Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 439 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There (Part 20) The Senate (C) How the Senate Works

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Episode 439 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There (Part 20) The Senate (C) How the Senate Works · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I develop uh uh uh I I developed some philosophy and some anecdotes about how to be whip during my years in the house.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one of the the things that I repeated often often, and I perhaps heard it from somebody else, but basically it was that uh uh the most important vote is not the last vote, but the next vote.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: And every day leave your colleagues in such a way, even though you'd fought on that day, that you could come back to them the next day and say, How about this?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: You weren't with us then, that was yesterday, this is today, how about that?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I also had a philosophy that um uh New York Times reporter wrote a story about one time uh that I called keeping them together by letting them stray.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when you're you know trying to keep this herd of cats together and to produce results.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: As you go along, sometime uh a s a congressman in that case or a senator has a particular problem in his or her district or his or her state, and they really can't be with you, but if you work it, you can let them go sometime.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that when you do get to the really, really big one where it really does matter to the country, you can pull them back in and say, okay, you strayed, but now we gotta all be together.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it worked well uh during the 80s, and it worked in the Senate uh uh quite often.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot tougher in the Senate.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Senators are a lot more elusive.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now, first of all, senators uh have a lot of them have the ability to just not give you an answer.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: They'll listen, tell you how much they appreciate your thoughts, uh, they'll they'll think about it, and they won't give you an answer.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Senate, uh the whip position and the leader position uh is you have to pay very close attention to body English.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: You have to learn to read senators.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but basically, if you do it a while, and Bob Dole had that ability, uh, on any vote, he could probably tell you instantly how 50 of the 53 Republicans would vote.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And there was usually, you know, half a dozen that would kind of swing around back and forth, or you couldn't depend on necessarily, or do you couldn't expect them to just jump right in line.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and you you develop that that instinct.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and also you begin to uh watch people, and when they they they begin to go wobbly on you, you can pick it up.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And Bob had a just a you know fantastic uh ability to do that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your host for the Randall Wallace Presents podcast, and this look at the United States Senate as part of our Bob Dole, the life that brought him there this season of episodes, and this is a little mini-series that we're doing on the United States Senate.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I'm gonna let you just listen to the senators talk about how things work in the United States Senate, the importance of the committees, what the committees do.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: We've got one Senator Van Calder who served on several committees, and he's gonna talk about all of them.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna hear about how the farm bills work.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that if you were to do that in how your United States Senate would actually operate, this is an episode for you because we're gonna hear from Senator Lee, Senator Grassley, Senator McGovern, Senator Cochran, Senator Hackwood, Senator Simpson, and they're gonna tell you how the Senate works.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought this was just a really interesting look at the at the at the United States Senate and from the people who were right there in the trenches.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're gonna enjoy this.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take a look at the United States Senate and how it works as a governing body.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: And how does it work?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think so many Americans have almost no idea about how things actually function up here, including when they succeed.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what is it behind closed doors in the middle of the night in a conference committee?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: What is it that what chemistry happens and what can a successful leader do to make that happen?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh there might be a difference in the type of closed doors, in the sense that maybe when you're just developing a bill, it's a little bit different environment than if you might be sitting in those same environments uh late at night in a conference between the House and the Senate when things have moved along to a point where you just about got a product and uh make uh the few last uh compromises to get something done.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I'd rather start with first of all, there's a difference between the House and Senate, in the sense that in the House today and forever, I believe, um, you know, a bipartisan majority, a Republican majority, or a Democrat majority, as long as they stick together and get anything done, they want to get done.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas in the Senate, with the rare exceptions, and I maybe there's never been a time in the Senate, because when you used to have Southern Democrats, I'm not sure that even though the Democrats maybe had 65 to 70 members, that they got done what the National Democratic Party would have liked to have done.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: But uh regard with the with the exception of that, I think throughout the history of the United States Senate, you've got to remember nothing gets done that's not somewhat bipartisan because of the filibuster, and the supermajority to stop the filibuster.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you got to remember that the uh United States Senate is the only political institution where minority views are protected.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they're protected through the no limit on debate, the supermajority.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have today 51 Republicans, 49 Democrats, or even when you had 55 Republicans last time, 45 Democrats, and Republicans don't always stick together, you I always figured you had to have at least a dozen Democrats on your side to get anything done.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the Senate's a little bit different than the House, but in the Senate, it's a little bit like do the members that have to forge a compromise realize you have to have a bipartisan compromise.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think probably 60, 75 percent of the senators know that.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Do they always practice it?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, they don't always practice it, but they know that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so you start out as uh right now, Senator Baucus and I, for instance, working on the children's health insurance program.