you did not know in my day what mike mansfield thought about an issue.e did not tell you what he thought, because he tried to keep himself neutral on things. for the very reason that he wanted to be trusted by his full caucus. tip o'neill did not impose his will on the house. he is a great leader of the house of representatives, but he did not pose his will on the house. it would not even occur to him to try to do that, except if the president of his party asked him to do something. then, he might twist some arms. there were rare occasions when leaders did that with civil rights bills, having things to do with foreign affairs and wars. in general, they let things come up from the members. host: to break this fever of dysfunction, what is the first step? guest: the first step is to get back to regular order. host:

you did not know in my day what mike mansfield thought about an issue. he did not tell you what he thought, because he tried to keep himself neutral on things. for the very reason that he wanted to be trusted by his full caucus. tip o'neill did not impose his will on the house. he is a great leader of the house of representatives, but he did not pose his will on the house. it would not even occur to him to try to do that, except if the president of his party asked him to do something. then, he might twist some arms. there were rare occasions when leaders did that with civil rights bills, having things to do with foreign affairs and wars. in general, they let things come up from the members. host: to break this fever of dysfunction, what is the first step? guest: the first step is to get back to regular order. host: how do you do that? the system is designed top down, no incentive from the top to change. guest: the first thing is for a group of people, it could be the freedom caucus or a group of moderates or some combination, to -- it has to be a biparti

one of mike mansfield all such instructions to the first historian when they created the office back1975 was to go out to the nation and let people know what the senate is and why it is so important and what role it plays. that is interviews like this, why we produce publications and go to scholarly conferences and book events, to help people understand why the senate is there and what it is so important to our constitutional system of government. but also the other part is to make sure we preserve the records of the senate. so in the historical office, we also have the senate archival team led by karen paul who has been the archivist for 42 years now, almost 43 years. they are in charge to make sure that every single record of the senate, every official record is housed in the national archives. they work closely with each his or her records are saved in the home-state repository. that is the broad mission of the office of the senate, to preserve and promote the history of the senate. in addition to that, that mission has grown throughout the years so that we provide oversight for h

you did not know in my day what mike mansfield thought about an issue.ou what he thought, because he tried to keep himself neutral on things. for the very reason that he wanted to be trusted by his full caucus. tip o'neill did not impose his will on the house. he is a great leader of the house of representatives, but he did not pose his will on the house. it would not even occur to him to try to do that, except if the president of his party asked him to do something. then, he might twist some arms. there were rare occasions when leaders did that with civil rights bills, having things to do with foreign affairs and wars. in general, they let things come up from the members. host: to break this fever of dysfunction, what is the first step? guest: the first step is to get back to regular order. host: how do you do that? the system is designed top down, no incentive from the top to change. guest: the first thing is for a group of people, it could be the freedom caucus or a group of moderates or some combination, to -- it has to be a bipartisan group in the h