadelphia and they waved this marvelous document and there we were.” No. They came out of Philadelphia into a massive opposition and the fight for ratification of the Constitution, state by state, was a bloody fight. And the two states where it was the bloodiest were the two states we had to have in the Union or we would not have had a country -- Virginia and New York. All of the other states could have ratified and if Virginia and New York had stayed out, we wouldn't have had a country. It was a very narrow thing in both states.
James Madison, fighting the fight in Virginia, was opposed by Edmund Randolph – the member of the Constitutional Convention, who put forward the Virginia Plan to begin with and then voted against it in the Convention and came home to Virginia and campaigned against it on the position, "It takes too much sovereignty away from the state and I can't be for it." And the most powerful orator in the state of Virginia, Patrick Henry -- they fought the Constitution every step of the way. It finally was ratified by a very narrow vote. What did Patrick Henry do when people came to him and said, "All right, now what do we do to stop it?" He said, "We have lost. Now we fight within the system. I will not fight the Constitution anymore. I will now work within the structure that is created to get what I want later on."
That's where the line should be. Fight as best you can for your position, and then if you are defeated you say, “All right, that's the way things are. Now, I will work within the system for what I believe, instead of saying, “All right, now I will shut down the system.” That's the line that should be drawn. [applause]
SUSAN PAGE: We have a pretty notable example just at the moment where that has not happened. The Affordable Care Act passed four years ago. Republicans spent several years trying to repeal it, not trying to make it work better. Where do you draw the line, Vicki Kennedy? Where do you draw the line between taking a principled stand against an act you disagree with and being obstructionist? How do you know which side of the line you're on?
VICKI KENNEDY: I think Senator Bennett just said it beautifully. I think that a constant attempt to undermine what's already happened -- a party line vote or a decision by a party leader -- that no matter what comes up you will never vote with another side, a decision to filibuster every single thing that comes from another side, I think that's just obstructionism, that's not principled opposition.
But I think we have to always have room for principled opposition and allow people the chance to debate an issue, to talk about an issue. But to totally revisit laws that have – and I'm feeling very strongly and personally about the Affordable Care Act, obviously -- but to have a law that has been passed by Houses of Congress, signed by the President, approved by the Supreme Court of the United States and to still be talking about it over and over and over and over and over again, not about how to make it better, just how to undo it, I think really is not, historically at least as far as I know, what we have done. Obviously, there are things you can improve, but that's not been the conversation. [applause]
SUSAN PAGE: Does anyone on the panel think that Republicans who have continued to fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the last several years have done the right thing? That it's a principled opposition, not an example of obstructionism?
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: I believe that what they feel is it's sincere opposition. There might be a fringe group that just wants to be negative on the President regularly, but for the most part this doesn't just … It's not just limited to one party either. There a lot of people on both sides that have a lot of issues with it. So I think for the most part, the majority of those that are constantly trying to change it or eliminate it are sincere in their feelings. I'm sorry, Vicki, what was that?
VICKI KENNEDY: I said Pinocchio alert. [laughter]
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: I mean that. From what I'm sensing out in the heartland.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Can I just raise a point because I think it's important? It illustrates the fundamental, primary issue why we're all here. Is that the process isn't working. And the Affordable Care Act -- and I'm very much involved in it and I gave it my level best as the lone Republican standing. [applause]
VICKI KENNEDY: You did, I know that for a fact.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: My former chief of staff asked me, "Do you know where this is all going?" And I said, "I really don't." Because I had to take it to the end and decide. At the end of the road, you were asking where you draw that line, what you can support and what you can't and I couldn't. But it requires bipartisan buy-in. That's why the process matters. Because when you have both sides weighing in on a significant issue, and perhaps … Well, it's the largest domestic initiative in our history. Sitting at the table, working through it, you identify major problems with issues.