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he gives me a call and says, you know, can we sit down and see what we can work out just like we did three years ago on prescription drugs for Medicare, as an example.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, it takes uh but there's a s there's got to be a certain amount of chemistry between a couple people for that to happen.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then trust.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, trust.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: But he he carries a burden that I also carry, that you got 50 other members in his party, uh 48 other people in my party, and and so you just can't do what Chuck Grassley and Baucus want to do.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to look over our shoulders.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be a leader if you don't have some follower.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta look at your caucus and say, what can I do to sell this to maybe uh at least half of my caucus?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if Grassley can sell it to half of his caucus, you know, you got a majority to move.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: But uh uh so we have to be cautious as we do it.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: But uh uh what does it is uh in other words, what gets done behind closed doors is the opportunity to give and take.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_05: See.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_05: Just tell me what's going on.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't come here to trick the per just help me.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_05: Your professional staff, you're not just Democrats.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_05: That's the difference now.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: They've lost the thread of the professional staff there to help people on both sides.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_05: Now you don't help people with a D behind their name, or you don't help people with an R behind their name, you try to screw them.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: The reason is because the staffs have lost all their professional flavor and are simply people who worked on the campaign, beating the crap out of the guys on the other side, and they've never lost the bloodlust.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: And that's staff now, as I perceive them.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_05: In those days, staff was solid people.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_05: David uh bo David Dave Boyce, you know, the great attorney was on Ted's staff when I started.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, that's uh I digress.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_06: Was it a much more hierarchical place?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_06: Hierarchical in the sense, first it was still when I got there, an era when Southerners controlled almost all the committees.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: And they were still Southern Democrats.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_06: Well, when I say Southerners, I John Tower had been elected about sixty one or two, and he was the first Republican from the South in the longest period of time.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_06: I think we elected Ed Gurney from Florida in 68, but Florida was already trending away from what I call a Southern state in the normal sense.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_06: But when you looked at the uh German appropriations, as I recall, was Alaner, I think, and he died, and I can't remember the sequence, but Jimmy Soners, Judiciary, John Stanisers, Armed Services, Bill Frulbart with Foreign Relations, and right down the list.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_06: They were all senators, and as opposed to now was the longest chairman of the Finance Committee.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_06: You didn't have the leadership strength that you had.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_06: You didn't overrute if you were a leader, you didn't overrule a committee chairman.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_06: You didn't take a bill out of a committee, you didn't cross a committee chairman.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I suspect gradually the power is shifting both in the House and the Senate to the leaders and the and the leaders' coach.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_06: And uh good example, Nancy Pelosi is trying to do an energy bill in an ad hoc committee to go around John Dingle.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_06: Well, that would not have happened.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_06: It may not happen this time, I'm not sure.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_06: But no one would have thought of doing something like that.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_06: The uh minimum wage bill it passed was basically taken away the the finance parts of it and taken away from Max Baucus.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_06: Because Harry Reid and Max don't get along.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_06: So that that has been a change.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: And what what are the sources of that influence?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_06: One is you know your subject very well.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_06: You don't spread yourself thin.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_06: Sam Nunn was another one.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_06: You don't spread yourself thin, you don't shoot your mouth off on a lot of other subjects that you don't know too much about, you're not a publicity hound, and people will listen to you.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: And presumably part of that is you're you're uh what would in London be called a House of Commons man.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're someone who has a real identification with and loyalty to the Senate as an institution.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a factor?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I uh very obviously, and you know, it's it's the old show horses and go horses.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_06: Um I think it's probably not much different though in in uh the board of directors of the YMCA or the PTA.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_06: The one that is forever seeking publicity or who comes out of a meeting and immediately goes to the press, uh, is not as powerful on the inside as the publicity on the outside would give you the impression.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: When you factor in, I mean we're jumping ahead here, but and I'll go back to Senator Dole, but when you factor in all of the elements over the last thirty or forty years.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Particularly the the media and the and the internet and the twenty-four-seven news like all the cable and all of this.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: Is it harder for people?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it seems as if there's there there are more folks in the in the in Congress today who are playing as much to the cameras as they are interested in legislating.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_06: They are and on occasion it can work in terms of influence on a limited issue, at a limited time.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_06: But that's if you're able by going to the press to stir up enough public opinion around the condition on your side that the pressure on the other senators to bend doesn't mean they like what you've done.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_06: Doesn't mean you can do this on another issue.