she was saying i love the fact you get young women who are just so active. there's no second thought about it. active in sports because they were treated, the women were treated equally. >> host: so fascinating how late-summer rights in response, protections came all during your, many of them during her

four decades of services so that you were really there at a formative period that people, women younger than you may take for granted but you were a witness to the changes. women especially really should read about the fight you had to wage on behalf of women. i love and note about market chase smith of maine who gave a speech called the declaration of conscience directed at mccarthyism but not naming senator joe mccarthy in june of 1950, and you quote a financier and political consultant named bernard said it's a man -- he would have been the next declaration of the united states. you mentioned books when you talk about clinton was an old friend, an extraordinary role

model. your husband served as governors together. did they sit together? >> guest: the order in which the states came in the union, that's how they set. >> host: it was so serendipitous. you are old friends, and, obviously, colleagues, he said the united states is ready for a woman president. so i have to ask you, she's obviously a great hope of the democratic party, the great hope of many women, whether or not you want her to run, whether or not you would supporter. any feelings you have usage of entering respect for service as secretary of state. barring whatever is wrapping her up in any current been gassy excitement on -- benghazi excitement on capitol hill, could you as a republican sit it out if she ran? >> guest: i think that if

hillary wanted to run, she should run. i mean, she did set an extraordinary example of how women can run for public office. and so that's what's important. she, i think, broke down that barrier single-handedly. and his highly talented and capable and smart. so if she chooses to do that, i think that many women will embrace, you know, her candidates easy. but i think the country is prepared to have a woman president. and i think by virtue of the fact what she was able to accomplish at the point and time in he own candidacy i think has dispelled any notion that a woman could not be prepared. even though she didn't win the primary, different reasons, differences within the party in the primary, but by virtue of her candidacy and how she conducted herself i think she is basically eradicated any fears

about how a woman would handle herself. >> host: there's many delightful anecdotes i keep mentioning in the book, and little nuggets for congress watchers like myself to enjoy but one of my favorites is that you divulge how frequently and regular women senators get together. out privately the sword nurture each other. and mentor each other which i thought was so impressive and you dine with the mud justices. something i had never known before which i thought was really quite wonderful. what an honor also. and i thought that's really another reason to sort of dealt in here is to not only by the way things used to be, but how much women look out for each other in positions of power, and truly bipartisan it is and the

way you talk about hillary clinton and, obviously, your friendship that formed years before she was in the senate is just a unique connection i think is very interesting. you want to tell them there's a way out, and that even if it's not near-term there's a path to unity and production, productive teacher for the congress, diminish polarization in the future if some steps are taken in the meantime. and you listed them in the book. you have recommendations for a five day work week and an annual budget. sorry, biannually budgeting. restoring the process of getting to the budget. a bipartisan leadership committee which is so interesting. that means they have to leave the congress and get out of their own partisan leadership, no budget no pay which means

members if they are there, if they are derelict they were not clicked on a check. filibuster reform, no more secret holds on legislation, and return, i think this is a critical to regular order in the committee, that you can't throw up an emergency supercommittee sequester bill at the last minute. everything would have to go back. and a polish leadership pacs which maybe chuckle because you only one of five senators without a leadership pac. saw want to know, -- so i want to know, and commissions, state legislatures decided on redistricting. and i think it's important for americans to read your book, especially on the chapter on all of these political, the fix is kind of in on the system and so that they don't know about redistricting and they don't know about a few districts actually swing every election

cycle and a 79% of us shouldn't even get in the car and though because it's already decided. this is really, i think of all the right ideas that i want, if you can share a little bit. you have a great anecdote to congressman rick no one who left the house, where do you get the establishment, the incumbents, the crusty old system that might seem you but is now so set in, where do you get them to throw away the leadership pacs to change? >> guest: sign a release, everybody had to stand down and felt both sides of the out. that's the key. any changes on campaign finance reform has to be a level playing field on both sides. that's what we had to

orchestrate with mccain-feingold because it was my provision that was struck down in the supreme court in citizens united. but it was evenhandedness. so both sides had to do it. i mean, that's one less level of financing, raising money. think about it, in the house of representatives, overwhelming, i think probably the majority at least have leadership pacs. but it's another avenue to give money to candidates at a much higher level than you can as an individual. so the point being, it's not only they are raising money for the own campaign, they also have to raise this money for their leadership pacs because it's expected, that you're going to raise so much money, especially if your chair of the committee. [talking over each other] >> host: then you are expected to did it take so much time. it's another huge distraction. sort of reminded me when members

of the congress would be paid for speeches. so the whole schedule would revolve around the days when we would go give speeches on mondays and fridays. but ultimately came to the conclusion, rightfully, and it had an impact because then you have people back in town. one less level of raising money. because that is a huge time-consuming effort, not to mention a distraction. >> host: also you note in there that the loudest voices are always heard it during the gun debate we know most offices whether they support gun rights or gun bill, they heard. the grassroots, the funding and the loudest of the gun rights coalition. so you had these 16, i call them

the 16 republicans who voted against a filibuster on guns, if they knew they weren't going to vote with the gun-control coalition but they were gun rights supporters, but they voted against their party and their side on process so that they would be with him on policy. i thought that was an example, will they be rewarded? should they be rewarded because they broke, they tried to clear the air and stop a filibuster for a bill they would -- trying to i think it's a case constituents decide if you like, they were willing to have it debated on the floor and that's important. that is an important step forward. and then they can discuss the policy. oftentimes that becomes a critical vote as we know it and a lot of pressure is imposed on senators, depending which side they're on, to vote a certain

way. i think that should be certainly reflective because that's not an easy vote, especially if they are against the policy. sometimes you do that and that's important obviously. >> host: it's not an easy vote. it's not easy for them to do even though they would be in the end with the national rifle association -- >> guest: difficult about. >> host: we talk a lot and we're going to closer about what people can do, talk a lot in the book about how people's voices need to be heard and it's always, and she mentioned something very important because we'll usually hear about this during immigration reform or when the senate, when the switch for a shutdown over a big issue. usage each interaction attacks -- is tracked on an hourly basis. we have newtown victim families in town, we have a big vote on something, public pressure can be brought to bear on either

side, and this idea that even though people might not know it, that they're being listened to is important. talus when you were a senator, you know, how that works and why it can be political consequences, people, they need to get on the phone. >> guest: it's true, and i've been emphasizing this to my audiences. because oftentimes even speaking to groups here in washington, these organizations they will you please tell membership that it is important to go to the hilt and have conversations and to call? and i've been traveling the country and to emphasize that, don't underestimate your voice. the other side has appeared on the gun issue, how is it the 90% of the american people support it but 10%, somehow it didn't prevail? i said, you know, did you call? how many people called? how many people be mailed? yes, it does make a difference.

the pressure is bette there bece then it's more obvious to the constituency that there were those voices and that you're hearing them. if they don't hear from the other side then obviously the one-sided you hear from matters. and in some cases on the gun issue that was the case. and so that the speaker. if people do not realize or appreciate the effects and the power of their messages, the impact they can have on senators and members of the house. >> host: using social media has increased their ability to be heard? >> guest: absolutely, absolutely. that's the other thing. it's a great message multiple or. are so many ways you can build a committee and get your message out there, you can organize. so absolutely. even communication for the offices, the same is true. i always want to know how many constituents call on this issue, just to get a sense of this

because when i go home i can get a pulse, but i want to know, have that connection, it is important to hear from people. and so that's why they should not underestimate their power and they've got to make those calls. the other side is. >> host: they have to weigh in. make sure your voices heard. thank you so much, senator snowe. i really enjoyed it. thank you. >> guest: appreciate it. >> this morning at the american enterprise institute hosts a discussion on the cost of providing long-term health care. a panel of health policy analyst considers whether long-term care should be provided by a government program or through private insurance. live coverage begins at 9:15 eastern time here on c-span2. >> we've got more coverage of nonfiction books in the book industry here on c-span2 every weekend on booktv.

