here aren't good hokey pokey players. we don't just put our hand, in we put our whole self in or we don't bother. people were putting their whole selves in saying, we want to do all these things. and i must give you a little bit about what happened when i got to d.c. with this whole area of women and where we were. i got to d.c., and of course -- they were more shocked than anybody that i was elected. when we would go places they would try to swear jim in. the speaker. he'd keep saying, "no, it's her." "it's her? what's wrong with you?" you know. and i remember, one of the days that i shook my head and said, why in the world am i here? they gave me some rinky dink committee dealing with commemorative days and holidays. except they were moving into the bicentennial which is very important. so we had a whole lot of things we were passing out on the

bicentennial and no one was paying any attention to me on the house floor because i was just this young upstart and they were sure denver had just hiccupped and i wouldn't be back so why pay attention to her? but they voted it all through. so i got over the office one day and there was an inhave a station from katherine graham and jacqueline kennedy onassis to have dinner at katherine graham's house. so i thought, i must be the most important person here. and i get over to this lovely dinner at katherine graham's house. and it's me, the two women on the end, and all these male senators. and here's what happened. jacqueline kennedy had edited a book called "remember the ladies" from abigail adams' plea to her husband when he was writing the constitution. obviously he didn't do it. and it was about all the things that we didn't know about

her-story, all the women in our backgrounds that had been left out of history. they take his-story too seriously and figured there was no reason to hut hers in it. she wanted this as part of the owe beneficial part of the bicentennial. made sense to me, i thought it was about time women learned their history. i had passed it out. it got to the senate and they were like, no way. so i'm sitting here at this dinner, and i'm thinking, these are probably the two most powerful women i can think of in washington and these guys are saying no. and they're saying things like, our vision for what women should do in the bicentennial is beautification projects. and we would say, we could probably do both. you know. we could probably plant bulbs and read. they wouldn't have anything to do with it.

at that point i kind of drove home thinking, what am i doing here? their big compromise was, they would allow the book to go to europe and asia and the u.s. information libraries. but that would be it. it would not be an official part of the becentennial in the united states. i guess they were so afraid we would get too radical, i don't know. so that happened and you all know the wonderful story about my coming into armed services with my wonderful african-american colleague, ron dellums, and there were obviously no african-americans and no women on armed services. and the chairman went ballistic. and only gave us one chair to share. because he said we were each worth only half of his regular members and he had vetoed our coming on the committee and he wanted absolutely no part of it. well, thank you very much and welcome to washington. so that was an interesting

thing. maybe many of you know barney frank who's a good friend of mine in congress. he always said that was the only half-assed thing i did when i was there but i'm not sure that's true. i figured he just didn't know enough about the other things i was doing. well, then i had been very interested in women in the military because there were young women who wanted to participate. at the air force in particular was letting more women in and stuff. and i'm home one weekend and these wonderful young women, air force officers, come to see me and said, oh, it's just terrible at lowery. and i said, what? well, we're supposed to go to the officers' club because we're officers but they have these topless go-go dancers in there. i said, they what? so i go back to washington and i call antonio shea. she was the first woman undersecretary of the air force.

and i tell her. and she said, that's outrageous, that can't happen. i said, trust me, it's happening. so she says, never worry, i'm putting out an order right away to stop all of that. so she said she did. i'm back a couple of weeks later and the women said, well, can't you do anything about it? and i said, what do you mean? i go back and call tony shea's and say, i thought you put out an order. she said, i did. so she called in the people and they said, oh, we didn't send it out, we thought you were kidding. so we had a lot of ways where we really found that women were not making -- they weren't exactly excited about having us there. i also remember too, when i first got to congress, we were supposed to have a separate credit card. you know, for our bills. i couldn't use my husband's credit card because you're turning them in to be reimbursed. so i apply to american express

to get a separate card. and they tell me, you can't because you're of child-bearing age. and actually, i had exactly the same problem. i had gone back to close the house that we were going to live in because jim was busy, it was a crazy time. i got back, and they said, you can't, you're of child-bearing age. so equal credit had not quite come at that time. so i got some people together and we got the equal credit bill through. and then i kept hearing from women that this was still going on. so i said, what's happening? so we called over arthur burns who was then chairman of the federal reserve. maybe some of you remember. and we said, we passed this bill and women all over are telling us they're not getting -- oh, he said, we thought you just meant it for shopping. so i, i mean, i could tell these

stories all night. they're just absolutely amazing. but i think one of the things too we find everywhere is that women don't celebrate women enough. you know, one of the things we passed was to celebrate august the 26th, which is the day the 19th amendment passed. you would think that would be a big day. half, over half the population finally gets the vote. but we're all too busy. and then we had wonderful helen he reddy come back. jim was looking for someplace to take her where there was some monument to women. and we found monuments to buffaloes, monuments to everything. but the only one we could find for a woman was this thing over in city park that's just kind of liberty, justice, or something. no real women. so that was also interesting.