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_06: You if you're gonna go that route, you better get the public with you.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Is it safe to say that the bulk of the of the Senate's work happens off the floor?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, is it yeah in committees?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_04: In committees.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_04: Uh where the hard work, particularly the subcommittees.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um but you thought debate in in in that time was more significant than it is today.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_04: I thought so.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um although I I've seen that floor empty a lot of times with a single senator uh th raiding away.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Are there uh without naming names, are there individuals who were capable of emptying the Senate?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, there were there were some, but there were also some who were so eloquent you wondered why there weren't more people listening, like Wayne Morris.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: Wayne Morris was one of the most articulate, powerful, extemporaneous speakers this country's ever produced.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm told by his staff that whereas staff members would go over and correct the senator's remarks in the record before the record was printed, knock out the duplications and the dangling participants, they couldn't find anything to change.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_04: He he wouldn't have a note, and he'd just speak for one or two, three hours.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_04: But Hubert was like that too.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Hubert Humphrey, Wayne Morris, John Pastori of uh Rhode Island, they could get up and speak for endlessly.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_04: And um, so we had people that could empty the Senate, but we also had ones that should have filled the Senate.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: I remember one day, uh, it was about five o'clock in the afternoon, there wasn't a person in the Senate except the senator who was speaking and the presiding officer, and then I'm sitting there waiting to get recognized.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: In comes Jim Eastland, the old Mississippi Southerner.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_04: As I said earlier, those Southern Democrats were considerably more to the right than the Republicans.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_04: And he's standing there looking at me, he had a big cigar in his mouth that's against Senate rules, but when the sergeant at arms would remind him of that, he'd say, I'm not smoking.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: He wouldn't have it let'd be eating it, sort of chewing out.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_04: And uh so they didn't know quite what to do.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: He was the most powerful guy in the Senate, I guess.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_04: But he had this big cigar hanging out of his mouth, and he starts chuckling, and he's looking at me.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_04: I looked down to see if my fly was open or what was wrong here, and uh couldn't see anything.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_04: And he finally soldered over there and he says, George, did you really tell that guy out in Michigan to kiss your ass?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_04: I said, Well, Jim, I'm a I'm afraid that wasn't one of my better days in the campaign.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: He says, That's the only thing you said in that campaign I agreed with.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: So I give you that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's the equivalent.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: Remember when Nelson Rockefeller uh famously uh gave a one-fingered salute to the uh that's right.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: Did you did you uh did you know Rockefeller?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I did.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I know him pretty well.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: The um seniority system.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the Senate seems to have been a much more hierarchical kind of place when when when you arrived.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think so.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: Than it is today.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: What was the pros and the cons of of that?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um I suppose the uh pros is that you had a a pretty clear map of who you had to see to get something done.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um maybe the lines of authority were a little clearer than they are now.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: The um the minuses of that uh are are that you couldn't get around those people if they didn't want to see a bill moved to the floor.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: They had ways of trapping that measure so you didn't get very far.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: You know, that was just as true in the House.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_04: The uh head of the um the uh House uh ways and means committee had great power, the the uh rules committee had great power, and those committee chairmen, most of whom were Southern Democrats, they'd been there forever, both in the House and the Senate, and they had too much power, I think, for the sake of a democracy.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_04: On balance, I'm glad that that hierarchy hierarchical system has been modified uh quite.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Does it make it does it make it harder to get things done?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe it's harder to get things done that uh there's um there's less tyranny in involved.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: Do you ever find yourself explaining or try to explain to people?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure people come up to you all the time uh and they they see the Senate on C-SPAN.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: And and they're perplexed, if not infuriated, by what seems to be what you do about nothing.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, how do you explain the way the Senate operates?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_04: I try to explain to people that most of the hard labor has to be done in committees, that you can't write a bill on the Senate floor, you can't conduct a hearing on the Senate floor, so that uh bills are largely shaped uh off the floor, and that you shouldn't expect to see a lot of uh productive and constructive uh effort moving forward on the floor of either the House or the Senate, and that the fact that there's only six senators on the floor uh only means, in most cases, that the rest of them are hard at work in their committees or in their offices uh doing things for constituents.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: They have a hundred and one things senators have to do, and that um the floor is a place for final action, not for the shaping work that determines the course of events.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: And what about the role of staff?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: Presumably uh when you arrived in in Washington, the staffs were much smaller.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: They were.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_04: The staffs were uh smaller, but um, you know, the country's become more complicated.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's bigger, more people.