periods of a decade. in those situations you do need to have i would argue, i would argue apollo actually because it had gemini actually had a lot of successful demonstrations along the way for learning purposes etc.. but, otherwise you are stuck with the iss model and i don't think that is a pretty model. i don't think we want that. ..

the jordanian ambassador to the u.s. spoke this morning to thnation council of

u.s.-arab relations. his comments on the middle east and relations with the u.s. or about one hour and 15 minutes. [applause] thank you for the very warm welcome. it's an honor to see you hear my good friend. i hope you correct me if i go st the next few minutes. i'm delighted to be with so many friends here and as you all know so well, i come from a culture smith ten with a love or with speeches the love from the oral method of communication. so much so that often after delivering a long speech i would sit next to my wife and like all

men who are vain and insecure i would look at my wife and feeling confident i would say to her well, what did you think, and she would give me a look that only a wife can give and she would say to me you missed three opportunities to sit down. [laughter] i say this because yesterday i was sitting with my colleagues in the embassy moaning over what i would say today and i came to the conclusion that really there is nothing to say beyond that which could be perceived to be so well shortened by repetition that it is of little interest to an audience. and have not the circumstances of the present in the string of crises that stretch from the mediterranean to south asia

begun to wind into a not so complex and so challenging that words almost become meaningless in the face of the fate which we have little choice but to submit with of the recognition or in their recognition that our collective world has brought us to or not brought us to a defining point. now of course we should take stock of all of the recent positive developments that have occurred in the middle east, and i was reminded of these developments yesterday when i had a group of friends who are journalists. naturally the successful formation of the lead lebanese government is something to be applauded. the successful conduct of the balancing ineradicable of weeks ago is likewise something that we must take pride in as people

in the middle east. of course as we all know the challenge of putting together a government is hugely difficult. nevertheless, one appreciates how difficult it was to hold the election and that all of the work was done by the iraqi themselves from the security standpoint from the point of organizing them. i think this is of course something that we need to very much appreciate. there are of course signs that the relationship between the united states and syria are improving. fits and starts would generally i think moving in the right direction and then most recently of course of the arab summit that concluded in a libya few days ago it was clear that not withstanding all the pressures placed upon the arab peace

initiative not least by the fact that israel has yet to embrace it. the arab commitment to the commitment has remained steadfast. do we not also recognize that arabs and israelis alike and this is to be considered at the level of government present a rather sorry picture of ourselves in terms of how we have responded to this conflict. when one considers the report issued a couple of years ago by the foresight strategic foresight group the indian think-tank about the lost earnings for this region since 1991 as a result of the arab-israeli conflict. the fact that the estimate was

up to $12 trillion lost in earnings. have the potential wealth of the region plowed into weapons and programs associated with a conflict or as a result of investments lost because of the conflict. is it not the case we could argue we are a burden on to ourselves and a burden on to the rest of the planet. are we not also a constant threat to the peace and security of the plan at a given the centrifuge forces that can quickly be worked into some momentum were something to happen for instance in jerusalem , a point i will get to shortly. in addition to being a burden we are a constant threat to the international community and then finally one can make the argument that also we are in on

a player when it comes to the larger discussions occupied in the international community. i cannot think in the last 60 years and i stand to be corrected of one initiative, one major initiative divorced from the middle east that is nothing to do with anything connected to the middle east that the arabs or the israelis presented in the form of the solution or attempt to answer questions for instance with their it revolves around grinding poverty in the plan that sustainable development issues of the broader global nature and i cannot think of one initiative and so is it not the case that we are imam player and if you look at all three of these dimensions, one can argue that we as a region are a sorry bunch and perhaps if greeted we would clearly deserved a big f

from that perspective. and then of course there is the other question of whether we are truly deserving of peace in particular middle east peace when one considers the number of opportunities that we have lost either by design or through circumstances since 1967. can we claim a right to peace when one considers large segments of one population is ready to be little the colossal crime that was the holocaust when on the other side there exists a large group of people who cannot against the the car yet grasp the effect of an occupation and the degradation of another people itself and a

dummy. indeed we deserving of peace when paying for the demise of their of can so easily be treated in our rhetorical exchanges. are we so deserving of peace when the complex feelings so necessary for peace can be so easily upstaged by the primitive feelings of fear and insecurity. are we deserving of peace when we can so easily see ground to extremists and those with views of the extreme. perhaps taken from that angle we may not be so deserving, and jet as we all know there are people who continue to suffer fearfully on the one side, one on the other there are people fearful of future severin. and the situation as we all know is simply intolerable.

there is also another constituency. the younger generation aspiring to survive on collective stupidity if they are to solve the broad and more challenging complex problems facing the globe then they must find shelter and find it soon at regional peace which will at long last bring some relief to this particular part of the world. now jordan under king abdullah's leadership like many arab countries is deeply supportive of president obama desire to establish peace are on the basis of the two states living side by side in peace and security. and we believe this is entirely

doable. there is after all when it comes to peace nothing that is impossible. in 1995i was serving with the u.n. and former yugoslavia and by the time we reached the month of july i think we were convinced there would be conflict and bloodshed in bosnia for another ten years. the fighting was intense by that stage. the weaponry was plentiful, the hatred was apparent. we had exhausted every petition of peace agreement that alone also cease-fire and cessation of hostilities and we could not see a way out and if someone had said to us and six months the fighting would stop or of leased the killing would stop one can argue maybe the fighting has continued by other means. but the killing would stop. i don't think anyone would have believed it possible and yet it

was possible. so we are firmly of the belief that were we to act decisively and seize the moment now that we can achieve something here. and of course it is clear that we are very close to seeing the beginning of the proximity talks that soon thereafter we can build upon them. there is, however, the question of jerusalem, which so occupies the world's attention at the moment. and perhaps i can divide the way we see jerusalem into two parts. naturally it holds very deep meaning to all muslims as it does people of the abraham faf.

and yet we feel we are very close to a position now where if we don't hold what is happening around east jerusalem particularly by one of the settler movement working very intensely and were we not able to arrest the plans of the mayor of jerusalem in respect of east jerusalem we will find ourselves in a situation where there simply won't be peace if jerusalem is lost on the ground. in other words we believe it is gone. it is not possible for any future is really government to go to war with its own people over jerusalem and such are the facts on the ground that meet

and negotiate the settlement beyond the pale of possibility. then we are in a state of terminal crises. and of course what would happen then is that it's not a case of israel having a problem with the palestinian people but you have the question of also the islamic world, the 1.5 million muslims would be of course the state of high anxiety over this. and then of course israel would be left with its own demographic challenges with no problem to sort of a cyst in creating a framework for peace because the aspirations on the part of the palestinians for their own national home have been undercut. the other aspect to what we see happening in east jerusalem concerns the potential for something to go very a ride with

the 21st of august, 1969 and australian tourist burnt down the moscow. there were several days of intense riots once the mosque was burned down. i can't imagine if there was anything equivalent to that today what we would do if we woke up. i don't even know where we would begin. i think we would be so lost and i can speak for almost every government i think we would sit there and a shock and wait to see what would happen and if you try to gain that sort of scenario the consequences are almost incalculable. we pitch the world into something beyond all recognition to us. and if the threat of something like this is real because it's happened before, then we must

take every measure to insure the common sense is applied liberally to all of our actions when we consider jerusalem and its close surroundings. in 1969, the year that the mosque was burned down, there was a british physician who went to work in the beth abraham hospital in upstate new york. and he had to deal with elderly patients suffering from the 1920's disease called the sleeping sickness and these were essentially catatonic patients. this decision oliver sacks took to administering aldo beckman joost -- al dopa used for

patients and miraculously almost he managed to revive them and for a short period of time they engaged in life in a manner that had been impossible for them by talking to their relatives and meeting friends and discovering themselves and then of course as all of you know with the continued administration of this drug the van had lapsed back into the catatonic state. so famous was the story that harold wrote the screenplay for and then it was turned into a movie titled "awakenings." and one cannot help but feel that when you look at the middle east and consider the developments from madrid through oslo and then beyond and the

regression from the late 1990's and onward you cannot help but feel that unless we all resolve to solve this problem and do so quickly that future historians will look back at this period of peace as a brief awakening. a brief moment in time that introduced itself to less and then departed as quickly as it came. and of course the tragedy would be beyond words i think for all of us. because we either survive these crises together or we won't survive them together. we would all suffered grievously having said that at the beginning i have nothing to say like all from the middle east it's never quite true. so i've offered these

reflections to you not in answer to the many questions that you will no doubt have for me. but i think in the form of reflections by a practitioner who like you spends a great deal of time looking at the problems of the middle east and also looking at them with hope and no shortage of frustration. thank you very much for inviting me and i look forward to answering your questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. ambassador. as is the custom, we have 4x6 cards which we invite you to ask your questions, and as he has agreed to respond to them we refer to this part of the program as a cerebral massage.

[laughter] and among the questions, if you are comfortable -- >> media should stand up. here is one. israeli politicians repeatedly raised the notion that jordan should be the palestinian state given its already large palestinian population. how does jordan respond to this frequently presented a proposal? and what, related to the question is the fourth jordan's large palestinian population? >> it is nice of them to dispose of jordan in a way that they see fit. you know, -- what i think is very worrisome about this narrative largely on the israeli right is that it is built upon

this notion that of those who advocate peace are weak and moderate who simply don't understand the adversity and it mirrors exactly the same current stream of opinion you have on the arab side in the form of those who think resistance is the only way to carry the day. and unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps one could say, history is littered with examples of leaders and said to their people steadfast the sacrifices that we must endure, the resistance we must encourage is the only means to succeed because these leaders, so many of them have dragged their people to destruction without

believe. the only real way to succeed is to negotiate a settlement based on some notion of justice for those who've suffered, and to fulfill the national aspirations of the people who desire them. i don't often hear of palestinians themselves saying they want to turn jordan and palestine. with the palestinians like to say, and we support them, is they want to see the end of the occupation such that they can govern their affairs three and unfettered by foreign interference. and i think that is the position that we take on this. >> thank you. the next one is religiously justified political radicalism seems to have become an accepted and often deadly method of expressing political and economic grievances.

how does jordan seek to deal with such violence within its own borders? >> it's a question which i think needs to be answered from different angles. traffic that he is absolutely right when in publishing his work on identity environments makes the argument that in the world of today we are all carrying multiple labels. and these labels must be held in some sort of balance. so i see myself as a jordanian, muslim, son, husband, father. i have these political views. i have these cultural takes and a passion for music. i enjoy playing chess and i can look at all -- i can look at

myself through these different presumes and basically if i read him correctly it is that if the esters extremists among them were attached to one label to the exclusion of everything else whether you are a chauvinistic nationalist or whether you are someone who holds so strongly to an ideology that it negates everyone and everything else. and his argument is that surely the human being of today can dispute issues, ken dart everything and then threw argument and discourse can either settle those or ask further questions. but eventually we must renounce violence. we must renounce violence and drive and strive to ensure that war eventually is unthinkable.