If you think about the history with the Voting Rights Act, with the Civil Rights Act and how that came to pass, it was bipartisan. Social Security and Medicare. How do we get these Amendments ratified to the Constitution? The 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote? Because of the United States Congress's willingness to work together on major landmark initiatives. And that's what's not happening today and unfortunately what happened with the Affordable Care Act. It should have been a process by which everybody was engaged on both sides to make a difference. I won't get into the why it didn't, but unfortunately it didn't.
Ultimately the people are paying the price today. That's why I think so many people are saying, “You know what? We prefer gridlock.” Because they say, “Well, we have so many problems with the implementation.” Not to say there wouldn't be some problems with a major initiative of this kind, but let's just say there would be less of them because you have more interest to make sure it works when you have both sides working on a major proposition of this kind.
BOB BENNETT: I know I've already spoken, but I have to tell you this story. Senator Wyden and I, in the previous Congress, put together a bipartisan healthcare bill. We called it the Healthy Americans Act, and Mary Landrieu called it the Noah's Ark Bill because you go on it two-by-two. Every time I got a Republican sponsor, Senator Wyden had to get a Democratic sponsor. Every time he got a Democrat to sign on, I had to get a Republican. We got up to 19 cosponsors. I had ten Republicans, he had nine Democrats. Among my cosponsors were members of leadership – Trent Lott, Lamar Alexander.
Okay, the election occurs. President Obama is elected. Healthcare is on the agenda. I get a phone call from Tom Daschle saying, "Will you help up?" And I said, "Of course." I said, "But Tom, I want a seat at the table for all the work I've done with Ron Wyden." He said, "Absolutely, you've got a seta at the table." Now, Tom Daschle ran afoul of the confirmation process, did not get to be Secretary of HHS. A new team came in. I got a phone call – I will not tell you the name – "I want to visit with you about healthcare." "Great, come on in." The individual came in. He said, "Really appreciate all the work you've done on healthcare." "Well, thank you." "Really appreciate your interest." "Thank you." "Love to have your support as we work to get this bill done." "I'll be glad to do it." "But I want to make it very clear. It's not going to be the Healthy Americans Act. It's not going to be your bill, it's going to be our bill. What I'm here to say is I want you to support our bill." I said, "Well, there are some things in this bill I really believe in." "Well, we are going to write the bill." And I said, "Do you mind if I tell Ron Wyden?" He said, "That's why I'm here." So I picked up the phone and I called Senator Wyden and said, "I've just been told by X that our bill is dead on arrival." And he says, "Yeah, they've been working on me to get me to abandon it, and I won't. So he figures if he works on you and you will tell me to abandon it, that we'll abandon it."
We had 19 cosponsors, including ten Republicans, including ten members of leadership who were willing to work on a bipartisan solution because we believed that the current healthcare structure was impossible, terrible, bad for Americans, needed to be changed. And we were frozen out of the conversation and told to go away. It was passed with 60 Democratic votes and not a single one of the ten Republican cosponsors was ever asked to participate in the process of putting it together. So this was one place where I chalk it up not to anything evil – I'm not Rush Limbaugh, I'm not somebody who says he hopes the President will fail – I think this was an example of the President's inexperience of dealing with the Congress. He had a great opportunity and he muffed it.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: I don't know how many times I used to hear, "If Ted had been in the United States Senate at the time, we could have worked it out." Because he was a master at writing legislation and understanding the give-and-take of the legislative process. That's why I thought it was so great today that our day began with the profound symbolism of visiting the Edward M. Kennedy Institute and seeing what the Senate was all about and what it's going to be all about, that interaction. It will inspire so many young people to run for public office, knowing how that process works and how he made it work.
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: I have to chime in for just a second, because even in the House there was tremendous respect on both sides for Ted Kennedy because of the way he operated. I guess in speaking in broader terms about people that used to be in the Senate and the House that operated from that vantage point where they really wanted to try to get the right thing done and if they couldn't get their way, they were not going to lie on the tracks and call a news conference and stomp their feet and try to get you in your next election. He never did that. I think that's one of the – just to build on what Olympia is saying – was one of the great things about him.
