when our guest today took his seat representing michigan in u.s. house, it was the same year the first mcdonald's gas cost $.23 a gallon, and you could buy a car from the motor city from only $1900. john dingell took office in 1955 during president eisenhower's administration. he served alongside 11 presidents and is not only the longest serving member of the house now, he's the longest-serving member ever. he announced in february that he will retire at the end of his 29th full term. when he was only 29, he succeeded his father in the congressional district. his district is the heart of the big three in auto country. he's hoping that the dingell dynasty continues with his wife heir and an auto

former gm lobbyist being elected in november to succeed him. dingell was ranking democrat until he was ousted in 2008. he is known for his quick questions. he earned a nickname, "the truck," for his stature and style wielding the chairman's gavel. the committee has wide ranging jurisdiction. he has authored laws on clean air, endangered species, and health insurance, including shepherding through the affordable care act. in spite of passing environmental legislation, dingell has a reputation as an ally of the auto industry and its main union that has led them to fight attempts to strengthen environmental regulations for cars. he has watched congress since he was a child at his father's knee and serving as a house page in the 1940's.

we invited him to the press club to give a farewell speech. mr. dingell said he's not done working or governing yet. he's here today to speak to us about when congress worked. please help me give a warm national press club welcome to congressman john dingell for his seventh appearance at a national press club luncheon since march 7, 1975. [applause] >> thank you for your very gracious introduction.

thank you all, my friends, for your kindness and such a gracious and gentle welcome. i hope that when this is finished you will feel the same way. [laughter] i want to thank the press club for inviting me and allowing me to bring so many of my friends here today. i am particularly pleased that my colleague jim moran is here today. [applause] stand up, jim. we are very proud of you. [applause] it has been a particular honor and privilege for me to serve with you.

he has been a role model for any and all. i also want to welcome and recognize so many of my dear friends and former members of my staff who are here today. i ask that all of you who ever worked on behalf of the people of southeast michigan are with me on the energy and commerce committee, will you please stand and be recognized. [applause] >> there is a strange thing about my association with my staff. i picked the most extraordinary able and the finest and loyal people who ever drew a breath. i am proud of you and grateful you would be here today and

grateful you would be my friends. it is true i have served in the house for nearly 60 years and i have seen many things good, bad and much change. and i have had the privilege of watching washington change from a little town in the woods to an institution rather to a major city of international proportions and i have had the privilege of serving with, not under or for, 11 presidents from eisenhower to obama and where would observe that sam rayburn used to get much touched off when people would have how many presidents he had served under. and i have had the privilege of casting 25,000 votes. i have served alongside more than 2400 colleagues and i have

sat in the chamber of the house of representatives to witness 51 state of the union speeches from all of the 11 presidents when whom i have served. in my office i have been able to author -- service -- and pass landmark legislation that helped protect the environment, ensure civil rights for all and help our middle class to grow and prosper. and i am proud of what i have been able to do. i was thinking as i made my mind up when i was going to run as to rather i should stay and serve and when the lovely debra and i talked about these we looked and saw we completed the things my dad set out to do when he was here and been able to move forward to complete all of the

goals which i had when i started out here. i want to make it clear this is not to brag about my accomplishments. it is simply to show there was a time when congress could and did work. and when congress passed major legislation and earned bipartisan support to move the nation forward. business was done with hard fighting but also with good will and mutual respect. i want to make it clear i didn't do these things my byself. no man or woman could. we did them with colleagues who were more interested in seeing the nation grow than falter. people who are willing and able to put partisan labels on the shelf and instead work for

greater and common good were the hallmarks of those congress. in these days, i remind colleagues of the very definition of the word congress. it means coming together. it means a body which has come to together. and it is a part of the historic understandings this country had when he had a congress which worked. sadly, however, it hasn't been doing much together lately and i imagine that you have observed this also. this is not a congress that is working but it could be and frankly it should be. last year we saw 57 bills signed into law by the president.

