Episode 440 BOB DOLE The Life That Brought Him There (Part 21) The Senate (D) How the Senate has changed

Episode 440 — Bob Dole: The Life That Brought Him There (Part 21)

The Senate (D): How the Senate Has Changed

In Episode 440 of our continuing series on the life and career of Bob Dole, we turn from how the United States Senate worked… to how it has changed.

Building on the voices featured in the previous episodes, this installment brings together firsthand reflections from senators who lived through a transformative era in the institution — including Bob Packwood, Chuck Grassley, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Tom Daschle, Daniel Inouye, Alan Simpson, and Bob Dole himself.

Through their perspectives, we explore a central question: What happened to the Senate?

These senators describe a chamber that once relied heavily on personal relationships, bipartisan negotiation, and institutional loyalty — and contrast it with a body that, over time, has grown more polarized, more procedural, and in many ways, more constrained.

In this episode, they reflect on:

• The erosion of collegiality and cross-party relationships
 • Changes in leadership style and party dynamics
 • The evolving role of media and public pressure
 • How Senate rules and norms have shifted over time
 • What has been lost — and what, if anything, has been gained

This is not just history — it is perspective.

A look back from those who knew the Senate at its most functional, offering insight into how and why it feels different today.

From institution…
 to transformation…
 to reflection.

Episode 440 captures the Senate in transition — through the eyes of those who helped shape it.

Questions or comments at  , Randalrgw1@aol.com ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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Thanks for listening!!

Transcript

oral history of Senator Charles Grassley R- Iowa

SPEAKER_08 0:00

You spend too much time raising money?

SPEAKER_04 0:03

Now, not when I started, I don't think. You you started when? 19 uh 79 to run for the Senate. I was elected to the House in 74. But in 1979 and 80, I spent a lot of time raising money, but I didn't spend six years raising money. Now you spend at least four out of six years raising money.

SPEAKER_08 0:23

So you came into the Senate as part of that Reagan title wave.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Yeah, but I want to remind you, I got a hundred thousand more votes in Iowa than Reagan got. It wasn't his coattails that got me elected.

SPEAKER_05 0:35

I just did.

oral history of Senator Tom Daschle D- South Dakota

SPEAKER_08 1:07

Presumably when you first went to Congress as opposed to when you left, um the role of television, um fundraising. I mean, what kinds of changes took place during that period that in some ways redefined the job?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Well, I think the media probably had more to do with with uh redefining how it functions as anything. I think the two big consequential uh effects environmentally on the legislative process were the airplane and the television. The airplane, because it accommodated members uh in a way that they've never had the opportunity to be accommodated before to get back to their states and districts. And that changed the dynamics here in town a lot. You you really began to reduce the level of social interaction and the kind of uh bonding that occurred among legislators when they were really forced to stay in town. The second, the media, allowed for a scrutiny and a uh sort of an intrusive uh view of the process that ultimately, in my view, uh exacerbated rather than uh enhanced the process because in many respects it created an opportunity for dialogue, not one-on-one, but through the media. And that's really uh a big part of what what happens now. Uh leaders would walk out of their office and face a bank of cameras and in some ways direct their comments to the leader down the hall through the camera, and that happened all too frequently, not to mention the extraordinary power of a 30-second commercial and the fear of most legislators to be victimized or to be affected in some way by the 30-second attack ad that they knew would be coming on virtually everything they did. So it had an effect, in my view, on the courage, uh, if not courage, at least the flip side, the temerity of members to to look at issues uh in a more thoughtful way.

unknown 3:24

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_08 3:24

Well, that that's interesting because it also raises this question. Um Bob Dole is a classic pragmatist. I get things done kind of conservative. And it would seem that that's out of fashion. That that uh that the rise of the 24-7 news cycle, the Internet, um ideologically defined cable networks driving a lot of the political conversation. Pragmatists don't fare very well. That's true. In that arena, do they? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

No, pragmatists on either side. I mean, I think that I think we've seen to a certain extent an erosion of the middle because of a number of factors, the media being a big part of it, uh, but there is a uh a tendency now to play to your base a lot more, and the bases are more extreme uh by their very nature. And so it's hard to find the pragmatists willing to face the base, maybe upset them a little to accomplish something for the larger good.

SPEAKER_08 4:25

Is there a difference, at least in degree there, between the House and the Senate, in that clearly House districts tend to be drawn along lines that reinforce that quality. The parties tend to to uh to uh enshrine their bases in congressional districts where when you're running statewide, at least in theory, you have to you have to appeal to a broader audience.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Well, I think I think that it depends on the state. Those that are prominently Republican or Democratic have bases that are every bit as demanding statewide as they are within their districts. I would look at, say, perhaps um uh maybe a Rhode Island and a Utah are two good examples where you've got a pretty strong Democratic base in one, a strong Republican base in the other, and that base is statewide. So I think your point is well taken. I think by and large, it's probably more of an issue among members of the House, but unfortunately it's all too prominent uh a challenge in the Senate now as well.