SUSAN PAGE: Is there a Ted Kennedy in the Senate now? Someone who is kind of a master legislator, respected on both sides, who maybe has a strong point of view but willing to work across parties. Is there a young Senator? Is there someone who seems like a prospective Ted Kennedy kind of figure?
BOB BENNETT: Lamar Alexander.
SUSAN PAGE: Lamar Alexander?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: I would agree with that.
SUSAN PAGE: Any other nominees? No. Well, he was certainly a very …
HENRY BONILLA: It would be easier if we had a list to look at.
SUSAN PAGE: … certainly a very singular thinker.
BOB BENNETT: Can I give you a name that will surprise everybody? Chuck Schumer. I was the ranking member of the Rules Committee when Chuck was the chairman. And everybody said to me, "Oh, this is going to be terrible." I mean, before it was Diane Feinstein and Diane is a love; we worked everything out without any difficulties, any problems. It was just wonderful. They said, "Diane's moved on to intelligence and you've got Chuck Schumer and he's a tough, hard-edged partisan. It's going to be awful." I never asked Chuck for anything that he didn't give me. I made sure all of my requests were reasonable. But okay, this is reasonable, and I would go to Chuck and sit down and Chuck would say, "Okay, we can work that out." I know he has a reputation as a brass knuckles, back alley fighter and he's a tough a partisan as you're going to come across, but Chuck is transactional. He can make a deal. I think if Chuck were the Majority Leader – I'd prefer Minority Leader – and Lamar was the Majority Leader, I think you'd see a very different Senate.
HENRY BONILLA: Just a couple more names now that I'm thinking more clearly: Orrin Hatch is one in the House, Bill Shuster and Hal Rogers are a couple of names. They may not be household names, but they are within the institution itself respected as people who really want to work with you to try to accomplish.
SUSAN PAGE: It's interesting Senator Schumer and Senator Alexander are mentioned because they happen to be the two people who have been working together on new processes in the Senate to get things going.
Well, let's report on the results of our second online audience question. We asked: “Would you support a two-year budget so that Congress can focus on budget issues half as often, leaving time to conduct real oversight?” What did you tell us? Lots of support. 87%, yes; 13% no in favor of a two-year budget.
Let's ask our third and our final audience poll question which is this: “Would Congress be more productive if members and their families spent more time in Washington?” You can vote at our website, .
Well, Vicki Kennedy, I've heard a lot of people on the Commission on Political Reform talk about the need for members to spend more time in Washington. But in our poll, we asked if members of Congress should move their families to Washington or leave them in the district and by six to one, Americans said they should leave their families in the district. There was much more concern about members losing touch with what the constituents wanted than there was about forging relationships that would help in Washington. I wonder if that's just a hurdle that you can't overcome when it comes to spending more time in Washington or moving your family there when voters have such a consensus about it.
VICKI KENNEDY: I think the notion of leaving your family back home is a relatively new phenomenon. Historically, families always moved to Washington. Certainly it was expected. In the Senate, for a six-year term, the idea that your family would be someplace else – and the Senate was in …Teddy used to talk about it; he said they were in five days a week. So the idea that your family would be someplace else was just unthinkable. It was a chance as well to have dinner with your family, if you could. He did this really with my children as well. We'd go down and have picnics on the Capitol lawn. The Senate would be in session. Sometimes there would be a band in those every old days, where a Marine band would play on the Capitol lawn on a certain day of the week. Do you remember that? And we'd sit under a tree and have a picnic and then he'd go back in. The bell would ring and he'd go back in for a vote.
It was the idea that you could have a civilized life, but you also had the sense of a normal family life. But it also allowed you to meet other Senators, to meet their families; to meet their spouses in the Senate spouse club, where we would have regular lunches. I had wonderful across-the-aisle, a wonderful relationship with Senator Bennett's wife, other spouses. That made a difference in how our spouses interacted with each other on the floor.