i see marvelous sally brownback he here. where those wonderful suffrageettes met with the wonderful supporting males. and it was a half and half in this church where they got this thing through. in 1893 for women to vote. that's very historic. fantastic. and we discovered that church had been where the first national bank was down on 17th street. so going in and explaining to them the wonderful historic place where they work and how we'd like to have something, you may as well have told them there was going to be a nuclear attack at 3:00. they were like -- i think we finally got to put a little tiny plaque down on the floor. i don't think anybody's ever seen it. and now they've moved it somewhere else so i have no idea where it is now. maybe it's been removed to the circular file. but i do think those things are history. and it's wonderful to know we

had forefathers and foremothers that were really out there caring. especially in 1893. it's amazing that passed because the silver panic was on. this place was in like a depression. and yet men came out and said, no, women should be able to vote. so that, you know -- i'm still lobbying for something down there, i don't know. maybe we should just all march down there this afternoon and put up a monument, i don't know. r but colorado tends to go one way and then another. because while we were doing all of this in the '70s, the other side said, oh my goodness. we were asleep at the switch. all these hopeaholics moved in here. these dreamers. we've got to get back to reality. and things like the mountain states legal foundation was established with people like james watt. i had never met mr. watt and i

will never forget. he called me during the '70s from the mountain states legal foundation and he said, i'm james watt, i'm a constituent, and i would like for you to get me some feminists who are against the equal rights amendment. now, i said, okay, which one of my crazy friends is trying to crank me up? you know. and of course he didn't think that was funny at all because it really was james watt and not a friend. so nevertheless, we were never too close. but you know what happened. he got promoted to be department of interior. he did wonderful things like turn the buffalo around on the seal so it was facing to the right and not the left. very important things. he refused to take private land that was donated for

conservation purposes. the great thing -- he didn't allow the beach boys to appear on the mall in 1983. instead, we had wayne newton. which even aggravated nancy reagan. she liked the beach boys. well, he didn't last long and he went on. but i understand, not onago, he gave a speech -- i guess it was in the '90s -- gave a speech up in wyoming. and he hasn't lost his touch. he was saying, if we can't change all of this horrible federal intervention from outside through the jury box, or through the ballot box, we're going to have to do it through the cartridge box. okay, all right. there you go. and we had movement in the epa, trying to undo a lot of the clean air and cut the funding, and her husband bob buford moved into the blm. you know, they were the private

sector's friends. they could do whatever they wanted with public lands. many of us saw colorado as the place -- the lungs of the nation, where people kind of came to breathe, and we wanted to preserve this, andabout wanted to have this put away for future generations. and they didn't see it that way. so there was some real hoop-de-do, we went back and forth, there was the era of the colorado crazies and there was all of these things. but it still continues to go. now, you know, some of it -- i realize i'm running out of time and i could talk all night on this stuff as you can tell. being a recovering politician in the 12-step process is tough. you turn on the lights and -- jim claims i open the refrigerator door and talk for five minutes and realize i'm talking to celery. i've tried to give a lot of

thought to what was different in the '70s. what was different? why were we so willing to go out and risk and take on all of these institutions that have been here? you know, most of us were newbies that had come in. and what a lot of huts pa to come in and challenge joe coors sxul at powers that be that had been here and felt that it was really their fiefdom. what was it that made us do that? you know, we were disappointed with government. we didn't like the war. we didn't like what happened in watergate. we were willing to do impeachment. we were willing to let women have an equal chance and african-americans and hispanics we really felt needed to be treated differently. why? we hadn't given up on trust, i think. we kind of saw those things and

rolled up our shirt sleeves and said, we think we can get in there and do a better job, so we're going to do it. i must say when i was teaching at princeton how frustrated i got because so many of the kis s would say, i'm not going to do that. i'm not going to do those jobs. because that's terrible. politics has just gotten awful. rather than saying, i'm going to go in and change it. and i'm trying to think of what made that difference. then once i was in a wedding here in denver. and i began to think, maybe some of us are to be held accountable for their duties. at this wedding, what would happen is when anybody my age would hear anybody the bride and groom's age say they were thinking about going into geology, teaching, the law, doctoring, whatever, whoever my age was one of those, would move