Host Randal Wallace discusses the changes in Government

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Welcome everybody. This is Randall Wallace, your host for the Randall Wallace Presents Podcast. And this episode we're gonna be looking at how the Senate has changed, how it was changing even when many senators were were serving, though we have one Chuck Rassley who's still there, uh, and we'll hear him talk about LBJ and how the Senate worked then and how it's changed uh from the outside looking in today, um, how much different it is. And then I I think at the end I'm gonna give you some of my own thoughts about how the government how some structural change that I think is pretty important could happen to that could help reverse some of this, and it's not the usual, you know, you know, basic income or or making billionaires fear their fair shame or any their fair share, any of that stuff that you hear uh politicians on either side really is playing to their base and attacking the other guy, which is part of the problem. But uh I thought we listened to these senators talk about what's changed um and and the things that they don't like about that change um that's happened in the United States Senate. And uh, you know, I can tell you in my own time, and I don't go back to decades, I you know, I guess at fifty-five I do a little bit, but um but in my own time uh it's a meaner business than it was, and it wasn't exactly friendly to start with. Uh and and that's been the biggest change is just how extreme the positions that are being taken by uh politicians that in the in in the previous eras they would have been the outliers, not the the mainstream figures.

oral history of Senator Tom Daschle D-South Dakota

SPEAKER_08 7:16

Yeah, you mean we read these stories about Lyndon Johnson's legendary mastery of the Senate. Um what is it that's changed about the Senate? Is it just the numbers uh that uh uh seems to preclude uh that kind of command, or was LBJ just a unique figure?

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Well, LBJ, if you read the biographies of LBJ, his influence was waning at the end of his his uh six years. He didn't have the same power he had during the during his heyday, because there were a lot of young senators that were uh just not going to take it anymore, and they were going to assert themselves, and that's you had the Frank churches at the time and the people that uh that really began to uh uh uh Fred uh um there's a uh can't think of his name from Oklahoma, Fred uh Fred Harris. Harris, right. Um but a number of uh a number of young Turks were rising up. I'll never forget the famous story that when he became vice president, he decided he still wanted to have the opportunity to lead the caucus and um and to be chairman of the caucus, even though he was going to be vice president because technically he's still a member of the Senate. And um no one really wanted to uh tell him no. Um and so he just assumed that it was all a done deal, and he came to the caucus and they rolled him. And he was so embarrassed he didn't come back for an entire year after being rolled as the as a vice president. So he learned, too, that there were limits to power that I think are becoming much more prominent. What's happened, I think, is that to a large extent, senators over time became far more independent, far more assertive, and far more uh unwilling to be dictated to. And that in part is came as a result of uh reforms in the in the in the caucus. If reform is uh sometimes a word that I I'm reluctant to use because change is more if if reformers are always viewed as a good thing, um in many cases I'm not sure these reforms are always the best thing. But nonetheless, changes in the Senate that gave more independence and more uh opportunities for uh for uh freedom of movement and freedom of expression in the Senate than it used to be. It used to be you a senator was uh w was rarely um heard from in his first year, uh but that's changed as well. Now senators are very vocal in their very first year in office, and uh that's probably a good thing. But uh nonetheless, I think things have changed internally and externally to bring about a difference. I'll never forget George Mitchell's advice to me as he was leaving the office uh the very first day. He said that in order to be successful in this job, you have to learn how to grovel. And I don't know whether I know he was mostly joking, but there is some truth to

oral history of Senator Charles Grassley R- Iowa

SPEAKER_03 10:31

that.

SPEAKER_08 10:33

But you come in at the same time when Dole and Howard Baker and all these folks who were always in the minority suddenly find themselves in the majority.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 10:42

What was that like?

SPEAKER_04 10:44

Well, I suppose for me, uh uh not being in the Senate until that very day of the election, it wasn't so much different. But for the people that had been here and been in a minority for 24 years, 26 years, 24 years, I guess it was, uh it was almost a shock, you know. I mean, didn't realize they had a chance of being. They probably had a felt they had a chance to pick up.