All of those things make a difference. You get to know each other as human beings. So I think it's a terrific idea to spend time in Washington. You're there to do a job and it's to represent your constituents in Washington. That's what the job is. And think about being a workplace: If you're not getting along with your coworkers, how productive can you be? And if you don't know your coworkers' names, how productive can you be? So I'm very, very much in favor of it. [applause]
SUSAN PAGE: So this audience agrees with you. I think it must be really hard on a member of Congress to not have their family living in Washington. But when your constituents are very suspicious of the idea, what do you do, Congressman Gonzalez? Can you buck them and say, “No, it's really important for me to have them there?"
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: First of all, there's a distinction, a big difference, the term of a Senator and the term of a US House Representative member, which is two years. You win in November – in Texas, you win in November and a year later you're filing for office again.
My dad was elected to Congress in 1961 and my mom and dad had eight kids. We were lucky to have a home back in San Antonio, much less one in San Antonio, one in DC. We would visit Dad in the summer, two at a time because he lived in an apartment. But I'm just saying when I was in Congress, I still remember the Congresswoman from New Mexico who was in charge of taking a survey or a poll – 75% of the members of the House did not have their families in Washington. It's not that you don't want them there. One, I think it's a financial situation; it's really, really difficult. Secondly, you are running for office and you will be back home whether you like it or not during that campaign year, which is every other year.
So as much as I'd like to see it – because it does make for a more complete member to have family there, it just makes you a better person and able to get along and you will see other members. Henry and I, we doubled, remember, with my stepkids and your kids, and such. But they were just visiting back then. So I can see the advantages. Just the practicalities of, with the two-year term and the financial constraints and challenges, would make it really, really difficult.
HENRY BONILLA: Charlie and I are good examples. Conservative/liberal, we get along great. We didn't agree on a whole lot of things when we were in Congress, but we always got along. I probably got mad at him a couple of times and vice versa. But we did have opportunities to hang out like that. It really helps when you're trying to work on something. Maybe it's two out of ten issues that you might agree on, but it's more than you have now in Washington. So those kinds of things do matter.
I think if you're for continuing dysfunction in Washington and gridlock, then you probably don't want members to spend more time in Washington. If you want them to work together and get along more, you'll want them to be in Washington more. Because you do build those relationships that make it harder to just be ugly for political purposes, and it just lends itself to more compromise.
SUSAN PAGE: Here's a question from our audience from Kate Apkin from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. And she writes, "What message do you have for the Millennial generation, both as voters and as individuals who might run for office or otherwise engage with government? What responsibilities and incentives do they have to get involved? And how should they get involved?"
Congressman Flake, let's start with you. I wonder also if there might be some attitude among some young people that why would they want to get involved in a political system where it's so hard to get things done and where there's such a personal cost?
FLOYD FLAKE: I think the Millennials have already proven, if you look at the last Presidential campaign, that they are interested, they want to be involved, they want to be engaged. They don't necessarily know fully what all of that means. But what they do know is who they want to be seated in the White House or in the Congress, representing them in their particular communities and particular areas.
I do believe that as they grow, and particularly in this age where they have access to all of this hardware to communicate with each other, I believe that you're going to see some turns very soon in terms of how they connect to one another and how they go to the polls, and how they see themselves in relationship to other people who are surrounding them. I do believe that you'll see a much greater turnout in the future because they see themselves as the future. I think if we cooperate with them, push them, help them to understand politics better than they do, I think we will find that this will be a generation that may really change the whole scope of politics as we know it today.
SUSAN PAGE: Once Millennials are elected to office and increasingly taking positions of authority, will they be different from the current generation in terms of how they work?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: I think they will.
FLOYD FLAKE: They will be. They think differently. They talk differently. They want different things.
SUSAN PAGE: What'll be different?