that is 57 total. we created as many laws as there are varieties of a famous product. perhaps that is the way we should name that congress. but don't get me wrong. getting things done does take time. i remember years ago, i brought up a set of bipartisan clean air amendments that passed the house with a vote of 401-21. 13 hours of work was what it took the house to complete the effort. folks came up afterwards and said dingell, how in the name of common since did you manage to pass that bill in 13 hours? i looked at them and said it took me 13 hours to get a bill

that both sides agreed to on the floor but it took me 13 years to do the work that made that possible. that tells you how hard legislation is to do. and my former staff here most of you news men and women and my good friend jim moran can testify to the difficulty of the process of compromise of getting legislation with good will. one of it interesting things about the congress is the change. it has become in too many instances a money chase. it has become in too many instances an instance where it is the goal of members to have the name of a committee on their letterhead which draws and

attracts attention and support politically. it is unfortunate this is so because the congress is an important national trust. it is something where we have a duty to the people to do what is necessary in the broad public interest and regrettable it is the case we don't see that occurring on many instances in the congress. the committees are too large and should be shrunk. the subcommittees are too large. i served on one committee where i found that the number of members in the subcommittees exceeded the number of members on the full committee when i went on there. and it could go on and on as to

how it has gotten so big as to be uncapable of carrying out responsibilities. other forces are making things go badly. the supreme court decision in the citizen's united case has allowed unlimited anonymous or dark money to flow into the our political system. we have a court that is taken the most literal approach to so many of these important decisions that the consequences are beginning to have a very serious effect on not only democracy but the trust of people in their government. and i regret to note that there are still more god awful cases rattling around over there at the supreme court that are

almost certain to do more harm. any layman reading the citizen's united decision will assume this was in no way written by a group of intelligent individuals. [laughter] >> or people even remotely aware of what is going on in the current political structure. the decision flies in the face of so much of what our representative government was founded upon. allowing people and corporate interest groups and others to spin an unlimited amount of unidentified money has enabled certain individuals to swing any and all elections whether they

are congressional, federal, local, state or whether they are votes about the creation of some kind of local entity or resolution of local question. and that is why we have seen the rise of the super pacs and people are now dipping their hot hands into every kind of election and state ballot initiatives and anything under the sun that will help them to get what it is they want. unfortunately, and rarely are these people having goals which are in line with those of the general public. history shows that there is a

very selfish game that is going on and that our government has largely been put up for sale. we also had many in congress that wish to do nothing more than shrink the size and scope of the federal government. and this without taking into account the families, the veterans, and active duty military and the countless others who rely on this government and on our nation and these people forget that they are even more than 300 million americans and that those 300 million americans and more are living in one of the most dangerous times in american history. many of my republican colleagues now find they must sign a grover pledge when they run for

congress saying they will carry out the goal to shrink government down to the size where it can be drowned in the bathtub. these are his words, not my words. so with this pledge and similar litmus test, these quandaries are only made worse by redistricting where a similar event has occurred before to enable legislators to be owned by these same special interests. we see state legislators draw and state legislators draw our congressional lines with little interest in fair representation, with small concern about protecting regional boundaries, or about any blink of consideration for any part of the voting rights act which is

again under attack. this is for achieving one particular set of views. michigan creates more and more safe seats, we see members focused only on winning primaries. not about the public interest and not about the real discussions of the concerns that members have or that citizens have. the pledges are signed. and they attempt to become the ideological image of what their primary electric sees what their primary product is or should be with a work prodoth that equals

their goals and facilitates t r their wishes. there is no incentive to stick your note out and be compromised. it should be noted that boat sides run on the narrow partisan privileges. a simple analysis will tell us that this does not help our democracy. i have said before that i would be scared to bring up the ten commandments for a vote in the congress because i am not sure they would pass. and i am almost certain they would have a vast number of amendments laid upon them. unfortunately, i still compelled

to stand on that. we have a congress that has decided to begun running policy and legislative qualities from the speakerser -- speaker's office. the congress was built by seeing goals and seeing to it that every member and everybody in the chamber and everybody outside represented by people in the chamber would have a right to be heard and the right to be able to see to it that the congress functioned in a way that heard and attended to the fears and hopes and dreams and the concerns of every american. and so beginning back with gingrich and the delay -- that