SPEAKER_08 11:09

Is

Oral History of Senator Alan Simpson R - Wyoming

SPEAKER_08 11:10

it still there? I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 11:12

Don't ask me. I mean, if you read the paper all day, you'd say that there's nothing there. But but yet if you look at Kennedy and Enzi, now that Enzy took my place, and he and Ted are doing big-time legislation. They're doing OSHA stuff, they're doing health care, they're doing stuff on parity and mental health. You see anything about that? Hell no. That raises a question. Yeah, how much of it is distorted by media coverage or lack of coverage? Well, they're they're they don't understand. They're looking for all the rage of, you know, something emotional. Emotion, fear, either pass or kill a bill with the use of emotion, fear, guilt, or racism. I knew that because everything I dealt with was filled with emotion, fear, guilt, or racism. Immigration, nuclear high-level waste, Social Security, veterans' benefits, Jesus. You name it. So every time people run out of facts on those issues, they repair to the lurking darkness of emotion, fear, guilt, and racism. So that was always uh the toughest part. And then the media will always just pick, go for one of those, you know. Uh uh, somebody said, Well, how will what will an uh uh what will a good immigration bill look like? I said, whoever crafts the finest immigration reform bill ever made will be called a bigot, and a xenophobe and a racist. So Merry Christmas. Whoever crafts the best high-level nuclear waste will be called a bomber of the ages, a destruction of the environment. Who I mean, this is the way it goes in the media. Well, look at it. I mean, uh, you know, I don't watch television. What the hell is there to watch? Uh what kid got pulled out of a swamp, a video camera for 10 days in a row, some poor bastard that got jerked off the street and chopped in half. And, you know, Gertrude Van Esterlen or whatever, you know, just every night just straining milk to get the pathos and anguish. Oh, God, you know. Who cares?

Host Randal Wallace narrates

SPEAKER_00 13:18

You hear Senator Simpson talking about the extremeness of the positions that no matter what you get a p uh you you try to propose, you get hit with something that's so extreme. And you're gonna hear them also, you know, talking about um, you know, some of the tools in the Senate, like the filibuster, which I have always supported, but is now it doesn't even cause you know, cause you to have to have any kind of sacrifice to to have a filibuster to hold something up. It didn't like it was when Strom Thurman had to hold the floor for 24 hours. Now just hold a bill up. Um and that the media loves all the attention that they can get for something that that that is gonna be controversial, and um and it and all this has led to um the Republicans and Democrats basically being on teams, and and if it's if it's a good idea, they're not gonna be for it if the other side's for it. And that all those kind of changes are um are are really trying are you know crippling good government, if not just totally crippling the government.

oral history of Senator Bob Packwood R - Oregon

SPEAKER_08 14:17

This is fascinating because what you're telling me really flies in the face. First of all, I'm learning things I didn't know, but it flies in the face of this popular notion that one leader after another has espoused about how powerless they are, about how they have no, you know, no tools at their command. It sounds to me like they have maybe more tools than than they went on.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

You're you're they do, and you're seeing one of the frustrations for leaders in both sides is the filibuster. It wasn't used very much, it was mainly a civil rights tool when I was there at the start for the first three years, and you you didn't have, I'll take a guess, ten, twelve votes on a filibuster in a year. Or maybe ten or twelve votes of which four or five may have been on one issue. Uh and now it's just a common parliamentary procedure, which makes it infinitely more difficult for for a leader. Um so that tool has changed. But if you mean are we aggregating more power to the House and Senate in the hands of the leadership, the answer is yes.

SPEAKER_08 15:17

Is it less of a club now?

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Oh yes, part of it is that you can travel and you can get places and you're not there all the time. The part of it is that we need to press everybody to get it, everybody tries to get it, you gotta work again for it. And the insiders who work hard who don't work hard.

SPEAKER_08 15:48

Another another line of demarcation.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

You look at it every now and then either the Hill or Roll Call puts out who've been on the Sunday morning talk shows. It isn't it isn't very often that it's a real insider that it is a factor. And it has to irritate the House members in a way that obscure senators can get on when powerful House members who really are a factor cannot get on.

SPEAKER_08 16:15

Is liberal republicanism dead or could it revise?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Oh no, it's bound to revive because if we keep going the way we're going and end up losing 55% of the women and 70% of the Hispanics and 90% of the blacks, and and 52% of those under 30, we can't uh we can't last very long. It uh the nice thing about democracy, unless a party shoots itself in the foot like the wigs and just disappears, is that finally a party gets tired of getting beaten and they change. The classic example in this in English politics is the Israeli and the English reform, the Second Reform Act, where the Liberals have got a bill. But Disraeli and the Conservatives not only have a bill, they leapfrog them in terms of the Irish nationalists and go for a reform bill that the liberals cannot buy. And they win, and the description of Robert Blake's gets the conservatives to vote for things they would never vote for because of the thrill of beating the liberals.

SPEAKER_08 17:24

That but that presupposes that the uh the Republican Party, certainly the conservative Republican Party, has to uh be uh have a pretty severe drubbing administered.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Well they had won this last election. Uh uh, I mean, when when when we can lose Montana and Virginia, and uh you know I realize that each of our candidates have warts, yeah. And maybe we'll get them back, therefore. But I don't I don't uh see the future looking great for us for the next election. I forget the presidency, I mean who knows we might win that. But I I look at the numbers in the House, I look at who's up in the Senate, and it doesn't look optimistic to me.