FLOYD FLAKE: I think they come out of institutions, universities and other places. They have a different mindset about what life is about. Most of them are relatively mature. They have exceptional communication skills. They'll be able to speak in such ways that they can present themselves and people understand what they mean by what they say. I do believe that we are going to see a dramatic change in the next two or three years. I'm using just populations of young people, because I deal with them so much. Their ideas are great. But at this point, they need to find a way to get people to listen.
SUSAN PAGE: So Senator Snowe, when Millennials rule the world, how will it be different?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: I think they will learn not to take their cues from the current climate in Washington. I've definitely gotten that impression from young people as I've traveled across the country, speaking on college campuses and talk to so many. They constantly ask me the question about what they can do to change it, how best can they contribute. And they do wonder whether or not they should participate in running for public office or in public service. I tell them they absolutely must.
Of course, they always ask me the tricky question: “Well, if you left the United States Senate, why are you asking us to get involved?” [laughter] I said, “Well, that is a good question. But I'm at another stage in life and I can best contribute this way in convincing people that you can change the current dynamic.” But they're early in their lives and they have entire lifetimes ahead of them, as well as the country. So they need to be involved and to make an impact, because of what's at stake. And they ought to demand results now from those in public office because it will have profound implications for them going forward, given the enormity of the debt and the other problems that have been long deferred, frankly.
They want to be involved. I'm so impressed with so many. They are problem solvers. They're looking at the world around them. They're aware. They want to change this political system. Now, we've just got to encourage them to run for office keeping that in mind as one of the options, to engage in public service, as I did in my generation. We were inspired by President Kennedy. We need to have a whole new generation of young people thinking about it. Especially at these times when there's so many issues that could have a tremendous impact on their future, as we know.
SUSAN PAGE: Let's look at the results from the third question we posed to our online audience. We asked, “Would Congress be more productive if members and their families spent more time in Washington?” Here's what we heard from you: yes, 61%; no, 39%. So a little at odds with what we found with our nationwide survey of Americans.
We've gotten several emails and comments that go to campaign finance and what kind of factor that plays in dysfunction. Here's one from Robert Hardsill of Oklahoma City. He wrote us: "Can we get money out of politics? And by the way also integrate seating in each House, keep members of Congress in DC over weekends, and reduce their vacation." So he has a lot of things he would like to suggest.
And from Pam Pennalt of Porter, Maine, she writes, "Obscene amounts of money are squandered to buy media sound bites aimed at districting voters and discrediting opponents. Because elected officials are then beholden to their benefactors, the idea of voting based on the goal of representing constituents is lost."
Is campaign finance the most critical component of both Congressional reform and of restoring public confidence in government? Senator Bennett, what do you think?
BOB BENNETT: Okay, here we go. [laughter] If I could wave a magic wand, I would repeal McCain-Feingold. Think of the Presidents we elected under the old system, starting here with John F. Kennedy. His father had all the money in the world. The Kennedy quip, when his election was very close and he said, "My father said he would buy me the Presidency, but he was not going to buy a landslide."
Can you get money out of politics? The answer is no. You cannot. And it's like trying to stop water from running down a hill. You can build a dam that can store a little of it in a place for a while and can divert where it comes, but it's going to run down the hill one way or the other. What we have done with campaign finance reform – I realize I'm very much alone on this, but here we go – what we've done in the name of campaign finance reform is weaken the parties and take the control of the campaign away from the candidates. Because it's improper to give that much money to the party, it's improper to give that much money to the candidate.
But since we have something pesky in the Constitution called the First Amendment, you can express yourself in a political campaign. And if you can't give the money to the party as much as you want, and you can't give the money to the candidate as much as you want, then you become Sheldon Adelson and you buy your own ad. And pretty soon the outside expenditures take over the campaign and distort the campaign.