we cannot continue to inflict massive suffering on people because we believe we are right and they are wrong. it is simply unacceptable. in terms of how we view extremism in terms of our own family, it is clear that his majesty together with many of the leaders in the region, king abdullah, saudi arabia of course, president mubarak of egypt taken measures to address this issue. we know that it has fundamentally been an issue that confronts us as muslims. it's not really an issue for the west to address. we must address it and threw the various programs we've tried to do this. we tried to insure that for instance many of those who preach and our mosques have been through the sure -- sharia

school in or aware of the jitters purpose. this was not in the case and in 20 or 40 years ago a substantial proportion of those who spoke and mosques did not have the requisite training that one would have thought was essential for them to do so. and i think we have made sure that this now is the case. we've also tried to embark upon a series of initiatives and he mentioned the common word. i think this is an initiative that droll's great many scholars over 100 from the islamic world in the opening of a dialogue with our christian brother in such that we can ensure there is harmony between christians and muslims worldwide. and it is fundamentally grounded in and the two injunctions to

love the divinity of god and love their neighbor as thyself as found in the gospel matthew i believe so this is common to the religions and we have enabled a program of international standing based on this. it carries many practical measures we can also take in this regard and i don't know whether i should disclose what we have in mind here but we are trying to think along practical terms so it's not just simply a case of less meeting and greeting but it is the case of us enabling, an action that could be for the betterment of christians and muslims alike. a longwinded response. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. i also ask my colleague to ask some of the questions. >> what directions seemed the most promising for jordan's future economic diplomat?

as is the manufacturing sector. much of the economy depends on services. what combination seems to be viable for the future? what role does its aqua fer play, all of the above? >> what a question, kathryn. it is 1i think needs to put the middle east and to the prospective. often when i sit with my colleagues from the middle east and we are alone and we immediately start sort of whining about the stage of the region it's almost, and it is perhaps the mediterranean in more than arab. it is the tiny and garlic that makes it. [laughter] but we start to complain about everything. we complain about ourselves, we complain about parts of our culture, we complain why it is we are of more advanced than we should be. we turn it into sort of comic

relief often when pointing out the shortcomings within our own societies. and then we travel land go to other parts of the world and we notice that, you know, well many problems are the same if not worse than other parts of the world and so maybe we just need to accept the fact that we are societies of transition to the we have much to be proud about. we have in jordan as well as others very vibrant private sector when we look at the ict we look at to companies that have made headlines, one for $200 million that was a simple struggle that began a few years ago which is sort of like gain arabic browser service and the other similar to twitter also

made headlines and that it can grow a huge amount of support for a particular humanitarian support. so this is the power that in particular the youth are able to marshal and support of particular ideas. and i think we have provided the opportunity for them to do so. we nevertheless feel that notwithstanding the high rates of growth we've had in recent years of to 8% for more or less every year up until last year the reduction of fbi and the global the economic slowdown has affected us so our growth was reduced by 2.7% we expected to climb closer to five. notwithstanding this i think economic activity continues sort of to be active. we continue to see a lot interest and investments in jordan and that sort of fills us

with hope. >> okay. here is a quite different one. how should the deep divide between fatah on the west bank and hamas and gaza be dealt with? how can one reasonably expect meaningful and enduring success in the process to occur when one major party to the conflict is not dealt with? is one serious or not? is one to be inclusive for exclusive in terms of dealing with all of the parties to the conflict? >> this is a question for the ambassador. he is the expert here. my reaction to this sort of question and you hear it often in washington, washington is

amazing city because of certain subjects we simply can't discuss and there are other subjects which are so popular and this is one of the frequent questions how can the palestinians quote if they are divided. are they so exceptional? the middle east is desperately divided. even in europe is divided on so many crucial issues. the united states itself is divided on so many crucial issues. i think we have to be careful not to take a patronizing tone with them. people have a constellation of different views i think the egyptian government must be pleased for wasting and sparing no effort to try and bring to the sites together. eventually this may well succeed.

we hope they succeed the palestinians in sorting out the differences but is it so exceptional that we must place it higher upon the issues that require the urgent treatment? i.t. we as a people more generally -- when you look at the planet one can remark that a few took a treaty negotiated contractual treaty negotiated in the immediate aftermath of the second world war and tried to negotiate exactly those same terms today you couldn't do it. you couldn't take the universal declaration of human rights and negotiate its terms today. you couldn't take the torture convention of the refugee convention in the 1951 convention and do it so what does it tell you? it tells you we simply are unable to work together in the

way that we once used to work together and we need to find a formula to make it work again. within society's and between society's there is much work that needs to be done. islamic another question water is a crucial component of jordan's future development hit supplies continue to dwindle. how does jordan and said a dealer with its vital need for water? can you agreement be reached on water sharing arrangements? is the red sea and did see, now a possibility? what is going on? >> this is a problem that is severe in the region. if one considers the per capita usage by an american is but 9,000 cubic meters the poverty

standard is 1,000 cubic meters a year per capita. the usage is 150 cubic meters a year. so we are of course very vulnerable to fluctuations in the weather where water is concerned with a large all aquiver in the south that we are tapping but clearly we need to work with desalination and a very major way. if we are to meet the demand of our population. and i think all of us in the region need to redouble our efforts in this area because it is one of major concern to us. >> where does jordan see itself and its place in the middle east securities scenarios? now and in the next two to five years inclusive of its relationship with the united

states, its relationship with israel and its relationship to the issue regarding the iran's nuclear development? >> i -- look it's very clear in my mind that while we can anticipate a broad trajectories -- if you were in europe and the late 1920's early 1930's, you could sense that europe was in very big trouble. you didn't really know what was going to unfold and in the middle east we likewise believe that unless arrested quickly to crises would fold into something beyond our ability to control. but at the same time we have to appreciate how difficult it is for us to read the script of unfolding events. we simply are unable to do this with a local delicacy that inspires confidence and if we cannot understand the present

because you cannot marshal all of the variables and you don't know which variable will be the key variable in any moment in time, is a coalition of circumstance? decision by a particular person, and even to that was unanticipated quicksand so we find it difficult to know the present and by extrapolation than it's almost impossible to understand where we can be and where we will be in five to ten years. i think we have to invest very much in appointing ourselves towards a future realizing that we are like many other countries a developing country faced with the challenges that affect the developing country. we are a center of the tribal society that over the course of 80 years tried to detribalize largely successfully but sometimes we face problems that are connected to that and we want to preserve many of our

tribal traditions, but not at the expense of the state itself and here we have to be very careful. so i think i would like to think we have a vision of course extremely fortunate in having the benefit of this extraordinary leadership on the part of majesty king abdullah ii falling from his late majesty, king hussein, and so we place our trust in their aspirations of the jordanian people. >> what role is jordan taking to help palestinians address a fully functioning palestinian state? >> the most apparent role is the training of police and security forces, and i think by all measures it's been a successful exercise and we are working very closely with president mahmoud

abbas on that score. we are supportive of the efforts of prime minister salam and we joined the international community. it was of course heartening to see the quartet in the issue to moscow recently the program has been elevated to that where the international community fully supports the passion and attempt by the palestinian authority's two raise the standard and the infrastructure of their own economy such that they would be in a position to exercise full responsibility as an independent state when it in such a time our rights. >> as the united states proceeds to draw down its forces and presence in neighboring iraq one

of jordan's concerns and needs and assessments of the implications of this drawdown for jordan's own foreign policy interests and objectives? >> how many people did you say are watching this particular? [laughter] >> c-span's viewed by millions. >> thank you for a much. [laughter] thank you. look, you know, this is one of the fundamental quandaries that faces any post conflict situation. how do you extract the international community out of a situation which for a long time has depended on the material presents of that international effort and i think it has to be done judiciously it has to be done carefully. naturally you want to see iraq -- we all want to see iraq free

of foreign forces and sort of pernicious influences from the outside. but one also understands the iraqi government itself has a say in this and they should be heard if they believe more time is required i think the u.s. would probably be understanding of that. but it's a very delicate exercise and i think thus far it's been handled very well. >> you mentioned jordan's support for president obama's approach on selling in the middle east but you did not explicitly support or say that to support the saudi plan for settlement. could you comment on the saudi plan and whether it provides a basis for peace? >> well i may be didn't explicitly say something because we have been supporting plan put

forward by the majesty king abdullah of saudi arabia in and 2002 when he was then the crown prince. it was known as the saudi peace initiative and then became the arab peace initiative at the beirut some might. incidentally i was chairing the arab group in new york in march of 2002, and within i think 48 hours of the issuance of the arab peace initiative we had the passage of resolution 3097 in the security council which was presented by the united states and first mentioned the vision of the two states living side by side in peace and security. and so we believe there is an intimate connection between that vision and with the arab world has offered.

i think it is rather regrettable that the birth of the initiative we have a series of events occurring in israel and then within the occupied territory that made it difficult to communicate the content of the plan. what i think the jester was there and only one level what happened had the israeli government over time returned with some questions and such what do you mean by no further claims or what do you mean by mutual security guarantees? and i think the arab league then would have set up a committee to furnish some answers and make it clear to the israelis what we mean by this. unfortunately there was no sort of dialogue that could be embroidered into something and so we i think stand to be told we could have done better and there's a general appreciation we could have. however, having said that, no arab state has withdrawn from

the promotion of the initiative and i think that must be appreciated. and so we hope at some stage again that it's not too late that the israeli public by and large would appreciate the content of it. what you're speaking to various israelis that the public of israel is so blinded by the reference to 194 where the refugees are concerned that they missed the fact that the words agreed to are in the text and of course in the final analysis when you look at the final status talks to be held on final status issues, proximity or otherwise. whatever comes out of the discussions has to be survivable both in israel and palestine. there is this belief i think people have that if israel was

left alone with the palestinians and have the u.s. and the europeans and the quartet and all of us there that somehow we would bludgeon them into accepting positions they couldn't accept or conversely if the palestinians were left alone with just the u.s. and is released is released would be beaten into positions they can't accept and in actual fact that can't be either because the product of negotiations must either win passage in the referendum in israel and likewise in palestine and so you have to come up with a win-win for both sides. and it's not impossible to do that. and we clearly hope that it's something that can happen and of course we embroider the arab peace initiative into the larger tapestry and see the peace between the 22 arab states and

israel. >> three questions that touch on nuclear issues. can you comment on jordan's assessment of the role of nuclear power and its future economic development including desalination of water and address the implications of the scenario of israel attacking iran over the nuclear issue. what are the implications for jordan and the broader region from your perspective? >> you know, listening to the first question i strongly suspect it came from one of my staff at the embassies. [laughter] i will deal with them later. [laughter] as many of you know, jordan is heavily dependent on the imports

of petroleum products to meet its security. 96% of our energy is in the form of petroleum products imported from the on slide and the same time we discovered recently that we have about 118,000 tons of recoverable uranium in jordan, some 2% of perhaps the world's iranian reserves so it only stands to make sense that as a country with no oeo effectively and this availability of uranium that we need to establish some sort of energy policy that builds on this house well as other renewable energy. in 2007 in terms of our usage i think it was 4,700 megawatts of

electricity that we were using. this is likely to climb, and we are looking to set up to the reactors, one research reactor of about 100 megawatts and the other one, a larger one which would be up to about 1,000 megawatts which will provide essentially 20% of our energy needs and in combination with other technologies. we are in discussion with a great many countries of around the international community and the iaea and we are confident this will move forward quite smoothly. now the second question i have to add is completely and totally unrelated to the first. [laughter] i don't want that but putting them to the people believe they are connected. i can't speak for what the

israeli government thinks or will do. we have always supported the initiative put forth by president mubarak of egypt for a middle east free of weapons, of nuclear weapons but more particularly weapons of mass destruction and have succeeded to all the major disarmament treaties where these weapons are concerned. clearly it is a region that has the potential to be very unstable and we just don't believe that weapons should exist in this region of that sort at all. and we hope through a combination of measures that of the perceived understanding on the part of many in the international community that iran has the desire to with the negative its nuclear

capabilities is something that can be dealt with through measures short of violence. we just simply i think can't afford to have another round of hostilities in the region are still under stress from everything else that we have to deal with. >> he played a major role in the founding of the international criminal court. how would you evaluate the effectiveness of the court in its early stages and what needs to be done to make the and rational criminal court more effective? >> you know the 20th century saw more people lose their lives through violence and i think all previous centuries combined. and were it not for this new institution i don't see how we can possibly imagine that the next century will not be as bloody as the past century.

