>> thank you and welcome. it is great to see you all here. i want to talk a little bit about the role of the faculty director. this is a key person for you during this experience. it is a key position of the washington center in our academic seminars because the faculty director is the person that will help frame the issues of that are presented to you from over 20 speakers during the week. she will frame them within an academic context to help you draw them altogether. she will also take questions from you about your reading, the speakers, and moderate discussions between all of you students. she is really central to your seminar experience. week one of inside washington 2015 is called exploring a bipartisan solutions. simply by following the news you are familiar with some of the challenges of bipartisanism today.

the week ahead will task you with thinking about many of these challenges and considerations that face congress and the president every day. with your faculty director, you will explore these issues and attempt to find some bipartisan solutions. this seminar is a unique space-based experiential learning opportunity that very few college students will ever have. being here in d.c. together as a group and engaged in the seminar will allow us to do a deep dive into and to remain focused on the issues at hand. with the help of your faculty director, you are able to tie the remarks of one speaker to another, tie them back to your readings, to small group discussions and to what you of learned.

you will have the opportunity to reflect on a great deal of content and do it right here in the laboratory of politics in washington, d.c. i would like to introduce you to your faculty director this week. we are really thrilled to have dr. bose back and i wish we could clone her and have her lead all of our seminars. she is the exact type of scholar that we look for to lead this kind of academic experience for us. dr. bose is the calico chair in presidential studies at hofstra university and the director of hofstra's study of the american presidency. she is the author of a book about presidential policy. the national security decision-making of eisenhower and kennedy. she is the editor of the new york times on the presidency and the coeditor of several

volumes in presidency studies. dr. bose is also the third author in the last several editions of a very popular textbook on american government called american government institution and policies. her current research focuses on u.s. presidential leadership in the united nations. dr. bose was active in our nonpartisan courses sponsored by the washington center in connection with the 2012 national political party conventions in both tampa and charlotte. and she was our faculty director for this seminar last year. in addition to hofstra, she has taught for six years of the u.s. military academy at west point where she also served as director of american politics in 2006. dr. bose received her b.a. in international politics from penn state university and her m.a. and phd from princeton university.

please welcome, dr. bose. >> good morning. i have never -- thank you for that warm introduction. i have never been called before that i should be cloned. i just watched attack of the clones with my young son. i cannot tell you how many times i have seen this movie on saturday. it gives me an entirely different vision of clone intellectual. how is everyone today? excited for a very busy week in the new congress? i have to tell you over the holidays whenever i told people what i was doing in the year i'm going to washington to explore bipartisan solutions by the new congress and inevitably, is congress

attending? is anything going to happen? i thought well, why is it that so everyone is so skeptical? of course, if you look at opinion polls, some real clear politics, president obama's approval rating is in the mid-40's. 52% disapproval. congress's approval rating is 14% which is actually good -- at least they are in double digits. they were at 9% during october 2013 during the government shutdown. and, congress's disapproval is more than three quarters. at least, this was a compilation of polls for december. less than a third of the

country believed we were moving in the right direction and nearly two thirds of said wrong direction. there is a lot of concern, i think, in the public. about governance. i think that is actually reflected in our elected officials as well. if you look at the op-ed senator mcconnell and speaker boehner wrote after the election, president obama's news conference -- there was not a lot of glorification of winning and losing. it was a different message. the results were significant and with party control shifting in the senate, it will be consequential for policymaking. this seems to be a real focus on what president obama said in the news conference on getting stuff done.

our task over the course of this week is to identify how our elected officials can get stuff done. let me give you a little bit of a framework for how we are planning to do that over the course of this week. as i look at all these washington center bags, you should carry these with pride. in hofstra, she said why are all these faculty carrying washington center bags. they can carry a laptop and not break for a year. i can tell you that because mine is starting to fray so i am so happy to have my new one. hang onto those bags. in this seminar, we have three underlying questions. what i want to do this morning is to talk about these questions and the readings we

selected for you to analyze the policy issues we are focusing on -- the budget, immigration, health care. the specific policy issues over the next three days. i will talk a lot about those today. i want to talk about the questions, our readings, and some of the specific scholarly debate that informs the political debate in washington today. the term the participant observer that dr. gross used that really encapsulates well what we want, how we want you to approach of the seminar. it is different from a 15 week class. we want you to be engaged in discussions and want to make the link between the

policymaking process. very explicit. that should happen in the classroom everyday. it is difficult when you are covering a range of topics in american politics. when you have a diverse audience as well. here, we are a homogenous audience. 168 students here that are passionate about american politics. we have an opportunity to make some advances from the ideas that form the foundation of our political debate to engage in the political debate and to participate in that as all of you will be doing in the simulation. hopefully, finding ways to reach policy outcomes. i would like to read a few minutes today -- i will probably have more time tomorrow -- for you to come to the microphone and ask -- if you want to think about this now and i will get to this in

about 20 minutes. questions that you would like to see us address about bipartisanship or short comments. keep the remarks brief. i will try to address your comments. think about that. i would like it to be a conversation as much as possible. i will try to put conversation in each of my talks. the questions underlying our seminar -- why don't we have bipartisanship? i think it is pretty fair to say when you look at the 113th congress, the least productive congress since the end of world war ii. government shutdown for 17 days. we have not seen bipartisanship. why don't we have that? is bipartisanship a desirable goal for american politics in the 21st century?

we should not take that as a given. the title of the seminar is exploring bipartisan solutions in the new congress. as you will see when our speakers come over the next three days to talk about the budget, immigration and health care, their definitions of bipartisanship are not always the same. without getting into specifics we have two repeats speakers from last year and other new ones. the returning speakers have clear positions on what the federal government needs to do about economic policy. what bipartisanship actually means. this is reflective of scholarly readings as well, the one by the political scientist grossman and hopkins on the

differences in the political parties. bipartisanship -- what the public always wants. the third policy is oriented towards the policy. what can the congress and president obama due to achieve bipartisanship with the budget immigration and health care? to address of these three questions, we spent some time this fall identifying a series of readings that encapsulate address some of the most pressing, scholarly debates that appeared most often in public discussion. the first set of reaadings, the debate over the american public

being polarized, is one that received quite a bit of discussion. i often switch between the fox and msnbc, cnn to see what everybody is saying and there were discussions of 2016. the number of books that are coming out from potential candidates and their spouses. there was the discussion the new congress convening and what will get done. are we too polarized? it is fastening what the terms are being used. it is the college debate in washington today. the first question for all of us -- the first debate that i want you to engage in as you listen to the speakers, write in your journals, do we have polarization? what is the american public think about policymaking in the

21st century? a political scientist from stanford published a book 10 years ago in which he argued that the american public has not changed in the last several decades. that we still have a strong center, but that the extremes on both sides -- the far left and the far right -- have become much more polarizing and much more activist. he attributes the dysfunction or the obstacles, the barriers to policymaking to polarization among party elite. that is elected officials and political activists. there is a different argument. he says -- i should've added -- the polarization is extreme. the public has sorted.

the public is not polarized. there is a large group of people in the middle. people in the left have moved to the left and the people in the right have moved to the right but there is still a middle. he agrees about polarization among the elites but says that has filtered through to even the less attentive public. some of the opinion is more broad. professor said we do have polarization in the public. also combine that with a divided government and what he says is abuse of the filibuster in the senate to halt policymaking, to create almost not impossible to overcome, but

highly difficult to move past these barriers. that is the first debate that is important for us to engage because when we look at public opinion and political parties, representative democracy depends on public opinion. the framers did not want political parties. the organizing principles of the party is to bring voters together. that is the first set of readings. the reading by klein on red states and blue states, i think is very informative because it talks about differences in the composition of the political party. klein looks at the research by grossman and hopkins and finds when you look at the constituencies of the republicans and the democrats, they see parties have very different interests.

they see the republicans tend to be much more focused on ideology. whereas democrats tend to have a coalition of groups that focus on compromise and governance. it is not the say one is good or one is bad. if i took all of those three words -- ideology, compromise and governance, we would say elected officials should embrace all of them in some form. we don't want officials who have no idea what they are doing. we don't want officials who cannot govern. we do need officials to work together. the two parties have diverged in their constituency. the people who go towards one party say either one of those principles. it makes it very difficult to

bring the parties together. the reason i picked klein's analysis as well as for the presidential leadership piece is that he presents a very thoughtful summary and then a critique. with the other piece, he says his view is the voters can change parties. voters see ideology as their main goal. they can also shift of the direction of their party to be more amenable to govern its or bipartisanship. or if their party is so focused on getting something done that compromises lose sight of the larger term goal. health care but incremental health care reform rather than some of the larger plans that were proposed in 2009.

