i said what do you mean? well, it will take seven days, and they will demand to re-read the bill and there are all of the hurdles that you have to get over and i said, let's do it. she looked at me incredulously, and you can't do that. oh, yeah, we're going to. let them read the bill. and so i went down to the dining room and started to have a meal, and about 20 to 9:00, i got a message that maybe kennedy decided they didn't have to read the bill. so that was thursday night and the bill was not done until tend of the session and it took a week but we got it done, 92-2 for the vote, and kennedy, typically of kennedy when it was over came over and said good job can. typical of kennedy and that is why it was a pleasure, and it was a mortal battle and he would always say, gee, that was fun. but you know, he never did pull

that on me, again. so, but then we went right on and worked together. so i do think that the right now the rules are being just, i think, abused and not blaming either of the leaders or the pays the, but it would be good if they would step back. protect the institution, but not abusing the institution to achieve goals that maybe are overcorrect from your political viewpoint, but not good to get things done. >> one last question to the leaders and then to the audience. there is a mike around. and the first question, both of you worked as minority and majority leaders under clinton and george bush, and what is the role of the senate ma joy -- senate majority or minority leader in the senate where the

bill is crafted? >> well, i have to tell this story that i had just been elected and as with so many of races, i was elected by one vote. chuck was that one vote. but i really look back with with great satisfaction at how well the caucus came together so quickly, but i remember being invited that afternoon to come can down and meet with president clinton. i'd, and so i thought that i'm going to ask senator byrd for his advice on what i should say to president clinton as the leader now for the very first time, and on the basis of one vote. and i went in to ask senator byrd his advice and he thought about it for a minute, and then he just said, you tell him one thing. you tell him that you are going to work with him and not for

him. i have always remembered that. i think that is exactly the role of a leader. you work with a president, and you never work for him. there are times when the presidents would like to forget th that. they actually think that the leader of your party is obviously working for you. but that is not always the case, because you are co-equal branches and you are co-equal leaders in many respects, and you are the leader of one of those branches, and i think that you ought to represent that and reflect that in your action and words and relationship with the president. >> you know, i have so many stories that i could tell as the experience of being the whip in the house meeting with reagan and of course, tom and i had breakfast almost weekly with george w. bush after 9/11 for months. i remember them so distinctly, because he always wanted us there at 7:00 and i hated it.

but we were always there on times and he would tell us about the events of the world. and i have to tell you with a mile on my face that clinton was interesting because he was en gage and call you at all times of the day or night, and he had a congressional team, but he did his own work. but that is the way, because of the senate's unique role particular i will on nominations and treatise and i remember i went through the crucible on the chemicals weapons treaty where i was hammered internally, but i finally concluded it was the right thing to do for the country, and i had to figure out a way to get it done, but clinton would really engage you on a one-on-one basis. i remember reagan would meet with the republican leadership every tuesday morning and i think that it was 9:30 and maybe it was 9:00, but sometimes it was both parties leadership, but most of the time it was republicans. here is that i do think that the majority leader does have in effect a co-equal role with the

president. he or she has a leadership position which is critical in the whole process. i think that he needs to be able to be or she needs to be able to be hon west the president of the united states about what the options are. the problem is if you are too honest with the president of the united states, your own conference is the first one to cut your throat. and i have experienced that, too. if i had one piece of advice for majority leaders, i agree with tom, remember, that you have a role, and you have a, you know, you have to work with the president, but i also have a piece of advice for the presidents, meet with the leaders regularly, weekly, on personal basis. not just in groups. i used to, you know, plead with president bush to get harry reid to sit in the back of the po portico and look at the great

washington monument, and see what to do, and then i realized that i guess that these two won't have a drink. of course -- [ laughter ] harry is a mormon and bush was a tea totaler, and they never met like that, and shows you what lubrication can do, and if those would have had a drink, no telling what could have gotten done [ laughter ] >> if you could stand up and identify yourself. >> laura, the executive director of the henry jackson foundation and we are so glad to be a part of the forum today with the bipartisan policy center, so thank you so much to the senators for these revealing remarks and so many of the aspects that you talk about leadership are intangible, but i remember that senator jackson was known for his obviously, his policy views, but over the years on some important policy issues,