when we look at the international criminal court essentially what it is a court of last resort that sits in the background and the court says to the government's you have your constitutions, your penal codes and restricted genocide krin is against humanity or now the crime of aggression which are negotiating the definition of the ground for the exercise. all of that you must support of confront. if there is a national of your country who is suspected or involvement of one of these crimes and you as a government must take measures to investigate and if need be prosecuted. so it very much sense as a reminder of a permanent conscience to government do your job. if you do your job there is no need for the court to become involved. if you don't do your job we are not going to let those who are suspected of committing massive

outrageous of leading or peacekeeping the fact they must face trial. now, one of the things that is not often appreciated is that you have 111 countries that are now a party to the court. what does that mean? it means that 111 heads of state, heads of government, parliamentarians, members of the armed forces, that every single individual has put themselves under the jurisdiction of an international court. in other words, they have forfeited the softer nephrite, the customary right to sovereign immunity. there is not -- there simply is no equivalent in history where you have such a voluntary surrender of rights for such a treaty. it is a step so in light and that it has no parallel and it is often not remarked upon.

so i believe that it is an extra had since we would see it grow from strength to strength. indeed, the argument i made with many is you should sit with your government, and explain to them that it's better to join the court now than to wait until you are the final country 30, 40 years from now because what possible could be accrued from being outside of the system and not a system building it up. but it's something i think is very necessary. we are in a period of transition. it will take time before we foley feels the affect of what it means to have an international criminal court. but i'm very confident. and i should finally say i have the privilege of chairing negotiations on the crime of aggression. the supreme international crime as identified in nuremberg and we had the latest round last week and i was very satisfied

with the way the international community was dealing with this issue. >> okay. what are the pros and cons of the palestinians declaring a state at this time? why have they not done so until now? what are the pros and cons? >> it's a good question but i think it's one that really should be directed to ambassador arafat who is the observer of washington more fan of me. i'm not in the position to make a qualified judgment of it. one assumes when they believe the time is right to take the decision they will take the decision. spec what interests and responsibility does jordan retail and wholley this is -- holy places of jerusalem?

>> we have long held responsibilities of the rock the city in particular harlem and this is recognized in the treaty that we also have with israel whenever repair for instance were needed to the parts of the area adjacent to the jordanian engineers used to be able to go and fix for instance a few years ago we've repaired. we have a presence there. as of late though, coordination with the israelis on these issues has proven to be quite difficult and we are trying to resolve them both directly and by virtue of the assistance of the united states and other countries. >> could you address a further the process of democratization in jordan and the prospect for the jordanians electing their

prime minister? >> yes, this is something of course we have been grappling with for many years. as you know, the lead majesty, king hussein attended in 1957 to move in that direction, but it proved itself to be premature in our judgment because we were still a very poor country and prone to outside influence and it led to a reply to the instigation of the eisenhower doctrine of 1957. and president eisenhower was very firm about interference by different countries in the internal affairs of others. since then we have been moving back into the direction of opening up the country to greater participation. his majesty king abdullah is very committed to this and we have at the moment this plan for the decentralization of jordan

to break it up into for a better word federal units where the local units will have their own budgets and will be directly answerable to the people in terms of the provision of services and then we also buildup over time and expertise in the enactment of legislation such that our parliament can be fully active in this regard. i think there is a great deal of concern when the last parliament convened that there were too many bills that were left on considered and the government believed strongly that the parliament should at least look at them if it didn't like them it could always return them. but to leave them unattended was something that raised a great deal of concern so we are moving in the right direction and we are confident about that and i am in constant touch with many of think tanks, democracy think

tanks vigilant in this area and we have a very healthy discussion about these issues. estimate how do you evaluate china's efforts to play a growing political and economic role in the arab world? >> you know, i wish i knew more about this. its report of the world which has long excited interests by many great power. china of course is a country with whom we do business. it's a country of growing stature in asia together with india and with respect i think we have a very close and warm relationship with them and we believe it's important that they engage. ..

>> interesting thing about the bosnian crisis is there was a gentleman, who in april of 1995 announced that he was going to

investigate rather than radical knowledge and a gentleman by the name of stennis ditch. immediately, if through the u.n. into a state of disarray, because the feeling was, here we have the intrusion of a different set of elements. it was a justice element and its threatened to derail whatever it is that we thought sort of inescapably bound up with the possibility of peace. that is, if he couldn't talk to these people because subsequently they were going to be divisive how could you possibly a right at peace? what he did is by intruding into this, in effect, he forced us to change and adapt to his reality, and we had to do that. of course, we couldn't escape

the drama and the disaster that was sterba needs up. soon after that everything began to change. i think likewise, broadly speaking when you look at the international criminal court, it has created no shortage of discomfort to many capitals, because it is presenting itself as a check on the latitude of behavior that previously was thought to be possible by certain people around the globe and now i think is quickly being circumscribed by the court or go in terms of the middle east, again, it is the belief that there is nothing that is impossible where peace is concerned. if the desire is there and the exhaustion is plentiful, and the goodwill is evident, then you hope that the combination of circumstance will bring us to this point. there is an element of fate or luck involved. i have often remarked that

countries do not negotiate treaties. it is individuals who so happen to represent those countries. you could take five countries, with them around the table, send their representatives and put them around around the table and asked them to negotiate a particular document, and you may well find they can't agree on a single, mac, where it should be placed. you can change those five individuals, same government, change the individuals and suddenly within five minutes it is negotiated so you need an element of luck that there is so much individual, so much of a role for the individual negotiation that if we have to sort of have a combination of peoples than i think we can do this quite quickly. >> would you comment on the status of the role of women from an educational, economic and political standpoint both in your country of jordan and the

entire arab world? >> oh dear me. >> i had to put that one in. [laughter] >> we'd like to take pride on all indicators. we have seen jordan move forward we have now a much greater awareness of the role of women. the role that women need to play. i think like most societies, it is patently obviously that when you look at the examination results, out of the top 20 students the vast majority are women, in the same can be said of our scores at universities. the highest and, the highest scoring in the most gifted students are women, but than that does not translate itself into having a large percentage of women in our workforce, so we must better understand why this is the case. some of it is cultural.

and ensure that we can overcome this. we must also i think do more. her majesty the queen has been exceptional in this. do more to understand the pressures on women. we have now shelters for battered women and battered children. we have means by which we can understand the problems that are occurring. i think more and more people of jordan understand that yes, what exists in a family should lie in the family but there are limits. if you are abusing your children, that the courts could themselves intervene. i think all of this is good. are broadly speaking if i can also make another point. i was chairing the consulted if committee for you and fm, the u.n. development fund for women and they did this for three years. it was very sad for me to notice that in many of the forum where we discuss these issues whether

it be a commission on the status of women, which obviously deals with-- the convention of discrimination against women, you notice by and large that they are women themselves and really the target audience in any country are young men. we need more young men to take up the cause of women. and also, we need to ensure gender equality is not something that is trumpeted just around the time of elections when those aspiring for office ck women's vote and say well all sorts of kind things and then after the elections they see very little. i think we need to better appreciate all of this. finally i should just say that a few months ago i met a very distinguished delegation from argentina, lady senators, and we sat across the table.

a very impressive lady said to me, mr. ambassador, you know we come from a country that believes in gender equality. this was her opening line, so i thought, my goodness, what does she think, where did she think i come from? i said madam senator, i must respectfully disagree because i come from a country that does not believe in gender equality. you could see the temperature in the room rising. then i looked at her and i said, i firmly believe in the superiority of women. [laughter] and we had a very pleasant conversation after that. blasco. >> mr. ambassador, this question is with regard to the joint economic stones between jordan and israel that came after the

peace agreement between the two countries. i believe your predecessor was fully involved in those dynamics why is that we haven't heard any further about them? why our success is one of the shortcomings and how have they been affected since the israeli invasion of gaza 14 months ago? >> basically it is still very much operational. perhaps because of that, they haven't made the news but they have given us first-hand knowledge of how certain industries operate. for instance the apparel industry quickly set up investments in jordan, and the qiz's were fully active. we saw exports jumped from something which was really quite

modest to something quite exceptional. but as you alluded in your comments, this was a new experience for us and for instance we were under the impression that the apparel industry would better monitor its own performances in respects to local laws where neighbors were concerned, and we realized that this was not necessarily the case. we were rather naïve in this and that we needed to work with the industry to ensure that labor laws were implemented. we also had to adapt our labor laws to take them into account. we like to think, although we were earlier on censured by the national labor committee here, we'd like to think though that jordan is a model for a country that has responded to these allegations and we did so quite quickly, and we didn't try and sweep the allegations aside or deny it. we said we fully agree.

we understand we have a problem. this is new to us. help us and we reached out to the ino. we reached out to friendly countries and i think we have largely put our hearts in order. there is a list for factories and our vast percentage or a large percentage of factories in jordan have subscribed to this and this is all very good. we will never remove all complaints but i think the wave of the jordanian government deals with them has to be complemented. >> what was the reaction after the jordanian suicide bomber killed the cia agents as well as a jordanian agent a few months ago? >> yad, you know it is a very interesting question because, if you talk to development specialists, they will say to us , what we need to do to reign in extremists thinking is we need to give people an

opportunity and we need to create jobs where they don't exist. we need to give people hope. this is undeniably true, but as this particular case has shown, the bomber himself was a physician. he scored very highly on our secondary score exams. he received a scholarship to continue his studies in medicine he was married. they have two young girls. so, the material advantage had no bearing on his decisions to be, affiliated to al qaeda. it raises the deeper question of why-- how can violence of a form that is used by any party-- it doesn't have to come from the middle east. it can come from any region. why should it develop the currency?

