renewable energy. from the annual u.s. conference of mayors. the president sent his 2013 federal budget proposal to gr congress, over the past several weeks members of his administration have come to capitol hill to discuss their agencies request. tuesday, we will have live coverage of two of those hear g hearings, a house energy sub committee will hear from epa administrato administrator, the epa budget will decrease by 1.2%, a total of $8.3 billion. and later in the afternoon. we will hear from secretary of state hillary krin ton, before the senate foreign relations committee. the president is requesting $51.6 billion, a 1.6% increase over 2012. you can watch live coverage of

both hearings, tuesday on c-span 3. former senator majority leaders reflect odd their time in congress. and how the environment on capitol hill has change friday when they served. both men were participating in a discussion on leadership and politics hosted last month in washington. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> good morning everyone, it is terrific to welcome you to the first public event here in 2012. we had 70 last year, so i expect we will invite many of you back in the near future. great to see long time colleagues and a lot of new faces. it's probably a heroic understatement to say that bipartisanship will be in a challenging state over the next several months, so we are happy

to have as many new friends as we can get. today's discussion is about leadership. and i am thrilled to have tom dashelle and trent lott to be with us. they know a bit about lead engine a divided government and i think we will hear terrific stories about that shortly. i want to situate this series in the broader context of what we do here at the bp c, to my mind, there are three dimensions to the challenge that we face, the first is policy work. too often we find that when you have kind of polarized issues with long standing kind of challenges people get stuck in this deep grooves of their ideas. and we strive to bring together diverse groups of experts to woionsnd

politically pragmatic solutions. in every case, we are bringing together, policy experts with deep political engagement and try to put together proposals that can be meaningfully embraced. second effort we work on is to try to address the core institutions of our democracy. it's treerrific to have our co-chairs and state the obvious, many of the structures and traditions that we rely on to solve are under tremendous strain right now and through that project we are having a series of forums and research and activities that will give us insight there is. and finally we are here to talk about leadership. ultimately the problems that we face in our demaocracy are not acts of god that have to be

solved by people, if we look back through history, at the moments we have faced up to the magnitude of problems that we are looking to today, you can find inspired leadership. it's often a bit of a cliche to say we need leadership. we are going to try to understand what are some of the forces and the actions that are repeat able that can be brought back to the conversation today and ultimately we hope to motivate a cycle that will enable the country to address the tremendously pressing problems. grateful to have the support of the scoop jackson foundation and their president mere today. 2012 is in fact the 100th anniversary of senator jackson's birth. he has a pro found legacy of leadership on stimulating public discourse and advancing bipartisan efforts and so, we are pleased to be affiliated

with you, there are books on the senator's life that are on the outside table and we encourage you to look to it, as i'm reflecting on century marks, we will be honoring on century of service, attributing to the 100 years of service. that will happen on march 21st and we will welcome you all to learn more about that. so with that, let me close and welcome john, thank you again for your support and ask you to introduce our speakers. >> thank you, jason for partnering with us. our executive director and myself joined with jason and welcoming you to this discussion. the henry jackson foundation was founded over 30 years ago, after the untimely death of senator

henry jackson and it was founded to help us continue the legacy of his good work and the foundation had as one of the core missions, pursuing a continued bipartisanship, and civil dialog in the congress, it's on this occasion, of the centennial of scoops' birth that we are pleased to be heapartner with the bipartisan center to discuss this challenging issue. we have a distinguished panel of two senate majority leaders that know all about bipartisanship, and followed in that spirit. scoop was in the congress for over 44 years and he was known for to solve problems by working with people on both sides of the aisle.

and the fact that he could cross the aisle and work with his republican colleagues was considered to be one of the keys to his influence and his extraordinary legislative success. many, many, important pieces of legislation authored or co-sponsored by the senator. senator, one of his key supporters one of his greatallies was jim rember him f energy and secretary of defense. jim put it this way when he talked about scoop. he said scoop reached outs across the aisle to uncover different perspectives and then build coalitions. and he did this with extraordinary civility. even with his colleagues. and that is how you become a great legislator. i had the good fortune to work for him in the '60s and the

'70s, it was an extraordinary time of civility and huge accomplishments in the congress. so, i told senator lott and senator daschell, that i hope this discussion today, gives us hope that we can at some point in the not too distant future return to that. as part of our interest in sharing scoop's legacy, the foundation has produced a book call today nature of leadership. excerpts from a statesman. the goal was to capture through the reflections of those that knew scoop best were the qualities that he was. and those are essential qualities of any effective

leader. and so, you know, we ask you to take a look at this book, it's lots of pictures and big print, so it's a fast, it's a fast and fun read. you know, take these with you. they are out on the table. give them to your friends. give them to the young leaders that can hopefully see the kind of leadership that they want to a spire to. you know, those qualities, should aapply to today's leaders as well, not just to future leaders but today's leaders. you know, i think we hear the word demand all the time. we should not demand we should insist that today's leaders follow the spirit of bipartisan ship that scoop was known for, that senator daschelle was known for and senator lott was known for. also, if you do not want to carry it in your brief case, download it from our website,