is a funny word. we came out with the idea that we would facilitate it by allowing one man or one entity to run the congress of the united states. and so now we have seen a clear effort by both republicans and by their democratic successors and now the republicans again to ultimately resurp the committee process. when i started, there were only a handful of members on each committee. and 3-9 members on each subcommittee. 3-9! the interesting thing was some of the most complex and difficult questions would be dealt with in the committee where members would come

together, they would first hear the testimony, run everybody out of the room, remove their coats, and one of my colleagues used to say fight like hell for however long it took. the result was that we had committees that knew and understood legislation and they could explain it and defend it and they had the trust of their colleagues. today their committees with nearly hundred members on them. if each member gets five minutes, multiply that out and see how much opportunity there is for real decisions of the important issues of the day. anytime there is an important meeting each member then gets only minutes and maybe seconds

to address their interest or ask their questions. i repeat, what do you think the chances for for intelligent debate of important national concerns. we see new members who come in and they head right to the floor to make some of those great big wonderful speeches before they even know where the restrooms are. [laughter] >> they land in washington on a monday or maybe a tuesday and their first question is what time is the first plane on which they can return home? again, how is this going to facilitate a significant national debate or intelligent discussion of the legislative

business? we hear from the members i am against this and i am against that. do we ever hear much about what they are for? more importantly the question is what are they willing to make a compromise on? comprimise is an honorable word and i am going to try to continue pushing that view during my remaining time in the congress. and so we ought to ask these new members what are you for? what are you going to compromise on? and what are you going achieve? to see if we can come up with a resolution to the difficult controversy and difficulty questions of the day. i am sad to leave the congress. i love the congress.

and i am delighted the lovely debra my wife is running for the congress because i think she is smarter, decent and much prettier than i am. i will observe that my sadness is relieved by the poisonous atmosphere we see in the politics today. so while i am troubled, in refocusing efforts on the important matters at hand, i am comforted to know they can only improve. so when the dictionary defined the word congress as the word coming together it also defines the very way we can emerge from this current mess. first, and foremost, it will take a congress willing to put aside petty differences and live up to the definition.

compromise isn't a dirty word and it isn't evil. cooperation isn't a bad act. the sooner congress realizes this and american citizens realize this and they began impressing this view on their candidates the better the situation is going to get. so, then the congress can begin to focus its work more on the public interest but it also is going to take an american people who are willing to and interested in seeing to it that the congress works. it also is going to begin to require a control on expenditures of money. first race i ran, i spent $19,000 and i thought good god what an awful number.

i later had the fight of what up to that time was my life. $35,000. more recently i had a serious fight with an incumbant colleague and i had to spend $3 million. he spent $6 million. there are needed changes where people understand that their congress is not something that should be traded or should not be traded on the commodity exchanges. the congress is something that belongs to us all and it is something that is achieved only at great blood shed, loss of life, great suffering, huge hard work, and the wisdom of men and women far smarter than any that we see running around now.

and interestingly enough those men and women were not people who had preeducation but they were people that understood by hard study of the wisdoms of persons earlier in the history of this world. so what we need to do is to have the american people dictate that which must be done. i am proud that i have been able to be a part of the body and truly a child of the institution. i intend to keep this nation and all of my colleagues in my thoughts and prayers. and i have to say more often in my prayers than in my thoughts. in any event, thank you for what

you do. thank you for the great power which you wield with your pen and your typewriter and your ability to communicate thoughts including the wonderful computers. and thank you for your leadership in what you are doing because we desperately need good thinking people. and people who are determined to see to it that this oldest institution of its kind in the world continues to be the greatest gift of all. you know, when i go to bed at night, and when i get up in the morning, i thank the good lord for the gift which he has given to me. making me a citizen of the united states some 87 or shortly