i often think that we don't really understand ourselves the way that we think i understand ourselves. understand ourselves. when you look at the 20th century, it led us to think that we have, we have concluded our we have answers to many of the vexing phenomena for us and i would contend that many of the so-called conclusions are only conjecture. i will give you an example for instance. soon after the terrible dramatic events of 9/11, there was much discussion as to why it happened and who these people were and why they did it. but there was something in my mind that was missing here. it sort of occurred to me that the actions of 9/11 were a distant cousin to the shooting

at the columbine high school a couple of years earlier. the two disgruntled youth marched into the school. there was clearly a suicide mission. there were certain people they wanted to murder and all of the rest were murdered randomly. i have watched various programs and read various accounts of this, but to me it doesn't quite add up really explain why they did it. there is a pathology of, about us humans which i don't really understand and i don't think we fully understand. we don't understand why we do these things, especially if they are not driven by fear. fear can turn off your cerebral functions and perhaps certain circumstances you do things which you couldn't possibly have perceived as possible. i still have my doubts about this, but in cases regarding, like the bomber, it is rather

bewildering and i had a cousin who of course was lost in the bombing. he was a very gentle, kind man. you would never perceived that he could mean ill to anybody and they think he served his country nobly, and we mourn his loss of course. >> this question asks that you look in the rearview mirror as well as the front window. it has to do with the february 1989 establishment of the arab cooperation council among jordan, iraq, yemen and egypt. it was short-lived. where is this concept now? none of the four countries are part of the subregional organization, as they once were, and that was a dynamism-- a

logic to it. is the idea still under consideration and if so, how and why, and if not, how and why? >> john did anyone ever tell you you have a great radio voice? it is very deep. i used to always enjoy speaking after someone who had a high voice because i have a deep voice but i can't after you. it is a good question. i think it was simply overcome by the events themselves. we have the case of the invasion of kuwait by iraq and the subsequent developments and then we moved quickly into madrid and oslo, and it didn't really progress beyond that or go then we the application of economic sanctions on iraq and i think they are it quickly perished as an ideal.

>> how would you assess the effectiveness of special envoy george mitchell's-- and what more can and should be done? >> i once had a discussion with the late sere joe who was as you know killed in late 2003 in baghdad. he was the u.n. special envoy who was a special representative and secretary-general. he he had served in on most every conflict since 1971, and he said the toughest negotiations he said were always between the parties in the middle east. so one cannot underestimate how difficult this has been for senator mitchell, notwithstanding his enormous credentials and his qualifications, which of course

make him the perfect fit for this job or go it is just so difficult for anyone undertaking this exercise, and so we think notwithstanding the many trips we think he has laid the foundations for, now the launching of discussions on the final stages and i think that is something to be commended. >> and, bringing this session to a close, as one factotum i did not mention in the introductory remarks, and that is there are blocks of countries within the united nations, and there is an arab bloc for various needs and purposes. but prior to the most recent election of the current incumbent of the united nations, sacred terry generalship, all 22 arab countries voted for this individual to be that representative than that candidate for the secretary

generalship of the united nations. no small honor. [applause] the last question is not so much a question. it is a statement. it says i am in the eighth grade , and i enjoy listening to your speech about peace, and i think on behalf of this audience we can say that the rest of us are in kindergarten and we too enjoyed it and learned a lot. thank you. >> thank you. thank you or could thank you very. [applause] >> you are adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

's been now a form on how the u.s. senate has changed in the last 50 years. from the robert dole institute of politics at the university of kansas, this is an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon and welcome to the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas. i am the director here. we are delighted we have such an outstanding crowd and what is going to be a fascinating conference over the next two days. we also want to thank all of our visiting scholars for taking the time out to visit campus here and to be part of this. as those of you who have attended dole institute programs before no, we are a hybrid facility. we have a museum, we have a very impressive archive with all of up doles papers and artifacts and we conduct it very aggressive programming schedule that usually is focused on practitioners, but also we tried to do scholarly type conferences from time to time. last fall, professor burdett plumas, who is not only a distinguished professor of political science, a good friend

of the dole institute but, and this is required to be involved some time with the dole institute, a certifiable political junkie. he approached us about it very interesting idea. you've said you know, next year is going to be the 50th anniversary of bob dole's election to the united states congress and are you guys planning anything? i said as a matter of fact we are. we are planning our presidential lecture series which is one of our signature series on that topic. and he proposed the idea of doing a conference that focuses on the senate, and it just fit perfectly, a perfect way to conclude the series. so we were very excited about that and very excited about what burdett has put together. one of the things we have heard in the course of the series consistently is that the united states senate needs more people like bob dole, like his career exemplifying bipartisanship, stability and a willingness

while having strong philosophical beliefs, to reach across the aisle and try to work with others with different points of view. we heard from bob dole's biography. we have heard from members of his staff. we have heard from the first and until he recently retired only historian of the united states senate and finally we heard from one of his very prominent colleagues, former senator jack danforth. and it has been a very enlightening process. but now we get to hear from scholars come individuals who had the opportunity to stand back and take an objective and a look at exactly how the senate functions and exact way what can be done to make it function better. he gives me great leisure to present to you the gentleman who oppose this idea, the gentleman who organized it, who did all the work and deserves all the credit, president burdett loomis. [applause]

>> thanks very much, bill. bill's story is exactly right and bill couldn't have been more welcoming when i came to him and john earl, the associate director, with this idea. they basically said go ahead, run with it and we have. and i would like to acknowledge the support of the kansas management council. i approach them, and they also were highly enthusiastic about the conference, and so they too provided significant support. as bill noted, the 50 year career of bob dole and the anniversary of his initial house run triggered this, but i have had talked about doing this for quite a while and this was just a great opportunity. because i think that, after all

the dust has cleared, bob dole entered the congress as a house member, it exited as a presidential candidate and has had a fascinating post senate career, but in the end, his great legacy will be as a senator, as a committee chair and particularly as a leader. and so, it is worth considering the senate of the congress he entered in 19602 where it is today. i think it is particularly appropriate in that on the day of we hope, we think the final senate vote on health care reform, assuming the house doesn't screw things up, the coincidence here is great. the interest in the senate is as high as it has been in a long time.

so that serendipity has been terrific. finally, when i thought about this move from the more abstract to the specific, i started sending out e-mails, and i sent 10 e-mails out, and to the first 10 people that i really wanted to come, to present things. and, the 10 accepted. so, these are the people that i thought, and there are certainly some others without any question, but these are the people i thought would come together, cheerlead the leading scholars on the u.s. senate, to talk about various facets of this institution that is both interesting, puzzling, often frustrating. and so, it is great to have them

all here. we get to talk among ourselves, and i get to talk with you, another great audience from the dole institute. so, michael take it away. >> my name is michael lynch. i am a professor of political science at ku and i have the pleasure of having the chair to discuss this afternoon's panel. i would like to thank you all for coming and thank the dole center for putting this event on. my job today is pretty easy. i am going to introduce these gentlemen. they are going to talk a really long time and i'm going to make incredibly short comments about what they have to say and then we will turn it over to the audience and ask you if you have any questions you would like to ask. briefly, allow me to introduce each of our panelists. the next two days again, the goal is to talk about the senate for the last 50 years and how it is changed over time to begin, professor eric schickler is going to tell the-- us where we

started and give us an idea for of what the u.s. senate looked like at the mid-20th century. he is a professor of political science at the university of california-berkeley. he has published extensively and american politics specifically on congress and american political development and he is well-suited to discuss the transformation of the senate and what the senate look like it mid century. he is maybe most well-known for two books he has written on the institutional development of congress. one called disjointed pluralism, institutional innovations in the development of the u.s. u.s. congress and another one called filibuster, obstruction and lawmaking in the u.s. senate. both of these book look historically at how the institution is change over time and i think he is going to share some of that information today. both of those books one bisphenol price, which is the prize for the best book in

legislative politics granted by the american political science association. after eric, alan abramowitz will be speaking to us about elections. he is an expert on american politics, specifically elections and very specifically senate elections today. he is the author of six books and countless articles. maybe most interesting to today's talk is a current book he is working on or i think he has now finished. >> it is out, available for purchase. [laughter] >> titled the disappearing center, engage citizens polarization in american democracy. he is going to paint a picture of how senate elections have changed over time and what the state of the electorate and senate elections look like today. finally i will reintroduce burdett loomis, a professor here at the university of kansas. he is the author or editor of 14 books on american politics, an

expert on congress and the senate, including an edited volume called esteemed colleagues, stability and the liberation in the united states senate. this was written a while ago. [laughter] and then he is currently working on a book about looking at the culture wars and the role of the senate in elections and electrics. with that introduction i turn it over to eric and i remind you that we have 15 to 20 minutes more or less per speaker, with no good way for me to stop you. >> thanks for the reminder. first i would like to thank burdett for organizing this. it is a great honor to be here and i thank the dole institute. is a great up tendency to talk about the senate vote today and from a historical perspective and there is no more appropriate place than the home of top doles archives. i think one theme that will likely emerge from this

conference is the idea that senate is something of a mess. i think that is probably a widespread, not universal view but widespread view among political observers, a combination of individualism, obstructionism and intense nasty partisan warfare that together, put them together, make it a different institution to govern and make policy. in thinking about what is wrong with today's senate, a lot of a lot of times especially journalists and political scientist looked at to mid century senate as a better time. the synod of the 1940s and 50s is an institution that in some ways worked well. to be sure there are plenty of them is wrong with the mid century senate so for example people senate democrats were filibustering and killing senate bills in the 40s and 50s so the distasteful aspect but a lot of people point to the mid century senate, lyndon johnson

senate as it is referred to often as a healthier institution in today's. one of the things that is interesting about the senate is it is really the first era for which we have both kind of journalistic and popular histories written and odder political scientist who actually studied it in person in observing what is going on and as a result of both of those things we have a pretty rich information age. we know a lot about the senate of the 1940s and 50s. i think from all of that observation, kind of consensus or conventional view of what that senate was has emerged from that literature so what i'm going to do today is talk a little bit about the stylized portrait, the conventional portrait and then i will talk a little bit about some things that i think the convention misses or under precise as an wrap up on a quick reflection on what those underemphasized points might tell us about today's senate. that is my game plan. now, in terms of name-- main

themes, i think of several things that emerge from these studies and from the popular writing. the first is the idea that members of the senate generally observed a set of why we shared norms of behavior. these norms were what it means to be a good senator and these were shared across party and across ideological groupings so ideas like apprenticeship. when you get to the senate you are supposed to sort of keep your head down and learn the ropes and then only after learning the ropes do you start talking a lot on the floor, sponsoring a lot of amendments. specialization, the idea focus in on a couple of various typically wear your committee assignments relate to and focus on those and not interfere whole lot in other policy areas, not speak about every single issue that comes up. another norm was the idea of legislative work that you should be a workhorse and not a show horse. you get to the senate and you are a legislator first and a