along with our schedule you can also see our programs anytime at booktv.org and join our online book club as will feature current bestseller each month. get the latest updates throughout the week. follow was on facebook and twitter. >> at this year's annapolis book festival, author mickey edwards talked about his book, "the parties versus the people: how to turn republicans and democrats into americans." he is joined by former rnc chairman michael steele. this is an hour. >> good afternoon, everyone. and welcome. my name is michael steele. i'm really honored to welcome all of you. i'm the former lieutenant governor of this great state of maryland. i served in 2003-2007, and i am more recently, as you probably read more infamously, the former

chairman of the republican national committee from 2009-2011, and we will certainlw get into a little bit what irede discovered as the chairman of the party and some of the things that we did as i like to say turn out that between 2009-2011 which seems to be turning itself back for some reason. but i'm real pleased to be here. i'm also the author of a book called right now, a 12 step agenda for defeating, 12 steps for defeating the obama agenda. and it's not as nefarious as it sounds. it really was and remains a prescription for the gop to deal with this age that we now find e ourselves with the political landscape is shifting almost daily. the attitudes of voters are much more open, as we've seen

recently. and how do thee political partis deal with the very thing that confounds them the most, andt is that is citizenry for action engaged, intelligent and know what's going on. and our developing a political mind of theiran own. a new form of activism. so this is very interesting eynamic for both parties. v i'm very honored quite honestly to be joined by a dear friend d and colleague, someone who iwill will let them go into the d details of his background but needlesset to say, this guy has the presence of mind while inene congress and has a presence ofta voices today to really light a path for i think the future growth of republicanism and the republican party. and as he will tell you and share his journey, unlike not that different from mine hasine been a little bit moretle interesting at times, but mickey

edwards is one of those greateat voices out there. and so it's a real pleasurevo tw welcome congressman mickey edwards. >> thank you, mike. first of all, you know, thanks for having this event, giving us a chance to counter and talk. it's a special privilege because michael steele has been a good friend of mine for a long time and i'm really honored to sharet the stage with him. so let me tell you a little bit about my book. mybo it comes at this little differently than what mightm does, although when we sit and talk about issues we think very muchl alike. ike. i had this new book out from yale university press, and the title of it which give you anit idea of where i'm coming from is the parties versus the people, and it has a subtitle. parties versus people doesn't sound terribly exciting. what people usually get most

entranced by is the subtitle ofn the book which i did not write.o the book start with an article in the atlantic magazine and thd subtitle that they put on from the time they put on the article is now the subtitle of the book and it's called "how to turn to republicans and democrats into americans" and when i firstans. heard that i thought it sounds retty harsh really. and the editor said, did you read what you wrote?wrote? and so where i'm coming from inm the talk that we just heard, one of the authors talking about the women's issues talked about structural questions. i actually talk about it as systemic issues. when i left congress, i was there 16 years.e i was a member of the republican leadership in the house, and then i left and i went to teacht

i taught at harvard for 11 years and then i taught at princeton.g one of the things that happens when you teach issued a chancec to step back from the daily grind, you know, you're on when you're i.n the classroom but thu you time to think to reflect, to observe and to decide what you see happening. and what i saw was that noaw is matter what the issue was, ands this is true whether bush wasren president or obama was m president, it didn't mattera where you talk about an economic issue or a cabinet appointment or anything else. republicans were all on one side and democrats were all on the other spide. t that no matter what the issueitt was, our government have become more like the nfl. mor not like a group of americans sitting down together sing hereh themthe problems we have, let's debate, let's talk about them and sold them. instead it was how can i defeat? you, how can i defeat you because you belong to a ng to different club?dif you have a different label on your head. i started thinking about whywhy that was and how did we get to that point.

if you've been reading the papers every day, you see that here's two or three republicans talking to twoe or threehree democrats about doing somethings together, and that's front-page front- news. we've actually got republicans and democrats will to talk to each we other.crat so why is that the way it is?hat and i go back, i thought about the only thing i ever found that our first four presidents agreed with each other on, my come wase to create political parties. washington, adams, jefferson,es. madison, don't create politicalr parties. they had even fewer like these where it's all the time, me. against you just because you belong to the other club. and so i thought about why do wr get to the point and id concluded, we'll talk about other stuff, you all knoww there's the role of money and all this other stuff, and i'mmo glad to talk about those and i know mike is, but i want to givy systa couple of examples of thel

political system we have created.e saw was giving a talk to theth american academy for the advancement of science, and ieni know nothing about science, nothing about technology. i should admit that's a dozen oi of congress i had to vote on issues about science and technology which i didn't understand, but i looked at, here's a starting point. doe what does the constitution envisioned in terms of how we as a peop people are going to govern ourselves? are one thing it envisions that because the power of this country is not in the white note house, the power is in the congress. almost every major power, war, spending, taxing, approving treaty, cabinet appointments,poe supreme court appointmentsnt. everyone is a congressional power. and the powerng was put there we the people themselves could control w the outcomes, and thew idea was that people are going g to go tooi the polls, they will elect their leaders and that's other people -- what happens ifw

it's not the voice of theha people?pe so i want to give you two quicki examples of the party system that we created and what happened.ppe. when joe biden became vice president and there's nobody no from the u.s. senate inena delaware, everybody knew who wat going to be the new u.s. centere mike castle from denver, formerr governor and member of congress. and he got challenged any primary by a lady namedshe christine o'donnell. and she beat him.him. now, two things happened. one, christine o'donnell, there are 1 million people inthane delaware. christine o'donnell only got 30,000 votes.o so why didn't he just a beater in the general election? because delaware has this crazy law called the sore loser law, that if you run for your party's nomination and you lose, yourlo name can be on the ballot in

november. those 30,000 people kept all of the mi a million people of delaware from choosing who they wanted in the u.s. senate where all that power lies. so go over to you to, where senator mike castle was runnings senator -- you should've put this guy in the senate, mike steele, mike castle both belong -- nevermind. robert bennett was running for reelection in the senate ine utah. they have a convention. there are 3 million people in utah. 3500 were at the convention. 2000 voted for other candidates other than robert bennett. because of those 2000 people, his name could not be on the ballot in november for theth 3 million people of utah because they had this dumb sore loser law. how many states have this crazy sore loser law? 46.

46. here's another provision in the constitution. every senator and representative must be a natural inhabitant of the state for which they are elected. the idea is if i were running th fore congress here, i would knr you, i would've the people of al apples. i know your economic interest.tt you know me, you know my reputation in the community. that's the idea. but what happens when you allow the political parties to contron redistricting of what your congressional district is like? the idea is the congressman, congresswoman are supposed to know thea community, so tell a personal story.uy. i'm a city guy. i've been on a farm want to toy. i had no idea what is lookingng at, and i'm a republican waswass elected in a district that had not elected a republican since 1928 and that was 74% democrat.

democrats couldn't figure out how i one.dn't fig my mother didn't know how i want to nobody knew how it one, but i did. so the democrat, the other parte at the time controlled the stat legislature and they were ablenl to redraw my district from the middle of oklahoma, all of newa, england fits inside of oklahomal from the small place. so from the middle of local of l all the way up to kansas, halfway across arkansas, bigrka upside down l., and what happened? i, the city guy, was not representing wheat farmers and cattle ranchersc and i didn'tnd understand their interest and i couldn't speak for the. theyte were entitled to some ofe you could be botbh of thoseoth examples i gave you are because we allow the political parties to control our electoral process, and we wonder how, our congress is controlled by thent hardline ideologues, this hyper partisans who promised never to compromise with the other side. it's because they know that ifoh

they compromise, they are going to get primary. they are going to get knockedkno off in a primary where smallsmal numbers of hyper partisannumber ideologues dominate the outcomet how did we allow these twothe political clubs to be able to control who we can vote for? o we vot and what the districting -- i was active in the party.party. iran as a party guy and i start thinking later, what have we done to ourselves? when you see a congress whereou? people will not sit down a talk to somebody on the other side of the aisle, it's because we setew up a system that he likes thosem kinds of people and gives themim the power. so i just, one more quick thing and then mike and i will get into this conversation, but then you get elected to congress. and you take the oath of office which by the way is not an oathe to build to the president andndo

it's not to be loyal to youro yp party leaders or your party. it's to be loyal to the countryu and you take the, i took the heth, people who are elected tht same time i was, al gore, dick gephardt, others, took that oath, i thought now would altogether, the party stuff bac here, where all members of the unit statest congress. that lasted about three minutes until we start voting on who would be speaker and woulde dominate each committee and congress. in if you been to the house floor, if you seem the house floor, iff somebody speaks here, i without the spam, yous would have a left turn here, there always is a. lectern.t inh not of the u.s. house, there's twoe lecterns, republican standk at one to talk to republicans an but democrats stand at another to talk to democrats. if you want to go have ago cigarette or you want to eat a e sandwich oatr you want to make y

photo, you go to the cloakroom but there's not a cloakroom. there's one for republicans over there and democrats over there, and operate the united statesf t congress, the branch of government with all the power is that is supposed to make decisions for our country. we treat it as rival clubs instead of people come together. so the bottom line, mike, from at the btom li what i did in my book, we are not electing stupid people to congress. we're not electing unpatriotico people.ioti peo we're electing good people who are trapped in a system we have created that rewards ththree wod instability, that rewards intransigence, that punishesishs cooperation and compromise. and then we are shocked thatkedt that's the result we get.et so h so that's what my book is aboutd i'm glad to talk about that. my i want to hear about mike'sas book. that's rhymes coming from. from. >> well, that was pretty scary, but that's our congress. that's our government and that's