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_04: There the problems are more uh difficult, I think.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: And so you need bigger staff, well-trained staff.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um I don't think that's uh an unfavorable development.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Senator McGovern, who actually is the senator that goes the farthest back because he served in the Eisenhower administration, um, talk about that the Senate's work's done in committee.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Senator Thad Cochran, who uh he'll hear him talk about the fact that he was sort of a generalist.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: He served on a lot of committees, and he can he'll go through them and all the different uh things that that they did and that he learned as he went.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll give you a grasp of what these committees actually do.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_07: I want to ask you a few questions about your own um senatorial career.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I was struck by how many different committees you have served on over time.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_07: Um how do you how do you manage that?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_08: Um I had a short attention span.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_08: I enjoyed the variety and the challenge of new subjects and undertakings.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_08: And uh but getting on the appropriations committee pretty well takes care of any subject that comes before the government has to be funded to some extent.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_08: And the appropriations committee is where the bills are written that fund all the departments and all the programs of the federal government.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_08: So if you're on appropriations, which I was lucky enough to get on after just two years in the state, I uh enjoyed it uh and have you know become chairman.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_08: I was chairman in the last Congress for two years.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_08: Then we lost control of the Senate and I'm not chairman anymore.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_08: But nonetheless, uh we have we have all of the subcommittees divided up so that each department of the government kind of looks to one subcommittee uh for its funding, uh, the and and an individual bill is written to fund that department's budget for the next fiscal year.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_08: And getting to hear all the witnesses come from that agency of the department and its agencies talking about what the money is to be used for and gives you an opportunity to really get an understanding and a breadth of appreciation of everything the government's involved in.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_08: So you're not a specialist particularly in any one subject area.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_08: If you own appropriations, you tend to be a generalist.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_08: But you learn a lot about a lot of different things.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_08: And I've enjoyed that challenge.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_08: It's been a unique opportunity, and uh I've been very grateful to have that chance to do to do that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_07: What about some other favorite committees that you served?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_08: Well, agriculture is one I've served on ever since I first came here.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_08: I succeeded Jim Eastman, uh, who was a farmer and a leader on the agriculture committee, although he wasn't chairman, he was chairman judiciary.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_08: Um I uh I enjoyed that.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_08: I had never been personally active in farming except cattle farming.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_08: My family had a small cattle farm, and uh I grew up knowing about that.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_08: Um my grandparents' generation on both sides had farmed.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_08: Um my mother's family had a cotton farm and they grew corn, they had cattle, and um but those were that was a different era, those were different times.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_08: The modern agriculture industries are so much more like businesses and uh run in a different way.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_08: They're not famous small family farms like ours was.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_08: Um, but I enjoyed, I enjoyed that committee and still do.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_08: Um, it does have diverse jurisdiction.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_08: Food assistance programs um come under the jurisdiction.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_08: But the the year I was just served as chairman, we rewrote and improved the school lunch program and uh legislation.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_08: We wrote something called the Healthy Forest Act.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_08: We have jurisdiction uh over the forest and the national forest um managers.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_08: That was an interesting challenge.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_08: Um governmental affairs.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_08: I was on that committee at one time.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_08: I enjoyed that and a lot of unique jurisdictional uh opportunities, uh, nuclear non-proliferation.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_08: I spent a lot of time working on on those issues as a member of that committee, and actually chaired a subcommittee that published a report about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, uh, which I think was an important contribution to our understanding the threats we face, and it led to the adoption of the National Missile Defense Act.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_08: Because of the proliferation of these missile systems and technologies that can threaten to inflict damages over long di over long distances, it became clear that we were vulnerable to a lot of different um challenges in that area.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_08: We needed to get busy and develop a system that could defend against that.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_08: We've now achieved that goal.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, as a result of not only that act, but a lot of good research and hard work by the experts in the field who brought our technologies together and used them in a way that protects us.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_08: Some people were worried that this was going to just mean a worldwide ex escalation of weaponry and missiles, but uh that has not been the case.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_08: We're we're more we're a lot more safe today than we ever have been, um, because we do have these capabilities now.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_08: Are you talking about strictly offensive?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_08: I'm talking about our defensive missile National Missile Defense Act, where we have the capability of knocking down missiles, and we just proved that just a couple of weeks ago with a test out in the Pacific.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_08: Um anyway, we're making good corners.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_07: Um, I've lost money.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, yes.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_07: Um, what about any reflections on your period of time on the ethics committee?