The people who buy those ads are (a) nasty, and (b) bad marketers. They produce bad ads. And that's part of the whole circumstance where everybody is turned off about politics and "I don't want to have anything to do with it." The woman in New Hampshire who was asked, "Who are you going to vote for?," and she said, "I don't vote for any of them, it only encourages them" [laughter]
They hate politics because of the way it's been done. If we could go back to the old days when the parties that were professional, that knew how to do right kinds of campaigns and intelligent kinds of ads and candidates that could say, "No, you're not going to run that ad in my campaign because it's going to make me look bad," I think we would have a whole better situation than we have now. Because now it's all, "Get money out of politics." You're not going to get money out of politics. All we're doing is distorting the direction in which the money goes and empowering people who otherwise would have their influence tamped down by the power of the parties themselves. The parties are weaker now than they have ever been in American history. When I look back at the candidates that were elected before we started campaign finance reform, people like Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy, we did pretty well in those days.
The final passage of McCain-Feingold occurred. They said now this will get big money out of politics and the first election fought after that was between Al Gore and George W. Bush. And yeah, that was an election where there was not very much big money, wasn't it? That was an election where we saw all of the benefits that came out of that, didn't we?
So you've touched a hot button with me and I appreciate the opportunity. Now you can boo and hiss all you want. [laughter] That's the position that I take.
SUSAN PAGE: Well, it's unfortunate you don't have any opinions to share with us. [laughter] We do have a system now where we control money to parties, but we don't control the spending by billionaires who have particular points of view. Should we loosen the restrictions on parties or eliminate them altogether so that it strengthens the parties, as Senator Bennett said? What do some others on the panel think about that idea?
CHARLIE GONZALEZ: The Supreme Court probably is going to be dealing with that, because there are restrictions of what we can raise as an individual in the primary and in the general election. The parties are restricted to a certain amount but super PACs are not, and that's where all this is heading. You're not going to get the money out of politics or elections. It's going to find its way in some fashion. I mean, you're just going to find a way of doing it.
The question is: Can you do some things that might level the playing field and such? I'm not real crazy about just saying no limits at all; you should be able to give me $5 million to run, or such, and no restrictions. I don't know that that's the solution just because a super PAC can be created and do that and shift the monies over and you don't even know who the donor is. But I do think disclosure would be an important item. We could be doing those things so at least you would know where that money is coming from for that multimillion dollar ad. But we can't even do that in Congress. You just don't get rid of the money. Like I said, it's going to find its way in one way or another.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: I think it's an important issue for us at the Bipartisan Policy Center as well, looking at various recommendations. But obviously, given the Supreme Court decision, it's a higher hurdle now with Citizens United, which did unleash the force of the super PACs. Which, I hate to bring up a sore subject, Bob, but McCain-Feingold. My provision was in McCain-Feingold, attempting to address issue advocacy and drawing distinction between ads that were electioneering ads that influenced the outcome of an election and those which were purely advocating a position on an issue. It survived the first Supreme Court challenge; did not survive the second, which was Citizens United. And then the court took it another 100 years back and said that corporations were people and that ultimately led to the super PACs, which I was raising as well. I think it is important to demand accountability and disclosure of donors to these organizations, because that is one way of having transparency. So many of these organizations that have one donor or thousands and I think that would help, to some degree -- short of a constitutional amendment -- to get around the Citizens United.
I think we should get rid of leadership PACs. I think I was down to three, one of three in the Senate when I left – maybe five, but that would be it – who did have a leadership PAC. I wasn't there to raise money perpetually. Leadership PACs are designed to give more money, in addition to your own reelection committee and to give other colleagues who were running as the candidates, and so forth. It's a lot of pressure that's placed on individual Senators and members of the House, because more than half have leadership PACs as well, so it was more money and more time commitment on the part of members of Congress who go out and raise money beyond their own reelection campaign. So there are some things we can do, and then looking at others, emphasizing small donors and maybe we can get through tax credits, and that sort of thing, to help bring in smaller donors and have a greater emphasis on their participation.
HENRY BONILLA: Susan, I'm going to have to leave a little early but I do want to point out during this discussion that this group has discussed at great length in the last year the amount of time Senators and House members have to spend raising money, not just for their campaigns, for their parties, for their Senate/House PACs and all of that. Something has to be done to cut back on that, [applause] because they spend in many cases up to half of their time in Washington raising money.