part of the political process.tl now, a s mickey was laying out particularly in the first in scenario, the bob bennett race and the christine o'donnell race, both of those happen on mt watch as national chairman. and i remember meeting with a group of very, very excited andx some would argue excitable republicans about a month after i had become chairman, who were laying out for me a new strategw that was beginning to emerge from around the country. ira and they call themselves tea partiers. and i said, okay, so what's they deal? and they were very, very clear about the focus that they wante to bring to the discussion, tooh the debate about the role of government, the size of o gover government, the expense of government. so we met, and at that time they

began to talk about being outside the party. responsibility asthe a national chairman looking at the political process to elect t individuals like mickey to the congress is to make sure that we have as clean up a process as possible. that we don't cut our nose off o to spite our face in the effort in otherng to victory. in other words, the race that matters, the battle that matterh is the one in november, not the one in september or june or february. meaning the primary process. but what i recognized very early on was this tension that wasg beginning to build within the tu political structure at the primary level. and the pop off point, the volcanic moment was new york 23. the 23rd congressional

district in new york, the spring of 2009 where the party officials of the local party t decided to go around thearnd ordained political process, in other words, havingi a primary, but instead pick their nominee over the frustrated voices of o activists within that particular congressional district. ngressio ms. gaza five oh wasna put on te bow as the republican nominee,bc and that was one of the key kurning points politically within the gop of activists tea acvist party voices raising up against the system. part of my job as the national chairman, and there was something that i wanted towantet capture and i thought, i believe i captured in the book was

coming out of a system in which we hadt already watched and witnessed devastating losses inh 2006 of which i was one of theen casualties in my senate run here in maryland, 2008 the presidential. the party had lost its brand idea. at least at -- at least it hadcy become tarnished to the point un it's done. voters had rejected what we had to put on the table whether ite waons philosophically, politic politically, policyol wise. our donors were beginning to the drive the coffers by holding back, withholding their checks because they didn't like thedend direction th e party was going and. big government republicanism had the lasttake hold in term of the bush administration. and so a lot of the economic conservatives who would eventually form themselves intoo the tea partyth really began to figure out and find another way

figure i to assertt pressure back on the party, on the establishment of the party. ra as a grassroots advocate i've ae grassroots advocate i felt myself in a very interesting position, because i understoodd both sides.lishment the establishment to sort oftuqn protect the status quo, in other words, the process to get a clean to go through a clean primary to go by the democratshe in november. frtration and theof frustration of this ns emerging voice of activists who were really upset that the partr had rolled back on its fundamental core principles with respect to the economics.the not social. one of the big misnomers about the tea party is that it somehow, this socialmehow the conservative movement, it is not. the tea party, what it morphed into and subsequently becomes is very different from that firstrt meeting i had with them ineti february 2009 as they were beginning to emerge around the r country.

and asfrom you saw played out in townhall meetings that summer. you did not see or hear these voices raging on abortion oro marriage or socialn issues. they were racing against theatie violation of the constitution, the proper role of the congress to come to the table with a budget, to manage the spinning yf the country, et cetera.countr so you have these very different dynamics that were beginning to ses emerge, and in some cases submerged, and part of my o m responsibility as the national chairman was to try to figureai out the best route to a win in november. so i'm looking at two potential candidates to help me make the argument that the party, the elephant had to turn. and that it had to focus on wht the citizens of the country wanted done. in other words, the people's business. and two of those individuals that summer happened to be chris christie in new jersey and bob n mcdonnell in virginia. and when you look at where the

party is now and what he needsod to go, those two governors i believe are clear examples ofthe the future direction in manyre respects. have a blue state likew jersey with a governor, republican governor-elect christie who was able to navigate but more importantly on a foreign policy position to take the full use of the party, articulate them and translate them into the policy while is very, very smart and reflective of what the people want. however you have a competing interest that's grown in the two years between -- since 2011 that pushed back against that because it's now become intertwined with a social agenda, and it's kind of lost some of the economic edge with the success of

obamacare and other successes the administration had so politically the party finds itself against the proverbial wall and the direction it takes in my estimation will determine when or not it goes the way of the whigs, or it actually becomes a party that competes for a governable majority were in the future and that ties back to what mickey has written in his book, and i think his book really reflects the attitude of voters out, this idea can you as an elected official be more like us where i am sitting on the political process side, the party organization and structure, the challenge is to create a structure in which the voters feel that their ideas and their views are respected and heard what as they go through

the overall process of running for office and talking about message points and stuff like that, so it becomes a very interesting dynamic for the political party that largely helped sway in the 1980's and 1990's and much of the first part of the 2000 s, at least 2,004. 2005 is when the wheels began to come off and since then, they're has been a massive struggle as we see get played out from candidates who talk about vaginal probes and legitimate rape verses those that want to talk like a chris christi on how to govern a state in the country in these changing times. so what i tried to do it in my book of the political strategy standpoint right now is to get the party to focus on both its challenges and opportunities

right now and the like any good 12 step program you have to begin with acknowledging you have a problem. and our problem is us, largely what we think of ourselves, what we value, how we articulate those principles and ideals that are part of the famine organization of the party in the world that looks vastly different if he entered the republican primary today, he would lose. so for all the stock and embraced of ronald reagan they are doing a disservice in my estimation to his honor and his

memory because they but not elect him today given his stance on immigration as president and governor of texas taxes and some of the other social issues and goes to the heart of the struggle that mickey and i had to deal with the inside of the party trying to get the elephant to recognize its core and therefore word in this world is changing around us. and not necessarily throwing your finger up to the wind and testing the waters every 30 minutes, but standing on firm principal ground that recognizes the value of the american dream, that recognizes that these lawyers of those that ought to be part of the dreamed whether they are here now or coming in the future that understands the direction demographically that this country is taken and 30 years it will be a majority

minority country. what does that mean? held to the political parties deal with that? the licht surface to the minorities that frankly what you don't believe me the change happens around, not within. the gop instead of throwing black faces and hispanic faces up their saying we know who won, too, should be embracing the movements going on in the various communities. in other words, shut up and listen and pay attention. so, for example, when my friend senator randy paul goes to harvard university, you don't go to howard university and tell them what they already know, you don't insult their intelligence that way. you bring them why they should listen to you what value are you

offering, how will you make there opportunity to access the american dream as they have defined it real? the political parties find themselves and i think the democrats are going to find this when they get to 2016 particularly if hillary is not the nominee of the party those tensions that exist within the party began to get exposed. it will be on the left, not the right. moderate conservative democrats will tangle with the senate deacons senator flatted progressive democrats just as you have seen in the republican party since ronald reagan stepped off the state and since that in blue is no longer there, but ideological glue he was able to bring the right, left and center reasonably together. you see now with the crackings that occur as the foundation.

so the political party for the challenge right now is how you begin to mend those before the foundation completely breaks in light of the demographic political economic shift that is occurring in the country. right now the goal is to recognize the challenges, had met the feelings that we have committed and then begin to turn the elephant in a direction that points to the future standing on a foundation that is all about individual opportunity, of of individual traces and freedoms and decisions. we cannot be a party that says we are about individuals making choices, but then we want to limit some of those choices. we cannot be the party that says we are about creating economic opportunities but then not put policies on the table that

basically even surgery to those economic opportunities particularly for the poor and those that are at the margins. we can be a party that speaks to a limited role for government without being anti-government, without being disrespectful of those institutions that heretofore have been beneficial in helping people get up and move forward. the challenge than for government, sure you saw this in the congress it has the tendency to throw stuff out and then not follow up and not manage the opportunity, not managed responsibly their resources and that creates the tension we see today where we are not going to spend one more dime until you cut and we aren't going to cut until we have the resources come so the back-and-forth has now bled into the political what was policy has now become more political which makes it much

more difficult to do policy. >> i agree largely with mike in terms of changes the would be good for the republican party to make. i can think of changes that would be good for the democratic party to make. i really don't care about either one. i spent my life -- and jerry -- the life i was telling before about how we run our primaries, how we ll the ideologues of both parties to control the outcome has driven me in a different direction and while that story that i told about the examples of the 46 states that allow underrepresented minorities to be on the delicate and so forth and naturally optimistic. 40% of americans today register as independent.