88 years. and the opportunity to be an american having more real good things and more money but more freedom, independence and opportunity than any person in the world before. so thank you. and god bless us all. more importantly, god bless the united states of america. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, again, congressman dingell for being with us today

and for delivering your speech and for following tradition of a question and answer session. the first question is what has changed in congress the most since you first visit capital hill while your father was a member of the house from 1933-1955? >> well, obviously the quote reforms which opened the place up. and in point of fact which have denied us the ability to really talk about the concerns which we have. second of all, the size of the committee. third of all, the unworkability. forth of all, the lack of capacity of the members to carry out their functions because of the size of the committees and size of the subcommittees and

the harsh fath that no body trust the committee. we used to have an entity that was called the tuesday-thursday club. and this was the crowd which showed up on tuesday and got the hell out of washington on thursday. that is not the way the government should run. government should be a full-time business where we seek to serve the nation and see to it its business is well-conducted. this is not washington and the congress is not a place where everybody comes to have a good time. this is a place where the most important of the nation's business is supposed to be addressed. there are other things that i can mention to you which i am sure you all would recognize and

which any or all of you could for forward with your own wise and necessary additions to my comments. >> do you ever see congress returning to the more bipartisan ways of days gone by? what would make that happen? >> well, two things: one, some kind of a national event which forced the members and leadership to do that. roosevelt, war -- something like that. but beyond that, there are other things that could do that. one would be some kind of national calmity or something else that would be almost unique and that would be wiping out of

almost the entire membership by seeing to it that the voters through us all the hell out of washington and installed their own people in our place. there are other things but that would be a fair summary of some of the things that might be helpful. >> do democrats deserve any of it blame for the bipartisan divide in congress? >> of course. everybody deserves it. democrats and republicans deserve it. but if you look around, you will find that the news media, the public at large, the citizenry in general all have their faults in this and their reason for feeling guilty about this. look and see what the listener

ship of the president's state of the union message is on tv and you will observe one thing. that it is usually timed to fall after and instead of super bowl or something of that kind. i am not going to tell you the super bowl is not important and not good to watch or listen to or not exciting but i am going to tell you that from the standpoint of the nation's well-being it is not important. and so what we have to do is to get the american people to say, you know, we want you to do something and when you have a town meeting and have them get up and they say what are you going to do about compromising

this into where the citizenry accepts it. one strength i had as committee chairman was i would see to it that i got the left and right to compromise together on legislation. the end result was we passed enormiously huge legislation after huge fights but we passed it -- enormously -- that is still doable but it requires leadership and it requires people be elected to lead in the congress. >> you had les than kind things to say about the supreme court. >> i thought they were quite kind as a matter of fact. [laughter] >> i thought they were deserved,

right and truthfully if they have listened perhaps maybe would have been helpful. >> and following on, what do you think motivated their citizen united decision? >> money. and the fact that almost the entire court was selected on the bases of idealogy and not training. i should not say anything more probably. so far i have been overly kind. the supreme court is probably staying in that mode today. >> what has been the lowest point in your congressional career? >> oh, boy.

um, i saw my world come down around my ears when i had to get a divorce, get the custody of the kids, and raise four kids alone. and thank god i was able to do it with the help of a sister who is going to find the lord waiting for her waiting in heaven. and i was able to do that in a way which made by kids solid, successful citizens. it was tough. and at that time, we were having a huge battle over energy and energy prices, something we regularly do on the hill. but something which were the administration was putting out a

publication entitled quote shove to it dingell. and so i was in the midst of this dog fight about whether they were going to shove it to dingell or i was going to surprise and by a narrow margin i did. some of the people in this room were there to help me through those difficult days. >> carrying on, what has been the biggest highlight of your time in congress? >> you know, i would answer this way. every day is a blessing. and when i get up in the morning, i always look down and see there is a little grown underfoot and i say thank you

lord. but, more importantly the highlights, the single one i am was obamacare or the wonderful bill that we got through that took care of health care for all of our people. that was something my dad wants and something we did and a lot of others we did, too, that were important. and a legislative standpoint that i think was probably the one thing that was most important. >> why does congress need members like you who stay for many years as part of the institution? >> you learn the business. a lot of people think you walk through the door and you are an expert. you are not. there were a lot of people that never learned where the hell their office was or anything. and you had a lot of people who