it's a wonderful little piece. so, let me now proceed to introduce former senate majority leaders tom daschelle and trent lott. most of you know them better than i do. i'll not go into great detail on them. but a couple interesting points that i did not know was that senator lott is only one of a handful of people who has held elective leadership positions in both the house and the senate. and that senate daschelle, we know, one of the longest serving majority leaders in the senate, but i thought it remarkable that he is the only senate majority leader that served not once but twice as majority leader and minority leader. so, talk about, talk about two

men who knew the need for bipartisanship, trent lot and tom daschell, thank you for being part of this today. i think senate daschell, are you going to lead off? >> yes. >> great. [ applause ] >> john, thank you for that very generous introduction. more importantly thank you and the foundation for being our partner in this project. i look forward to reading the book, but i as a young staff person had the opportunity -- the good fortune to see senator jackson in action. and to see the degree to which he was the qualities that we hope we can talk about today. his leadership. his extraordinary willingness to find common ground with his

colleagues and his prioritization of bipartisan ship is historic and we are very, very grateful that he continues to inspire us today with his deeds and with his words. there are others that i also would just want to call attention to for their presence today and my gratitude to them for being here, former colleagues, chuck rob, dirk kentthorn, dan glikman, and charlie, it's a real pleasure to have them with us as well. i'm always inspired from the lessons of leadership of our american heroes of the past. john quincey adams once said that if you your actions inspire others to dream more, to learn

more though do more, to become more, then you are a leader. i think that definition describes most leaders, even those in congress. lincoln had a lot to say about leadership. he once said that nearly all men can stand adversity. if you want to test a man's character. give him power. i think there's so much truth into that sense of what leadership is all about. find out about a man or a woman by giving them power. it's real pleasure for me to share the stage with a very, very special friend, trent lott. he and i shared power in the

united states senate for many years. and while wed two powerful positions, we endured great adversity as well. and i'm not sure whether it was power or adversity that defined the manner in which we led but we had to deal with the first impeachment in over 100 years. 9/11, the anthrax attack, and the first 50/50 senate in u.s. history. clearly, an historic, very, very, challenging time. and while leaders can all be described with adams definition, i think there's a big distinction between an executive leader and a legislative leader.

a legislative leader rarely makes a unilaterral decision like an executive leader does. he has far less ability to execute that decision. even more true of a senate leader perhaps than a leader in the house of representatives, who has as a result of their rule making and processes and procedures far greater autonomy in making decisions than senate leaders do. but the senate was designed to give each senator remarkable autonomy and authority. our former colleague, george mitchell used to say, did he not lead a caucus, he negotiated with 57 independent contractors. a majority leader it seems to me has four primary roles. first, he must set the

agenda. in consultation. he must manage the legislative body, in consultation with at least the other leader. he has to be the central person with whom the president good an speaker works and he must provide leadership to his kau kiss, those four roles are critical, regardsless of the make up of the senate at any one time. and regardless of rolls, i think a leader must first and foremost always remember, the state that elected him. and to reflect the concerns, the interests, the values, of his state. every senator brings his own experiences and personality to

the role of leadership, and i believe that it's always a function of the time within which a leader ascends to the majority leadership role that dictates to a certain extent what that leadership role is, in my case, when i was elected leader in 1994, there was a sense within our caucus, especially that we needed to build to improve inclusion. to create more opportunities, for members to have a role in the decision making and agenda setting process, there was a far greater need for outreach. i ran for majority leader, we lost the majority in 1994 and i was elected as minority leader. and so, the sense was that we had to reach out to our constituentsy groups to the rest of the country in a more effective way and this was, as i said, the mid 1990s when

technology was just starting to become more paramount to the way that members communicated and saw their roles with regard to opportunity to project to their constituentsies, and so, we put a real emphasis on technology by creating the technology committee and a studio and putting the emphasis on the internet in ways that it had never been done before, to a large extent, the circumstances dictated many of those priorities. regardless of agenda. priorities, experience or any other factors, seems to me a modern day legislative leader, as he or she attempts to constructively lead his kcaucus are faced with a number of challenges that transend part and any other aspect of senate

life. one of those is fundraising. there's an extraordinary pressure on every member to raise money these days. and as a result, the time consumed and the preoccupation with fundraising becomes a greater challenge as we attempt to manage the senate. the airplane, the airplane in my view one of the single biggest factors in the way the senate conducts itself business today, because it's made it to easy for people to leave town, they do. they leave quite regularly, leaving on tuesdays and coming back on thursday, giving us a full wednesday to conduct a lot of the senate business today and that presents some serious challenges with regard to the extraordinary agenda that we face.

the media and the blogs and the hyper we still have yet to grapple with successfully. and unfortunately partly because of the way elections are held da so much a part of the character of the senate, and that, too, is something that i think that we all have to acknowledge and address. some qualities in leadership transcend these times. and as i said, i take inspiration from people who have proven themselves to be the visionary leaders that we have needed so badly at times of peril, and a leader first and foremost perhaps must have a strong inner compass, and i like what churchill said about that.