that is just one example. voters can shift parties because after all the party represents all of us. think about that as you look at political parties and voters. to what degree do we see polarization? is that among our elite or is that among the general public? how did the parties reflect their constituencies and do voter party members direct their elected officials to act in certain ways as far as either pushing for the policy process or halting it. once we shift from voters in parties, we also selected a series of readings on the institution.

not so much on the courts although as we talk about health care, obviously they play a significant role. we will discuss that. for the policymaking process we are focusing on the new congress and the white house. i will talk about the reading on the "new yorker" because i think that addresses a number of issues in presidential studies of that seems to be at odd with how presidential politics works in practice. the main debate in presidential politics -- studies today is what is presidential power? a famous political scientist published a book in 1960 that senator kennedy read during his campaign and use it as a model for how he would govern.

after the bay of pigs, i believe it was aimed to be towards eisenhower. he famously said in the book that presidential power is the power to persuade. he goes on to say the power to persuade is the power to bargain. how do presidents persuade? well, he talks about professional reputation with washingtonians, that is members of congress, interest groups the larger circle of people that make up the policymaking spehere in washington, including elected officials but not only elected officials. that is what many of our speakers you will see come from major think tanks in washington that have played a significant role in influencing the policy

debate. for immigration, i was very excited we could bring two speakers from organizations that have been in the news repeatedly since president obama announced his executive order on immigration. people who are not legislating but significantly influencing legislation. presidents persuade through building their professional reputation in washington and through public support, public prestige. how do they build public support? a common argument is they do it through the bully pulpit. teddy roosevelt is mentioned with this. i'm not sure where he actually mused that phrase but we will give him credit for it. the bully pulpit -- george edwards, political scientist at texas a&m university, published

a book that said on deaf ears, the limits of the bully pulpit. public medication is not persuaded all, he said. he goes on with his argument that newstaff was wrong to say that presidential power is persuasion. we have these high expectations for the president to persuade. if president obama can just give a speech like the ones he gave in 2008 or the speech in 2004 in boston, the keynote address for senator kerry, that he can move the policymaking process forward. there are discussions about president obama can do more to communicate privately with his counterparts in congress. we can talk about that later. edwards says this idea that the

president can shift of the political debate in washington or can move the public is just wrong. now, maybe it is not simple to say one person is right and the other is wrong. richard neustadt, we had a conference honoring him. he spoke and said he is thrilled that we are using his book now 30 years after the publication. he hopes 40 years from now that we will be using something else. that one book should not define a field of politics for so long. i think that is an active debate because we pay attention to presidential communication. we pay attention to the fact the state of the union will be on january 20. that president obama is visiting several states to lay out what his program for action will be. this is unusual. presidents have been delivering the state of the union address

in person before congress since 1913. woodrow wilson resumed at that tradition. jefferson thought that was too ceremonial. he sent his speech and writing and that is the way it went until woodrow wilson picked up the position. today state of the union addresses are a big public event. we are paying attention to them, we look at president have to say. it has been the source of significant statements. think about president bush in 2002 -- the axis of evil. presidents usually use the state of the unit dressed in layout. president obama has already given an indication in how we are moving forward with policies, including health care and energy, immigration, economic policy. he will be making the case for

that in the next couple of weeks as the build up to his state of the union address. is it fair to say none of that matters? maybe it does not shift public opinion polls, but edwards' evidence is fairly solid. if you are not persuaded with obama being a good example -- president reagan would go out and give a speech come and get lots of applause and not move the public opinion needle at all. we can like a presidents communication and appreciate them but it does not mean we are persuaded to shift our policy view. so, i would like you to think about this debate over what is presidential power. is at the power to persuade? if so, how important are a

president's public and private communications in achieving persuasion of the public and of elected officials. we also have two readings on congress. mann and orstein have been in the public eye for quite a while. they published a book in 2012. the problem with this function in congress. we found two articles and you will see the 2012 article talks about the dysfunction in congress, gridlock. and they argue the polarization among elites is much stronger in the republican elites than democratic ones. they also argued -- i think the

2006 article focuses on foreign-policy which is not one of our topics this week, but the article is significant because they say that congress has conducted less oversight in the 21st century than congress did after world war ii. they question whether congress is losing its institutional identity. the system of separation of powers, checks and balances that the framers created intended for congress as article one -- the president is article two. they argue that in the past decade in the 21st century that balance of power has shifted too much towards the executives and congress has not asserted itself. now, you can say with the government shutdown, that was an assertion by congress of not doing anything. the argument is more so, it is

not just numbers, what has been passed and not. there is the argument about the balance of power. who is leading the policymaking process in washington? they focus on congress. the identify shortcomings in our the executive as well but focusing on congress, they argue that congress has been losing it constitutional identity. you have those three sets of readings. i am hopeful you will see over the course of the week how all of those topics, public opinion, public attitudes, political parties, president and congress influence the political and policy debate that will be looking at this week. i have to put in a quick word about the simulation. i'm very excited about the roles that all of you will be playing this week. we started with -- we created

the groups last year, but we have really taken it to a new level this year with the assignment. i know i was speaking with a few of you today and a little yesterday about how you take on a role. you don't have to take on the personality of someone, but reflecting their views positions in congress, i think is very significant because we are all restricted to a certain degree by our organization. by the people we represent, by what our role is whether it is in the classroom, a student organization, internship or job, we are all restricted to a certain degree by our responsibilities. the organization we work for and the pressures on that organization.

it's easy to come up with big ideas. it is much more difficult to put ideas into practice. the theme again from president obama, from speaker boehner and senator mcconnell -- i heard it in a talk shows this morning. the american public wants us to get things done. what does that mean when you take these debates over polarization, what the political parties are supposed to do, how they represent voters -- what does getting stuff done mean is much more confident. our goal over the course of the next week for this part of the academic is for you to participate and think about the process, but that's a play a part in that process through a specific role and see how many opportunities there are.

do we have time to take a couple of questions? if anybody has quick comments or questions, come up to the mic. i would be glad to address those now. no one at this point? i will say a few more words if not but i would like to hear from someone. we do need you to come up so we can all be recorded. if you would like to come up and give your name and a question you have about bipartisanship or about any of the topics we just discussed. i will say a few more things now. if you would like, if you decide you have a question then come up and we will incorporate that. i did not say a lot yet about policy issues because we will

be discussing those in much more detail tuesday, wednesday and thursday. tomorrow, you have the budget. and health care. wednesday will be focused on immigration. you will hear multiple perspectives on immigration policy and president obama's recent executive order. thursday, we will do budget and health care. we have assigned for each of those topics a series of readings from the bipartisan policy center website. you will see there is a lot to cover. what we try to do was identify, you can go to the website and look at subtopics and identify information. we have pointed you towards links of recent articles that some are a little dated but they give you important

historical background. we want you to engage in the wealth of detail there is on each of these policies. it is kind of a delicate balance with policy issues. we don't want to overwhelm you, but we want you as participants in the simulation to be aware of how much information is out there and how you try to crystallize the range of perspectives on let's say health care policy. what is a full-time worker? how do you arrange delivery services? how do we address the payments to doctors? the question about subsidies for the federal exchange, the majority of the states that did not create exchanges. how do you engage on those issues? for immigration, how do we incorporate questions about visas, temporary programs and

the question of undocumented immigrants currently in the country. him him the begich, how do we address -- is there a possibility for tax reform? those are some of the questions we are going to address. please engage the policy readings as much as you can and try to come away from them with an appreciation of the details.