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_07: What was that like?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_08: Well, that's tough duty.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_08: You're put in a position of having to having to make decisions about whether somebody's conduct has been contrary to the rules of the Senate.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_08: And those are those are not pleasant duties to have to look into things like that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_08: But as they say, somebody has to do it.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I'm glad I sort of got that over with at an early point in my career.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_08: I've been lucky enough to avoid serving on the ethics committee for a good number of years now, and I'm glad to let other people have that duty.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_07: Um talk about your service uh as head of the Depublican Conference.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_08: Well, that's an interesting challenge.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_08: Um under our organization, this is the this is the office where we try to develop ways of communicating more effectively with our constituents.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_08: Make sure that folks back home know what you are doing that uh will help you uh in the eyes of your constituents um continue to serve in the Senate.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_08: If people want to run for re-election, they'll have the tools to communicate.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_08: We have a video studio, we have um people who work there who can translate what you're doing into um readable releases of information back to home state media.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_08: And that's basically what we tried to do.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_08: We would bring the conference together, all the members, the Republican members of the Senate together, on a regular basis to talk about party policies too.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_08: So it had some substance to it.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_08: But I didn't really try to tell people what they ought to think about the issues, but I just presided at the meeting and would encourage others to do research in certain areas that were of interest right then as national issues, national problems that needed to be addressed.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_08: And wanted to be sure that uh Republicans in the Senate were together, if we could be, uh, and proposed solutions and could present a united front of uh dealing with some of the challenges, whether you're talking about crime in the streets, uh education, uh, uh, international trade, immigration, and uh how we deal with our borders, border security.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_08: There's so many things that you can really get your teeth into that needed to be looked at.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_08: We would we would develop a small group of senators and and as staff members and assign them the challenge of coming up with some some plan to improve our uh uh national response to this problem or that problem.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_08: Look down the future.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_08: What do you see are the emerging problems that we need to be thinking about that we can we can anticipate and uh let's be prepared to deal with them when they when they become um more obvious to the general public.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_08: So that was an interesting uh opportunity to make make you think and work a little harder and get people talking and working together in a cohesive way.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_07: Now, you're talking about the conference, the conference of the Republican conference.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_07: Then describe to me the difference between that group and the policy committee.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_08: Well, the policy committee is uh is a committee of the conference, the Republican Policy Committee.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_08: Um that committee is supposed to come up with the answers to the to the questions here, and this is what we ought to, and present a paper, this is what we ought to do or think about this, and this is where we can talk about this issue that makes sense to the American people and a way to discuss our views, develop our views, and discuss those in a you know an effective way.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, but but but it but finance was a was a real plum on the phone.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was a plum.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and say arms, and the reason I said armed services for a while it was not a plum.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_06: And when we went around on seniority and everybody picked the committees they wanted, there were still two spots on armed services.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, finance and appropriations were the plums.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_06: Foreign relations if that if that was your interest.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_06: You meant the other two.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_06: Yes, and it has become infinitely more powerful.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_06: Um Gordon Smith, one of the current senators, could have gone on appropriations or finance two years ago, and he chose finance.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_06: And the reason is even in those days it had jurisdiction over taxes and over trade and and social security.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_06: But also just a few years earlier, we had added Medicare and Medicaid to its jurisdiction.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_06: Now, in 1973, those had not those two had not become overlooming issues yet.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_06: The costs were vastly underestimated, and we were just into it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_06: But as the years went on, it got tougher and tougher and tougher to nobody would leave.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_06: It got tougher and tougher to get onto it.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_06: And and now today, when you when you add Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to it, let alone taxes and trade.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Now was Russell Long chairman throughout until the Republicans took over.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: And and how did Long ran the committee?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: I assume he ran the committee.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_06: He ran the committee.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_06: I talked to him to him very briefly once about his dad.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_06: And Richard Russell, before he had died, he said to me that Huey Long was the smartest man he ever met, and that Russell was not half a step behind.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_06: And Russell would cover it with sort of a buffoonery.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_06: But he was no buffoon, this was an act.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_06: No, no, here's a here's a typical guy.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_06: He would never, never, never, never go on those Sunday morning talk shows.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_06: This is he was an insider.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_06: It would not go on those shows.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_06: But the committee, when I first went on it, the senior Republican was Wally Bennett of Utah, the father of the current Senator Bennett.