it is said that sometimes leaders should keep their ears to the ground. all i can say is that the nation will find it hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that ungamely position. secondly, leaders must know their followers. lincoln had great advice in that regard. he said leadership is staying a little ahead of those who are led, but not too afar, not too far ahead where you lose contact with them. third, a leader must be able to persevere, and i have always liked the quote that an invincible determination can accomplish almost anything, and therein lies the distinction between great men and little men. and finally, a leader must listen. dean rusk probably said it best. the best way to persuade is with your ears.

a good leader is always learning. i learned a good deal from my friend trent lot, as i did from my colleagues who are here today. i mentioned some of them, dave mccurdy and chet edwards i did not mention earlier, but i appreciate very much the lessons of leadership they brought to work everyday. i learned a lot from my friend trent lott and if you is not read it, i strongly urge you the read "learning cats" because it is how one leader learned how the lead in these times of turbulence, and we did a lot of cat herding and i'm pleased to have an opportunity to talk about leadership with him today. [ applause ]

>> good job. well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen for being here this morning and thank you, tom, for your comments and our friendship and one that continues to grow and develop as the years go by and i must warn you in advance that as tom has already indicated that we became not only, you know, companions in a lot of difficult times, and leaders both minority and majority, but we got to be really truly good friends, and so if you are looking for partisansh partisanship, you won't find it here. i will talk more about that in a moment. i want to thank you, john, and the henry jackson foundation and the centennial foundation is hard to believe that he would be 100 years old for sponsoring this foundation on leadership. it is something that i thought a lot about in the congress and

go good deal since. we have a leadership institute in mississippi, and tom has been there, and i have come to realize over the years that leadership is something that you are not born with or a visceral thing, but it is something that you can learn. you can learn from others. if you study history and study the leadership of men and women, you u can learn a lot of techniques that will help you as a leader. these are difficult times, obviously, and everybody is trying to figure out how to do something about being more bipartisan and getting things done, so that is pleased to be a part of the bipartisan policy center, and jason does a great job here at the bpc, and bob dole and howard baker found ed this institution and it was at a time that we really needed it, and they are doing great work whether it is in housing or energy or lead leadership or so many areas. dan glickman is working here on

in a number of basis and our good friend pete dominicci is here, and it is how the address not only how to get a bipartisan bill, but how do you get a met a rick to measure what you do. i'm just so pleased to be a part of the bipartisan policy. i want to coach john stenus, and my predecessor and so many of you knew him and he was known as the conscious of the senate, and i to deal to learn from to be a senator and job of the senator, and one of the things he said to me in the beginning, well, you know, i hope you will really think about how youel senator.

a number of the pe them just swell [ laughter ] i see the historian over there has reported this. one of and i guess that is something that we had to think about as senators, but when he retired i went to see him at mississippi state university, and i sat down with him, and i said, senator fabulous career and meant so much to the state and the country, and i'm looking for the best pieces of advice and what would you really advice me to do, and he thought about it for a few minutes, and then he said, well, i would give you two pieces of advice. number one, buy don't rent. they never bought a house. they rented for 40 years. and that was good advice, and we took him up on it, and that was for a long time and the only equity i had in the portfolio, and then he said, the other thing is travel.

don't just go back and forth to mississip mississippi, and see the country and see the world. he said, if you go and you meet with the world leaders, you will learn from them, and you will have a better understanding as a senator of foreign policy, which you are going to be intimately involved in because of the treaties and the confirmations and that was great advice. i took his advice and did that even though those were sometimes referred to in the media as junkets. you knew about that h, the junkets, but simple things, and great advice. you know, tom and i have developed a great relationship, and part of it was because of the problems across the aisle and going over the talk to tom. i didn't mind coming in the back door to his office when i had done something dumb or had, you

know, made him mad about some way i had not told him about what we were planning on doing, and we kept that door open. that communication open. he would do the same thing. i can remember him coming to sit with me in my office, and frankly pouring out his heart about some things that he was dealing with. we had that kind of relationship. we had a hotline. i had a phone sitting on my desk and when it rang, i knew it was tom daschle. because we also found out, no offense, don and some of the other staff members here, sometimes you needed to get around the staff who would do a little boxing and tackling to keep frus taus from talking dir and is we had that on more than one occasion, where i would call him or he would call us, and on that infamous morning at 9/11 when i realized that we were all under attack, and he was the majority leader and i picked up

the phone to say, hey, tom, i think that we better get out of here. about that time, my door burst open and in came the security people and we were gone and we spent an interesting day for the rest of the day, and one that we will never forget. and since he was so good in promoting my book, i will promote his book "a time like no other" and great title, and he talked about all of the challenges facing us. when i think about the journey to leadership, it is just not something that you leap to. these house and senate colleagues that are here as tom mentioned, they will remember and recall all of this, but i served 16 years in the house, and the house has a tendency to make you a partisan warrior. particularly, if you are in the minority. i never had the opportunity to go back and forth in the house like i did in the senate. so when i came to the senate, i had been the republican whip in house for eight years and a