usa today had a big article about the american people are fleeing from the political parties. in 2006 from the people in washington state were to have a petition and the constitution. the people of washington state having followed all of this, having followed the republicans versus the democrats on everything, there is unity. all the republicans agree on one thing they are against whatever the democrats are for and all of them agree they are against whatever the republicans are for and the people in washington state said enough of that nonsense and they went to the polls on an initiative they created what, and they got rid of the party primaries. and they got rid of the ability of the political parties to

control what congressional districts were shaped like. 13 states have now done that. that was in 2006. in 2010, california did it, california got rid of party primaries and party control of the redistricting. the bill to do it in texas has been reintroduced. it's been reintroduced in arizona. but the people are saying we want more democracy in our democracy. we want a system that lets the majority of people that want candidates to have to appeal in order to move forward to all of the electorate not just the ideologues, so i think the people are finally getting that point, they are fed up to here as i have become. i am republican. always have been one. i have a lot of friends who are

democrats. i love them all, and i want them to sit down together. we want you to do something for this school which deserves whatever good you can do for it. if you want to do something good for this school, a new facility, a new building, where should it be, how much should it cost, what should you do in the building, how many rooms, what equipment coming you all get together and form of group and say let's make a decision and not one person in this entire room what say okay all the republicans sit over there and the democrats over there and let's come up with different plans and fight it out. we don't do that except the way we run our country. and we cannot continue to do that. so i hope that the republican party does make the changes mike talks about and i've talked about, but i hope ultimately our

decisions don't get made by what's good for my party, both by what's good for my country. >> we have some time left for questions from anyone in the audience if you have any. there is a microphone right back there if you could advance to the microphone that way they will take it up. >> i would like each of you -- me you can start first with your thoughts on citizens united, the short-term and long-term. >> citizens united. i have to be careful. i am a lawyer so i don't know if i'm allowed to say that the justices for smoking something illegal. the only thing i will say about that is if corporations are people, give me a break. first of all, i am not going to challenge the knowledge that

supreme court justices have about the constitution. but they obviously skipped corporate law because corporate law makes it clear that there's a distinction between corporations and persons. i have a chapter on this in my book, and i probably have one of the more extreme positions coming and that is that when you go to cast a vote, there is nobody in line with you accept another human being. and that when you give money to the campaign there should be nobody giving money except a human being, no corporate money, no labor union money, no political party money, no money except from human beings in limited amounts cannot casino owners in las vegas but putting tens of millions of dollars into a campaign that's the way to fix the money system. >> so, how would you address

what the mayor is doing in new york right now? basically threw his pack, based on what you are saying that he would outlaw something like that. >> i think what mayor bloomberg should try to do is encourage as many people as possible to individually give money to defend the people he's trying to defend. i'm not trying to take people out of the system i just want it to be people, and i don't want -- you know, i agree with bloomberg, but i don't think it should be okay i've got more money than you so i'm going to determine the outcome. he is an articulate guy. going to the states and say i want you to put the money of to help elect. >> the citizens united case, again it is one of those things that happened on -- what happened when i was rnc chairman as that also happened during that time we had a case before

the court as well as a thing apart from citizens union as companion or sister case which spoke to a lulling the parties. our argument was a third party entity pact shouldn't be the source of campaign funds but the money should be back within the political parties. mccain-feingold did that if you have unlimited wealth and you want to share that with the political parties you could only to the extent of $30,000 a year before mccain-feingold that money that we see getting poured into the packs, millions of dollars in individual could write. the difference was writing the check to the political party you have full disclosure. we had to record the date, the

time, the amount of the job, etc. to get all of that pertinent information and then put that on the public record within 30 days. citizen united says okay not only is the corporation a person for purposes of campaign finance law, but we will let that person do what no other person in the country can and that is to give unlimited amounts without any record. unlimited amounts without any record. so there is no way of knowing that you just wrote $25 million checks to a pack from a democrat republican, doesn't matter, they know you wrote it but we've the citizens don't. they claim we will disclose that information. okay, selectively because if you say don't disclose i'm not writing a check, what do you think they are going to do? so i think what you are going to see is over the next couple of

years the congress particularly if the republicans lose the house next year, the congress will proactively go after citizens united and put in place some of the controls of the notification identification and record as i think should have been done in the first instance. yes, sir? >> it's my view that political divisiveness, especially hard line political divisiveness has increased in direct correlation to the incessant pounding of talk radio. i'm wondering if you have any comments, role of talk radio and the formulation of policy especially within the party itself. >> there is no doubt that talk radio has been to the political process and certainly to the political parties.

the growth at least from the republican and the conservative side really hearkens back to the only viable outlet that a lot of conservatives felt they had to express their views on a lot of issues and hence you see for example the success of the conservative talk radio in various forms and the failure of the liberal talk radio and america and other efforts it is the way that the political process for those activists unfolds itself. they want the issue and to count, count compound. a lot of folks on the left its more visual and television oriented. if you look at msnbc, my network where i looked it's much more oriented that way. the impact however on the political process has been profound for both the radio and the television aspect, and i

think you see now both fox and msnbc and cnn to a certain degree trying to adapt to this landscape that we have already talked about in terms of the attitudes of the voters being less edgy and much more looking for the conversation. i don't want to hear you yell and scream and shout and talk over me. i don't want to hear you have to agree with me. i want to ury solution to the fact it's been unemployed for 18 months. for $50,000 versus $20,000.10 years ago. these are the new realities i think we are beginning to shake some of that. we have the edginess of the conservative talk radio with rush limbaugh and a few others, and i think that hasn't been helpful as we have seen the case

is a good example of not helping the the date from the talk-radio standpoint simply because it puts the party and a cut the candidates running for office in the position of having to go out and either slam rush or do the right thing and say he is bonehead and stupid and we saw how that played out. we saw how that played out in that case. that is a real dynamic within the party to contend with also i will say it's getting less and less so. >> i want to have just one thing. i totally agree, talk radio and talk tv or a major problem. they just high cut the anger and the instability a lot. we don't do a very good job of putting the blame on the people that own those networks and make their money off of touring plays

into the political system, but its more complicated than that. they are a part of the problem that there's been a lot of studies that show with the exception of the party in this room while all of you are not part of this but everybody else you know talks only to people who think the way they do. you and your friends generally all watched the scene shows, read the same columnists and read and watch in order to reinforce the positions you already have rather than open to listening to different points of view with somebody who thinks differently than you do and that's a real problem. that's what gives talk radio and tv the immense power that they've got and so we would like to reform that but we have to reform some things in the culture so that we have more critical thinking that we have more people who understand six and are willing when the year a

different point of view listen instead of just forming a rebuttal in their mind while the other person is talking so talk radio and tv are not the whole problem. >> i occasionally talk to people whose ideas are off-the-wall. do you listen to fox news all the time clocks and then i stop my conversation because these people aren't looking at the norm. they're looking somewhere appear with their ideas. my next comment to mickey, michael, i watch you all the time on msnbc and sometimes i wish you could get a chance to finish your statement. when you are speaking about

bipartisanship i remember when tip o'neill and ronald reagan were good friends that by partisanship always started at the water's edge and they're used to be a lot of bipartisanship and it's only recently that this debate are not increasing the national debt and turning the whole country upside down. i think the u.s. to agree on the national debt and then he changed his mind on that. so, what do you see happening in terms of getting -- and i say the republican party closer to

the minimum where it used to be. i come from new york and we have seen so many good republican senators to washington. >> let me disabuse folks of one particular idea and i will be interested to get mickey's review on this one. i've come to the conclusion as a native washingtonian that grew up in washington, d.c. who has for me my local news was national news, it was what was going on in washington. it was not national. it was backyard stuff. and i agree with you, i have watched that transition away from this idea of bipartisanship. the last truly bipartisan era for that we had was with clinton and gingrich and we saw what could be accomplished. it started off a little rocky but both sides recognized very

quickly that if they were going to tackle the debt and deficit, if they were going to try to work towards a balanced budget, if they really wanted to begin to work at the water's edge on entitlement reform for entitlement programs like welfare they would have to do this thing called a consensus. they would have to find that sweet spot. in 2000, all of that change. we became red states, blue states. the strategy implemented by grove and the team and the presidential cycle said that this paradigm of us versus them, read a verse is blue, conservative versus liberal. overlaid with this idea of compassion conservatism but the underlying was really in your face your mama, too to this alive concluded that in the last ten, 12 years this bipartisanship no longer exists. when you hear members of congress talking by partisanship they are lobbying. it's not going to happen because

they are not going to do it. as mickey illustrated the system does not allow for that anymore. what you see now that i think really speaks to this next stage of where we need to go is consensus and we begin to see it on an issue like the guns where you have senator pat to me from pennsylvania and joe manchin from west virginia find the consensus, the sweet spot on an issue that no one in washington thought we could get anywhere near some resolution what the script on immigration reform what happened there. everyone at the beginning of immigration reform thought this train was going to rollout and we would get it done. they haven't been able to nail down the consensus yet on what

to do and where that is going to go. succumbing you still see on the right and left that sort of well i'm not sure. so that's what i think the new dynamic is, whether the leaders, and i use that term loosely can find that sweet spot consensus, the point that says i know you've got to give up something and i've got to give up something. it's not about party or anything other than the people. the space in the middle of the sweet spot it may be center-right or center-left, but it's in that area that people want us to be. that, ladies and gentlemen, you should pay close attention to to see whether the white house, the senate, the congress can find that sweet spot on these complicated issues as we have began to see emerge on things like gun-control. >> mike and i both agree that on the republican party, our party,