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_06: There was no partisan staff.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_06: Nor did he did Senator Bennett want a partisan staff.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_06: And so there was it was a very small staff.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_06: I don't think there was half a dozen professionals altogether for all the subjects they had.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_06: And of necessity, therefore because Russell insisted that the majority staff, the staff serve everybody.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_06: And if a minority member wanted something and the staff didn't get it, Russell would would raise hell that you're you're not the Democratic staff, you're everybody.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_06: When when uh I was working with President Nixon on a bill that he was going to introduce that was mandated health coverage, employer-mandated health coverage.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_06: I was carrying the bill for him in the Senate and working on it.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_06: And two of the professionals on the committee were detailed by Russell Long to work with me in for an extensive amount of time and period on drafting this bill because for two reasons.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_06: One w Russell wanted to make sure that we got served, too.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_06: You want to make sure it was drafted in a way that the Finance Committee got the bill.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_06: He didn't want this thing slipping over to some other committee.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_06: And you had to you have to be careful.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_06: Uh if you got a bill that covers a number of things, a parliamentarian will send it to the committee that has the most in it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that's it.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: What is the role of the parliamentarian?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_06: Very in those days, it was Dr.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_06: Riddick, and it was very powerful.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_06: And you did you did not challenge his rulings.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_06: Uh he was rupulously nonpartisan.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_06: It it it it is very powerful.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_06: I I sense as we're going along though you're gonna start to see more and more challenging of the ruling of the chair.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_06: You know, the parliamentarian will say whispering the motion is out of order.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_06: So I appeal the ruling of the chair.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_06: If you had 51 votes, then you will return the chair, but you now set a precedent in which the senators are very wary of president.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: What do you sense about the dole uh long relationship?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: There's the famous story the dole tells after the eighty uh election.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, up until that point when Republicans were in the minority.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, how did they how did they work together and how did the minority as I recall Bob did not become ranking member till 79, didn't he?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_06: Car wasn't Carl Curtis uh so in that sense, at least Russell didn't have to deal with him as the ranking member until the last two years.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_06: But Russell got along with everybody.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_06: He ran and Curtis in those days no Sun Channel, everything was run in secret.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_06: It still is, as a matter of fact, even with Sun Channel.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_06: If you meet in the back room, you don't you don't have votes that count, you just have votes that count.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_06: And then you go out and have a formal vote.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_06: But uh Russell, I I found, got along with everybody.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_06: But I I don't know what the special relationship may have been between the two of them.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Senator Packwoods, they're talking about the finance committee, of which um Bob Dole would end up being chairman of in the eighties, uh, and Senator Russell Long was the chairman of in the 70s, uh, when the Democrats were in control before the you know the Republicans came into control for a little while in the 80s.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I thought it'd be interesting to see hear uh how some of these bills get put together or how the programs work that each of these committees does.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Fad Cochran served on the Agriculture Committee, was talking about Bob Dole, who was also on the agriculture committee, and how the farm bills come together and the cotton program.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's this is this is a deep dive, but one I think you'd be interested in to hear how these programs work.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_08: And even Senator Dole and I disagreed on certain farm programs because the way they would be administered, uh the cotton program particularly was was a unique um activity in in farm country because it was more localized in the Deep South.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_08: And sometimes there was there was resentment from other parts of the country that the cotton program cost so much in comparison with the uh dollar amount of subsidies that were paid to growers.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_08: Um but nonetheless, uh, as a as with most important programs where you have differences of opinion, you you work out the differences, and maybe it's around the border, the edges.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, but the cotton program was always one that Bob Doe would figure out a way to support.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_08: Um so he could keep the farm groups all together at the end, that we could all support the bill and defend against all amendments, whether it was aimed at cotton or wheat or corn or dairy or the other programs.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_08: And so that was one of the reasons why the agriculture bills usually passed, because we had this broad base of support that was first formed in the agriculture committee, and Bob Doe was really an architect who would bring together these disparate interests and make sure they stayed glued together and mutually supportive as the bill made its way through Congress.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_07: What were the issues that the bills, the farm bills, dealt specifically with in the period that we're talking about?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_08: Well, how you deal with the disasters, so weather-related disasters are a problem common to all farmers.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_08: There would always be a disaster provision of the bill.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_08: Giving the government the authority to come in and make some contribution to alleviating the consequences of weather-related disasters.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_08: That would be something that would cut across all commodity areas of interest.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_08: Um, some of the other things were trade and the level of subsidies for growers and how you calculated those benefits and the uh entitlement definitions of who would be entitled to the to them.