SPEAKER_08 18:04

Yeah.

oral history of Senator Dan Inouye D - Hawaii

SPEAKER_08 18:05

Talk about the Senate as a club. We've talked to a lot of your colleagues, current and former. What Mogdon wanted this to be about was as much the Senate as himself and how the Senate has evolved and some would say degenerated. I don't know. I mean you've been here since 1962. Um is there such a thing as the good old days compared to the Senate in more modern times?

SPEAKER_09 18:31

Well, if you study the history of the Senate, um it is like a group of people pursuing a goal. And in this case we call it democracy. And oftentimes the leadership says the trail going to the left is a better trail. Then you go too far, somebody else says, no, I think it's the right side. And so it's been left and right. And you've had periods civil war, the extreme, and then you have periods when everything was joyous. And so I cannot say that we are evolving from this state to another state, because I've seen it go up and down, up and down. But if you were to compare my early days, it was much more pleasant. And why was it much more pleasant? Because today we seem to be conducting ourselves a bit more positive. Oh very partisan. Uh for example, in the early days, even if the rules did permit it, very, very, very seldom would any member put a hole on your bill. I have put a hole on a bill twice. But I would go up to you and I say, Jack, I'm putting a hole on your bill for 24 hours because I want to study it. I don't know anything about it, but it seems very important. And you say, Oh, fine. And next day it's off. Today some of these polls are secret. You don't know who's putting it on. And one man can frustrate the whole United States Senate. And that's not democratic as far as I'm concerned. That rule has to be repealed. Now we we have measures that the committee unanimously reports on. Why partisan? But some guy decides, no, I don't want it. No, it's an earmark. Or something like that. It's wide open, transparent as can be.

SPEAKER_08 21:02

You know, you keep hearing about a loss of civility. Not not just in the Senate, but in the political process generally. Do you think that's broadly speaking, that's accurate, that it's a less civil place than it was?

SPEAKER_09 21:16

Well, I would think uh in the early days when we were simple, you would come up to me and say, I'm gonna put a hole on. Yeah. There's no hot feeling whatsoever. Yeah.

unknown 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 21:30

We didn't do this to gut you. It wasn't too for revenge. And we made ourselves known. Filibusters was serious. It wasn't one of these, well, you guys bring this up, we're gonna filibuster it.

SPEAKER_08 21:49

How much do you think the media has influenced us? I mean, not just television, but now the rise of cable television and the internet and talk radio. All of which seems to want to stop the fire.

SPEAKER_09 22:08

In the early days ABC NBC C V S later on came along. No cable. Radio stations were primarily the three. And um well the the press, for example, today would be on hurdle. But if you can imagine the Roosevelt administration telling the press you will never photograph in in a wheelchair. And as a result there are only two remaining. Two that were taken in the kitchen by the family. And when the paralyzed veterans wanted their wheelchair in the display, I said that's not part of history because we can't make it up. The only thing we got is this. It was made out of a regular chair with wheels on.

SPEAKER_08 23:16

I want to ask you something. I'll ask you something I asked Vice President Mondale and and Senator Kennedy. Um 30 years ago, 40 years ago, you had two parties, each of which had, to some degree, liberal and conservative wings. It would seem to me to be reasonable to believe that since you had to within your own party work in effect across ideological divides, that made you both more proficient in and more liable to to work across the aisles in terms of up between the parties.

SPEAKER_09 24:14

No. Okay. Because in our days um you had organizations like that, you had uh religious groups. But uh I think the members themselves with a few exceptions were not mean and vindictive.

SPEAKER_08 24:41

Alan Greespan said something interesting. He said one factor he thinks is the senators from the West Coast, before they get played, they didn't go home every weekend. They stayed here in D.C. They often brought their families with them, you know, to DC. And you it was more of a not only a club, but it was uh kind of a collegial village almost of uh of lawmakers.

SPEAKER_09 25:06

Yeah, I never thought of that. Because I'm from as far away as we can go. And I during the early days in the house, I think I got back about three times a year. Really? Yeah. About a year ago I was getting back about a dozen times a year. Now I get back about six, seven times a year. Uh the workload is getting bigger.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

He'll be referencing Bob Dole to start with in his comment.

SPEAKER_09 25:40

Somehow we understood each other. But see, I guess. We would disagree. We we disagreed maybe 90% of the time. But we were never disagreeable. We didn't curse each other.

SPEAKER_08 25:57

But there's this sense that there's that almost generational willingness to to follow that. I mean, to to reach across the aisle and at least to work, you know, if you you may not be able to agree, but but you you can conduct your disagreements in a civil way. And there's a perception that there's a whole new generation of members of Congress in both houses who are who are less inclined to conduct themselves that way. Is that is that an exaggeration? No.

SPEAKER_09 26:27

Is it so it is a different culture? Um for some reason they feel that they've accepted the mantle of being a Democrat, so they they think they should do this to conduct themselves like democrats.

SPEAKER_08 26:47

Where do you think that came from?