we do have the problem. the democrats do, too. we used to call them old evils, the conservative democrats are all gone. max baucus found that out very quickly and others did as well. the same thing has happened in both parties there is focus on republicans, but the democrats have lost their conservative and to become members of congress, too. i was in congress in those days. now we can look back and talk about bipartisanship at the water's edge. it wasn't that way. it wasn't that way in vietnam or the issues in central america hitting if you know, in nicaragua, el salvador. it was those kind of foreign policy issues. there was a speech given by a senator saying that by partisanship ends the water's edge but it was never really true so we have always had those divisions. what's different now is that we always had some people in the house and senate that would

reach out and bring people together so they could say how can we move the country forward? you and i have strong disagreements that we have to make sure the water stays pure, we have to mature the bridges don't collapse and our troops get their supplies. that's missing now and it's because the primary system if you say look we disagree about a lot let's find the area where we can agree then we are both going to get attacked and our primary fox so that's the real problem that i see to it >> one last question. do you think obama has gone a long way in his budget proposal by curtailing some entitlements and so forth to get the conversation started again or is it dead in the water? >> i gave him props' the other day because it puts them in a box right now to have to begin to negotiate the senate finally after four years has come to the table with a budget. the white house has a budget,

republicans have a budget so we have the makings of something getting done. i think the president talking about the change cpi which is indexing the indexing of inflation becomes a good starting point. the president is asking for $600 million of additional revenue getting post a $400 billion of revenue in january there is no mood on the republican party for that at this point which is we see how the spending side places itself out of the debate. thanks very much. >> yes, sir to be a

>> i am a senior and captain at ki school. congressman my dad served with you in congress. >> a great man. absolutely. >> i am a democrat but i followed with great interest the candidacy of inglis kaine who was a republican turned independent and he seemed to me to represent the idea of post partisanship working for the people. but even though you said 40% of the registered voters in the united states are independent it's incredibly hard for them to get on the ballot. i think one of the down sides of the primary system in washington and california is that a completely shots out of them in the general election and so i am wondering over the next couple of years what you see as being the volubility of independent non-partisan candidates and how do you think if they are to become viable.

i know you have to be very proud it's hard for somebody as a green party libertarian much of independent party to have much chance to succeed and the system that we have. but what has happened with the california and the washington primary, so even if you end up because it is an attorney general election in a very liberal district to seven in california the berman race, the liberal district it's not ever going to elect a republican but those that end up in the primary in this case both liberal and the democrats have to appeal to the third party. they have to appeal to independents and appeal to libertarians and green and so forth in order to win. totally change the dynamic in that race and it's done in washington. so, i do think that is one of

the things. but in this can -- there is a very positive, they have a little bit of a - that comes out of that, she was a good guy and it's good to see an independent elected as an independent running as an independent. the problem is he said absolutely. he had to caucus with the democrats because the parties controlled the system and if he doesn't caucus with the party he can't get a committee assignment and he can't get -- we have to break that, too where it's not party leaders that decide whether or not you can get a committee assignment. >> that's the key from the political side of this i've always said we will not have a viable third-party movement effort in this country if it is from the top down. we've seen them pass, people running for president as independent and things like that. it's got to be organic from the bottom-up where the citizens

decide i want you, sir search or the independent activist to be our representative and then that begins to form an organization around them that begins to crack at the gop and the democratic system which is deliberately designed to keep everyone else out. >> whether it is on redistricting, whether it is on getting on the ballot, it can be a nightmare and help you if you want to try to petition something to the voters referendum. again, the system is designed for very limited access, very few players, and those who are players in the system already are protected by it. incumbency has enormous value. until you begin to break that, very little will change and the way you do is from the bottom-up with activists pushing up the system.

we saw bipartisanship in california and washington. the republican leadership and the democratic leadership came together to fight against of the one time they wanted to be about them. >> thank you kevin >> yes, sir. >> are we done? i think we are done. >> we just got the cut >> booktv is live from new york today for bookexpo america with two discussions about the publishing industry. at 2 p.m. eastern time, a panel on self-publishing looks at how digital technologies are allowing writers to bypass traditional book publishers. then at 3:30, a panel of graduate students in nyu's publishing program talk about the future of book publishing and their careers. you can watch both panels live here on c-span2.

>> she picks the first speech by a sitting first lady, becomes the first president of the daughters of the american revolution, designs her own china and establishes the white house china collection and is the first to have a christmas tree in the white house. meet caroline harrison, wife of the 23rd president, benjamin harrison, a as we continue our series on first ladies with your questions and comments by phone, facebook and twitter monday night live at 9 eastern on c-span, c-span3, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> indiana law professor david orentlicher argues for a two-person presidency as a way to reduce partisanship and enforce limits on presidential power. he writes about his proposal in the book "two presidents are better than one" and discussed it at the university of pennsylvania law school. this is an hour.

>> well, thank you very much for having me. i'm grateful for the opportunity to share my ideas about political dysfunction and how we can fix it. and i began my thinking about two presidents as a state representative. as kerry said, i served in the indianaous of representatives, and i was there for three terms. and like most candidates, when i first started running, i pledged to be bipartisan. i was going to work with my colleagues across the aisle, and i would support good ideas whether they were democratic or republican. and i tried very hard to do that. but i did find that it's, very quickly, that it's very difficult to remain above the partisan fray. and i came to the conclusion that we don't get partisan conflict in washington or in i indianapolis because we elect people who are inclined to be partisan. there's not a selection bias

here. the problem is our system, our political system drives elected officials to be partisan. and so i thought about it, i'm very madisonian about this. i think about how to structure direct behavior. so i thought about what is it about our political system that fuels partisan conflict, and that's where i came with the idea that i discuss in my book, that partisan conflict at the national level is driven largely by the fact that we give all of the executive power to one person, a single person. rather than having the executive power divided among multiple office holders. so i want to persuade you of two points today. one, that the seeds for political dysfunction were planted when the founding fathers chose to have a single president for the executive branch, and that the best way to address political dysfunction is to change to a two-person, two-party presidency in which the two presidents are truly equal, and they come from different parties. ordinarily, that would be democratic and republican, but

third party candidates certainly would be eligible and, in fact, it would be more likely that we would get third party candidates, because it's easier to run second than first in our country. so before i make my arguments about why a single president is bad and two presidents are good, what do i mean by a two-person, bipartisan presidency? what would it look like in and the two presidents would serve, they'd have to be equal partners. that would be very important. so if a bill passed congress, both would have to sign before it would become law. they would have to agree on executive orders, supreme court nominees, decisions as commanders in chief of the military. they each would have their own vice president for succession and a small personal staff, but all other appointments whether to the executive branch or to the judiciary would be single joint appointees. and with that, vacant positions would be filled much more quickly, right? you'd have instead of a

democrat-nominated democratic or a republican person, you'd have bipartisan nominees. and there wouldn't be incentives to delay a confirmation. the position should be filled much more quickly. now, in all likelihood they'd divide up primary responsibility. one might direct health care, the other education, one might focus on relations with european countries, the other with asian countries. but when it comes, when it would come time to make decisions, they would have to agree. all decisions would have to be shared decisions. and joint decision making would make for more representative decision making. instead of having a republican president championing the platform of the republican party or a democratic president pressing the policies of the democratic party, we would have presidential partners advocating policies that would represent the views of the full range of voters. okay. so how do we trace? as i said, political

dysfunction, i think, we can trace to this single presidency. why do i say that? isn't congress the problem? right? our senators and representatives can't pass bills to balance our budget, today can't do anything -- they can't do anything about global warming or gun violence. even back on march 1st when they were faced with this sequester with these hard. , across-the-board budget cuts, that couldn't even get them to agree on a sensible budget reduction plan. but i think if we focus on congress, we're focused on the symptoms rather than causes of the problem. as i said, the problems with congress are a result of this deeper problem that i want to suggest, and that is the founding fathers' decision to place a single executive atop the executive branch, a single president. now, why is having a single president a problem? what's wrong with that? i'll talk about what the framers thought, but what's happened is modern presidents exercise an

exceptional amount of power. what arthur is schlessinger called an imperial presidency. and because presidents wield their immense power on behalf of only one party, they fuel the high levels of partisan conflict that we see in washington. and because they exercise their immense power on behalf of only one perspective, they make too many decisions that are detrimental to the national interest. okay, so let me talk about how we got to this imperial presidency, and then i'll say why it causes problems. now, the founding fathers, of course, worried about power, they worried about different branches becoming too powerful, but they didn't protect against the imperial presidency because they didn't anticipate the central role that the executive branch would play in our government. in fact, the framers worried about the legislative branch. they thought congress would become the dominant institution over time, if anything. and so when they wrote the constitution, that was what

their concern, a too-powerful congress. so they took steps to prevent legislative dominance. they divided the legislative power between the house and the senate, they gave the president a veto and so on. but they misjudged things. my wife says i shouldn't criticize the framers, but they did get this wrong. because over the past 75 years, congress has transferred much of its authority to the executive branch, and presidents have amplified the power transfers with their own power grabs. so we have the creation of the administrative state, all these agencies like the environmental protection agency, housing and urban development, health and human services and so on. and with the huge growth of the administrative state and its many departments and agencies, presidents have gained considerable and unanticipated domestic policy making power. presidents, the president controls the issuing of all the regulations whether it's air quality, energy exploration,

k-12 education, health care, consumer protection, down the line. all these different concerns. rulemaking is overseen by the president. it's not only the rulemaking. presidents have other policy making tools at their dispos also they can shape national policy through executive orders, they can grant waivers from statutory obligations. so it's easy to find examples just from the recent years. president obama, it was under president obama's direction without congress' participation that we now have a doubling of fuel efficiency for cars that'll take effect between now and 2025. obama decided to expand an offshore drilling for oil and gas. and he granted lots of waivers to states from the requirements of the no child left behind statute. so that now most of its central provisions aren't, the states aren't bound by them.