[applause] >> one really great thing about this seminar is it is the crux of a valuable and new partnership between the washington center and the bipartisan policy center. the bpce has arranged panelists for the seminar. because of its involvement in this educational opportunity the washington center awarded a civic engagement leadership award this past october. the washington center has a long-standing friendship with senator tom daschle. he sends his best to you all, but he will not be able to make the seminar this year. i would now like to introduce you to the president of the

bipartisan policy center. he is respected on both sides of the aisle for his approach. in 2007, he founded bpc with tom donna and others -- tom goledole and others. he regularly authors up-and pieces and appears in national media. he frequently speaks at national forms and has testified at national forms and is sought out i policymakers and business

leaders. his first book, "city of rivals" a fantastic title, was released last september. please welcome jason. [applause] alex good morning. -- >> >> good morning. i am happy to spend the morning with you reflecting upon what is going to happen in 2015.

i am about to offer a lot to of opinions. they are just open unions. none of us know anything. right? we all have ideas based on our experience. the great opportunity you have is to form your own opinion. that is the queen of the realm in washington. the goal is to have it views on things. this is a nice way to get started. i totally understand why nobody jumped to the microphones. i is going to focus and clarity don't take a lot of notes. by the book if you really care about what i am thinking. my intent is to give you some pragmatic optimism about this crazy democracy. i have shaped the emphasis on

"glorious mess pepco our founders were pure optimists. for 230 eight years it has worked. can you imagine a group of people who had to interact with each other who did not know each other? that has been the strength. the diversity of this country has been reflected in the resiliency of our public policy. while this town is a mess it is like a really old grand pml. it is cacophonous. but it does need to be tuned up. the essential ideas of the bipartisan center in this book is how you can provide that tuneup. the girls not to create a

nonpartisanship, but effective partisanship. -- the goal is not to create nonpartisanship, but an effective partnership. you will hear other points of view and from other speakers. when the bipartisan policy center. with an emphasis on the b.: that is the engine of our democracy. this is not a new idea. we have had partisanship in this country from the beginning. i'm sure you have heard of the clinton administration. during that time, we had the contracts with america. we had a government shutdown. we had that little lewinsky scandal, where they in fact, in

peach to the sitting president. while that happened, congress passed legislation. within three weeks of being impeached, he signed pieces of legislation. i am told, although i cannot confirm it, then on the day he was impeached, president clinton called gingrich to talk about some legislation pieces he had. he was a unique individual. the question we ask ourselves is , what has happened? what has happened in the past years that does not allow washington to metabolize the hostility that is essential to the democratic process? the first thing i would suggest is think about the question. generally, the way people think about washington is that toxic angry partisanship causes gridlock. obviously, there is a lot of

truth in that. what if gridlock actually causes angry partisanship and it leads you to a different place? this is not new. throughout history we have been absolutely furious at one another in our democratic passes. do not need a constitutional amendment, we district -- redistricting -- redistricting matters. it is almost impossible to draw competitive districts in the country. the notion that the media's to blame, of course the media is to blame. this is not new. in 1800, the election between thomas jefferson and john adams two people found in storied members of our democracy. the newspaper supporting jefferson referred to adams as

having a portable hermaphroditic nature, neither the fungus of a man nor the sensibilities of a woman. -- neither the firmness of a man nor the sensibilities of a woman. the other said that black people would attack your family if jefferson was elected. so this is not otherworldly. to the extent that you believe that there is some role in dysfunction causing partisanship, it leads you to a set of solutions that are more ethical about how you can make the place function a little better. let's may give you a couple of those ideas. then i will say a couple words about some of the background and how washington can be a little

more active than last. then, once again, you will be challenged to step up to the microphone. it is hard to get things done if you do not know each other. this is simple kindergarten one hundred one. you cannot run a country on wednesday, which is that with been doing. mcconnell and mccarthy have both instituted schedules that will have congress in town for days a week, but ba profound benefit. that sense of connection is what allows people to have fights within the family and then move on the next day. the challenge of having too much focus on leadership for the last several years leadership has taken away on the power from congressional committees. congressional committees used to be the place where you worked things out. the ad committee was partisan, but they cared about

agriculture. they had a sense of shared mission. they used to be the place for you would take votes and then send those lowered. legislation that passed with a significant majority, you would look to the floor. not anymore. these days it is all controlled by leadership and leadership has a different imperative. there are imperative is to stay in power. there in parrot of is to get the best political points out of everything, which is different than a committee structure. also, senator reed, former leader senator reid as of tomorrow, may a very bad call in this last session. he was trying to protect democrats, quote unquote hard votes. votes that might them at odds with some aspect of their

constituency. it did not work. all seven democrats he tried to protect lost. one of the reasons was they did not have the ability to differentiate themselves from the president. every one of them voted with the president 98% of the time. also in another commercials. had they been able to take hard votes, they would have voted differently than the administration. giving them a little space. more important, that is what they are supposed to do. one senator spent six years in the u.s. senate and did not get a single vote on an amendment. six years. not one time did he have the ability to pose a change to legislation and have it be voted on. this makes them really mad. one of my arguments is that of the reason for the toxicity is

how frustrating of a job it is. the voting process let you let the steam out of the system a little bit. the failure to accomplish things, the failure to instigate things, you'd get angry. the only place to go is to go to that kind of tribal party dissonance. a couple other suggestions i make in my book which are less obvious are bring back earmarks. i don't know how much you know about the process but since the 1780's, members of congress have been able to direct specific amounts of money to the things they care about. it got a little out of control. there were too many of them. the process was not transparent. but, the notion of getting rid of them is not. we want members of congress to take tough votes. in a national interest, which in some ways is going to be against

their voters immediate interest. but that is the only way the country is going to work. if we deprive them of the ability to do anything their constituents like, they are not going to do anything. it earmarks are the essential balance between that obligation to have a national interest in land a local election that was an into the constitution. you do not cost any more money. that is one of the biggest fallacies. they need to be controlled. they need to be put on a website. they need to be voted on. but the idea of eliminating them has made it harder to pass legislation. and finally, aided by technology, and ever-increasing love affair with transparency. any democracy needs to take this idea very seriously. i make the point in my book that the opposite of transparency is

privacy, not corruption. a need to find a way to balance the essential obligation for people to explore new ideas without tv cameras on. the executive branch not always having to be concerned freedom of information requests. a simple stuff. it does not sound right to a lot of people, that the example i give is that every holiday season my life in and i have to decide whose in-laws to visit. it will be a much different conversation if our in-laws were in the room. that is how it goes with everything. right? people with the greatest vested interest are staring over the shoulders of our electric public -- elected officials. there needs to people like voting but at that moment when you are trying to craft an idea, explore different things.

they have to encourage members of comfort -- congress two ignore technology sometimes. that is the only way they are going to get to know each other. our commission on political reform, one of our projects where much products last year, a lot of the recommendations i mentioned will be addressed. a number of suggestions about how you reform the election process, the cousin it is certainly true that our election process is amplifying the process. one of the things, at a basic level, is to get more people participate in. it is difficult to run a participatory democracy without more people participating. that tends to bring out the people that are most focused and organized and generally, the most ideological.

that will take a while to shift that around. the political scientists will tell you -- moving to more early voting does not actually show an increase in turnout. i thought it would. we have voting on tuesdays because about 200 years ago most people liked to go to church. a lot of them lived too far from the county seat to get there on horseback by monday. that is why we voted on tuesday. chris rock said, do you know why we had elections on tuesday? because they do not want us to vote. there is a strong sentiment that hard-working folks have a harder time getting to the polls. we talked about having a national primary day. most do not even know the primaries happening, let alone to make a decision not to vote

in it. finally, consistent with the ethers of the bipartisan policy center, we need to strengthen the groups in elections. this is counterintuitive to some people because the parties are always the groups that had the bad name. you must ask yourself, compared to what? what would have done, through a combination of citizens united is limited resources that can go to parties and made it possible for unlimited resources to go to dark money third parties. you should ask senator bennett about his experience [indiscernible]

-- often, you feel the need to run against her own supporters or take the blame. one of the most ironic [indiscernible] edit -- he even if they have to identify themselves against their own supporters. congress, in the cromnibus, the most horrible new word that should not be entered into the english language, will now allow the parties to raise, not quite as freely but almost as freely as the third parties. we also have to require disclosure of campaign financing. there is no constitutional argument against disclosure. the parties have to disclose. the c4's and dark money does not.

that is one way you could level the playing field. i have lost track of time. -- there is a lot of practical things, a number of modest steps that congress can take with some support from the public that will get the system working good enough. in the clinton administration, 50% of the public thought congress was doing a good job. that is good enough. this is not a country that wants its public to believe with 80 7% enthusiasm that its government is great. we are a divided country. whoever is not in power is going to be critical. that we can make steps in that direction. let's end with a few words about the dynamics which give us some optimism. it is a low bar.