SPEAKER_09 27:03

I won't say from profound thoughts and readings and somewhere on the line the media has made us a bit more partisan. I can't help it. And the media itself and talk shows and TV commentators op-eds have become glowingly partisan. And it has an effect upon all of us.

SPEAKER_08 27:40

Is the House a more partisan body than the Senate?

SPEAKER_09 27:44

Yes, it is, because it is a two-year body. The moment they get elected, they're campaigning for re-election. And re-elections somehow are conducted in a partisan fashion.

SPEAKER_08 28:03

Isn't it also true that more recently, if you run for the Senate, you have to run obviously statewide. You have to take into account a whole range of diverse interests. With more and more gerrymandered house seats, seats that are basically devised so that you know in advance which party's going to win, you you have no incentive to try to reach out beyond your so-called base. I mean, doesn't that make the House more partisan even than the two-year term a lot?

SPEAKER_09 28:35

With the general mandering and such, it does make them with the potential of being much more partisan. And uh even in a place like Hawaii, if you're a city candidate or a rural candidate, it's a difference. You represent different types of people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 28:58

Why do you think it's difficult for senators to go from the Senate to the White House?

SPEAKER_09 29:05

This year obviously we're using history changes, but I really never gave much thought to that. But when you think about it, it was Kennedy the last time. This time you'll have one. Anyway, you'll have one. Well, maybe it's because we're too close to the White House. And um And when you're serving in Washington, you can't help it, you even if you try your best, you lose touch with the folks.

oral history of Senator Thad Cochran R - Mississippi

SPEAKER_10 29:51

You mentioned televi television in the Senate. Uh what are your thoughts about prior to television and after? What changes did you see occur? Well, I think the biggest one is it made us all more self-conscious. Um you became conscious of you know how you sounded, you could see yourself in uh being taped and replayed. Um and in most of the committees we have access to, but television has access to filming. Um all uh all of the uh systems in the committee rooms now are tied in with a communication, audio communication system. So members of the staffs can listen to uh a radio, in effect, um, live, and you can hear everything that's going on in that committee. But as a participant, you're aware that everybody's listening. And so you're more careful, I think, about how you act and how you talk and what you say. You tend to be more cautious, I think. Some people don't, but most senators, I think, are affected that way. So you tend to prepare and know what you're talking about before you start talking, so you won't be uh viewed as somebody who's ill-informed or um doesn't make any sense. Uh they'll replace you, as they should, if you're not doing well. Considering the committee of the whole, um uh how is it uh television affected attendance and uh debate? Well, it's um I think the debate I've just covered that part uh because you are more moderate, I think. There are some who I guess would tend to show off maybe and histrionics creep in to a higher level than would otherwise be the case. But I think even before television, you saw you saw uh senators realizing that everything they said is going to be taken down. But you know, you could then change it. That's the way you did it in the old days. Now, when I first came up here, you could get up on the floor and make a speech, and then uh and then the recorders of the debate would type that up and print it out. You had a chance to go back into a loom and read and read it and edit it so that the final version was polished, and if you had time to do that, and I always took time to do that. And uh, my parents being school teachers, I think I didn't want to get a bad grade from my parents. And so I would uh make sure that what I thought I said I did say, even if it meant changing the text a little bit. But that is a consequence, I think, of the exposure that has increased over time with the technologies that we all have now. So you tend to think about what you say before you get up and start coughing. Do you revise uh the congressional record anymore? Not not often. Occasionally I will I will uh look at it, and uh there is a permanent record that's made too that gives you two or three days uh grace period. So if you if you did misspeak and you see that you did, or it was not recorded accurately, and that happens too. We do have these phenographs who take out everything you say as they say it, as you say it, but then they can make mistakes too. And I always was suspicious that they might be making a mistake, and I wanted to be sure they hadn't. So I when I was younger, I'd I've always read the record and to be sure it it was what I thought I said it I meant to say. Uh now I don't have time to do that. Um, there are too many other demands, so sometimes I don't go back in and edit.

Oral History of Senator Howard Baker R - Tennessee

SPEAKER_08 33:47

How uncomfortable, if at all, was that was that process of having the social issues increasingly come to define conservatism?

SPEAKER_06 33:58

Well, it's certainly important to me, and I'm sure it was to Bob is to Bob Doe. Uh but the party has moved, the country has moved, and uh, you know, we owe us responsibility to understand that and to respond to it, not necessarily to agree to it, but to understand it. You mentioned how it has moved. My dad was in the house for many years, and he was adamantly opposed to any sort of federal aid education, either directly or by implication. Now it's an article of faith that, you know, if you're in the House or Senate, you better get our share. And it's a big share anymore. So it's changed. But uh change, once again, is one of the hallmarks of a vibrant economy and a vibrant democracy. And it will continue to change. I don't know how it's going to change. It may go forward or backward or sideways, but change is not a bad word, in my view, at least. And it's inevitable, in my view, at least. But uh, you know, and and in terms of parties themselves, I hear, especially young people, say, well, the Republicans are conservative, Democrats are liberal. The truth of the matter is they're neither, in my view. Their center of gravity will vary from time to time. Numerically, if nothing else, there'd be more liberals or conservatives or moderates in one party or the other. And those things will change. But the great center still runs America. And I don't think it's a mathematical center. I think, and I think Bob Dole understood this more than most anybody. It's not a mathematical center, but rather it's uh uh a consensus view that certain things are at the center of our political system. And that's what should drive our determination of other more complex issues.