his views evolved and he was not afraid to admit it, but he wanted the learn both from history and from his colleagues and from other intellectuals and policy people, and do you think that is possible today? because it is certainly an sb integral part of today or are people too worried to be called flip-floppers? >> well, i think it is possible, and that is what the bpc is designed to do which is to bring people to an evolution on issues, you know, away from the polarized position, but more to a position that would accommodate common ground. i think that you have to address issues today with an open mind and you have to obviously do what churchill said. you can't keep your ear to the ground and simply vote whatever the winds may dictate, but at

the same time i think that you have to find a recognition about the importance of good governance and good governance requires finding common ground, but evolution is harder today and finding that consensus is harder today, because we are so much more polarized than we have been, but it is harder, but yu can do it, and people definitely do it. >> it goes back to the quote from stennis, do you grow or swell? are you a part of the warrior and about your own po igs s and prevailing or winning and blocking or whatever, or do you mature and learn? i like to say it is a republican form of government. you know, you are elected by the people to come to washington, study issues, tlern learn the d, and study and then vote on their behalf and it is not referenda. and everybody referred to senator stennis as a statesman and i had a few people who i

really thought they were a statesman and henry jackson is one of those. one of the areas where i changed is the area where scoop jackson was always a leader. he really lived up to the van denburg quote of politics ends at the water's edge, and he was very much, you know, a leader and a thought-provoker coming to thought policy. that is an area i changed. i came from the house, and a whip, and a protectionist basically and reflekting any upbringing and the son of a blue-collar ship worker, and then when i got to the house i had to learn about foreign trade policies, and then i worked about every free trade agreement while i was in the senate. i never voted for a foreign

appropriations bill in the senate except for one. so you do. you are supposed to learn. i still considered myself, very solid conservative, but in my last year in the senate, the rippon society gave me a teddy roosevelt award, and my son thinkss he is going to get it, but i am going to give it to the grandson instead. and i got it because i was a moderate. i thought, well, i don't know when that happened to me, but if it is, then i accept the moniker with pride. i'm still conservative and a pragmatist and populist, but i'm an optimist, but i believe that you can get things done in america, and you can get things done in the senate, and if you

have to moderate the position some. i mean, tom and i used to do that. there were times when we were actually saying to each other in effect, look we got the votes, and we are going to whip you, but is there something to do to modulate this to easier go down with you and your team or me and my time and we did it for each other. one time john mccain was blocking a bill that involved tom in south dakota. and i had to track him down and i finally got him in phoenix airport and i said, john, this is tom daschle's bill. this is really important to tom, and you can't do that to the democratic leader, and he said, okay. we got it done. tom was my friend from then on. [ laughter ] >> that is where it all started. >> we have a question right here at that microphone if you could identify yourself. >> alex fulton with the "hill" newspaper.

i wanted to get your thoughts on president obama's recent recess appointments of richard cordray and the others in the midst of the pro forma sessions, and they are said to be sham sessions, but were those appointments justified under the constitution and the senate rules as you see them? >> well, you will find a difference here. >> you will find a difference, but i believe that the president was entirely justified. for two reasons. one, because as trent said earlier, we are make it harder and harder and harder for nominees to go through this incredibly laborious and incredibly long time process and there is no end. it gets worse by the year. so to me alone that is the factor of where do you draw the line.

secondly, constitutionally, as i understand it, there is no clear direction as to the session. these are bogus sessions, we know it. it does violate to a certain extent past precedent, but that is not the first time that precedent has been altered in the course of doing the right thing. ultimately, i think that we have to as trent said earlier address the whole nominating process, but short of that, because you had two institutions that literally could not function without these nominees, and this is not just the nomination, but this had to do with whether these agencies could even function, and i think that in the name of creating an opportunity for the agencies to do what they were by law required to do, he had no choice. >> i guess that the courts will decide. i think that it was wrong and he should have done it and maybe there is a chance that the courts will rule that way. i am trying to remember who perfected this technique of

having these pro forma sessions, and i don't think i did that, but i think that harry really turned it into a fine art to keep bush from doing that. we used to have the struggles when clinton was president. dave hoppe was my chief of staff, and now he is the chief of staff for jon kyl, anb when we would have the sessions, quite often hundreds of nominees and work through the list and go through and say to clinton's people, and congratulations people or erskine bowles or whoever it was, and look, you can do these 100 or so, but these six, we have a problem. and this one in particular if you do it, the roof is going i blow off. and for the most part, we got the ones needed done that way and one time he did that with the one we said don't do that and he did it, and all hell broke loose and it causes bad feelings, but i do, you know, there is a reason for that.