frankly never learned how to get along or don't know the names of their colleagues or are not able to compromise because congress is essentially and necessarily compromise. it is getting along with your colleagues and knowing what it is they need and what they want and what they have to have. years ago, i got a little guy by the name of gross from iowa and everybody said that is awful, dingell. and i had no, gross is a good and decent man and if i could get a reasonable relationship with him, and reasonable friendship, we will run the committee and we will run it well. and we ran a subcommittee but we

wrote more conservation legislation there than we ever did sense. it was a tremendous period. i got another guy, and god rest his soul he is gone but i think warmly of him. bud brown of ohio was another one. a lot of people said bud had a terrible acid sense of humor and he did. but he was a wonderful guy and if you got underneath that you would find a wonderful fellow. and brown reported to me, dingell, my wife is filing for divorce, and she is going to name you as a correspondant. we are spending more time

together, you and i, than we he was with his wife. i would have a few crack pots and we had to get along with them and get things done and we contrived to do it. and we did it because we had trust. and we had friendship. and i solved a bunch of rail strikes because i had trust in friendship and got the secretary and transportation and said you don't know and i don't know you but i said we have to work together and our words have to be good and we have to trust each other. and we did. one of these strikes we solved in 48 hours and the other in 18

hours. probably the worst mistake i made as a chairman because damned if they didn't take jurisdiction of railroads against the commerce committee because no one knew we did anything. but to know how important the human relationship is between members in the congress. if you have that, you have almost everything. if you don't, you have got nothing. >> one of the criticism of politics in the united states is it is corrupted by money. you have emassed a network of 2.8 and 7.6 million dollars making you the 71st richest

member in the chamber. how do you account for that wealth and did a lifetime in washington help you get rich? >> first of all, i am not rich. second of all, i live very frugally. third of all, i am very careful about how i spend money, as is debra. we have lived in the same house in virginia for better than 30 years almost 40 years. we have made money trading houses and the average american if he uses good sense can do something like that, too. >> how have relations between

the press, and the members of congress changed over the past 58 years? >> they are about the same. [laughter] >> it is kind of interesting now. it used to be a guy on the committee, i could always tell when the media was going to be there because he would show up. and that was always a tip that things were pretty important that day. the business of the house has been a little bit corrupted, not a lot, but a little, because it is interesting to note -- it is

interesting to note that that money, or rather that relationship with the media, is one which generally scares the members of the house. it also is a situation where if you watch the members and do this on c-span or something like that. watch the members. he is not talking to his colleagues. he has his eye on that television up there. and if you look you will find that instead of an intelligent debate, all of a sudden, you have a guy who is making a big speech to the television which

is quite different than it would be were he to make his speech to somebody with whom he was having a real discussion with of important issues. just to return to one point, i have done pretty well because i learned something, and that is how one can take and use the compound interest rule to benefit himself. and one of the reasons you know that is that i have to report it. so you can be pretty sure that it is fairly truthful and it does very frankly keep me and

the system sort of massed. >> now on to questions about the issues. at the start of every congress you always announced a bill establishing a national health care system. we don't have that. but we have obamacare. how is obamacare working in your estimation? that is a little bit like asking how is this child going to do in his presidential race as that child, boy or girl, does in his or her race for the presidency. i happen to think very well. this is the biggest single undertaking of this kind ever done boy this nation. social security was something

like maybe $50 million. this is more like $350 million. and it is not done by people who are working with their government. it is done by people who are working with insurance companies. so all of these things have got to be done by everybody pitching in and cooperating. we didn't get a nickels worth of help from the republicans. they sulked. and so their complaint is they were not heard. but we would invite them but they would not come. so i don't have any questions about the fact it is doing about

as well, given the circumstances, as it could. but going further than that, if you look, almost every american is covered. second of all, the long standing complaints of the american citizens about how they were treated have been largely addressed. citizens are able, now, to know that they are not going to cancel their policy when they go into the operating room on the gurney. they are going to know that all is not going to be any pre-existing conditions. the numbers of recipients and benefits is almost a 100%. someone is paying $360 something in the office in insurance and guess what? he went out in the market and