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_08: Um there were just a lot of details that had to be worked out.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_07: As someone who is fiscally conservative, um was there ever times when you felt uh like you were you were not uh contradicting yourself in a way by by making sure that the subsidies and tax credits and so forth were being given to the farmer?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_07: And was that the moments of tension there?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_08: Well, of course.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_08: And there were some people who would vote against those bills because they thought they were unnecessarily generous to well, wealthy farmers, that there ought to be uh a level beyond which a farmer's wealth would disqualify him from benefits.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_08: But um the argument would prevail that uh you you had to apply this to the land.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_08: These were like benefits that run with the land, and you don't discriminate on the basis of whether a farmer is wealthy or middle class or poor.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_08: Anyone who's engaged has a has a risk of at some level, and they all ought to be treated uh the same.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_08: If you start if you start discriminating against people who have been successful in the past, well, you're gonna probably uh have make it more difficult to attract enough activity in the agriculture sector to make it productive, uh to make it efficient.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_07: In your state, uh does agribusiness dominate uh the farming industry, or how does it break out?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_08: No, we have a substantial number of people who are involved in agriculture in Mississippi, but we have a lot of other interests too, economic interests, and some of it is national defense, shipbuilding industries on the Gulf Coast, and uh other military bases and manufacturing facilities related to uh military activity.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_08: Those are all important as well.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_07: But what I I what I was trying uh wanting to hear you uh talk about was the apportion of small farm, the family farm still exists in Mississippi, I presume.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_07: Uh but has has lar have large corporate corporations taken over most of the farming in in in Mississippi?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_08: No, I would say that uh I don't have the exact numbers right here.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_08: You can look them up.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm sure the Department of Agriculture can can give you something about the number of landowners and how much land they own.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_08: And they have a lot of people who lease land and farm it.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_08: Um but many of those people who own the land are still in the state.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_08: They're not necessarily just absentee landlords.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_08: But there's a mix.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_08: We have some of every kind.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're gonna take a look at at how a conference committee works.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is when you get the the two sides, the house and the senate, in the same room, start working out uh a deal on on their various programs, you know, after they've been through both houses.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Take us he was impatient.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: Take us into a conference because you know most people will never see it and have no idea of how it functions and and what the individual dynamics are and and what what would someone like to all how would he how would he say you've got a typical Ways and NAS conference on a a big bill of mo modest importance, not unimportant, but not the big tax bill of the year.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_06: So let's say you've got ten or twelve house conference and six or seven Senate conference.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_06: So the staff will clear out all of the chaff where everybody can agree, or even ahead of time house staff will say, Yeah, listen, we'll recede on two, four, six, eight, and ten if you'll recede on one, three, five, seven, and nine, and the staffs agree.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_06: So that's all cleared away.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_06: Then you get down to the to the really tough stuff, and the question becomes is it kind of a game as to what is really important to them and what will they do to get to what is really important?
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_06: And they're thinking of the same thing, but what's really important to us and what will we do.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_06: And it's inter it is interesting bargaining, and at the end, a lot of it is determined by the two German.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: And how much presumably there's uh obviously party differentials there, but to what extent are there also differences between between the Senate and the House?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_06: There are differences between Senate and House, but you'll also see geographic differences uh on trade.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_06: Uh tremendous geographic differences.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_06: And that became even more pronounced as we as we went on.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you're from an industrial production state that's losing competitively you don't like trade anymore.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_06: You're from a shipping state that has a lot of it going in, going out, and ships you're but that has nothing to do with party.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that would be one.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_06: You would normally get a normally get a partisan division on these taxes favor the rich.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_06: I mean usually the Democrats would say that and the Republicans say no, and when you balance it out, you look at but that would you know you could figure the parties would line up on something like that.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: People don't know how the Senate works.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: I mean people don't know how Congress works.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I'm trying to get a sense of behind closed doors, um, is it a kind of sixth sense that a successful leader has in knowing just when to push something, to bring people together, to detect the makings of a deal?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: What what are the qualities?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've all read about Lyndon Johnson and his legendary, you know, mastery of the Senate, which suggests it's a psychological gift as much as anything else.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um what what was it in Dole's case that that made him you're born with it.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, first you you've got to be you have to be you have to be sufficiently immersed in the business that you understand when there's an opportunity for something like this.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_06: And an amateur couldn't do it until they've been at it uh for a while.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_06: But once you're in it, you can intuitively I'll give you an example.