public figure second. another norm would be courtesy, the idea that you are not supposed to attack your colleagues in a personal way. finally reciprocity, the idea that you should show restraint in how you use your prerogatives and try to make bargains or deals with your fellow colleagues, again across party lines. what this does is add up to an institution where senators are understood to show a lot of individual restraint, so even if you might in a fit at home i going out in sponsoring hundreds of floor amendments to embarrass the other party or talking constantly about every bill that comes up, there is a sense that that is not really appropriate so i'm not going to do that, and i guess i would say that is probably a thought that wouldn't occur to a contemporary senator today. [laughter] it is worth noting it is hard to show norms affect behavior but there is an important work i political scientist that do show that some of these norms at

least had some bias of some of the folks in this room who you'll be hearing from tomorrow, document the extent to which apprenticeships seem to hold the junior senators really used to sponsor fewer amendments and be less active than that fades in the 1960s and 70s,. specialization, the idea of focusing on committee work was something you can see evidence forbade them and really fades away as we get a new breed of senators again entering the late 50s and 60s. so that is one primary theme that emerges. another is in terms of the filibuster in mid century it is a really different institution than it is today. today the understanding is you oppose the bill, you filibuster it and the result is the majority will need 60 votes to defeat that filibuster. if you look at data in this period, the filibuster was quite rare. fewer filibusters than earlier

in the 20th century and far fewer than what we have today, so this wasn't entirely due to self-restraint. it also had to do with a political stalemate at the time, were basically there is a conservative majority in the senate for much of this period so liberals couldn't push their programs to enactment and by the same token, conservatives didn't have as broad a policy agenda so there wasn't that much for liberals to filibuster. again this is something shown in a book by steve smith and sarah binder on the filibuster. that is the second game, this lack of use of filibustering. a third theme is the idea that the senate in this period is run by what was called the inner club, and this is a term made famous by a journalist for the "new york times," william s. weiss who wrote a book called the citadel in 1957. the inner club where those members whose primary allegiance is to the senate first.

the career senators and shun personal publicity and worked the insider game. people like richard russell of georgia as an example, lyndon johnson who really worked the letters of power internally and bargain with their fellow club members. and, those who don't abide by those norms don't amount to much in the senate according to wipe. just to give you a sense for how much this was part of the allure of the day, lyndon johnson as leader of the democrats, would give a copy of this book to each new senator and it would be signed by william s. white and lyndon johnson said they were cultivating this image at and johnson believe that senators who believe this would be more likely to defer to his leadership because that is how you get ahead according to william s. white. the flipside of this inner club view was the idea that there are a handful of mavericks, independent like paul douglas of

illinois who don't abide by these norms but are very much according to this conventional portrait, ineffective senators as a result. they don't amount to that much in the institution. a related aspect of this theme is the idea that the senate has really dominated by conservative coalition, a bipartisan coalition of southern democrats and midwestern and western republican, also some eastern republicans were conservative. and, if you look at the senate in that period, that they committee chairs, the most powerful committee chairs tend to be southern democrats and they often work closely with senior republicans on legislation so it is a very different world from today where the thought of senior democrat and a senior republican having the same, very similar policy views and working as a team would we for into today's senate

finally, this conventional portrait is i guess i would call at the johnson senate, the idea of lyndon johnson as a unique and important figure in the senate of the 1950s and it is a kind of amazing story when you think about it. enters the senate in january of 1949. two years later he is assistant leader. four years later he is democratic leader and six years later when democrats win back the majority, he is majority leader. the common portrayal is that the senate is really dominated by johnson, so there is a great kohl in a book by evans and novak on johnson about the johnson treatment, how he would persuade senators to go along with him. just to give you a flavor, his tome could be accusation cajolery exuberance, complained in the hint of threat. he ran the gambit of human emotions. interjections from the target rare. he moved in close, his face is

scant millimeter for mistarget, his eyes widening in narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling, from his pocket support clippings, memos and statistics, mimicry humor and the genius of analogy made it a hit not experience and rendered the victim stunned and helpless. [laughter] people talk about harry reid. [laughter] that is what they are imagining. scholars of the 1950s and 60s understood that portrait of johnson personally dominating was really overdrawn. it was in the story of johnson imposing his will. a lot of this insolence derive from the fact that he had an extensive communication network. he could talk to liberal democrats, conservative southern democrats, republicans and find out what it was each member wanted and needed an broker compromises and deals rather than just bossing them around. it is also the case that johnson was help out a lot by the fact that this was a period of divided government when he was

majority leader so he is leading the democrats, the moderate republican dwight eisenhower's in the white house and as a result of that, johnson wasn't really expected to pass the program while he was a leader and said he could kind of pick his spots and decide when to fight and win not, so really what he does is kind of cultivate this image of invincibility by avoiding the fights he was going to lose. and so, again, the portrait that emerges is an important influential leader but not a single-handed kind of dominance. now you can think of johnson in many ways personifying this conventional portrait of the midcentury senate. he is the insider, southern democrat articulating the view that you need to work with the inner club and abide by these norms to get ahead. that raises the question, what is missing from his portrait. and i would like to point to a couple of things. what is this idea of the inner

club where you get ahead by keeping your head down and waiting is kind of contradicted both by johnson's own story where he comes in and quickly rises to power, becomes the leader after four years and you might say he was so skilled that is just an exception. if you think about the most important republican of the era, bob taft, he has a somewhat parallel story. tapped enters the senate in 1939. his first year he gets 44 speeches on the senate floor. hardly keeping his mouth shut. he announces his, he launches his first presidential run in august 1939, his first year in the senate. he becomes acknowledged as the leading republican senator after two or three years within the senate and becomes de facto leader of the party. and so, here both of these leaders are both outward looking. they both want to be president, kind of public figures, quickly rise to power so it doesn't fit

this view of this kind of inner club that is so hard to break into. it is also worth noting that taft's leadership, his approach is the opposite of johnson. johnson is all about personal connections and understanding each senator. taft was much more about policy, ideology. he had a conservative ideological vision and policy program that he wanted to put forward and was much less concerned with the personal my cities and getting along with people. he could be rude to people but he was also brilliant and ineffective party leader in other ways. so again, this suggests there are multiple avenues for gaining influence in the senate. a second thing that is missing is that these mavericks that are so dismissed by people like william as wide and lyndon johnson actually were just isolated individuals. if you think about it, and put them all together, these are people who often were reelected

many times and often have a big impact on public debate. they are really public figures working with liberal interest groups among democrats than among conservative causes such as those concerned about domestic communism among the republicans in using the senate as a platform to become important figures in the country , so i think this notion of the maverick is just lacking influence is wrong. you can see that echoed today, in greater frequency with some of the maverick senators today. and then, the final point i would make about this conventional portrait is that one aspect of the johnson senate that people think about is it is an institution where ideological and partisan warfare has receded and you have this normal cooperative institution. my sense is that actually only captures, to the extent of captures anything, captures only about three years or four years, from 1955 to 1958 so people tend

to read back into history assuming there is this coherent whole. if you think about what came before johnson becomes majority leader you have this bitter ideological where fair going on in the 1940s and early 1950s between liberal democrats who wanted to create a social democratic cradle to grave welfare state and republicans and southern democrats who view that as creeping socialism and undermining our core values. they fight it out with nasty investigations of domestic communism and labor run-- labor union alleged wrongdoing. they fight it out over legislation, it efforts to pass national health insurance, new labour policies that rein in unions and they find it out in public that people like joe mccarthy, part of a much wider set of investigations that try to highlight domestic communism and length that two new deal liberalism. these are all parts of this

midcentury senate that tend to get shunted aside as we look back on it today. in other words senate allah kicks in the 1940s are infused with broad ideological and policy disagreements that are battles over the role of governance and this is very different from the senate that we get in this conventional portrait. so just to wrap up, what are the implications of this we are thinking in today's senate? even with these revisions i've suggested i think it is fair to say the senate that today is a very different east from the senate of the 1950s. i think it lobbed taft or richard russell came back today and looked at the senate there are a lot of things that they really wouldn't recognize her would find very distant from their experience. i think it is also wrong to view it as this kind of stable coherent system that was the smoothly running kind of machine and i think johnson himself wanted us to think of the senate

that way because that was consistent with his own goals but really, the partisan warfare of today's senate differs a little bit less than we might think from what was going on and say the 1940s and 50s. it wasn't defined just by party but a nasty ideological warfare that has long been a part of our politics and i think the one thing that is different now is when you take that nasty ideological warfare and combine it with the ability to block action to the filibuster routinely, that is what generates the question of whether you can still govern. that is i suspect a theme that will be picked up by several of my colleagues over the next day. >> thank you. alan. >> okay, that is a great lead-in to what i'm going to talk about, which is how senate elections have changed and how some of the changes in senate elections have in turn affected the way the senate operates today compared with the way it operated back in

the 1950s and 60s when bob dole first entered the united states senate. i think it is fair to say is to start off, i think eric is absolutely correct that some of this view of of the senate at mid century in partisan conflict was minimal and a great deal of adherence to these norms is overstated. there is no question that the senate of the mid-20th century was a very, very different legislative body from the senate that we see today, and i would argue that the most important difference between the senate than in the senate now, because it relates to so many of the other changes taking place has been the rise and partisan polarization. that is the increasing ideological divide between the political parties so while they were ideological battles in the senate back in the 1940s and 1950s they didn't coincide to nearly the same extent as they do today with party lines. what we see today is that the

party divide is much sharper than it was back in the 1950s and 60s. there is a handout that has figures and tables that illustrate these points. figure one shows the distribution of ideology in the current senate. it estimated the location of senators based on locations in the 110th previous senate and estimating where new senators would he based on the state they represent in their party. if you look at that graph you can see a couple of interesting things about it. first abolishes a high degree of polarization. there's a big divide their. there is a bimodal distribution and the democrats are all to the left and the republicans are all to the right. there is no overlap at all between the parties. this is different from what the senate look like in terms of

ideology back in the 1950s and 60s. in table one, i summarized the difference between two senate, the 91st minute and a 111 senate. 90% was the senate that circa 196069 to 1970, and you can see there there is a great difference between the two bodies. in the 91st you had a large percentage of moderates and that was true-- they came from both parties, and far fewer strong liberals and conservatives. when you get to the 111th you can see there are almost no moderates and a much larger proportion of what i call strong liberal conservatives. so this of course has profound consequences for everything about the way the senate works for floor voting, for the committee system, for the confirmation process in just about everything that goes on.