without understanding, having age poorly divided government, where both parties are accountable to lead, is a better system than what we had only had the congress split to one party in the white house. this is going to obligate the republican party, who does not have the power of the presidency, to demonstrate its capacity to lead in and get things done with much more accountability and less possible when you had a divided congress. another very important factor is the economy is getting better. we haven't talked much about kentucky about polarization and dysfunction, this was a really awful decade for a lot of people. that makes them mad. that makes them look for someone to blame. it creates the animus that leads into this kind of authorization. the 19th and early grew out of

that kind of economic anger and -- the tea party grew out of that kind of economic anger. the senate is going to flip back, almost certainly, in two years. 24 of the 33 seats are in incumbent republicans. they will have to protect a lot more seats. during a germanic policy change you will see that flip back. when anyone thinks they have a mandate, they act very badly. no one is going to have a mandate in this country for a very long time. they're going to be changing seats in 24 months. the last june that we are playing with and we will see if it is true is constructive anger. for the last several years, the

anger has been coming from the edges. this is almost always true when you have an insurgent movement. it tends to shut things down because the people who are used to getting things done just do not know how to respond to that kind of anger. it is always understood that if you had your leader ready to support legislation and the senate was ready to support the legislation, you could round up the votes. that was not the case. it was the expectation bad to you would always have the majority of the majority. the understanding was that you would have to have the majority of the majority. in the last few years, it was hard to do. but then boehner moved forward without that, it strengthened

rather than not. now, the folks who want to get think stein are getting pissed off. -- now, the folks who want to get things done are getting pissed off. one senator described his job to me as being a glorified secretary who occasionally gets to vote for the secretary of education. you see these gangs forming. bipartisan legislative gangs. that does not have to be part of the culture of the committees. the pros are shifting a little. continue to be very ideologically polarized. the number of people who want to see things get done a growing. those dynamics, kind of an angry middle will be useful as we go forward. i think we're going to have a great couple weeks. the timing could not be better.

this is not an easily predictable couple of years. we are happy to be working with the washington center. we hope you enjoy our website. thank you. [applause] should we threaten them with questions, or have i run over? i can stretch. [indiscernible] hiding in plain sight. ask -- >> >> i was wondering, for the people

of anger you were talking about, if they are not satisfied with congress how come there has not been a bill or preposition to make voting day a holiday. in belgium, where i am from voting day is a holiday. you have to vote. i am pretty sure, if they enforce that here, it should help. >> that idea has been raised pretty consistently. they have not gotten as much contraction -- traction as it should. but something's have happened that makes me think it will be. the parties at one time thought the motivation around the edges was good for them. the republican party thinking about the tea party believed that in some cases lower turnout would advantage their

candidates. but two things are happening. one is that people who are getting elected in those lower turnout elections are not, very often, the people who work well with the party. so the party is now looking for a slightly different kind of candidate. also there is something happening in the political republican party about whether it can sustain the perception that it is interested in reducing turnout. whether it you believe some of these laws are designed with an electoral motivation, who knows what people's intent are. but the idea that the republican voter base is shrinking is an idea that has a lot republicans concerned. whether it is a national holiday, which costs a little of money because we still have to pay government officials. what whether it is at a

different time our dusky constitution prevents management voting. we heard from some folks in australia that it is not as great as it sounds, because you are forcing people to vote who are not paying attention at all. so you can get some counterintuitive results. one in five, 20% of people voting will not sustain a good, healthy democracy. thank you. [indiscernible] >> my name is james. i am from central michigan university.

i have a question about earmarks. i know it marks are a very controversial issue in local elections. why the emphasis on returning earmarks. i know each is trying to add something for their particular constituency, but don't people in local elections vote on national issues? >> i do not think a lot of local people vote on purely national issues. i have both foresaw for coral and practical arguments for earmarks. the philosophical is that the tension in our government from 1776 has been state versus federal. you have to balance those two

things. a member of congress seeking to do something that helps them locally is not scurrilous. the system did get out of hand. by the time we did away with it, there were some pretty good controls. the administration had to comment on the project. that was good. the idea, philosophically, that we should say only the president for executive branch should decide how to spend the money i do not think it is the truth laid the setup was supposed to work. pragmatically, we will have 18 people working together on an energy policy. we call it hanging ornaments on the tree. very often, once person -- once a person gets their thing, a little thing, into their group they are then invested into the hall. they are almost like policy earmarks in our context.

once you have your lawyer upgraded hospital in the health-care bill, it is your health care bill. it matters. if you talk to elected officials, senators lott and daschle will tell you it is hard to lead when you have no incentives. if it takes a rather useless runway in rural missouri, a couple fire stations that theoretically are not cost-beneficial and a nursing home to get into item take the deal. my last story, since i like this topic, we have a civil rights act basically, because of the earmarks. in the last year of the johnson presidency, he relates the story that the bill was once again stuck in the house rules committee, where democratic chairman said it would never see

the light of day. johnson needs to go to the republicans to get the bill out of come mitty. -- out of committee. one of them started swearing and said what -- do you need? and he said i need a national center in my beloved purdue university. -- a nasa research center in my beloved purdue university. was that with the country needed? who knows? but that what was needed to make the deal. those moments come around. the greater good is served if we empower people to make it easier for them to act in the national interest. >> one more question.

>> hi. i am from the university of san diego. my question is about the way we conduct primary elections. do you think the shift in the last couple elections for more direct primary elections, has increased or decreased partisanship? >> it is hard to point to anything that has decreased partisanship in the last decade, but my view of our commission is that to you should have the most democratic open programs in processes. we have seen in some closed caucus systems, people who you would not expect to have broad public support come out as a candidate. i can only suggest that you talk to senator bennett, who will be here, if he is not already about the challenge of having a

basically 70 plus a approval rating into not getting out of the caucus process. so i think the broader the better. next thank you. >> all right. it is now my pleasure to introduce a policy analyst who works at to our democracy project a end michael has worked on capitol hill for senators. a little known fact about him, we had a holiday party in and took the risky chance of doing karaoke. he killed it. you would never have thought it, but he was all over the karaoke. maybe you will break into song. michael. [applause] >> thank you jason, for

reminding everyone about the holiday party karaoke. i am going to bring up our first panelist. senator bennett has not been able to join a ship but he is on the way. the first person i want to bring up is former agriculture secretary dan glickman. secretary glickman is a senior at the bipartisan center. he cochairs our commission on political reform as well as our nutrition and physical activity initiative and our task force on defense budget and strategy. secretary glickman is currently the executive director of the aspen congressional program which is a non-governmental bipartisan governmental program for members of congress. we also have programs out there that help members of congress do their jobs better. i think this is one of the most interesting jobs secretary glickman has had. he was previously chairman of the motion picture association of america, representing hollywood and all of those folks in california. he was also the director of the institute of politics. before these jobs, he had a career in politics. he served as the agriculture

secretary during the clinton administration and for 18 years, and the house, representing the congressional district in cambridge. let's welcome secretary dan glickman. [applause] >> i just want to get some background on our commission of political reform. it was born out of a stormy, political presence we are living in. right now, we will introduce senator bennett. [laughter] [applause]

senator bennett is also a senior fellow and bipartisan policy center. he served in the u.s. senate for 18 years, first being elected in 1993. senator bennett was on the banking committee, the joint economic committee, so he has a strong background in national economic issues and was also a member of the appropriations committee and has a great understanding of our budgeting process and spending process which a lot of people do not realize are not the same process. besides serving in the senate, he was a highly successful entrepreneur. he was the ceo of a publicly listed company. he continues to work in the private sector on entrepreneurial issues. yes a good understanding of the nexus of those two issues. one thing i want to bring up -- two great quotes about senator bennett. he has been praised for two

qualities throughout his career -- his intellect and integrity. bill clinton said he is a highly intelligent, old-fashioned conservative. >> i am older than bill clinton. [laughter] >> you are old and you wear nice fashions. >> senator majority leader harry reid said there is no more honorable member of the senate. i think that was well earned over his career so we are happy to have him here with us as well. our commission on political reform was born out of a stormy, political presence. you have all been watching it over the last few years. polarization is that the highest level since reconstruction. according to a poll we

commissioned with usa today, we do not mix with our neighbors. if we are republicans, we do not talk to democrats. we probably do not live in neighborhoods, probably even states, with republicans. more and more, we get our news from sources that is biased or ideologically driven. if you do not see it on c-span you see it on the news networks. that has been on display in congress over the last two congresses, we probably have the least productive in the modern era. not just unable to address pressing issues, but unable to do their basic job, struggling to pass budgets, struggling to pass appropriations bills, struggling to pay our national debt. these are basic functions congress should be able to do but struggle with. not surprised when, their approval rating is at an all-time low.

i will not mention any of the other professions they rank in these things but they are definitely for the bottom. -- unsavory folks. i think in a lot of citizens there is a sense of apathy maybe futility, but certainly distrust in the system. what was born at bpc was a forum for people like these two gentlemen, people who believe we can transcend that. that these trends are not permanent. if we listen to one another, we can govern even in this polarized environment. we put together a 29-member commission. we had former interior secretary