think about stem cell funding, right? president bush decided there wouldn't be federal funding for stem cell research, president obama decided there would be. but all of these decisions are made by presidents. and this is just on the domestic side. on the foreign policy side, presidents have even more dominance. presidents play a far larger role in the determination of u.s. policy, and congress plays a far smaller role than the framers intended. recent illustration is when president obama decided that our military would be involved and intervene in libya, it was his decision. even though congress is supposed to decide when we send troops into battle overseas. but obama, truman, clinton, presidents -- many presidents have decided on their own without waiting for congress. presidents also reach agreements with other countries without congressional participation. they unilaterally decide about terminating treaties. when we changed from recognizing

taiwan as a government to mainland china for china, it was president carter who unilaterally terminated our mutual defense pact with taiwan. presidents decide on their own about restrictions of the rights of u.s. citizens to travel abroad. when we were prevented from visiting cuba, that was a presidential decision. they also revise our immigration policy. when congress failed to pass the dream act to create a path for young immigrants, people brought as children by their parents, congress -- president obama implemented his own dream act when he waived deportation and set out grant work permits to young immigrants. now, it's not only -- so presidential power has increased congress' transfer of power, presidents have acted on their own, so there's been this shift of power. but the other part of the piece of the puzzle is the vast expansion of u.s. power just generally. when the founders lived, the world's powers were in europe.

now the united states has become the great world power. so presidential power has increased both because the u.s. power has increased dramatically, and the power that the u.s. government has has been shifted from congress to the white house. is and so we no longer have the constitution's designed for co-equal branches of government. we now have a politically-dominant executive branch. so what do woe do about it? -- we do about it? many scholars say congress needs to assert itself and use its checking and balancing power. if we -- if congress served its role, we wouldn't have abuses like watergate and abu ghraib and other abuses of presidential authority. the problem is congress has proved incapable for various reasons, collective action and other problems, but congress has proved incapable of fulfilling its checking and balancing role. as i said, they've transferred much of tear authority to the white house. -- their authority to the white house. now, other scholars aren't

worried about this. congress, they say, look, congress can't act decisively or efficiently. it may have made sense to have a powerful congress or at least a co-equal congress 200 years ago, but in a modern american state with a global economy and a fast-moving technology we need a very strong executive. now, i don't think we need to settle that debate. whether we should have a powerful executive or not is not critical to my argument, because even if the executive branch has not accumulated too much power, it's amassed too much power for one person. that's the problem. because when one person exercises this enormous power of the modern u.s. presidency, we shouldn't be surprised that the system breaks down. a single president represents the views of just one political party. all of us, though, we all want to have a voice in our government. but only half the public has a meaningful input, right?

currently, we have a democratic president who represents the views of democratic voters. before, from 2001 to 2008, we had a republican president who represented the views of republican voters. so it's no wonder when you have one president from one party or the party out of power spends all of its time trying to regain the oval office and not enough of its time trying to address the country's needs. so under the current system, democrats and republicans fight tooth and nail every four years for the white house with. hundreds of millions, now billions of dollars. and once the election's over, the new cycle begins. candidates start traveling to new hampshire and iowa, and what happens in congress is the party of the president winds up behind the president's initiatives to bolster the president and make sure that it can retain the white house, and the losing party tries to block presidential initiatives so that they can weaken the white house,

weaken the presidency and then win it back in the next election. so you remember when health care reform was being debated, former senator jim demint from south carolina told his colleagues we need to vote against obamacare, we need to break the obama administration. or mitch mcconnell, senator mcconnell, the senate majority leader from the republicans announcing in 2010 that his highest priority as senate majority leader was making barack obama a one-term president. now, if we had a coalition presidency where each party knew it would elect a partner, it wouldn't stand to gain as much political advantage to partisan tactics, right? no matter what they did, they'd still share the white house with the other party. so then it would be much freer to judge legislative proposals on their merits. so to put it another way, it's not surprising when you have winner-take-all elections for a

presidency whose power has grown to the level of an imperial presidency, we shouldn't be surprised that we have high levels of partisan conflict. indeed, if you look at, if you go back, the increase in partisan conflict, you know, if you go back to the '50s and '60s, there was much more of a working across party lines. and if you look at, you know, a graph of partisan conflict, it's risen since the '40 and '50s gradually to the levels we have today. well, presidential power's increased at the same time. that's not surprising. when you have, as i say, we now have people elected with a small majority or even a minority of the popular vote, we have substantial numbers of voters who feel that their interests and concerns aren't represented in a politically-dominant white house. if we had a two-person presidency, nearly all voters would have their preferred candidate serving, and they'd be much more comfortable with initiatives emerging from the executive branch.

it would no longer be this mass of disaffected voters to a policy of destruction. aren't there other causes of partisan conflict? i'm not suggesting -- i don't want to suggest that the imperial presidency is the only cause. there are other factors involved. but even so, the argument for a bipartisan executive is strong. if elected officials have strong incentives for whatever reason to act in a highly partisan fashion, we need to have counterincentives to act in a bipartisan fashion. a bipartisan executive would not only address the imperial presidency factor, but it will also provide an effective counterbalance to partisan conflict from if my cause. from any cause. another problem with having a one-person imperial presidency. it invites decision making harmful to the country. and here's another area where the framers, things have changed in a way the framers didn't

anticipate. because with the substantial increase in presidential power, it changed the nature of presidential power. remember, the way the framers saw it congress would be our policy-making branch, and the president would be the executer, right? the executive branch. so the president would be an implementer of policy, not so much a shaper of policy. but the president now has become a major shaper, perhaps the primary creator of policy for our country. and that's not a good idea because when we have policy being made, we want it to be made by multiple people with different perspectives in a robust debate, a deliberative process. so the framers are right. if you want, if you have an executive -- a president who's going to be an executer of policy, yes, you want a decisive person who can act with dispatch, as i said. but they correctly make policy making for deliberative bodies

like congress and the supreme court. as woodrow wilson said, the whole purpose of democracy is we may hold counsel with one another so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man. and, indeed, when it comes to making policy, there is much truth to the maxim that two heads are better than one. be you look at the studies by economists, psychologists and other researchers, shared decision making works better than unilateral decision making. it's not hard to find examples of bad unilateral decision making. and i'll pick on george w. bush and his decision to take us into iraq. single decision makers can make very bad decisions. two presidents, if you had two presidents from different parties, then they'd bring the different problem-solving approaches, different skills that make for better decision making. two presidents with different perspectives would make good, would make more good choices and fewer bad choices than single presidents. now, i understand single presidents, of course, don't act

in isolation. they consult with members of their cabinet and staff, so they do enjoy many of the benefits of group decision making. nevertheless, there is a big difference between deciding alone -- as presidents, it's ultimately their decision after consulting with advisers who are inclined to reinforce their inclination -- as opposed to sharing this decision making with a partner who's inclined to challenge their decision making. an example i'd like to illustrate is imagine the supreme court. we have nine justices, equal decision making authority, different perspectives. so if you had one justice -- scalia or ginsburg, picture choice -- how had eight even very experienced law clerks, it'd be a very different supreme court. and it's not only the two presidents would, i think, give us better leadership when it's time for study and deliberation, but even in times of cry us. what happens if we're attacked?