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_06: Twice I was chairman of the senatorial campaign committee, and I would go around the country and I'd meet with people who are thinking of running for the Senate, and I'd say, you know, let me let me see your structure and talk with a couple of your people, and they'd all have the pyramid, and here's the chairman, and here's the press secretary, and it's all laid out.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_06: And I could tell in fifteen or twenty minutes whether they understood what they were doing or not.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_06: Didn't because I'd been at it so long.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_06: Anybody in politics understands the inside on the things they're working on, but it's an intuitive sense of when is the iron hot?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_06: And you can't teach it.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_06: And uh Bob by and large had it.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_06: They'd say the thing he lacked, but it's not his fault, is long-term strategy because the job doesn't lend itself to that.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_06: Because almost everybody that is badgering him is thinking about today and the vote tomorrow and my issue.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: And is there also another element, I mean, just in terms of knowing, maybe through long exposure and or intuition, um what it will take to persuade that particular senator in that particular circumstance?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is it a knowledge, a kind of really intimate knowledge of your colleagues?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or is that a lesser factor?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, Johnson really has a factor.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_06: But what you might know in terms of trying to put together a coalition is I think I can get Jim Abner.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_06: If I was willing to give in this thing on the farm bill.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_06: It's unrelated to what you're trying to put together now.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_06: But you know that that's very important to Jim Abner.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_06: And and it's a little thing, but it's important to him, and he'll give you this big thing in exchange for it.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh maybe Lyndon Johnson may have been the best in the world in un understanding that.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_06: But after a while, you know that certain people are interested in in certain things.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_06: Their record shows it, their speeches show it.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_06: If you've got good staff, your staff knows it.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: I found that fascinating to hear Bob Packwood talk about uh, you know, how uh this this big deal can be made because you gave somebody something they wanted that was a small thing.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a there's stories like uh, you know, with the civil rights bills where um some of the northwestern states wanted uh some dams built for electrical power, and uh they were willing to work to go around the Southerners on civil rights because they wanted that, and then Lyndon Johnson knew that and kind of maneuvered that deal.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you get this huge historic landmark bill passed on civil rights, and the and the backstory is it was all about getting electrical power and in the Northwest.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, Bob Packwood talking about that just reminds me of that and and about you know how self-interest sometimes can lead to the national interest.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there are dichotomies like that in government.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: We hear Thad Cochran, he's gonna talk a little bit about this, that that smaller government, people people really say they want smaller government, yet they want the services that government provides.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so they vote, you know, for sometimes bigger government.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what they really want, people really want, they don't, they're they're not anti-government to this point that they want it to go away.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm afraid the extremes in the country sometimes uh preach.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think what they really want is good government and well-managed government.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I think there will be people, you know, who will resist the growth of government and the expansion of government power.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_08: Uh some people just say, well, you know, I just want to be left alone.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_08: Well, that's great if you don't have a problem, you know, and you're totally successful.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_08: I would never have had an accident.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_08: Um, I made a mistake.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_08: But uh, I think in our mature political system that we have now, uh, we've evolved to the point where the people who are on those fringes, you know, are getting fewer and fewer.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_08: Most people are beginning to uh be somewhere in the middle of those extremes.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_08: And I think that's good.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_08: I think one thing that's helped is you know, communications, access to information, being able to watch the Senate live.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_08: From the time we opened the Senate and to go to readjourn in the evening.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_08: If you wanted to, you could tune in and watch the whole thing.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_08: Of course, you can't see what's going on across the room or behind the in the other meeting room.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_08: But with the access to all the different channels and everything of information televised as well, um we've all become, I think, a little more moderate as a country.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_08: Um extremes don't control and can't control as they once could.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_08: And I think that's a very good thing.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_07: And you've been described as a bridge between the two perspectives, I guess we might say.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_07: So you've been a man of your time.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_08: It's been an interesting thing, and uh I was I was worried that I, you know, because of my view of myself as sort of a generalist, uh, and someone who's not really real conservative or but more of a moderate, uh, then I might have difficulty.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_08: But it's really been uh the place for me to be.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_08: I felt more comfortable than I thought I would.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_08: And um when when did your comfort level I think it's a gradual thing.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_08: It takes time.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_08: And I think the experience and getting to know senators and getting to know the institution and how it all works, and the administrative agencies and departments, and figuring out who's responsible for what.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_08: Just over time, and just by osmosis, you're going to uh elevate your sense of understanding and your depth of appreciation of uh how great our government really is and how resilient it is.