, senator bennett was one of our members. we had a really knockout group of people. former members of congress governors, cabinet officials. civic leaders, business leader people from all walks of american life. we went through an 18 month process and went all over the country -- california, ohio, philadelphia. we had meetings and engaged the american public. then, they had some debate and a liberation. they had -- and the liberation. -- debate and deliberation. they did find common ground. that is our blueprint for strengthening our democracy. it contains 69 recommendations. we are not going to go through all of them today it there are

-- at -- but three major areas of reform -- forming congress, forming our elections system and a call to public service. not all of these are a magic pill. if we enact them all tomorrow, the system is not going to turn around although i think we would see some big changes. there is always a way to find out how to work the system but these are achievable steps. they can really begin to lower the political temperature and get our system back to a level in which it can function. i want to start out kind of broad and ask you, is our system broken? are we in trouble? is there a future question mark -- is there a future? what is the outlook? >> thank you for allowing us to be here. i came last year and it was really great. is our system in trouble?

our system was created almost to ensure gridlock. imagine this -- most countries have an authoritarian system like the chinese or russians or else they had a parliamentary system like the british or canadians where the chief executive is also the chief member of legislature. the parliament is executive and legislature together. we have a system called separation of powers. the founding fathers wanted to split authority and government so they created congress, the executive, and they said they were all equal. if you do not think that is a prescription for gridlock, nothing is. they created a system that did not have a center of accountability. from the very beginning, our system was not necessarily designed to be extremely smoothly operating and results in great distrust of the king or executive. they always worry about the tyranny of executives.

that is why they made congress article one. not to the executive article one. that is a pretty compelling point about where they wanted the ultimate to reside. then, they thought congress could be in tierney as well so this was that an two into the house and senate. our system is designed to have one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator at all times. it only works if there is trust across the aisle and if there is leadership and if congress has rules and systems that work well and the president works with congress and congress works with the president and there is a trust between the two branches. i think what has happened in the last several years, maybe a couple of decades, is that the basic system of separation and gridlock is institutionally put

into our system but there are always ways to work around it. one way was regular order, putting systems in place. one way is for the president and congress to work together on primary issues. now, you have a lot of pressures on the system that we never had before. massive money and our political system, it really has a monumental impact. on average, congressional raises 5 million. an average senate races maybe 25 million. just imagine what that does. you combine that with 24 hour media and social media and there are so many pressures on the system that we never have before. instantaneous access is there. saying that, i do not think the

system is going to fall apart. i think our political system is still very resilient. parts of our system are working much better. state local units of government , are working better in the congress works when it has to. the last month or two that of the sessions this year, they got some stuff done because they had to. what it data as it is -- what it does is it puts a much greater premium. it puts more premium on the people to understand what they should and should not expect their government to do. i would say the system is troubled but not deceased and not dead and frankly, it is the people who are going to decide whether it is related enough to be a competitive power for years to come. >> i am in agreement.

i do want to make additional comments. the ultimate source of power in america is the people. that is different from many other countries. we are the oldest democracy in the world. the british might argue with that but they had a parliament before we had a democracy. they did not have the kind of constraints on the king they have now until we showed them the way of allowing the people to ultimately make a decision. if you do not think people are still in charge, and you think outside forces are in charge and you think outside forces are

in charge, just ask jimmy carter or george h.w. bush, both of whom had all of the powers of the presidency at their control when the people decided they wanted to get rid of them. they could not maintain their power regardless of the formal levers of power. ultimately, the people and the way people vote determines what is going to happen in american politics and provides a leveling factor and a change factor that can take care of the extremes. when did report came out from bpc of all of the things that should be changed, bpce took a to capital hill and started showing it to congressional leaders in capital hill. they went to senator mcconnell and he said, i do not have time

to go through it all. will you take it to senator alexander? he was not being rude, he was just being realistic about the kinds of pressures a leader has. the bpc staff said to me, you are close to alexander, which is true. will you go with us? kind of to make sure alexander would come to the meeting i guess. i do not think that was necessary. i think he would have showed up whether i was there or not. but, i went in and they presented these recommendations. lamarr alexander, who is a student of american politics and longtime participant, he was and the nixon white house where i first met him.

when i was in the nixon administration. he was governor of tennessee, he has been a university president, a cabinet officer, and now he is a senator. there is not anyone with a broader background of american politics than lamar alexander. he listened politely to the things we had to say, and then he said, picking out one item, he said with the exception of one item, we could change everything you are asking for and accomplish everything you want this afternoon. if we had a different majority leader. now we have a different majority leader. as i was riding in this morning and got out the newspaper, there was a story on the front page of the washington post about mitch

mcconnell's goal for the next two years. any of you see it? i recommend you read it. summarized in one sentence mitch mcconnell says he wants the republicans to not be scary between now and 2016. he wants to set the table for the republican nominee in 2016 by demonstrating that the republicans are capable of governing. he uses the phrase, we do not want to be scary. what is he talking about? he is talking about the tea party. in 2010, which was the wave election of the people saying, we do not like what is going on in washington with the democrats

in complete control of the in complete control of the presidency and both houses of congress. we want a change -- the people said that. there are a lot of folks writing that wave -- riding that wave with attitudes that are pretty scary and here i am, a senate figure and they cost as republicans three senate seats. we were poised to win nevada delaware, and colorado where the incumbents -- the tea party came in, the people do not

participate in the primaries and the tea party nominated unelectable nominees in all three states and and the democrats three seats they would not have otherwise had. in 2012, they handed democrats three more with scary candidates. and 2010, it was the candidate who ran her campaign saying, i am not a witch. that is a really jaunty, catchy platform to run on. \platform to run on. another guy was talking about legitimate rate.

-- rape. another political position i would recommend avoiding being in favor of that kind of thing. add it all up. if we had those six seats from the previous elections, plus where we are now, we would be at 60. the republicans would be filibuster proof. and you understand why mitch mcconnell is saying, we do not want to be scary going into 2016. now, this is the same mitch mcconnell who said, and the democrats have been beating him up since he said it. he said, my primary goal is to see that barack obama is to be a one term president. they got all tangled up. the people's reaction and the various elections are causing an intelligent, thoughtful, political leader to say, we have to move away from the extreme positions. with the opprobrium harry reid took, referring to what

secretary glickman said, in the lame-duck, who was there on the democratic side leading the effort to make sure we got a regular orders done and the appropriations process handled in an intelligent matter? harry reid. harry reid and mitch mcconnell -- two old pros sitting down and saying, we have to solve the problem. harry reid now says, for how much he deserves to be beaten up, ok mitch, how do we work this out and make this happen.

it was very interesting to see how they made it happen. and the senate, it was harry reid and mitch mcconnell working together. in the house, it was john boehner because nancy pelosi said she did not want any part of it. the number two democrat was saying, nancy, we have to govern. and who was there with the two from the senate and two from the house, making phone calls to members of his party and saying, will you get in line and help out? barack obama. barack obama making common cause with john boehner and mitch mcconnell because the people had sent the message that they wanted things to start to work again. that is where you come in. because you are the people. what you do to get more folks to

participate in intelligent ways is what this effort on the part of the bpc is about. america, first nation to set itself up on the basis, yes, separation of powers, yes, gridlock, ultimate source of power -- the people. we have had all kinds of problems, made all kinds of mistakes, our history is filled with blunders and a lot of embarrassing things. but, we have muddled through the decades and centuries to have produced the strongest, most resilient, most diverse, most powerful economy and country the world has ever known.

and i'm a polyanna guy who says we're going to continue to muddle through just fine. >> i guess, if i may just comment. two things. one is, you mentioned i have a background in the movie industry so you've got to go see the movie selma. has anybody seen it yet? it's the story of how the vote rights act of 1965 was adopted. very important movie because it reinforces what the senator was saying. is the ultimate power of the people had is the power to vote. without that power, they lose every other power. the power to have equal treatment under the law, the power or lack of power to influence law enforcement. just all these other kinds of things. i think it's important. i think one question you ought to ask yourself, however, is that without leaders acting like leaders, how resilient can our political system be? because you're looking at two folks who in the legislative process lost.

and i can speak for senator bennett who is an extraordinary leader who always had his country's interest first and hopefully i did the same way and but for leaders to be leaders it means leaders have to risk losing. congress was never designed to be a permanent job with seniority and tenure protection. so for the political system to work, you need leaders that will act like that and get their members to respond accordingly. >> let's talk about congress a little bit. you know, you two served both of you 18 years in the house and the senate. but the last two congresses i would venture to guess have been nothing like when you were serving there. what's different? what's happened?