don't we need a single person? i don't think that's right. participant of the problem -- part of the problem is look what happens when we're in times of crisis. one of the problems is single decision makers often act in authoritarian and unconstitution always. during world war ii, we had the interment of japanese-americans. after 9/11 we had the torture of suspected terrorists. and having a single person making those decisions, you know, congress and the courts were supposed to check presidential abuses of power. but we've seen historically congress and the courts have not stepped up when they needed to. so having a two-person, bipartisan presidency would give us the kind of internal check on the executive branch that we need precisely in emergencies when other checks are not effective. and two persons, we don't have to sacrifice rapid decision making, right? presidents always confer with trusted advisers before making

even the most urgent decisions. and consider israel, because there's a country that has had to respond to attacks, major threats to national security, and they always convene the cabinet. first the smaller national security cabinet, then their full cabinet before they decide on their response. and, in fact, some deliberation is good even in the face of unexpected events, international events. an example i like to use is in 2008 during the presidential campaign when georgia and russia got into their little war. john mccain immediately are condemns russia. barack obama waits a few days to find out, get more information, and he did so wisely, because it turned out both georgia and russia were at fault. so sometimes acting quickly and decisively can lead to bad decision making. all right. why wouldn't two presidents just bring their partisan conflict

into the white house? would mitt romney and barack obama really cooperate? and that's what the framers were worried about, right? in federalist 70 alexander hamilton talks about multiple executives and rivalry, but i don't think that will happen. in fact, there's very good reason to think they'll develop a cooperative relationship. first, they wouldn't have incentives to develop, to have a conflictual relationship. elected officials are highly partisan, but they're partisan for a purpose. and the reason why in typical power of sharing settings each person or different people feels that by maneuvering and jockeying for power they can establish a dominant position. that's what the conflict's about. but in a coalition presidency that i propose, no amount of maneuvering and back stabbing or doing whatever else could lead to a dominant position. no matter what, it would be a

50/50 relationship for the current term and after re-election. there would be no way to change that. so there wouldn't be incentives to engage in conflict. more than that, there would be a very important incentive to cooperate. because when presidents reach the white house, the top of the political ladder, at that point their primary concern is their legacy, right? how are they going to go down in the history books? and george w. bush's decision to invade iraq is illustrative when he went in to depose saddam hussein. now, there were a number of reasons for his decision, bun of the accounts -- but one of the accounts was that he was influenced by the potential for introducing democratic governance to the arab middle east, right? if we could set up a democratic government in iraq, it would be a model for other countries. and george w. bush's legacy would be transforming a major

region of the world. even though remember during the campaign he had said we shouldn't be engaged in nation building. but when he thought about his legacy, he was willing to do that. or if you read the promise, jonathan alter's account of the first year of the obama administration, and he talks about the decision, should we do health care or not? and obama's advisers said, no, the public wants you to focus on the economy. unemployment's 10%. that's where you need to put your efforts. we don't want you being diverted. and the author says what eventually persuaded obama and led him to decide to do health care now was his legacy. for greatness he needed health care. the goal that had eluded presidents for a century. well, two members of this coalition presidency spent their terms locking horns, they wouldn't be able to have the kind of achievements, establish the kind of record that would

have an important leg i for the ages -- legacy for the ages. that's why i think it would work out. it's not only my fairly educated guess as i hope, but we have other support. switzerland i like to use as an example. can this work? does it work anywhere else? well, in switzerland their executive branch, they call it a federal council, has seven department heads, and they possess equal decision making authority. there's no, you know, first among equals. they really are true equals. they rotate through the presidency for one-year terms. the president's purely a ceremonial position. and for more than 50 years, the seven counselors, as they call them, have come from the major political parties. there are now five. they represent about 80% if you look at -- get about 80% of the vote during national elections. and the important thing is these seven people from different parties, different parts of the

political spectrum, work cooperatively. and you might say, well, that's switzerland. but, in fact, switzerland has its own history of political conflict. they had a civil war in the 19th century. theirs was between catholics and protestants. not as bloody as ours, but it was a war. and they've had some french, german, italian, romance citizens. and that's why they drafted their constitution, was to try to overcome the political conflict that they had experienced. and my view is that because they have their power sharing across different divides, political and other divides, they've been able to have the kind of society that doesn't have the political conflict that we experience. france has also shown that shared decision making can work well. theirs is not as institutionalized as switzerland. but when presidents and prime ministers in francs come from different parties -- in france

come from different parties, right, normally the president is the dominant political figure. we all know about nicolas sarkozy. far fewer people know that francois my eurozone was his prime minister. but when the president and prime minister come from different parties, the french call it a cohabitation government. and for much of the time between 1986 and 2002 they had cohabitation governments. the first was chirac on the right, mitterand on the left, and they worked together reasonably well, and the governments were quite popular. the approval ratings for their cohabitation governments were certainly well above our presidents. about two-thirds to three-quarters of the population liked the government can. and, of course, in all parliamentary systems you have cabinet -- it's common to have coalition governments, people from different parties working together. now, i know other countries clearly differ in many ways from the united states, but i don't

think there's any reason that elected officials in other countries are less prone to partisan conflict than our officials are. i'm also not claiming that shared power cures all political ills. bosnia and herzegovina have a three-person executive, and it's not been able to overcome that country's intractable problems. but their problems go far deeper than the nature of their executive branch. too much, the power's too decentralized, serbia and the other republic have too much power and so on. but as political scientist matthew sugared and john kerry have observed in their study of parliamentary government, coalition executives can offer the best possibility for resolving conflict in deeply divided societies. i want to turn to one other source of support for my argument. besides international experience, that's game theory. game theory, the study of strategic behavior, tries to

identify elements of relationships that encourage cooperation as opposed to conflict. and the kinds of relationships with the elements that are important are the kinds that would be, you know, part of the coalition prime minister -- presidency that i propose. one that people, if people have an ongoing relationship, they're much more likely to cooperate than if it's a one-shot relationship. i have a much better relationship with the guy who services my car than the people when i go to buy a car because pat, my serviceman, knows i'm coming back, and he does a good job and treats me well. but when i buy a car, they don't expect to see me back. so having an ongoing relationship. having regular communication and frequent interactions with your partner, that also encourages cooperation. that would be true about a coalition presidency. but most importantly, coalition presidencies, they'd have some, there'd be a symmetrical

relationship with respect to the amount of power. right? as i've indicated, the willingness of them to cooperate fends on large part -- depends on large part that each would possess exactly half the executive power, and no maneuvering could change that symmetry. neither one could gain the upper hand. and so game theory tells you when you have that kind of a situation where they have little to gain by obstruction, lot to gain by collaboration, we should expect them to collaborate. and it's out of self-interest. i don't, you know, assume that they're going to do this for the good of the country. it's out of their own self-interest, their own desire for their legacy. and people with strong philosophical differences would work cooperatively may seem surprising, right? could eric cantor and nancy pelosi really work together? and i think they would. and part of this i draw on my own experience as state representative and watching them there and also at the national

level. public officials do exhibit quite a bit of flexibility to achieve their political goals. mitt romney, right? governor of massachusetts pushes for an individual mandate for health care. presidential candidate, opposes the individual mandate for health care. arlen specter. as a republican, right? mostly as a republican moves the democratic party. his voting record shifts to the left. my own senator, evan bayh, when he was positioning himself for a run for the presidency, had a pretty liberal voting record. as soon as he withdrew and decided to run for re-election to the senate, he had the most conservative voting record of any democratic senator, even to the right of ben nelson from nebraska. or each our own academic peers. harold coe, critic of president bush's, right? pushing executive power. works for the obama administration and changes his tune and takes positions he harshly criticized when he was

outside the executive branch. so i think, you know, the desire, as i said, to leave a legacy, that's what drives presidents. and a lot of their statements and -- it's posturing much more than true commitment to ideology that they can't compromise. so let me conclude by saying that a two-person presidency may seem radical for us, not so radical for europe. but dysfunction in washington has gotten to the point that radical reform is needed. the alternative to a two-person presidency is even greater partisan conflict and even more bad presidential decisions. so thank you for coming, and i'll look forward to your questions. [applause] >> thank you very much. so we will pass around the microphone. raise your hand, and we'll take questions. i'd like to start off with one question first. the, it seems to me there's an

assumption that you're making that having prime ministers from both parties -- presidents from both parties, they'll be able going back to congress to kind of lead their party along in congress. and i'm wondering how you, how likely you view that as being in light of the fact that even speakers of the house, sometimes majority leaders in the senate have a hard time bringing along their own members in their own chambers. how well could this, you know, representative of their party in the white house actually end the gridlock that exists within congress itself? >> yeah. that's a very good question. why wouldn't partisan conflict just move to the, move to the aisles of capitol hill? and that's an important question. and here's why i am not so worried about that. there are a couple reasons why i think you'd tart to see more -- you'd start to see more cooperation in congress. and let me say i'm not against

competition and disagreement. as long as it's on the merits. i still want republican members of congress to advocate for republican ideas and democratic members of congress. but what i'm trying to avoid is the extent to which partisan conflict overtakes legitimate disagreement about the merits. so there are two reasons, at least a couple reasons why i think will diffuse the excessive level of partisan conflict and drive things more on the merits. one is now you're going to have let's say romney and obama fashion their health care reform or immigration reform or climate change legislation, and they send their bipartisan proposal to congress. now that there's a bipartisan proposal, if members of congress, right, as currently when president obama sends his partisan proposal, remember, i