of course this is true of the house of representatives as well but i would argue the rise in polarization has had even greater consequences for the senate than it has had for the houston at the house is sort designed to operate along party lines, to be a very partisan body. it has been that way for a long time so while it is different today, it can function. i would argue the rise of partisanship has really made it very difficult for the senate to operate as it really undermines these traditional decision-making processes which are based on norms of reciprocity and consensus and those norms are constrained and impact are pretty pretty much broken down completely under the pressure of this kind of partisan, what i call artists and ideological polarization so the senate is even more dysfunctional than the house of representatives.

i want to argue that the rise in polarization has not been confined to political elites, to officeholders, candidates and activists, that as congress has become more polarized so has the american electorate and this is an important consequences for senate elections and for the senate itself. one cannot in my view understand polarization in congress without taking into account the rise of polarization in the american electorate. first of all we can look at evidence from the american national election studies that show in a very fundamental way the composition of the democratic and republican electorate coalitions have been divergent, both in terms of two very important characteristics, race and ideology. figure two shows the growing disparity between the racial composition of the democratic and republican electorate coalitions. over the past 50 years of course the racial composition of the american electorate has changed

quite a bit. back in the 1950s, the american electorate was overwhelmingly white. nonwhites made up about 4% of the voters in the united states and the 2008 presidential election, nonwhites made up 26% of the voters so there is pending rather dramatic change and a lot of that occurred in the last 16 years. what has happened with that the changes that nonwhites, both african-americans and latinos and to some extent other nonwhites have come to comprise a substantial share of the democratic electoral coalition, about 40% of democratic voters, but their share of the republican electorate coalition has not increased very much at all. there are less than 10% of republican electoral coalitions so we have seen this big disparity in terms of race and at the same time a growing disparity in terms of ideology as well. if you look at figure three you can see how over time the

average position of a democratic and republican senate vote-- voters has diverged. this is on a seven-point self-identification scale but you see the same thing when you look at specific issues. the parties have been moving apart. the democratic voters are becoming more liberal and republican voters becoming more conservative, and so we are looking at two parties now due to a much greater extent than 30, 40 or 50 years ago are really representing very very different electoral coalitions. another important point to keep in mind here is that this ideological polarization is actually greatest when we look at the electorate among the public. co-is greatest among the most interested, informed and active members of the public. when you look at the american public today the more interested in politics people are, the more

informed they are about politics and the more active they are about politics, the more polarized they are. that is, the more divided they are and the more it divergence you see between democrats and republicans. so it is in a sense of those americans who best the dolby ideal to the democratic citizenship who are the most polarizing and it is in contrast among those who are relatively uninterested, uninformed, uninvolved in the political process that moderation and political independents flourished. it is what is contrary to a lot of people's myths about the american electorate. we think about what is a good citizen but the fact is that you just don't find very many independents or moderates who are engaged in the political process. this is very significant for representation and core behavior of elected officials. it has had a number of consequences for senate elections. first of all there has been with

this ideological diversions, we have seen a marked increase in party loyalty and a decrease in ticket splitting since the 1970s. more voting along party lines, less ticket splitting between presidential and senate elections as well as between presidential and house elections. figure four in the handout illustrates that. in addition, we have also seen an increase in geographic polarization. more states dominated why one party,, fewer battleground states. table two illustrates the change and it is really quite dramatic. this is based on looking at the margins of victory at the state level and presidential elections over time. when you go back and look at the presidential elections of the 1960s and 70s particularly the ones that were competitive like 1960 election and the 1976 election, you find there were far more battleground states,

including every one of the biggest states. states like new york, california, illinois, texas were all hotly contested, closely contested in those elections. what we see more recently and especially in 2008 is that there are very few highly competitive states. only six states in 2008 were decided by margins of five points or less. in contrast there are over half of the states decided by a margin of 15 points or more. more blowout states. this of course has important consequences for senators as well and senate elections because it means more senators represent states that strongly favor their own party. viewer represent states that are in favor of the opposing party. it also results, and that is shown table three, and of course the other consequence of this is declining competition for senate seats at table five shows the trend over time in terms of the

numbers of senate proportion that were highly competitive versus those that were blowouts and you can see that in the most recent period we have more of low outs and we have fewer close contest. interestingly, the at the same time this was going on, and despite the decreasing competitiveness of the individual races, we are seeing an increase in the size of the party seats and increase competition for control of the senate. how is that possible? the reason it is possible is that first of all, we have narrow majorities in the senate and the more recent period. the average majority size in recent senate is quite a bit smaller than it was back in the earlier times. of course the current senate is an exception with 59 seat majority. that is a very large majority but as i will explain in a moment i think that is an exception and not likely to last

very long. in addition to the smaller majorities, we often see however larger swings on average in elections, and that i think it's a reflection of a greater influence of national issues in these elections, which leads to increased consistency and party turnover. the seats that are switching are switching in one direction, to a much greater extent than was true 30 or 40 years ago. ..

couple of reasons. first of all has a small state bias because of the fact each state has two senators the 20 least populist states in the united states have fewer people than the state of california. those 20 states and i won't mention any states they might be in right now. [laughter] those 20 states are like four of the united states senators. now and there is a republican tilt to the small states.

of those 20 states actually 12 have consistently voted for republican presidential candidates in the last three presidential elections. only five consistently voted for democratic candidates. right now that republican tilt or bias is not evident, is not very clear because the democrats have been to hold actually 11 of the 24 seats from the 12 states. that's not going to last, okay. i think it is highly unlikely to last. and in fact, if you look at table nine, you can see that the democrats are facing a high risk of loss in the next several elections because they are highly exposed, meaning that there are now 11 democratic senators representing states that voted republican in all three of the most recent presidential elections versus only negative what, three republican senators in states like that and that includes scott brown who is now one of

those three. and there are 11 other democratic senators in the states that voted republican to of the last three. so 22 of the 59 democratic senators are sitting in states that are really republican leaning states based on the recent presidential voting history. so what are the consequences for the senate of all of this? first i would argue position within the electorate reinforces polarization within the senate. the reason the senators are finding it so hard to get together and across party lines and the conflict is so we intense is not because they don't like each other and, you know, the nasty, it's because they're actually representing the people who elected them and you can see this very clearly on the issue of health care reform which has been so much in the news lately and figure five shows the distribution of opinion of democratic and republican senate voters on the issue of health care reform. this is from a question in the 2008 american national election studies that asked people about whether they would support or

oppose a plan to have a single payer health care system which was quite a bit beyond what was just passed. but you can see that there is a very sharp party divide on this that the democrats are plastered on the left and republicans are clustered on the right. they are relatively few voters in the middle. so, this was before this debate even began. so it is hardly surprising we see the democrats and republicans in the senate and house are having such a hard time agreeing. second i think the growing intensity of the partisan conflict this contributes to this polarization of electric contributes to the intense partisan conflict of traditional senate norms and procedures. in essence i think in some words the senate is becoming more like the health of representatives but of course with these rules that obstruct or make it much more difficult for the majority

to work its will in the institutions so the big question going forward, one of the big question to the senate is going to be whether these special rules and procedures the senate has operated under for so long can survive in an institution that is so decided and which position is so great. and we are already seeing increased signs of pressure on the rules and procedures particularly on the filibuster rule for example with the use of reconciliation procedure of health care by the democrats in the senate and i think we are going to see more and more of this and perhaps even efforts to modify or get rid of the filibuster all together at some point because we are in a much more partisan year of and it just doesn't fit with that new

political environment. so i will stop at that and take questions later if you have any. >> thank you. diman to go ahead? >> sure. i'm going to look at -- in looking at congressional careers from 1960 to 2010 of course through the current it's hard to tell. scott brown may be here for a few months. he might be here 30 years from now. we really don't know. but there has been one constant over the last three years, and that has been robert byrd, who is still there. and it would seem to be there is some real continuity but i think it was most striking in many ways to the amount of change in

the congressional career and particularly the senate career. and again it's appropriate follow eric and elbe with a 50's as the baseline here for the type of career that the fault in that particular era and elections as a major part of the context of change and you can go to the election of 1958, a big swing of democratic senators. new senators, more liberal senators, ones who arguably expected to participate a little earlier in the process and as the beginning of change and the large scale change in the u.s. senator and that class of 1958 their entrance reverberated for a year to come. still, generally speaking the study of political careers

hasn't paid off a lot. it turns out the background of legislators doesn't make that much difference in how they operate. it's hard to link a relationship to out comes in various careers. they change fairly slowly. it's difficult to get a handle on careers as an important element of the senate, and if you look at the senate today and 50 years ago, the types of careers do change. and i think they are important elements of the institution. so how careers on fold can tell us some things largely because they are about choices. the choice to seek election in the first place. who runs for the senate. what is the pool of candidates for the senate? people who will do this, take

this on? pathways' within the senate. what happens once you get there? and as eric pointed out, we have i think the committee pathway in the 50's it was extended by the leadership for people like taft and the johnson wasn't at all. a different career paths and we have seen the value of partisan positions and committee positions change over the years. and exit, leaving the senate. sometimes its and enforced decision, and forced by the electorate. that an unwelcome exit sometimes surprising to the senator. but more often it's a choice. you choose to retire, perhaps to go on to something else, perhaps just as i say to spend more time

with the family. [laughter] and perhaps to avoid perspective defeat. chris dodd right now, prominent senter, important center in health care financial services, very -- but also want it is extraordinarily vulnerable and has decided i think under pressure to retire. so, we may learn something about our senators and institution of the senate and held a careers are structured, how individual members choose. for a simple to the cost of running for the senate. first in dollars but also psychic expense in this polarized electric. the same people who run for the

senate in the 1950's run today. you've got to be pretty ambitious. others psychological mabey as political science are finding we are hard wired to do some of this stuff. but we also may find senators are wealthy, john gloor sign de beat de -- corzine willing to spend an amount of money to get elected, or they have access to the funds. that's crucial to running for the senate. and it strikes me that it helps to be partisan and it helps to have a very thick skin. other kind of candidates may be less inclined to run in this environment or to serve with highly charged partisan elements to both running for the senate and serving in the senate.