i do think that advice and consent, and that would be interesting to how senator byrd would react, but a the senate does have a role. if the senate is abusing the rule, then calmer heads should sit down to say, how can we improve this process, but the main thing i would say about is get away from the constitution and the people and the personalities involved and it does really exacerbate the process. and we do need a hearing on how to exacerbate the process. >> and we are at the end of our rule time here, and we could talk a lot more, but i would

like to thank senators lott and daschle for their time here. [ applause ] earlier this month the president sent his 2013 federal budget proposal to congress. over the past several weeks members of his administration have come to capitol hill to discuss their agencies' requests. tuesday we will have live coverage on c-span3 of two of the hearings. the first a 10:00 a.m. eastern the house energy subcommittee will hear the testimony from the epa administrator lisa jackson.

under the president's plan the epa budget would decrease by 1.2%, a total of $ 8.3 billion. later in the afternoon we will hear from secretary ostate hillary clinton 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 of the hearings tuesday on c-span 3. political parody a nonpartisan group dedicated to doubling the number of women in congress held their campaign luncheon in washington. according to the organization, women comprise 17% of congress and 51% of the population, and participants included the ambassador to austria, suwanee

hunt. >> thank you everyone for coming today for this round-table discussion sponsored by pl political can parody. my name is kerry healy and i'm the political chairman and suwanee hunt is the chairman and founder and the original inspiration for this project. we are here to announce and kickoff in some ways a historic effort to double the number of women in congress and in governor's offices across the country by the year 2022. all of the folks you see here today and many of them are involved in this effort, and suwanee will explain how, but this is a ground-breaking approach, because for the first time we are bringing together women from the full range of the political can spectrum torkissu

electing more women to the top offices across the nation. so, we are nonpartisan, and we do not endorse any woman or candidate, but we work to make sure that all women have the best possible opportunity to serve in these high positions. and now i would like to introduce our chairman, ambassador suwanee hunt who will talk more about the structure of political can parody, but also then why it is important to elect women, why women. ambassador hunt? >> well, yes, kerry, and i particularly want to thank you for coming out of the campaign trail. kerry and i are working for opposing candidates which probably, probably gives you a sense of this whole endeavor, right, kerry? >> yes, we are modeling cooperation across the aisles, yes, that is right. >> and we have worked on opposite sides before when you

were running for governor and i held two fundraisers for your opponent. so, here we are nonetheless. the idea as kerry said is to double the number of women in the congress, and to, so to do that what we have realized is that the democratic efforts have not made it and the republican efforts have not made it and the right, left wing people in the middle, and still -- we are stagnant here, and we have to figure out a new breakthrough, and our foundation which is called the hunt alternatives fund put together this initiative and tailor woylor wo so it is a small private foundation that we have, and well not too small, because we are putting $750,000 a year into this for ten years, and what we are doing is figuring out how is it that women will make the decision to run, because we knee

women win at about the same proportion that they run. so, we are doing the research behind it. you know, we are funding the research, and that will help us to figure out the strategies, and then we have a whole idea of wider weaving and get the word out. it is not just national strategies, but state strategies that people at the municipal level who are also wanting to increase the number of women and some of them are doing it for the democrats and some for the republicans and that is cool. some are just saying, any kind of woman, and we want to get them in, and we are focusing on the u.s. congress and the governorships as kerri said even though other people working with us are saying, no, let's work on the pipeline and getting younger women at the university level to run, but we know what that goal is ultimately. actually the ultimate goal is the white house, i would say. but, we're doing this bit.