BOB BENNETT: That's a result of McCain-Feingold. Seriously. For the first half of my career, the most I could ask anybody to contribute to my campaign was $1000. You know how many phone calls you have to make, at $1000 a piece, to get enough money to run a Senatorial campaign?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: It was indexed though.
BOB BENNETT: All right. Now, it went up and we've indexed it and now it's $2500. So you don't spend quite as much time on the phone, but the example of Eugene McCarthy, who probably took out Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 election, Eugene McCarthy went to five people, raised $100,000 from each one of them, fully disclosed who they were, and went to New Hampshire and did a good enough job in New Hampshire to frighten Lyndon Johnson out of running for reelection. Eugene McCarthy in today's world could not have done that, because he would have had to raise that $500,000 from 500 people instead of five people. On the phone call every Thursday afternoon, you're over there at the committee making phone calls. You couldn't do it the way you used to do it. And we've changed politics. The burden of fundraising is a direct result of the campaign finance activity.
Pardon me? I didn't hear you.
SUSAN PAGE: With public financing, he's saying. Senator Snowe, do you want to respond to that, to Senator Bennett's point?
BOB BENNETT: I talk too much.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Having fewer donors instead …
SUSAN PAGE: In eliminating limits.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Well, it's the amount of money. But that was growing exponentially even before McCain-Feingold. People found the loopholes in the existing campaign laws at the time. I think what Bob's referring to is not allowing political parties to accept soft money. There's a ban on soft money so it leveraged these other groups. So I think the sphere of influence went to these outside organizations as opposed to the political parties who could not get leverage with candidates running for political office. That's something maybe we have to look at again in terms of whether or not you allow political parties to accept certain contributions. I don't know. I have to really look at that.
The question is there's money in the system, and that would have been the case. But the flood gates opened with Citizens United, which again struck down my provision, which was attempting to address these organizations, that if they ran an ad 60 days before an election and they identified the individual by name – so they said, "Tell Senator Snowe to vote this way," the particular piece of legislation, I was up for reelection – that would be considered a political ad and then they would be restricted to the amounts of money they could receive. They would also have to disclose their contributors and the donor's name but, unfortunately, that was struck down. If they didn't identify me by name, they just said, "Tell your Senator to vote X, Y and Z," then it would not be considered an electioneering ad, and therefore they would not have to form a political action committee.
VICKI KENNEDY: I just want to say one thing, and I don't want to belabor this point because this is such a complicated issue and it's something we're discussing as a commission, but the problem with just allowing unlimited contributions to a candidate is exactly the problem we're seeing with the super PACs right now. It would allow a few very wealthy individuals to bankroll some handpicked candidates, and it would absolutely stack the deck. You would only have their handpicked candidates able to afford to run for office.
We're sitting here talking about gerrymandering and our concern about gerrymandering and districts that don't represent really the face of America or the face of their particular states. I think this, in another way, has the potential to totally corrupt the process. So I think we need to think about other ways. I do think there have been unintended consequences from some campaign finance reform, personally. But we need to think of other ways. Maybe television time actually gets donated. Why does it cost so much? This is a public service. I'm sorry for all the television people who are watching this, but maybe there is some sort of contribution back to the public good, or other kinds of things. But I'm very concerned with unlimited and I just couldn't let that go. [applause]
SUSAN PAGE: Definitely a complicated topic. I think Bonnie Gorman, who is in our audience, has a question with the solution to our political problems. And I say this as we're almost out of time, so this will be our last question. She writes, "Women are better consensus makers than men. Would electing more women to Congress help relieve gridlock?" What do you think?
VICKI KENNEDY: That's yours, Olympia.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: The way it is, you know?
SUSAN PAGE: We have now a record number of women in the US Senate, 20 women in the US Senate. They do seem to behave – whether they're conservatives or liberals, they disagree on things -- in a different way than the men do. Senator Bennett, what's your perspective on that?