used to personal attacks, willing to take on personal attacks. but sometimes from your colleagues even that often certainly from your opponents, often in personal ones. it's not fun. i think we have time after time legislators tell us that this isn't fun. so these costs may change the kind of people who seek to enter the process. and indeed we find, and i have some tables as well, the entry patterns do defer some. we have more professional politicians coming into the senate, fewer people from the private sector, and particularly people from legislative by crounse. one of the common observations of the senate has become more like the house. one reason is because more house members constitute the senate these days. they've learned they've been socialized in the house, more

partisan body, but a surprising number of current senators come from state legislatures as well so they come from a legislative context, and they are used to it as opposed to coming from the private sector. and not being so such a part of a political process that they've developed a thick skin. i'm not really going to talk much about internal development of careers at all. it's an interesting and important subject. certainly the career pattern is flatter than it used to be. people get involved more quickly. there is more incentive to get involved, more staff, you get involved in the process more quickly. but given the limited amount of time i want to focus on leading

the senate, which tooby is a highly interesting and understudied question in terms of political careers. the first thing we would note on this is in flat glass the senators who serve 1959, 196050 years ago a substantial number of them left the senate pro and -- [laughter] they buy it. lots of senators died. and so their careers ended with their debt and straightforward motion is fewer centers are dying in office, considerably fewer are dying in office. not only that, people who do

leave the office are living longer. the life expectancy has risen substantially for someone who is a 65 from the 50's to 2010. so more people are surviving the senate and living longer afterwards. this gets us back to bob dole because and many ways he is the poster boy for a new kind what i would argue is at least possibly a new kind of post senate career. first of all he's made a lot of money. i don't think there is -- bald told has made far more money than he would have ever possibly imagined. here is a guy who lived frugally russell kansas, lifetime public

servant. and certainly was not seen as a big spender. had good congressional pension and then resign as a presidential candidate and starts appearing in television commercials. [laughter] down, boy. [laughter] >> what kind? >> pepsi i think it was, or maybe something you drink with pepsi. [laughter] second lead, he becomes a highly sought after partner in a prestigious law firms, the rainmaker of the first quarter. so he is rewarded tremendously at the end of the career. i don't think he calculated that particularly at all. here is a guy that wanted to be a good leader, desperately wanted to be president.

but there he was in 1996. suddenly, bob dole has embarked upon any number of good works, has been a presidential envoy, has worked with bill clinton in europe, raised tens of millions of dollars for the world war ii memorial. and continues to do that. a year ago my interns and i were talking to bob dole in his office and he came in and bad knees, bad hips, didn't look good coming in. sat down and the light went on and for one hour and 15 minutes we were talking about everything he kept coming back time and time again to health care because he and tom daschle had

just put together a big health care proposal not unlike the one that ended up passing. and was interesting to see the students would ask him a question about x, y, or ze and he would answer it and bring it back to health care, highly engaged, highly interested, and again a model for some of what you can do after congress. finally i would say where we are sitting literally is an indication of what you can do. out of 76 members of the 101st congress, the 1989, 1990 the congress everyone looked at had a broad sense of career there are still quite a number serving but 76 have left the senate. out of the 76, 15 have educational institution centers

of one sort or another named after them. you have the mitchell senter, liberty university, the helms center. trent lott has a center, fritz hollings interestingly enough has a center on conducting useful. i'm not sure you can even understand him. but in a certain sense the careers have been institutionalized after they have gone. so again, something to look at after the senate. so it seems to me that with the longevity has come opportunity.

you can do well and make more money or you can do good and honestly you can have fun. for bob dole doing health care was fun. george mitchell worked hard but i think he had a lot of fun at it as well. you see many of these individuals stained with politics but without the pressure of going to bed at three in the morning, getting a put mine in the morning to continue the vote of the last 24 hours. so, the senate may be the acme of most of the senator's political career but it's certainly not the end. and also it raises questions about choosing to stay or choosing to leave. if in this congress that we have been talking about surface

becomes too burdensome, if running for the reelection not just two years now as they would do it in the 1950's, for years governing and two years on the campaign trail today you are dialing for dollars almost like a house member the moment you win the election the next cycle is beginning. it's a six year cycle but you are also talking sometimes about tens of millions of dollars. the choice to leave because you can see this post senate career in the more attractive terms you are not getting a ball of your power. you're giving up a lot of grief it may well be a question that senators like evan bayh will think through. obviously being a senator means powerful pub they are staffed, there are perks but the costs are great so as some other

elements of politics we might go back to the notion of exiting, the choice of exit voice or loyalty and i think it is there certainly of ways the individual legislators are certainly there, many are vociferous. loyalty is a crucial part of the senate and party loyalty. but i think that there are costs to loyalty, there are costs to too many voices and exit mabey -- you always have people retire. but they may see retirement in different light. it's a common refrain for senators or congressman but when they retire they say it's not fun anymore and we all kind of chuckle at that like everyone says that. but that doesn't make it on true and particularly for particular purpose vehicle. 1996 to have a raft of really distinguished senators retiring. dale bumpers, alan simpson, bill bradley, paul simon among

others. bob dole was a part of that group resigned in somewhat different circumstances. and i think that you can look back on this they had pretty good lives after the senate. simpson back on the stage in his late seventies for the deficit commission. and there's a fine irony here. if you go back to the careers in the 50's they were framed by these norms that erich talked about. and the notion of the intercom all of its revolving around reciprocity in one form or another, trading apprentice should now for influence leader. being able to hussein willing to work hard so you would have the -- you would see the fruits of that labour. i was trying to think about if you could be a maverick today the way paul douglas or william

proxmire was in the 1950's what would be a maverick if you don't have a very strong norms, how can you differ from the norms. and in many ways the senate -- we will talk about more until tomorrow -- but the one that alvan sets off as a highly polarized partisan center and the final irony may be that a person who tries to work across party lines, lindsey graham for example who really has systematically on various issues, not all issues, but systematically on a variety of issues sought out partners, tried to work against cross party lines. he's often vilified when he tries to do this by not so much as fellow republicans in the senate but certainly ideological conservatives on the outside. lindsey graham, he is a rhino,

public -- pond come on. he's ambitious but also in vicious to get things done. and so in a sense, the very person who was -- would have been the potential strong member of the club in the 1950's is now seem as a great exception. and i think that tells a lot about the differences in serving today and 50 years ago. so -- >> maybe you should briefly think the speakers. [applause] >> welcome so i think the theme of today and tomorrow is certainly change. i think eric did a good job telling us where we started as to where we are today and any one that follows the senate

today seedier are vast differences but the change is slow and as each speaker today and each speaker to marlo talks about a particular area of change i think will become clear the changes are interrelated. any of the individual changes we talk about through the elections or different motivations and career paths of senators, the way that change can't be viewed alone we have to look at the norms and how those changes systematically as well and that none of us can be isolated completely. we have to think of everything together. so with that in mind i just had a few questions for all of you trying to help me be interrelated each of the discussions you had, i mean all of you be limited to this already but some questions in that vein so the current senators know how well bob dole has done after his career, so how has a current senator howell

is my view of normal and behavior in the chamber change when i am looking at a future, what do i do differently? do i still specialize, dwight over specialize? is this part of the puzzle why we see members working less to get their? is there a fall of the future that changes their behavior? similarly, eric spoke a lot about mavericks thinking of what it means to be a maverick in today's legislature and the senate, how does the electorate play into this. the norms alone certainly are not stopping the behavior from changing over time, so how do the electorate and what they would like to see and what they demand from their constituents change? and then alan, the flip side of that question, how do changing

norms affect the electorate? de you see the present fight over health care or is there going to backlash from the public over of the procedure they view as being unfair or overly acrimonious or will anyone remember? that is a broad question i kind of try to tie together what we've all done here and i open up to any of you. >> i will start. i feel with people looking at not just bob dole certainly but tom daschle and michel, you were talking about leaders here but there are certainly other for rank-and-file members who dan coats for example done just fin over time you've been able to search say it is an ambassador, come back and a fair number of ambassadors come out of the ranks of retired senators. they conceded that interesting

lives often meaningful and they've made a lot of money. i thing the first question is how does that affect your fault of just not running again? that i can still do things i'm interested in and have an impact maybe not quite as much but have a lot better life in a variety of ways. the other question you ask is pretty interesting. i think it may focus a little more on the house than the senate if you look at registering lobbyists for example a very few senators are registering lobbyists as i see right now that the data are not complete but name more of them are like bob dole, daschle who make phone calls but will not be part of the lobbying process. but what strikes me is that often for someone like daschle who is highly interested in health care when he's in the

senate gets involved in health care after and you must start thinking also again i think it is a little more common for house members who specialize more still, that what i do in the senate will lead me to this job. billy from louisiana is the poster boy for this, but there are a number of others but i think a little more in the house. in the senate side because you are more generalist you are likely and more connected in a variety of ways to have a big enterprise of staff, whatever, that you are probably thinking not so much quite in specialization but as you see many staff leave to go to lobbying firms okay now i've got people here and there, not only do i have connections inside of the congress but a lot of connections outside of the congress and certainly the balto

enterprises are famous for the linkages over time. so again i think there is a model their. >> either of you? >> i would say that as far as how the public response to the sort of procedures that are being used a and things like filibusters and demon path when that was under consideration my sense is that generally i think substance trump's procedure and the people are going to respond primarily based on their opinions of the policy itself. on an issue like health care in particular where people do have pretty well formed opinions not necessarily the details of the legislation but about the general question of the role of government i think that's going to be -- that is what we are seeing already in the the

immediate aftermath of the first polls indicate that once again the public is divided along party lines and it is evaluation of this. now, the polls generally show that there is a negative perception of congress and people don't like this partisan bickering and when you ask people do you think there should be more bipartisanship they say yes there should be more bipartisanship. the question is then when you follow up and ask people if you're a democrat or republican what does that mean to you and what usually it actually means to most people is that of course bipartisanship means the other party should admit that it's wrong and it should agree to what my party is proposing. [laughter] that would be by partisanship and that of course reflects these divisions in the public. that is basically the way that i see the public opinion responding to the health care for most of the other issues of

the day. >> do the changes in the electorate allow us to see more or less maverick behavior? >> in building on burdett's point about lindsey graham you could argue today that would be one form of maverick behavior is to be disloyal to your party or not stick with the message consistently, whereas in the 1940's and 50's if you looked at the voting behavior and positions on key issues on the core issues for the party they were in the line with of the party's majority position so in the partisan polarized senate one way to be a maverick is to work with the other side. that exposes you to a much different problem than the maverick in 1950's which is to have to go and get elected in a primary and the primary especially is where the folks alan is talking about are going to be the most active, and if you are a maverick today you better inoculate yourself as john mccain is seriously

trying to do today by adopting the basis of you on august the central issues now and not being too much of an african so i think that is one change. within the parties to be a maverick you also need a different things in the minority and majority party today. whereas if you use to think of being a maverick is using all of your prerogative thousands of amendments holding things up, well, you know if you are in the minority that's fine. that's one of the -- in the majority there's a lot more pressure especially when you see the minority to in this coordinated effort. so that is one of the points in the paper francis has tomorrow you see that the talk of individualism in the senate is right at one level but it's also combined with this partisan teamwork there is a real problem being a maverick against but. you really face a lot more sanctions and just disapproval of you were going to do that today. and so i think it is a different