>> in the senate harry reid made a conscious decision as the majority leader to protect his vulnerable members. the senate, as you know, only elects a third of its members every election. it's a secure term. and every two years, a third of them are up. so you know in advance who is going to be up in the following year. and harry looked ahead to the 2014 election, which was the consequences of the election six years previous, and six years previous had been a very good election for the democrats.

and he had an awful lot of democrats up for reelection and only a few republicans. and he said to himself, self the republicans are going to be offering a whole bunch of amendments to every piece of legislation that comes on the floor that will create a series of tough votes, because i'll have to have them vote these amendments down. president obama will want them to vote these amendments down. the republicans will cast the amendments in the most attractive terms. so every amendment that is voted on will result in a 30-second commercial in the 2014 election saying, glickman voted against motherhood and apple pie, without the specifics of the motherhood and apple pie. >> i was the secretary. i would never vote against apple pie. motherhood is another story. >> so he has the authority as the majority leader to

determine what bills come on the floor. the majority leader is the traffic cop who says this bill can be voted on, this one i will not bring up. i won't bore you with the details of how that works but that's how it works. so he made the decision for partisan electoral purposes that he was going to protect his members from all of these controversial votes. the only trouble with that is, if you do that, you don't get any bills on the floor. now, that's an exaggeration. but basically the senate that i knew and served in, we would bring up bills, there would be amendments from the opposing party depending on who was in charge, you take a tough vote,

be prepared to lose, but it was the right thing for the country. you take a tough vote and the process goes forward. and harry said, let's try this to see if we can protect all of these vulnerable democrats from tough votes. it turned out it was a mistake because all of the vulnerable democrats he was trying to protect got beaten up in their campaign for not having done anything. and when they did vote, they always voted with the administration. so they got these 30-second ads saying, kay hagan votes with barack obama 97% of the time. so if you live in north carolina and you don't like barack obama, how do you express that? you express that by voting against kay hagan.

that's the way it's been done. it started before harry. the other majority leaders have tried that. but it came to a climax in these last two years to the point that i had members of the senate say to me, a wonderful conversation with a senior liberal democrat who sat me down and said, tell me about your life. tell me about your week now that you're out. what have you done last week? well, there i was at bpc -- and so forth. he says, you want to know my week? we've been in quorum call all week. in other words, the senate has done nothing for all week. we haven't been allowed to be on the floor. mitch mcconnell said when it looked as if he might be the new leader, and lamar told us this, he said: i promise if i become the majority leader we

will have amendable motions on the floor, and i warn my republican colleagues you will have to take tough votes. i will run the senate the way mike mansfield ran the senate back in the days following lyndon johnson. and lamar said: we in the republican conference said to him, mitch, if you do not do that, we will get a new leader. we insist that you go back to that even though it means exposure for us. now, again, the people spoke in 2014, and now i think harry thinks, well, i made a mistake. i happen to like harry reid. he's been a good friend and a very great help for me back in

the days when across the aisle you could do that. and i think harry made a decision. it seemed logical to him. he's made a decision now by virtue of what he did in the lame duck to say, let's try something else. >> i agree with everything the senator said. i would add a couple things. came in 1976 i ran against an incumbent republican congressman and spent $100,000 total. today that race would cost at least $5 million and who knows how much outside money would come to the race from places you never even heard of before. so what does that practically mean? well, it means is that as an elected official you spend most of your time raising money. so i used to spend a lot of time on the house floor just going down and listening with john dingell said or what some you know some other -- henry hyde.

you name the person. if i did that now as a member i would be guilty of malpractice and they would ship me out of the place. what are you doing listening sitting, not raising money? talking? so that's a big change. just imagine what a profound change that is to your life. if nothing else, it diminishes the ability of an individual member to become part of the political process. and so that's an enormous change. i would say that as a young member of congress back in the 1970s and 80s the process was much more open. so i was given the ability to amend bills. open rules. this is a process by which you can actually have an impact on the legislative process. i recall one bill after three mile island. any from pennsylvania? okay. remember the three mile island nuclear accident? so i offered an amendment to

require full-time inspectors from the federal government, every nuclear power plant in the country, and as a freshman that was a really big important thing. it gave me a role in the political process. that's been very difficult to do in recent years. both parties have closed the process down for individual members. it's much tougher in the house because in the senate one senator can still have great power in opening or shutting down the institution. but the house you're one of 435 and the rules of the house kind of give the leadership especially the speaker and the leaders much more power vis-a-vis the institution than the senate where they still have 100 equals that are able to manage that process. notwithstanding that, as we've talked about the last couple of months in the last session people did work together better and there are more open rules in the house in the last few months than we saw before. and that was good.

and the president, who himself did not really engage the congress very much -- and as a democrat i regretted that the president didn't engage the congress very much at all and he needed to much more. the last couple of months he seems to be engaging the congress much more. and you see that in the -- even in the mitch mcconnell statement wanting to work with the president much more. so there may be some optimistic things that are happening that the system will work better. the money is another problem. whether it will influence -- we had a speaker who said money is the mother's milk of politics. unfortunately it's become the cottage cheese and cream cheese and everything else in the system. it's kind of, you know, there probably are 30 fund raisers today or tomorrow for people. again, that's a bit unique. and so we've got to figure out how to deal with that problem constitutionally in such a way so that the -- what it does is

kind of squeezes out average people who aren't part of pacs and aren't part of the political fund-raising system to engage the political system. but notwithstanding that there are some positive trends happening because i think the elected officials understand that people are frustrated. their government doesn't seem to be moving on things like immigration, roads, sewers infrastructure, tax reform trade. they want to see something happening here. so, you know, that's where the system as the senator points out is reasonably resilient. even with all the problems we've talked about. >> let's switch gears a little bit to something you guys were talking about earlier. let's talk about electoral reform, something the commission focused on a lot. something you both have a lot of experience with. both parties seemed to be convinced that the other party is engaged in this semantic rigging of the system against that or -- the other party thinks the same thing about the other party, that we have

jerrymandering, that we haven't been able to do anything about campaign finance reform. the way primaries work, it's all in a way to game the system for one party's benefit and against the other. >> one thing that the commission focused on was on primaries. you know, the recommendation of a national primary day. what was the thought process behind that? why do we think we need one day across the country? >> you're the classic example. primaries and caucuses. >> yeah. i lost my seat in the senate without ever getting my name on the ballot. the system in utah sets up a party convention that screens candidates for the primary. all of the polls showed that if i had been in the primary i would have won renomination quite handily. i had a 70% approval rating among republicans.

i was down from the 95 i had previously because the tea party hated me for supporting george w. bush on immigration and supporting george w. bush on tarp. i'm a republican. this is a republican president. he happens to be right on both instances. he was six years a border state governor dealing with the border economy. he understands the immigration problem better than i do living in an interior state in utah and i'm going to vote with him on immigration. but the tea party types all insisted they knew more about the immigration issue than any border state governor knew, and the convention kept me off the primary ballot under utah law. i don't tell you that to gain

your sympathy because they did me a huge favor. i would have been so frustrated in the four years i've just described that i would be sitting there saying why in the world am i wasting my time doing this? but the point is the founding fathers did not give us any constitutional basis for regulation of political parties. they didn't like political parties. they were hoping there wouldn't be any political parties. the reason abigail adams said nasty things about thomas jefferson is that she accused him of being a party man. which of course he was. he was the founder of our first political party. in today's terms it wasn't much of a party, but did some very interesting things. his principle party voice was the newspaper that he got the federal government to pay the publisher for. all right.

we do not have any constitutional basis for regulating political parties. consequently, all of our political law is a combination of state law and party rules. in utah, the party has made the decision they're going to have a convention and state law allows it. in california, they abolished the primary system that i knew when we lived in california and replaced it with what they call the jungle primary, which is very different from louisiana where mary landrieu won the plurality in the primary and by most state law that would have been enough for her to win reelection. but in louisiana she had to have a runoff in order to get

50%. and that's different than the party primary in michigan. so one of the challenges we have is repairing the omission of the writers of the constitution and ask ourselves do we want a federal system controlling the nomination process for president and dictating to the states the nomination process, whereby parties get i happen to think that would be a good idea. it would mean amending the constitution, which i don't like. i vote against constitutional amendments on general principle because i think it is pretty much fine the way it is. on this one?

i would support some kind of careful analysis of how we recognize in a modern and national state a political process that makes sense. we don't have one now. >> i would make two additional points. i think the average voter turnout and primaries is less than 20%. imagine 15% of the voters are choosing who your congressman is. that goes to the point that most districts are gerrymandered or districted in a way that they favor one party or the other. there are not very many competitive seats anymore in the congress. maybe 10% or whatever. states are a little different.