SPEAKER_08 35:55

The

oral history of Senator George McGovern D - South Dakota

SPEAKER_08 35:56

Senate that you walked into was different how from from the Senate that we see today on C SPAN.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

Well, first of all, uh every senator was known. I go over there now and go up in the uh gallery and look over the edge, and uh I don't know half of the people that are on the floor in the Senate, even when some page tells me that's senator so-and-so, I don't still don't recognize him. I don't even recognize the names. So I think that individual senators had a more uh prominent place in the life of the Senate uh than they do uh today. I also think there was more significant floor debate in those days than there is uh now. There was a tendency, even when I was there, that I think was just getting underway in the age of television and modern uh press communications and so on for senators to beat the path to the uh studio where they could get out a release on everything they were doing. But you have the feeling now that uh publicity and uh cultivating uh television and the press as a whole is more pronounced than it used to be.

SPEAKER_08 37:25

Were party royalties stronger then than they are now?

SPEAKER_05 37:29

Maybe.

SPEAKER_08 37:29

Uh just in terms of organizational ties or discipline?

SPEAKER_05 37:34

I think uh I think so. I think uh uh I was thinking about Lady Bert Johnson who died this week when Lyndon Johnson was running that show, and he literally ran it uh when I came to the uh Senate. Uh there was uh uh there was a sense of party uh discipline that I think is uh stronger than it is uh today. But having said that, I also think the collegiality of the Senate has diminished in the years since uh Bob Dole and I were there. Um I had a very warm relationship with any number of senators, some of them Republicans, some of them Democrats, uh uh some of them uh people who regarded themselves as independents, um, that seems to me to be in shorter supply today than it was uh 40 years ago. There's some of that collegiality up there uh today. You see uh Ted Kennedy cooperating with Orrin Hatch, and you see other uh combinations uh like that. Uh but that was even stronger, I believe, in uh days of Dole and McGovern than it is today.

SPEAKER_08 38:59

How about fundraising?

SPEAKER_05 39:00

I mean that clearly is something that is Well, that drives members of the Congress up the wall. Uh it's common knowledge now, I guess, that uh a United States senator, the day after he's elected for six years will be out raising money for the next campaign, and that they give an average of two out of every seven days to raising funds. I don't think that's an exaggeration. And senators who dislike that as much as I did uh really are are frustrated and uh turned off by it. I I think the Senate's ready to uh reform the the system. I think the House probably is too. The one thing that keeps them from doing that is that they think the incumbent has an advantage in raising money, and therefore, if you try to restrict the activities of members of the Congress in any way on raising funds, you you uh surrender an advantage that they now have. But just just speaking for myself, and that's all I should really try to do, um, I'd I'd like to see us go to a system of public financing, a campaign similar to what they have in most of the European uh democracies. Under that kind of system, both the senator and congressman, the incumbents, and their bona fide challengers would get a given sum of money from the U.S. Treasury. I know some people are going to say, gosh, all we need now is another uh drain on the Treasury. The best way taxpayers can defend themselves is to insist that they pay for campaigns rather than these special interests that have an axe to grind. So if we had uh a system under which um each person got a, you know, a fair amount, you don't want to deprive them of the right to go on television and write it, but a fair amount, depending on the population of the state or the district, for each of the contender and the uh ch and the um uh incumbent. I think that's what we ought to have, and just exclude any private money at all. No candidate can spend his own money on campaigning. He can't go out and raise money from his friends or from a corporation or from a labor union. All of that's out. No private money in campaigning, I think is the best thing we could do for American democracy. You might have to amend the Constitution, uh, because uh the First Amendment says that we have the right to free speech, and in some cases they include campaigning as part of free speech. So you might have to amend that, except in the case of public campaigns or something like that.

SPEAKER_08 42:07

Did you ever have a donor or a lobbyist make it improper request?

SPEAKER_05 42:12

I mean a quid pro quo or you know, I never did. I I know senators and congressmen who have because they told me about it, but I never really had anybody come to me and say, Look, George, I put up fifty thousand dollars in this last race, and uh, I want money for this bridge, or I want my kid in West Point. I never had that happen.