-- the political meaning of it is really much different now. >> i would like to open it up to the audience we have someone i think that is going to have a microphone so if i could recognize you. >> one thing that seems to be unique with the current senate and the house in the uproar go-between 1950 and the present day is the evidence that there is such a thing now has party lines which is seriously enforced in and of the republican instance in the senate and also in the house and that seems to me to be absolutely unique. there has been party coherence in the past but have only one

person from maine to cross the line is extraordinary is and it? is and it? i can't think of a single instance when it you had anything like that. you always have a certain number of people who were crossing the line during that entire period so it's unique and i would like to hear your explanation for this. >> there's been less and less overtime. the culmination of the trend that we have been seeing over time toward increased party unity. so it has reached me -- may be a new level of the republican side on some of these big boats where they've been able to get their virtually unanimously. on the democratic side there

have been some defections. but it's really not new. i did we have seen this developing over a period of time. >> isn't new but the number of people whose craft the number of unanimous votes where one party votes unanimously in the majority votes the other way and it used to be in the house i actually had a graph like this in the paper, don't remember the exact -- if you left out electing the speaker you may get one or to wear as it became a bye starting in the mid 90's it really starts to grow and it's continuing since you are getting the dozens and dozens in the house and senate and that is new and when you think of it from olympia snowe's view the one vote she voted for it in committee, and so even in that case -- you just think about it from the standpoint of if you are going to be the one person that is an awfully difficult place to be and especially when the message is you give them on

one vote and this is a bipartisan bill we go together and we are really able to detect this as a party grabbed that is a powerful appeal especially in the world people see majority control up for grabs so you're fighting over that. so i think it is just a world in which you have 20 moderates versus a world which have three moderates is different. >> in the house where the public republicans put tremendous pressure on this one guy the one a republican who represents overwhelmingly democratic district in the louisianan got elected just by chance. [laughter] when the incumbent is caught with money in the freezer. but you think if anyone would, you know, i mean across party lines because he represents such a democratic district but they put tremendous pressure on him

not that it would have made any difference in the outcome but the symbolism. so it is becoming more like the house of commons. it really is except in the senate of course you have all of these antimajoritarian rules. >> and i think it's fascinating to watch the campaigns for the 2010 said when you have people with a moderate like mark kirk that will be the nominee of illinois immediately responded with a party line of repeal of the health care. charlie crist in florida is being challenged by the status. the speaker of the house and they are very conservative and he was challenged to come out for repeal and 15 seconds later he cannot for repeal and he probably got a tweet. i would like to put one counter

argument. on some issues recent jobs bills for example there was crossing of the all and i do think that privately at least i would be interested to see if we get public manifestation but privately there are a fair number of republican senators who have to be questioning this absolute no. now with a that manifests itself in any systematic behaviour i don't know my guess is there are some people who democrat and republican who would on a given issue try to bring something up and work together. but that is by far the exception rather than the rule. >> and if the -- again will depend on the outcome of the midterm elections and if republicans do well on the midterm elections, you know, then that is way to reinforce the strategy and the conclusion they are going to reach is this is working and if they are still

on the minority then they continue doing this now. if they get a majority i don't know what they do with that. >> other questions? >> seeking about the idea of polarization as well as you mentioned the apprentice shop helm letcher those affected by the 24 hour news cycle talk-radio and the polar opposite to the stations further polarizing the public? which can first? the media or the politician? >> well i think there's no question the media today are reinforcing this polarization that when you have -- i actually think fox news plays a unique role in this and they have really played a huge role in deciding and promoting this tea

party movement if you want to call with a movement. but certainly in general the media are much more polarized now than they were 40 or 50 years ago. people are getting different messages depending what media they are turning into and that is true. cable tv, talk radio and the internet, which can cause and effect is really hard to say but it certainly plays into the height and position. >> another question? >> i would like to have any or all respond to what they think term limits would do for the democracy whether it would be better served with term limits.

[laughter] >> well i don't think we need term limits and i think they are a bad idea. we don't need them because there is a high rate of turnover already and actually the percentage of those serving in congress today who were there if you go back 12 years or more ago is pretty small. so it may not appear that is that much turnover taking place, but there actually is and my view is always if the voters are dissatisfied they can vote out the people they don't like. i just think it is a mistake to arbitrarily -- it and think it is going to do anything to change the polarization and partisanship. there is no reason to think that. i don't have impact number i think other tinkering people talk about redistricting reform or having instant runoff elections there was just an op-ed in "the new york times"

suggesting tom friedman was talking about it. that is not going to -- because it does it deal with the underlining -- the underlying causes are the laws that exist in the contributed the country is divided and politicians are reflecting the divisions in the country. they are not imposing those divisions were creating them. they, are there. >> by and large most scientists are not big fans of term limits. i would point out a few factor in five forthcoming retirement last in all probability a couple of income and losses you're really going to have been 20 years 82, 84% of the senate replaced. that is a substantial turnover. and the price you pay, we know it from the state legislative analysis particularly when the

term limits are fairly short the cost and expertise to make the legislature work as we have had a lesson in the last few weeks it's difficult to make these legislature's work and that loss of expertise is probably far more serious than what you gain with some freshness. >> the only center that will still be in the senate will be robert byrd. [laughter] >> and other question. >> you told us what's happened over the last 50 years. is there any hope of an forward -- where are you? [laughter] >> come tomorrow. i don't think it is all that. my view is that polarization has

very positive consequences. it gives clear choices. we know we have a much better idea as opposed to 40 or 50 years ago when we had these conservative democrats and moderate to liberal republicans and party lines were not as clear, now we have a better idea what the choices are come and the result is actually that of rather than turn of the electorate it's also energized the electorate. we have had higher turnout, not only higher turnout but more people participating in other ways, more people talking about politics and putting your signs and making phone calls. so in some ways it is really beneficial. i think obviously there are some problems translating that into the policy outcomes that have to do with the fact there are this type of ideological politics that we have today. but i do think there are positive things to come from it.

>> very quickly on that and say that there was an election in november, 2008 that had a very strong results differ take joe lieberman 50 votes in the u.s. senate and overwhelming majority in the u.s. house. and it strikes me that that election should have had some consequence. and i think in the last few weeks with obama, pelosi, harry reid what ever how come i think what you're really seeing is a manifestation of what happened in november of 2008. and if things don't work out you know who to blame. there is no ambiguity. so again, i think that with that kind of electoral results to

overwhelm the senate obstructionism the electorate deserved it seemed to be a kind of response. and they got one. >> [inaudible] >> i would agree with burt there is the policy change, not as much as some people would have expected in 2008 but now with the health care that i did change as the general scorecard on that. i would say a couple things. i would say i disagree a little bit with alan in terms of the positive view of the polarization in terms of political system sitting there is a difference between intends policy disagreement and policy disagreements that are of the

people in office. the fundamental legitimacy of the president and other people that life in case something that's happened before in american politics. if you saw it before the civil war. we saw it during the 1930's and 40's but i don't think that is common and i do think that is something to be worried about and i don't think viewing that as reflecting popular -- it is a reflection of a small fraction of the public and one of the public is more polarized than it was in the past is not the case that the average voter, the median voter in these districts is as polarized as the eletes are. so i think that to depart a little on the problem in terms of governance and i see this coming from california which as i see it every day is can you have -- california has polarized parties, democratic majority but

not a two-thirds majority and state constitution this is to pass the budget you need two-thirds and what they found is the parties of polarized nobody can pass a budget, nobody is responsible. nobody's accountable. nobody knows who to blame and there is an intense cynicism in the state. and the danger is take this polarization and of the senate and congress and added 60 vote requirement and voters will have a very difficult time knowing to hold accountable when you get the grid lock in favor and that is a recipe for the problems down the road. and i'm not sure whether they will solve it or not. but that is the core issue i think. >> i agree with the first point by the way. i think it can get carried too far. although i'm not sure how small minority it is necessarily and questions the legitimacy. i think it is a fairly large minority on certain questions. >> and a note of hope for history we've had period of

extreme polarization and the nation's past and they have passed and new collections and issues will come along and for my and i don't think this is by any means permanent. we have a question in the back i believe. >> since the 60's we have had a revolution in the south and i wonder, one of you have a loaded to the polarization of the party is based on race. it seems to me that you haven't addressed sufficiently the effect that race has had particularly in the house but also in the senate. >> when strom thurmond switched parties and jesse helms can along lee atwater can along and the republicans to go for the leadership of the congress and whether you agree or not they had a complex set -- complicity

racial appeal and that has had a major impact it seems to me in this whole issue of polarization. and it shows in the party basis. >> absolutely. and i wanted to make -- to emphasize the point i'd the changing racial composition of the party coalitions with the democratic coalition and non-whites becoming a very large share the democratic party is heavily dependent on non-white votes and there has been a regional realignment where the south has become the most republican region of the country. and even though obama made inroads it is still by far the most republican region of the country and whereas the northeast which 50 years ago when bob dole was first elected to the senate to the northeast was the most republican region of the country and now it's by far notwithstanding scott brown is the most by far the most

space region of the countries we have seen the regional realignment but again it reflects this underlying ideological limit. race is an important component. though that's not the only issue that has produced that. but jack, i mean, that's -- living in georgia believing i'm well aware of that. >> -- i believe we have time for a final question. right there. >> the voters now six months later respond by electing as the house minority leader of the house bill. the health bill he said would be repealed. i cannot believe that the -- i would like to ask each of you this result will be in terms of seats in the house. >> the results of the campaign for repeal? >> yes. >> first of all i think the democrats are certain to lose

seats in congress and both certainly in the house and almost certainly in the senate and they could suffer large losses. but i don't personally think the health care bill is going to be the most important factor in that. i think that a big factor is structural. it's a midterm election the president's party almost always loses seats in the midterm election regardless what else is going on and sick and the democrats are at a high water plant right now. they've gained over 50 seats in the last two elections. they have democrats sitting in a lot of republican leaning districts so they are bound to take some pretty big losses were likely to take a pretty big losses in any even and i think secondly the economy is likely to do when a much more important factor than the health care bill. now health care will definitely be a big issue in the midterm elections but my guess it is not going to produce a big shift one way or another because again, health care is an issue that divides along with existing party lines. it divides republicans and democrats so it is likely to

reinforce the divisions that exist within the electorate. but yes there may be certain individual, a number of individual races where it could make a difference one way or the other where you have some of the democrats and republican districts. would be interesting to see whether how they voted, how democrats voted on the health care bill ultimately makes a difference in the outcome of the individual races. >> let's not forget that president obama will still be president and it is hard to imagine the gained by the house or senate republicans that would lead to the to third in either chamber watch less -- >> repeal is not going to happen. >> but you notice they've already started to say immediately against the republican leaders retial and replace. something has to get done. so i think that softened already. see what the polls look like and we are just the beginning of

this. >> i would like to thank again the speakers, the dole center and a final round of applause here. [applause] and i invite you all back to mauro for the sessions tomorrow as well. >> yeah, tomorrow, there's more to marlo. [laughter] step we are the warm-up act. [laughter] >> the opening act. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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now part of a conference on media regulation in the first amendment hosted by the federal communications bar association. this nearly 90 minute channel focuses on the future of journalism. >> welcome to this part of today's conference. i am president of the radio at television news association. a hush fell over the rim so i thought you were probably ready to get going here. our topic today does sound rather daunting, the future of journalism, is it time for a bailout? journalists and news consumers recognize this is a time of tremendous change and in how news is gathered and delivered. americans are getting more news from a wider variety of sources than ever before but at the same time the digital revolution is demolishing some of the pillars of