>> you cannot reroute state lines. >> at least not today. the redistricting process is something we talked about in our report. there ought to be a way to redistrict states on rational bases. they have become very safe districts. that disenfranchises a lot of voters. you don't have quite the ability to influence your congressman. it encourages people on the extremes to control the political process. the right tea party will control the political process for the republicans and the left will do the same on the democrat side.

iowa, california, and others are looking at this from a legislative perspective. we want to see if we can find different ways to redistrict rather than letting the people who are elected doing the redistricting. i think that would help. also, ways to get more people to vote in primaries. primaries are confusing to a lot of voters. that is another thing we have looked at. then the final thing. money is raised in politics and where does it go? 80% of it goes into advertising. most of the advertising is your opponent is a criminal, he

is disgusting, he does terrible things. that has kind of been around for a long time, but when you multiply the amount of money in the political system, you multiply that sort of scurulous advertising. younger voters are not encouraged. the political system does not encourage a lot of people to participate because of what is involved in the campaign process, which discourages turnout and encourages the extremes in the base. that is something we have tried to address in our report. >> it sounds like you two would agree that a lot of people in congress, the rank-and-file

members, are getting cut out of the process. this is where we are getting all of this conflict and gridlock. >> as long as the voters see that the government is doing something. they see nothing happening. no bills passing. there is more happening than you might think is happening from the media. people do need to see that the system is on the level producing results. >> we probably have a lot of people interested in public service.

volunteers and rates are dropping off. people are giving less to charity. people are less engaged. what can we do about that? how can we get people more involved in the government? something inspired you both to that. >> it was involuntary. it was called the draft. in my day, when i was your age every young man was subject to the draft. i was able to get a deferment from the draft by registering for rotc in college, which meant i was committing to two

years, three years, whatever as an officer in the air force after graduation. they said, with those eyes, you could never be a pilot. i said, i had no intention of being a pilot. they said, we are sorry, we are not going to leave you in rotc. upon graduation, i was number one on the list that the draft board was going to call the next month. so, i immediately joined the utah national guard and that was a seven-year commitment to avoid a two-year commitment.

people say, how smart was that? the guard was not full seven years. the guard sent me on active duty for six months and then i had another 6.5 years of going to meetings every monday and two weeks of summer camp. it was a shared experience with every other young man in the country. when i showed up in california to go through basic training where they fired live ammunition over your head to convince you that they were serious. in my unit for basic training i had african-americans from the inner city, i had southern rednecks from the deep south.

there were a couple of other college graduates along with me who had gotten into this situation, a philosophy major who sat there talking about what did it mean to be sitting there carrying fatigues. it was a common experience that every young american male had. you could identify with other young men by virtue of that experience, regardless of their other backgrounds. it was a uniting factor in terms of american culture. i don't think we appreciate how significant it was in knitting america together. now, i was fortunate enough to

have served in the period just after korea and just before vietnam. so i never heard a shot fired in anger, but looking back on it, i hated it while it was going on. i can hardly wait until it was over. i had a young woman whom i had my eye to become my wife. and the six months on active duty, when i came home, she was wrapped up with somebody else. >> you did ok, though. >> fortunately. and as life would have it, i'm married to her sister. >> kept it in the family. >> kept it in the family. and i got the right one. all right. i think those kinds of shared experiences of service

identification with a cause bigger than yourself, focus on something other than your own career for a while are enormously valuable. the more we can find ways to do that, the more we can break down the cultural barriers and some of the political barriers. secretary glickman talks about gerrymandering and he is right. but increasingly, we are finding that americans are gerrymandering themselves. they kind of gather in communities, they migrate into cities or states where they feel comfortable of their own kind and their own reactions.

the experience of some of the growing up in white utah dealing with somebody who grew up in black new jersey just is not available to either anymore. it is tremendously valuable if you can find some situation where you are shoulder to shoulder with somebody very different than you are, very different from the community in which you live, doing something different than either one of you has as a career goal for a better community purpose. whatever we can do to find that in a way that is a little less coercive than the draft, i think it would be a very good thing. >> the commission recommends a voluntary national service.

everybody would be encouraged from the age of 18-28 to take one year of their life and do a military or nonmilitary option. it could be the military americorps, teach for america, a whole number of things. i think i would go with mandatory service, if i were in charge. mandatory service, not military. but that is probably not in the cards and i don't think the country would go for that, even though what i think senator bennett talked about is this period of sharing and experiencing something outside of your own comfort zone for a while in your life -- it is just incredible. are any of you thinking about peace corps?

americorps? the variety of things -- it could be church related. it does not have to be government related. when you come back, i venture to say that it changes your life. tom brokaw talks about what made the greatest generation the greatest generation. i'm from kansas and we have a member of the greatest generation who was a senator and majority leader for a long time and his military service had a lot to do with how he viewed life and politics and service and sacrifice. i think it is healthy. to be honest with you, i think this is the most important of the recommendations the commission makes. even though it is not legislatively very feasible. with this recommendation does is says that young people need to have common, shared

experiences beyond just their lives. it could go for older people too. it needs to start with people who are going through the education system initially either after high school or college. i think it would be a healthy thing for america to consider options and alternatives. there is a project called the franklin project headed up by general stanley mcchrystal. its goal is to get one million young people between the ages of 18 and 28 into programs and give them something for it. some benefit so that they would not have to do it for free.

>> i think we will turn it over now to the audience, if you have questions. there is a microphone here and one over here. if folks want to line up, we are ready to take questions. >> speaking about incentives for congress people to take the long view and the hard vote, what do you think is the best solution to incentivizing individual congresspeople to take the long view? >> first of all, nobody is going to do something that deliberately and intentionally causes their loss. that would defy the laws of

nature. if i went up and i said wheat programs are bad for this country, my constituents would think i was nuts. i am sent there to represent their views and perspectives as much as i can. i am also sent up there to use my on judgment as well. my judgment is that philosophically these jobs were not meant to be permanent jobs there was meant to be turnover. it does not believe -- i mean, i believe in term limits, but it means making decisions that there will not necessarily be 100% agreement on. how do you incentivize that? i think the system is always tense in that area.

ultimately, my job became personal integrity and judgment. when i was in the house, bill clinton asked me to vote for nafta. the polls were 78% no and 21% yes. but i thought, it is probably the right thing to do and i thought i could talk my way out of it with my constituents anyway. i went ahead and voted for it. i also voted for the crime bill in 1994, which had gun restrictions. guess what? i lost. mo udall talked about it. he said, the citizens have spoken, the bastards.

the people have to encourage their members to try to want to do the right thing and recognize that people are really of two minds of this. people say they want you to do the right thing, but they want you to do what they want to do most of the time. you sometimes have to stick your neck out as a leader. the turtle never makes progress unless he sticks his neck out. and comes down to personal character, courage, and integrity. >> fortunately, a large percentage -- and i would say in majority -- of the members of congress, regardless of party, try to do the right thing regardless of political

consequence. their conscience is sufficiently strong. tarp was enormously unpopular. it was enormously essential. you are all too young. this was the decision on the part of the treasury department to put $700 billion in support of the financial system -- attacked as a bailout for big banks by both the far right and the far left. secretary paulson came before the congress with ben bernanke and said, we have four days before the entire financial system melts down worldwide. and then ben bernanke said, i have run out of tools.

this is the chairman of the federal reserve saying, i have no tools left with which to deal with this challenge. the only institution big enough to deal with it is the united states treasury. and it is going to be a very big number. we said, how big? he said, $500 billion. the next day, we were wrong. it is $700 billion. chris dodd was the chairman of the banking committee. he called me and said, i want to meet with you tomorrow. i called senator shelby, the ranking member of the banking

committee, and he said, i want no part of it. i was next ranking. i called mcconnell. i said, chris has invited me to this, should i go? he said, take judd gregg with you. we decided to take bob corker as well. we walked in. chris had a couple of democrats, dick durbin and chuck schumer, arti franklin. in a two-hour period, we put the bill together. a lot more details went into it, but that was basically it. the house rejected it.