Host Randal Wallace wraps up the episode by reading a chapter in his upcoming book "The Leadership Lessons from the Cold War"

SPEAKER_00 42:37

And here you you hear the senators talking about the different things that have changed, and and not for the better in the U.S. Senate, I don't think, from their era. Um if anything, you worry about how much worse it can get uh than what we've seen in modern times. And I I have some thoughts. You know, I I recently wrote a book called, and I you know, and I'm gonna shamelessly plug it right here, called The 16 Leadership Lessons from the Cold War. And it is um from the podcast. It's actually stories that I learned doing this show, putting this show together over the past uh almost five years now, which is it's hard for me to believe. And um and I had at the end of that book, you know, it it has a lot of different history, stories in it, and all that, but that involve these people that you're listening to, because uh we profile just about every one of them in to varying degrees uh throughout uh the years that the show's been on the air. But I had three thoughts of of things that can be done structurally to deal with the division that's really I think trickle down from our leadership in DC uh into our everyday lives now. And I think unfortunately this is this is a horrible situation that happened with Charlie Kirk. Uh in twenty twenty-five, the assassination speaks to just how extreme uh the positions have gotten and how we've allowed this these folks to take over the system. And if you did a couple of things, I think you would get to the root causes. Now, there's some other issues like social media uh and the divisions that it's causing and the media just playing up things that I that I don't know the answer to, but I do think that if our leadership makes the conscious decision to to change things, which is a point that only made in my first book, um that that some of that would change because they w they themselves would quit fanning the flames. But I do think one of the things that we could do, um, and I'm gonna read a little bit of out of my book here, um, is eliminate all of these special prosecutors, special counsels, um in in all forms and for all reasons. So there's no there'd be no reason to come pull it back out, and allow some ability to to have jurisdiction uh in our court system to separate powers, but to hold these prosecutors accountable uh and and so that it doesn't get politicized. And uh so from my book is what I was it said, it said, you know, when you create a special law to criminalize politics, which can result in leaders of either party going to prison or being removed from office, you won't live long enough to ever remove the bitter hatred you just pumped into the political system. That is the great contribution the Democrats gave to this mess that we're dealing with in this country in 1974. Since that time, we have injected a vial of bitterness that has done nothing but eat away at the body politic for a half century. Look at the system the Watergate scandal wrought on this nation. It went on for two and a half years, creating an office that has now been proven, even in that heralded case, to have totally abused its powers in order to remove a president. But even if you make the argument that Nixon deserved what he got, you cannot erase the detrimental effects of having an office that exists to do nothing but destroy a political figure, manned by his opposition, and in whom you have every bad motive in the world for that person to make a case, no matter what the evidence shows. That is how you jump from an Arkansas land deal that lost money to a perjury case over an affair with a 22-year-old White House intern. It's how you now routinely spend millions of taxpayer dollars on wild goose chase congressional investigations that last for years, even after the administration the investigation is about has left office. Today it is no longer about the crime and seeking the truth, but on how many headlines you can create and how much political damage you can do to the other side. And the longer it all stretches out on the better it is for your side of the aisle, all while spending taxpayer money like you have a license to print it free of charge. When you add in the effects of a the growing 24-hour news cycle, the rise of social media, and the algorithms that can cocoon us off from one another, plus the other issues I'll be discussing in this chapter, you have a recipe for total disaster in our ability to function. Just ask yourself why is it we are still living the detrimental effects from a scandal that ended 50 years ago, a full 30 plus years after the president involved Richard Nixon died. We see it in the prolonged cases of the past 40 years. Whether it's Iran Contra, Whitewater, Benghazi, Hillary Clinton's emails, Hunter Biden's laptop, the documents case of both Trump and Biden, Trump's financial cases, Hunter Biden's business interests, and on and on the list goes with these congressional investigations and legal wranglings lasting for years. It was all learned 50 years ago when it was discovered you could make political hay not out of a criminal act, but out of prolonging the fight over the issue for as long as possible. If you eliminate these special offices, cut off the ability to abuse the legal system by political prosecutors, working in secret with congressional committees, and return the power that power to career justice department prosecutors who are supervised as they should be, and congressional committees who investigate issues without accomplices on the outside they're working with to manipulate the public, which has happened repeatedly with these special prosecutors and special counsels officers, you will you will then see a lot of this nonsense stop and the bitter hatred you see today that is permeated all the way down the system will simply dissipate from a rushing river to a small mountain stream. Number two, make Congress work a five-day work week. And I think you've heard that in these episodes, the importance of relationships and how they used to all get together. And they're not doing that now. But number two on my list and from the book, uh, to make a con make Congress work a five-day work week. If Congress had to be there five days a week, they would have to live in Washington, D.C. And so would their wives, husbands, and kids. When the Congressmen all had to move, all have to move there, they would end up spending time together, getting to know one another, developing relationships across the aisle, and then just by the nature of developing relationships with each other, they would they would still they would start working past the extremes, past the consultants currently driving the wedge in the system, and past the lobbyists who are constantly