said -- my concern is there's this mass of disaffected voters. 47% of the public voted for mitt romney. 47% of the public doesn't think they have a voice in the white house. so their instinct is to say this is not, this proposal doesn't represent my views, and so their, you know, instinct is to oppose it. and so the republican members of congress recognize this, and they know there's this substantial mass of disaffected voters who will be receptive to a policy of obstruction. now, instead if you had a bipartisan proposal coming forward, now voters on both sides of the aisle are going to say that proposal represents my views. there was my president negotiating on behalf of me. and i think that so the members of congress who are going to, who might be inclined to obstruct purely for partisan purposes are not going to find a receptive audience among voters for that. another reason why i think they

would be less ip kleined -- can inclined to be partisan, one of the things i learned as a legislator, you can do a lot for your constituents by passing bills, but you can often do more by helping cut through the red tape and other hurdles in the bureaucracy. now, if you're a republican today and you call up the executive branch, you're not going to get much help because it's a democratic executive bran with. but if it's a bipartisan executive branch, they are going to respond to your calls. so you have a lot of incentive to have good relationships with the white house. as i say, because that's how you help your constituents by helping them, you know, if they've got a problem with the food and drug administration, the department of agriculture. you want to be able to help them. so it really changed -- so as i said, not having a receptive audience, public receptive to obstruction, and the members of congress having their own personal incentives in terms of helping their constituents and

getting reelected to have cordial relations with the executive branch, i think that would help. >> excellent. thank you very much. we open it up for questions. we'll bring the microphone over to you. >> i guess my question deals with, um, the political process and how it would play with these two presidents. in presidential primaries one of the reasons candidates like to stay close to the center is because they know they have a general election coming up. but when you know you're going to be elected president once you win your primary and you're on the stage with six other guys who are also conservative or liberal, really the best way to distinguish yourself is to move to the extreme. which means when you are elected, isn't there a problem that you have to travel so much more from where you were during the primary to be so far out to the extremes now really kind of need you to stay there, but, you know, how do you come back to the center then? >> yeah, that's an interesting

question. what happens? you're right, once you make this change it's going to have all kinds of, you know, change things. so now in the primary does it, does it, you know, as you said, the primary voters don't have to think i need to find somebody who's electable in november because decisions will be mostly decided, the elections will usually be decided the nomination. now, one possibility is the net of a third party candidate could keep them, moderate things. so even in the absence of a third party candidate what's going to happen? it's going to change voting patterns too. right now most people, a lot of people wait til november. primary voting turnouts are well below november. we might have 60% in november. you might get 20%. iowa caucuses don't usually even get 20% of the eligible voters. so you're going to drive. so now the voter who waits til november and says i'll have my say then can't wait til november

anymore, and they're going to have to start voting in primaries. so you're going to drive a lot of people who don't tend to have strong affiliations with either party to pick one of the parties that they're closer to. and so that's going to change the primary voting. now, some evidence suggests that general election voters are no more moderate, in fact, than primary vote ors. they might not be party activists, but they may not be more moderate. so it may not have an effect. others wonder whether in recent years that's changed. so you might get some moderation of primary voting population. but you're right, if it doesn't happen, if you still have, you know, the desire to get the extremists -- because i want the person who will advocate and be the best negotiator -- candidates are going to recognize that, and thai going to start each -- they're going to start, even if they're a mitt romney moderate or whatever else, they're going to start recognizing that they have to position themselves as a

conservative liberal. so there'll be gaming on both sides. candidates will start to say different things. but when they come together, now the question is whether you have two people here or two people farther out, they still are going to have to move to the middle to get anything done. and so i think you'll still end up with the legacy will drive the compromises. and then will their primary, will they be punished? will they have to say, yes, if i compromise, i promised them i would vote on their, you know, stand up for their ideals. and now i'll have to worry about a challenge. and i think, as i said, i think the reason why they won't get the primary challenge is what drives like the tea party. what drives tea party, you know? it was the election of barack obama and the democratic control. because, again, they don't have a voice. and so it's hard to kind of

mobilize people to throw out an incumbent when they have a voice, and the person is speaking on their behalf. and i think people understand, you know, this is part of due process, right? it's not -- we love to win all the time. but if we feel at least we've gotten a hearing, and if my person has promised to fight hard for me goes out and fights the good battle and they don't win all the time, at least we'll feel like we gave it our best shot. so that's why i think the challenges are not likely a big threat. >> i think you used the expression imperial presidency, is that right? >> yeah, i did. >> i just want to make sure. >> sure did. >> so mayor bloomberg, governor walker, barack obama are all using executive orders to accomplish a lot of what you're

talking about, and my question to you is whether you think this is a response to their legislative branch, or it's actually a change in how the sort of executive sees themselves and how that sort of contributes to what you're talking about. >> yeah. so why -- yeah. we see at all levels this use of executive orders. so is this driven -- we've got high levels of partisan conflict, we've got legislative bodies that seem incapable of making change. yeah, i think, i think it's a combination of, you know, congressional failure. there's no question that legislative bodies, especially congress, have advocated in their responsibilities. but i also think as the framers warned us people in power seek to aggrandize their power. and presidents have. now, why hasn't congress?

that's -- and there are lots of reasons, and this is, you know, the framers didn't anticipate the collective action. you've got this 435-person house and 100-person senate, and as an individual legislator, you know, increasing the institutional power of the congress, you have to share that with a lot of people. so it's not an effective way to increase your own power with presidents anytime you increase your institution's power, you increase your own power. so the framers were right about the presidents would push for greater power. they were wrong about congress. so we've got that imbalance. so, yeah, it's a combination of just the natural tendency of presidents to try and increase their power and the willingness of congress and the courts, for that matter, to facilitate. you know, the courts have not intervened as presidents have acted, you know, when president

carter's decision to terminate our defense pact with taiwan was challenged in court, the supreme court said -- some said it was a political question, other procedural grounds, but they wouldn't reach the merits of it. so, and this gets back to, you know, what i said earlier. i'm not so sure given the, you know, the failure of congress to work effectively maybe it does make sense to give the executive branch more power. but even if that's correct to give it to one perp -- one person from one party and one perspective, that's where it breaks down. if it's true that we have to rely on the executive branch more, then we should have more people having a say. we shouldn't reserve the policy making power of the executive branch for one party only. especially when it's locked in for four years. at least in a parliamentary system you have a chance to change the government if they head down the wrong path. but we lock our president in for four years.

and that's, you know, profoundly unrepresentative. you know, we take one vote on one day, and the majority that wins one vote one day gets control for four years, thousands of decisions for four years. and, you know, as justice byron white said in a redistricting case when you have a minority that's persistently shut out of the political process, that's not fair. that violates our concept of equal protection. >> i have a rock the boat question. the president is not the sovereign. the citizens are. and my question to you is, where did you get these ideas from? because it's totally different from my perception on reality which is that we have an imperial congress and an imperial presidency since 1913.

yeah. i mean, the failure of our government to respond to the voters and -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah, to the citizens, there's no question that that has been a serious problem that, you know, sort of a washington mentality, you know, the elected officials seem to be captured by the beltway, lobbyists and other interest groups. and it is a big problem. but i think it is a bigger problem with the president than with congress. as i say, just because the president, because so much power is shifted to the executive office that, yes, congress is not as responsive as it should be, but it's not as dangerous because it doesn't wield as much of the authority that it could wield. finish but you're right, our government as a whole isn't as responsive as it should be, and that's why i think at least if you allow people on both sides of the political aisle to have representation in the white

house, it will give us a more representative government than we have today. >> hi. even with like the two-president system, it seems to me that the legislative body is still going to have polarized political parties. so my question is why wouldn't this new proposal of two presidents bring or create more political gridlock if now there's a partisan proposal from the legislateture sent to the white house -- legislature sent to the white house, at least one or the other president is going to refuse to sign that particular legislation. >> well, that's exactly right. so now your incentives as a legislator -- i talked about what happens when presidential initiatives come to congress. they're going to be bipartisan. and, in fact, one of the realities of our current system is that the president drives the agenda. the motto was supposed to be the

legislative proposal would be driven more by the congress and then come to the white house, but that's really flipped. and i don't think that would change so much. so i'd still think initiatives would be driven. but to the extent that congress tries to drive the agenda, they're going to face -- they know they're going to have a democratic and republican or, you know, libertarian and democrat, whatever, two people that are going to represent a pretty broad range of voters. so partisan proposals aren't going to fare very well. and so they're going to understand if we want to really get something passed, we've got to pass something that will satisfy people on both sides of the aisle. and so, you know, again, it would be futile to try to send up highly partisan proposals. ..