they said you can not have this. it isn't going to do the good for you that he wants. we will give you the same policy for $160. >> he said wow. so then, he went into the market and they looked at him and they said this is costing you too much for your wage and we are going to credit you. he winds up paying $68 a month. same policy. haven't heard a squawk from him. but you hear it from the republicans yelling it ain't working. and insurance companies, if they are not satisfied they are all of a sudden finding that they have to pay if they exceed the cap of 80-85 percent depending

on the size of the facility. you always hear the republicans complaining about that. i guess they are busy with other more important things. >> well, speaking of republicans, republicans point to the irs scandal, the va scandal and iraq and say president obama is not competent but how do you think he compares with other presidents? >> he didn't get us into the iraq war and he wasn't involved in watergate and he has run a pretty honest administration. so let's take first the va. one of the reasons the va is a problem is that he has got to

take care of 100 million vets and he has to see to it that he not only takes care of them but that he sees to it that they get care they are supposed to. and that is against the skin fled congress that had a cut of $10 million or 10% that the republicans were prepared to give. so i don't have any real problems with that. a lot of these people are getting -- in the va, a lot of the people are getting their benefits and a fair number of these guys are waiting because they are not qualified to go in. these are non-service connecting. the service connected are for

the most part not involved. >> watt what was the other one? >> i think we covered everything. >> i don't want to run out of here but i want to address what these no-good republicans say because every once in a while they say the truth and i would like to praise you if you can find me an instance. >> the question was the republicans point to the irs scandal and the va and iraq. >> oh, the isrs. we are giving amounts of money under citizen united to fat cats trying to buy the government and the irs is looking at them. i say hurray. the guys doing this are crowd

that very frankly would steal a red hot stove and then go back and get the smoke. >> we are almost out of town time i would like to remind you about the upcoming speakers. on july 17th, anthony fox, se secretary of the deparliament of transportation. and july 27th the director of the centers for disease control. july 21, the president of nid r nidper -- nigeria and then the president of congo will be here. next i would like to present

congressman dingell with the traditional press club mug, i don't know if you have a set of half a dozen, but here is another one we are honored to give to you. and our traditional last question. given your reputation as the toughest questioner in congress, what advice do you have to reporters asking? >> know the answer before you ask the question. [ applause ] >> thank you congressman dingell, thank you for coming and the national press club staff including the broadcast center for organizing the event. we are ajourned.

>> the rapidly growing e-cigarette and nursery has caught the attention of federal regulators and congress. airrrow night, we will portions from two congressional hearings that focus on the topic, including this one from the senate commerce committee. >> now, it is unequivocal that you do not market to kids, so here's my question -- to mr. healy, you sell your products and cherry crush and vanilla flavors. cherry crush, yet your parent company has a youth smoking prevention website, your parent company that says kids may be vulnerable to try e-cigarettes due to an abundance of fun flavors such as cherry, but ella, piña colada, and barry.

-- and berry. how can you sit here and say you are not marketing to children? average ager is the of the cherry smokers is in the high 40's, but also we found that flavors decrease the ability or possibility of adult smokers who use e-cigarettes switching back because they do not want to be reminded what -- >> wadded your parent company in your youth smoking permission website say kids maybe vulnerable to try being e-cigarettes due to an abundance of fun flavors, and you sell them in three of the flavors. are you marketing to children? >> no, i am not. >> so who is attracted to cherry, berry, but ella? -- vanilla? >> adult smokers. >> they are. that is interesting. even though your parent company called you out on it --

>> you can see more from that hearing on e-cigarettes tomorrow night. we will also look for your reaction by phone, facebook, and twitter beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone anytime with c-span radio on audio now. 26-8888 to hear-6 congressional coverage, and today is "washington journal" program. audio of thehear five network sunday affair programs beginning sundays at noon eastern. season radio on audio now. long-distance distance or phone charges may apply. c-span, "q&a"on

with author daniel schulman talk about the koch brothers. after that, prime minister's questions at the house of commons. and later, the congressional ceremony for israeli president. ♪ is week on q & a our guest d daniel. daniel shul man, authors of sons of wichita. a lot of people associate the coke brothers.