in their ears. This belief of not spending uh time together, not breaking bread together, not spending time in DC was started by Speaker Newt Gingrich and the high paid consultants he brought in when the Republicans took control of the House for the first time in forty years back in 1994. That is the Republican Party's gate con great contribution to this divide, and we have seen in in this imploding politics today. It was a brilliant strategic move on the leadership's part because it's easier to hate someone you don't really know and easier to control your side when that is the case. This idea of only working a half a day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, and part of the day Thursday, plus the advent of easy air travel has fixed it so that Congressmen and Senators we elected are spending less time in Washington, D.C., less time breaking bread and getting to know each other, and more time chasing money for re-election. That also means they have less time to discuss issues, address problems, find common ground, and actually think. That creates a void. And you know who's going to fill that void? High paid consultants and special interests with big money. As former Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina said after leaving office and while promoting his book, Making Government Work, the decisions are no longer made in the leader's office. They're made on K Street. And the congressmen and senators are just told what time they are supposed to vote and how they're supposed to be voting. A five-day work week would stop all of that because slowly but surely the Congresspeople would spend time together, have spouses who were friends with each other, children that played together, uh, and time to talk with one another. Relationships are what makes situations work, and time spent is the fertile ground that makes it happen. One only needs to look back at the Civil Rights Era and when they were passed in this country in the 1960s by a man from Texas, a Democrat, working with a man from Illinois, a Republican. Lyndon Johnson and Everett Dirksen have been friends with one another since one was a first-term congressman and the other an elevator door operator. They knew each other, trusted each other, and made it all work. That can happen when you fly in for part of a day, work all day the next, and fly out after another half a day on the job. It's nearly impossible to build relationships like that, especially when a hundred percent of you live out of town. And uh just so you know, I got this idea from a book written by two senators that you've heard in the last few episodes, uh Trent Tom Dashl and Trent Lott. And I know that Charles Grassley, who I just love, he thinks she should be going home all the time. And I realize that that's part of staying in touch with your constituency, but you know, they did it a hundred years ago, uh, and and I think they can do it now. You've got offices, you've got abilities to keep up with your people, you got the weekends to go. Um, you know, there's always breaks that you can be there, but you need to be there legislating. But I can't stress to you enough how important it is that you build relationships with people and that you get to know people because I'm gonna promise you, working with somebody whose natural inclination in politics is to be absolutely the opposite of yours is easier if you guys get to know each other and you're friends with one another. And and you see it and you hear them saying it here about how the meanness and the extremism and the uh the ability to just just to demonize your opponents has happened in the years since the jet airplane and social media have taken off. And then when you add in these special counsels and special prosecutors and his attempts to use the legal system to uh to attack one another and put people in jail, you've got a recipe for a train wreck. And it's happening in this country right now. Uh the other one is, and this is a little shorter, is number three, get the massive amount of money out of the campaign system. Money may be speech, but it's damn sure not free. It has led to Congress spending all their time raising money and letting legislation get decided down the road on K Street by the lobbyists and the big money special interests that are paying for the campaigns. Our country doesn't need term limits, it needs money limits. How you do it and keep it fair for both political parties and any potential third party or independent candidate is something that needs to be figured out. And I don't have all the answers to that. But we must get a grip on the money flooding the system because if we don't, we'll have a country run by multimillionaires, famous people, and novelty candidates who can all get attention for free. That is what the country, in my opinion, needs, and a lot less of every elected official in America hiring a consultant to tell them what to say with the goal of making everybody angrier at everybody else, a talent mastered by both sides of the aisle, because it's easier to get a check out of you if you hate them than the other side of the aisle. And uh I that's from from the last chapter in my book, and I believe that. And I think if you did those three things, uh, you know, if the leaders lead, the followers follow. And I think that is something that we desperately need in this country uh to be worthy of inheriting from the greatest generation. The coun the generation that built the American century and made this country, took it to a new level as the world power, to be worthy of inheriting the country that they built and to be able to lead the world. Because if we don't lead it, guess who is Russia or the Chinese? And just look around the world right now. We don't want that to happen.

Ad for our Host's upcoming book "The 16 Lessons from the Cold War"

SPEAKER_07 55:22

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Hi, I'm Randall Wallace, your host for the Randall Wallace Presents Podcast and the Richard Nixon Experience Podcast. And I wanted to invite you to get our new book, The Leadership Lessons from the Cold War. The lessons from the generation of Americans who built the American Century. 16 lessons you can learn from them to make your life more successful, be it in business, politics, or personally. These are the lessons I've learned along the way after years of studying the greatest leaders of the last half of the 20th century. The Leadership Lessons from the Cold War. Available now at randallwallace.com, at Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

I have seen this nation overcome depression and segregation and communism, turning back mortal threats to human freedom. And I have stood in awe of American courage and decency. Virtues so rare in history and so common in this precious place.