so, when we found out that someone like gloria totten from the progressive majority or terri o'neal from the national organization of women were interested, too, and we have a whole wide group of other women leaders who are interested, who have fabulous bios, we said, well, let's put together this grass roots group as an advisory group, and we called them the leadership team. now, this is not a coalition of their organizations, but these are individuals, but wow! look at their bios, and you will see the wide expanse of organizations that they lead. thank you all so many of you for being here this morning, also. so this leads us to the question of why on earth would we do this? why would we go to all of this trouble? it is frankly, because we care. we care about the world.

yes. we care about our country. that's why we are doing it. it is a grand experiment that we have undertaken. we have a lot of research around the world that says that if you increase the number of women in parliaments, you actually end with less funding for health and education and children and families and guess what? you will also end up with more funding on environmental issues. i'm talking about the international parliamentary union and their research. now, the united states of america, you know, our great country, where are we in terms of this whole issue of representation of women in the legislature? when i started working on that issue we were 42nd about ten years ago when i was individually working on it. and now we are 88th in the

world, and that is because we are stagnant and other countries keep increasing. like we are behind ethiopia, folks. behind afghanistan. we are behind nepal, and we are behind most of africa. so, would it make a difference in the u.s. congress? well, new gallup poll, and there are a couple of polls out recently, and one says that the approval of congress is 11%, and one is 13% so it is within the margin of error and that is terrible. it is terrible in terms of what it does to the citizens, in terms of their desire to be part of the group or to support and to go to the polls and be excited about, you know, what they can do with our government. so we have to change that. how do you change that? well, one of the things that we know is that women tend to -- and i have never talked about

one woman or one man, but as a group, women tend to be more collaborate. that's whether it is in business or in any other kinds of settings, and true in politics, because thigh teey tend to works lines more easily and it is very important however that we have enough critical mass to let that happen. because otherwise, it is extremely hard to vote apart from the party, but if you have a bloc of 30%, 35% or 40%, that is is when you will see the women really taking off in terms of their collaboration. what do they vote for? well, how do they get the information about what they are going to vote for? women as a group have a different style of raising, of gathering information. they tend to do it from the grass roots. they have the ears open.

they tend to be running not because of a desire to be a senator, but rather because they have a concern about an issue. i'm talk about interviews. you know, widely held with women. and if they can find somebody else across the aisle who cares about that issue, they will co-sponsor bills. women sponsor more bills than men and they cosponsor more bills, so what do the bills say? well, obviously, they are talking about issues that women have a lot of experience with, like families, kids, but, but new research, republican women vote more for environmental concerns than the republican men. and democratic women are stronger on environmental concerns than democratic men. like who knew? so there's all kinds of reasons for this collaboration.

and they bring the very different perspective, and it is just good. and by the way, of course, i think that we have a rig ht as women, and by the way, i'm not the chairman, but the chair. >> i'm a conservative, so. >> i know, i know, i know. every time i sign a letter, to kerri saying i love you dearly, i get one back that says sincerely. that's right. that's right. i love you dearly in republican speak. where was i? >> you were winding up. >> no, no, i know where i was. it is the one you like the most, about the talent pool. like, of course i care about women's rights and fairness and blah, blah, blah, but that won't get you across the line. it just doesn't. it doesn't move people or we'd be there. so we can say that we have to draw from 100% of the talent pool. i mean, that is just smart.

but women are very reluctant to run. these women around this room are a bunch figuring out how to push past the reluctance. >> that is the motto, because we need more than 100%. and thank you, suwanee -- >> i can be madam chair. >> okay. and we want to hear from five of the leaders who we have engaged in the prospect to talk about different aspects of the political landscape of impacting women in 2012 and beyond. i'd like to start with marry hu -- mary hughes who is heading up an ambitious project to inspire and recruit and help women in the electoral process, and we will tell you about the process so far?

>> we, it is so lovely to see so many of you, and i want to say hello to two kates this morning. i want to say hello to a wonderful ally and also kate r ferrair, how are you? i want to talk about three topics. first, all of history is preamble for us today. go back quickly with me 20 years ago today. 6% of the united states congress was female 20 years ago. after that november election, in 1992, we weren't 10%, but it was a joyous occasion, and we all celebrated. we thought that we had knocked down those barriers and it was free and clear sailing all of the way ahead. but you know what? it didn't turn out that way. here is whatp haed in the intervening 20 years. we made some