OLYMPIA SNOWE: You're going to say yes, right?
SUSAN PAGE: I mean, they get together for dinner once a month.
OLYMPIA SNOWE: Well, we did, and they still do. We get to know each other very well. We have regular dinners, personal dinners. Whatever we say there stays there. We've never had a disclosure. And on occasion, we invite the women Justices of the Supreme Court, and they in turn invite us to the Supreme Court for dinner. So it's more personal, but we can talk about families and friends, or whatever's going on, issues, whatever the case may be. There's no personal agenda.
The point is it builds a collaborative environment which you can ultimately build on when you're looking at issues down the road. I think you saw that during the budget process as well, during the shutdown, when the women of the Senate decided to take matters into their own hands and change the direction. We had that camaraderie built from years of just working together and also having personally spent time together.
SUSAN PAGE: We'll have a final comment from Raymond Kevin Halperin of Lumbertown, North Carolina. I love the name of that town. He writes, "The main reason there is a divide is because half the people believe government is the problem and the other half believe it is the solution." Thank you, Mr. Halperin, you'll have our last word.
I want to thank the Bipartisan Policy Center, the cochairs, the members of the Commission on Political Reform, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, and John F. Kennedy Library, and our great audience here in Boston and online. Thanks so much for being with us. [applause]
We hope to see you on June 24th for the release of the Commission's final recommendations in Washington. I'd ask the panelists to stay seated and I welcome former Secretary Dan Glickman, a cochair of the Commission, to the stage for closing thoughts.
DAN GLICKMAN: Okay, well, thank you. It was terrific. These panelists were outstanding. Senator Bennett, I wish you had some strong views. [laughter] It really disturbs me.
In any event, I want to thank again, on behalf of the BPC, I want to thank Vicki Kennedy and the Kennedy Institute. I want to thank Heather Campion and the Kennedy Library; Trey Grayson of the Harvard Institute of Politics; and our great moderator Susan Page, who's been responsible for all the stories. [applause]
I served in the House for 18 years, and there are words inscribed above the Speaker's chair by Daniel Webster. I used to look at this periodically and they said the following: "Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests to see whether we also, in our day and in our generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered." And I thought to myself, that's the point of government; that's the point why we're here: to perform something worthy to be remembered. Even in disagreement in a vibrant democracy, the goal is always to engage the issues in a way that our descendants would be proud and get the job done for our people and also bear fruit to the ancestors of our past, like Daniel Webster, that we're in this thing for the right reasons and recognizing that this is not just abstract issues.
America's leadership is at stake. Our ability to be the beacon of hope for the world, to be a special place, a city on the hill and do the right thing for our citizens is very much dependent upon a strong and effective system of government at all levels. Today we've talked about Congressional reform. Over the past year we've talked about political polarization, ways how we vote and choose our elected officials, how to increase opportunities for public service to develop the next generation of leaders. We've been hard at work behind the scenes, as most of the folks up here have talked about, to figure out recommendations for the future.
But we need the input of the public. So we want continued feedback on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or just the old-fashioned snail mail, to let us know what you think constructively we can do to help our political system our democracy become more resilient. Over the next three months, we will continue to discuss these issues with your input. The Commission will reconvene in Washington on June 24th to announce recommendations and report to the nation, the Congress and the White House reforms to improve our political system, and then the follow-up necessary to actually get things done. After the Commission releases our recommendations, we need your continued support to urge our leaders to implement the solutions. You can sign up on the Bipartisan Policy Center's website as a citizen for political reform, and help advocate for political reform across the country.
As we close here today, I remembered what John F. Kennedy wrote in Profiles of Courage, and I quote: "The stories of past courage can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man, each person must look into his or her own soul." It will take plenty of courage to make change, and I hope all of us will find the courage to strengthen our democracy and ensure that America can continue to do things worthy to be remembered.
Thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it very much. [applause]
THE END