nancy pelosi said, this is enormously unpopular. republicans are in charge of the house, we will make the republicans pass it with republican votes, so she withheld x number of democratic votes. john boehner said, i'm not playing that game. and he withheld the appropriate number of republican votes and the thing failed. the new york stock exchange lost $1.5 trillion in value in the next 20 minutes, whereupon mcconnell and harry reid took the stage and together said that congress was scheduled to recess and we are not recessing until this has been passed. we will stand to hear and see to it. the collapse on the stock

exchange stopped after harry reid and mitch mcconnell took their stand. then talking to the house, ok, nancy pelosi released the democrats she had held back and john boehner said ok and leaned on. it passed the house. it came over to the senate. we made cosmetic changes. it is now passing the senate by a comfortable margin. it has passed the house. chris dodd, who lost his seat. chris, the chairman -- chris dodd, the chairman, walked across the aisle to gordon

smith, the senator from oregon and he said, gordon, you are facing a very tough reelection. we all recognize that. we have enough votes to pass this without yours. i recommend, for your reelection in oregon, you vote against it. that is a democrat talking to a republican. gordon smith said, chris, this is the right thing for the country, it is the thing we ought to be doing. i could not live with my conscience if i voted against it. gordon voted for it, gordon lost. that is the deep american

tradition. i think it still holds for all of the other stuff we talk about, get excited about, this is terrible, hannity goes crazy, sharpton goes crazy they yell at us back and forth -- i think the majority of the members of congress on both sides ultimately are in that position. >> two questions at a time and we will let you both work through them. >> i was touched by your story of being shafted by the tea party. why has it been such a successful movement on the right and why is there not an

equivalent on the left? >> i think our elected officials don't accurately represent the populations. 52% women and there are only about 15% or 20% women in congress and the senate. do you think this needs address and is it even possible? not try to mandate 52% of the seats are women, but is it possible to increase participation? with all the respect, most of the representatives are wealthy, older, white, christian men. >> i don't meet the wealthy or the christian, but i am older.

i guarantee it was like 5% 10 years ago. i would not be surprised if it is 40% or 50% in congress in five years. there has been a dramatic increase on both sides and it ought to be that way. redistricting helps that process, to some extent if it is done fairly. it makes it so that the people voting in congressional districts tend to be more balanced, centrist, independent in the process. i urge you to go see this movie "selma." it is a good example of how the voting rights act is an important part. we now have districts that are

one race districts because the voting rights act has put the minorities in one congressional district. you might be able to get two or three minorities as opposed to one if we made this a little more balanced. that is my only perspective. you are gradually seeing that it is still not equal or perfect. the same thing is true in corporate america. it is really beginning to move. that recruitment. you talk to the parties and they are focusing on female recruitment. you have a female african-american congresswoman in the state of utah now. the other thing -- there is no

real party on the left. there was the occupy america that fell apart. there is elizabeth warren, who speaks the populist messaging now. and maybe that will rise into a serious political challenge. i don't really know. my own judgment is that the tea party was born out of genuine concern about the political system not being responsive, but it just took a radical turn to the right. it is supporting extremist positions on a lot of issues and that is troublesome. but maybe this scariness will turn the party more to the

center. >> i hope so. is elizabeth warren the new ted cruz on the left? she and ted cruz could have swapped manuscripts and read from each other's and sounded alike. you are too young to realize that the democratic party has had its tea party led by a man named george mcgovern. the vietnam war was a huge mistake and within the democratic party, because the vietnam war got its momentum within the democratic party -- the first major troop commitment was john f. kennedy and the significant escalation of the vietnam war was lyndon

johnson -- within the democratic party, a perfectly legitimate protest movement was formed. an antiwar protest movement. but it morphed into an anti-american movement. within the democratic party, there was a group formed to try to counterbalance the electoral impact of that. the democratic leadership council. one of whose -- is that the right name? >> yes. >> one of whose leaders was a young governor from arkansas named bill clinton. even though he had been a mcgovernite as a college student, he recognized that was a mistake and he was ultimately the first democrat to win the presidency back after the democratic party had been taken over by the mcgovernites. you could say that jimmy carter

won, and jimmy carter won because watergate and he had his one term and was gone. the republicans won five out of the next six presidential elections. the tea party is the mirror image on the republican side. instead of the war being the thing that triggered it, it was a sense of tremendous frustration that the government is too big, too expensive, and unresponsive -- and those are all perfectly valid criticisms. just the way the vietnam war -- that was a perfectly valid criticism on the left. just as the people under mcgovern went too far in that direction, and the tea party thing, they have gone too far, slipped off the edge of the menu completely into limbaugh land.

and as a result, they have made themselves irrelevant to the government process. i have said to some of my democratic friends, if we republicans cannot contain that, the democrats are going to win five out of the next six presidential elections just the way the republicans did. he comforted me, he said, no bob, our capacity to screw up is sufficient that you will win more than that. we have seen this happen before. america is the only place where the candidates are self-selected. if you have read some of the novels of jeffrey archer, a former member of parliament of

great britain about america, it is hilarious when he gets to the nominating process because he describes it as if it were the british process, where the party gets to pick who the candidate is. the heroine in his novel -- i've forgotten the name, it doesn't matter -- is chosen by a select group of party officials to run for the senate in illinois. i'm reading this saying, this is hilarious because that is not the way it is at all. if she wants to run for the senate in illinois, she can run for the senate in illinois by paying the fee and she is there. she is on the ballot. the diversity and the question of balance has a lot to do with how many people are willing to try it.

who are of the various groups you are describing. we have tried recruitment. we self select who is going to run. >> but social media and the use of modern technology has democratized to the american political process. this is something nobody anticipated 30 years ago. that may be the reason we have seen a dramatic upswing in women and minority candidates. that is one of the great things about modern technology. it gives more people access into the political system than just having the parties pick the candidates. >> i think we might only have time to take two more questions.

then we will wrap it up. >> and most of the countries where i grew up and lived, we have more than two parties. given how disenchanted the public has become with american politics, may a strong third party might emerge? do you believe american politics would benefit from more than two parties? thank you. >> my question was related to election reform. you mentioned the low turnout in primaries. do you think in open primaries that those would be a good solution? there was a more expansive coalition that helped set cochran his primary and then

when the general election. arguably come without the african-american support that he saw, the tea party guy would have been victorious. >> you are talking about primary roles. >> yes. >> i favor the california jungle primary. everybody's name is on the ballot and the top two go to the general election. everybody can vote for the top two. one of the top two. in gerrymandered districts, the top two are going to be to democrats. that is why pete stark lost. under the old california system, you had the republican who won the republican primary

and the democrat who won the democratic party, which was always pete stark. he was absolutely invulnerable. congressman for life. they went to the general primary and the top two names got on the ballot, and it was pete stark and another democrat, and they voted for the other democrat. i would love to see that in the state of utah. there are many circumstances where it would be two republicans because utah is overwhelmingly republican, but at least democrats would get to choose which republican they preferred. where now, they don't have a voice at all. i would like to go in that direction. you are talking about a third party? it is not going to happen. because -- back to what i commented on earlier -- our whole system is based on state law and party rules. there is no federal basis. state law and party rules have

so embedded the two-party system and to the way things are done that a third-party, statutorily, it faces a hurdle that is virtually impossible to overcome. >> states should be permitted to experiment with this. many states can be independent. this concept of a republican and democrat voting irrespective of parties may be of a bygone era. they ought to be permitted to experiment. i'm not sure we want have a third-party, but it is difficult with the way money is raised in this country. it is difficult to get dollars unless you fit into one of these two political systems.

we had an interesting race in kansas, pat roberts against an independent. this was an independent leaning democrat who had a lot of money. up until about two weeks before, the race was even. this was a long-term incumbent good friend of mine, actually. it looked like he was losing. and then the national party came in, they took over his campaign, they put in modern principles, modern communications techniques. they put in modern amounts of money and he won. we had a third party a few years ago. his name was ross perot. george h.w. bush, bill clinton and ross perot. at one time, it looked like ross perot could be a factor in that. he fizzled.

>> he had 40% in the polls at one place and time. >> he talked about aliens and he had a few problems. but it is difficult. on the other hand, if the system responded to the people -- if people don't believe the parties are looking up for their interests, we have had third parties before and our current republican party was at one point a different party and it morphed into what it is. it is not culturally part of the american political system, so it makes it a lot more difficult. >> thank you. >> let's thank our panelists. [applause] . >> next, live your calls and comments on "washington journal." then live at 10:00 "newsmakers" with maryland chris van hollen. then french unity rally.

>> tonight on q&a dick lared talks about the 1915 film the birth of a nation. the efforts by african american civil rights advocate and newspaper pblisher to prevent the movie's release. >> part two of the movie after the war reconstruction is really the heart of the protest in the sense that this is where the blacks are just appalled by the portrayal of freed slaves. and this is a scene showing what happens when you give former slaves the right to vote, the right to be elected, the right to govern. it's a scene in the south carolina legislature where their first and primary order of business is to pass a bill allowing for interracial marriage because again in his hands black men are solely interested in pursuing and having white w