in on that kid and say, you don't really want to be a teacher, oh, you wouldn't believe what's happening. or, you don't want to go into the law, it's become -- or you don't want to be -- and i was thinking, who do we want them to be? baseball players? what have we got left that we would say, oh, that's great. the mentoring and bringing along and making them really feel, it may not be perfect, but if you get in, maybe you can help change it. that maybe we've been too negative in that. and somehow, we have gotten to a point where it's like, no one trusts anything anymore. they don't trust any institutions. think of an institution. the church? the government? banks? oh, yeah. investment bang ekers. they're all wonderful. people just don't trust them. and we really -- it bothers me that i'm not seeing that passion

we had in the '70s resurge and come back. because heaven only knows we need a cleansing. the supreme court's decision, that corporations are people, makes me crazy. the amount of money that you're going to see spent in this state is going to break your heart. because it's going to be just firehosed in here in this campaign. and you can think of all the things you could rather spend that money on. and that would not be what you want to spend it on. it's going to be negative. it's going to be like, who can slime who the biggest? so how do we get this turned around again? i'm not really sure i know. when i was teaching at princeton i was teaching people getting their master's in the school of public service. the woodrow wilson school. so you think, okay, these are

kids getting their master's in public service. when you say, who's going to run for office? no one raises their hand. i thought i was in the wrong class. i'd say, what is it you want to be? they had say, maybe george stephanopoulos. or someone like that. you know. and if we're not attracting these bright, young, wonderful people, if we're not reinstilling them with the faith that they can get in there and truly make a difference, we're in trouble. now, to go back again to show how that changed a bit, you know the story about my sharing the chair. the wonderful thing that happened was in 1974, we had the watergate babies come. and we had so many people come into congress that it was kind of like all the people moving into colorado after the war.

you couldn't encircle them all and shape them ul up fast enough because there were too many of them. and they got through some huge reforms. like you didn't get to be chairman for life. you had to be elected by the caucus. great. they got rid must have chairman that way, it was wonderful. but those kind of reforms came that were really needed. so we really need a whole new influx of young people coming in with new ideas to take over, such as we tried to do in the '70s, and i think we really led the nation. i think we led the nation in all sorts of things that were just amazing. people blamed it on the altitude. people blamed it on all sorts of things. but i really think it was the western tradition and people really believing you could live somewhere and make a huge difference and make an impact on the future. so i think all of us need to go

out and think more about how we challenge this next generation. i see them in the occupy movement. i think that's wonderful. but i don't know where it goes. you know, what is their vision? well, their vision is they don't want to have anything to do with politics because it stinks. really? well, what are you going to do? i don't understand how that works through. and maybe all of us need to engage more with them and see if we can't do a little steering to see where it does go. because i think there's many young people with good hearts. i think many of them really feel that their future has been terribly diminished. and they're very worried but they don't know what to do. and we stand around and tell them, don't do this, don't do

that, this job isn't nearly what it used to be. and that doesn't work. let me just say again, that was kind of a heavy thing to end on, but i think we do have to look at how we go through these cycles. and i am really ready for another '70s cycle. i'm now 71. so come on, everybody. let's have a '70s cycle where we can go back and do some of the wonderful things i think we did in the '70s and make the tremendous changes we did. i see us going backwards very far. i started out as pro bono public licko for rocky mountain planned parenthood here. in anybody told me in 2012 it would be under such threat i would have never believed it. well, i guess i should have believed it. we really need to get many more people involved in politics that have hearts larger than a swollen pea. and aren't just, you know -- and aren't in it to be politicians but to make change. see, i think in the '70s we sent a different group of people who didn't go to become politicians,

they went because they were mad and they wanted to change things. and i want to see that kind of passion again rather than, can i be here for 30 years? i mean, if you keep changing things, fine. somehow people sometimes lose that. so thank you very much and i would love to have some questions from all of you. my goodness, it's been wonderful, you've been very patient. >> okay, group, we're going to open it up for questions. pat is going to pick you. but pick a person who's going to ask a question. this is being filmed, as you may be aware, by c-span. and we want to get the film mike as over as we can to the person asking the question. so just keep that in mind when the boom mike comes -- >> can i have jim schroeder stand and up say, you can't ask questions. okay, jim? yay, jim.

we will have been married 50 years this summer, can you believe that? that's one tough male. okay, who's got a question? yes. here we go, and here comes the boom mike. >> why do you think the republicans have been more successful in getting influx of new people, as opposed to the democrats? and certainly the tea party is an influx. >> the question is, why are the republicans and the tea party been better at getting new people excited? well, that's an interesting one. i don't know because i haven't talked to people in the tea party here, but i have in florida where we live now. that's where you move when you're 70. and i would ask them, what is it

you're so mad about? and they would say, don't you know? and i'd say, no, i really don't know. and so i still don't know. and the conversations about, no one ever helped me, i was on food stamps and unemployment. you know? i don't want to be sarcastic. but food stamps and unemployment, all of you helped that person. so there's some tremendous disinformation out there. that's being fed. and, you know, in new york, they had a wonderful thing. maybe we should do it here. they had a ceremony where facts were buried. because they said, in the public debate, i mean, facts just mean nothing anymore. it's who shouts the loudest and who puts the thing out the most, which is why all these

commercials soar aggravating. so it is really troubling to me too that you heard the people saying, keep government out of my medicare. and we could go on and on. and i really tried. i mean, i really tried to find out what was going on and kind of came away thinking, i don't know. it was -- i tell you what. i think part of it was a real sense of frustration that america wasn't continuing to go forward the way they wanted it to. they didn't see the progress they wanted that was applying to them. and the tea party and the republicans were able to capture that and say, it's because, you know. you have a president that was born in ken yeah or doesn't have a birth certificate, or, you know, is a socialist, or fill in the blank. or the government is too big, or whatever. and so people believe that. and we didn't do a good job on

the other side. i mean, i'm looking for backbones. i'm looking for backbones. to find people who have stood up. but i think we've become too nice. and i don't know what to say. as a woman i must say, probably sarah palin and michele bachmann are the number one and two speakers in america right now. and where is the new gloria steinem? where are those voices? it troubles me a lot. anyone else? we have this front row active, i like that. >> your children were raised in a political atmosphere, and i wondered how that has affected their lives. >> they claim that they were raised by wild wolves.

they are both very, very politically involved. my daughter -- we have wonderful family discussions. my daughter was clearly a hillary person, my son was a obama person, we have wonderful family things. but they have not -- they have not gotten into politics per se. my daughter's been asked to run a couple of times in montana. i think she's rightly looked at that and said, this whole thing is one delegation, this whole state, are you kidding me? and she has two young kids and she has not done it but maybe she will. she stays very actively interested, as does my son. he used to always get very frustrated. he'd say so many of his friends didn't read the newspaper or didn't watch it. but will they ever be candidates? i don't know. i don't know. i wish they or some of their friends would be. but i just think a lot of the them think it's too much

sacrifice, which it really isn't. there's always some bad guys but there's an awful lot of good people. i always say, where else could you have this amazing experience? of representing the greatest democracy in the world? you know? it really is incredible. and why are young people don't want to get chills about that? but again, i think that's something that has happened to their minds. when i was in law school, you know, the most exciting thing you could do would be to work for the united states justice department and be on the front lines of fighting civil rights and all of those things. now, no, they want to go to the biggest law firm and make the most money. and money has kind of overtaken some of that passion. there's a friend of mine, and i say it all the time, and i don't mean to offend anyone. they say, the trouble is, in the '70s we were very proud of our chevrolets and fords and our parks and our public schools and this was great.

and now, we live in gated communities. where the new thing is, get what you can, can what you get, and sit on the can behind gates. we have gated our hearts and our wallets and we're not interested in public schools because we have our private one, we're not interested in parks because we have our golf club, we're not interested -- why would we want to pay for that stuff? that's really concerning to me because that's really tearing at the fabric of society. you know. my kids talk about that. but they have lots of friends who are living very happily, gated. yes? >> i'm upset about what just happened in our legislature. and i'd like an explanation of how one man can derail representative democracy.

when he didn't allow the civil unions bill to be voted on. because he knew the votes were there. >> she's asking an excellent question about what's happened to democracy when one man can derail bills. as happened yesterday. and unfortunately, it's not just here. look at the united states senate where one man can hold up any, any nomination. there are two nominations to the federal reserve bank, and heaven only knows we need people there, can't get them through. we've got ambassadors, all sorts of people that can't get through. that's all terrible. and yet it's going on. it's really time we clear that out. the common cause today sued to do away with the filibuster because once again, you can't bring a bill up unless you've got over 60 votes. that's crazy, that's not democracy at all. you've got the same problem here. it's time to go back to the sunshine stuff and chang t