[00:00:00] NELSON POLSBY:
Good afternoon, and welcome to this Jefferson lecture. Uh, my name is, uh, Nelson Polsby. I’m the author of Polsby’s Fourth Law, which says that famous sayings migrate into famous mouths.
It is this law, rather than any more secure documentation, that causes the attribution to Otto von Bismarck of the wisecrack that neither the making of laws nor the making of sausages is fit for the observation of ordinary citizens. Uh, Bismarck may have been right about sausages, but I think he was wrong about laws. I speak here from the experience of watching politics and politicians in a reasonably careful and systematic way for about forty years, mostly, but not entirely in the United States.
Over that period of time, I suppose the politicians who have most impressed me are those who are held in high regard by their own colleagues because they have earned the trust of others in the arena to frame issues and to identify alternative perspectives on the problems that they all must each, in his or her own way, confront. This matter of collegial trust cuts across such matters as ideology or policy agreement or disagreement, and arises from respect for a colleague’s disposition to be fair-minded, scrupulous in his or her treatment of facts, and possessed of a sense of proportion so that small considerations do not drive out larger ones. It’s been one of my ambitions as a teacher to acquaint my students first with the facts that there are such persons, and exceptional though they may be, that some of them do inhabit our nation’s political institutions.
And second, with the thought that these exemplary politicians are deserving of our deepest gratitude for their efforts at making the amazing and problematic institutions of self-government that we have devised for ourselves run with a certain measure of integrity. Today, we have an opportunity to hear the thoughts of a remarkably successful politician who for a generation has distinguished himself in precisely this manner. Thomas S. Foley is a partner in the Washington office of the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, uh, where he concentrates in international affairs.
He is a native of Spokane, Washington, and a graduate of the University of Washington and its School of Law. From January nineteen sixty-five to December nineteen ninety-four, he served his hometown and the surrounding territory as their representative in the U.S. Congress. While in Congress, he held a number of important positions, including chairman of the Democratic Study Group, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, majority whip, and majority leader.
From nineteen eighty-nine to nineteen ninety-four, he was chosen by his colleagues to be the forty-ninth speaker of the House. The quintessential Foley story goes this way. Many years ago, a colleague asked Foley to cite reasons for voting against a pending bill.
Foley gave him three, and the legislator voted against the bill, only to be stunned when Foley voted for it. When the colleague asked why, Foley said he could have offered three better reasons to vote for the bill, but the man had not asked. You can imagine, in light of this, how carefully your Jefferson Committee phrased our invitation to Speaker Foley for this occasion, and how glad we are to welcome this exemplary public servant this afternoon.
Um, there’ll be a continuing conversation at the Institute of Governmental Studies tomorrow. There’ll be question and answer after the talk, but now Speaker Foley will give his reflections of a former speaker, Tom Foley.
(applause and cheering)
[00:04:37] TOM FOLEY:
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I’m, I’m delighted to be here, very honored by the invitation to, uh, give a Jefferson lecture and, uh, especially to be introduced, uh, so generously by Nelson Polsby, an old friend of many years, and one who I’ve ad- in turn admired very, very much indeed.
(cough)
I, uh, came into the Congress in, uh, January of 19, uh, ’65, uh,
(cough)
as a member of the 89th Congress that, uh, came into office with the election of, uh, Lyndon Johnson. And I left on, on January, uh, 4th, in 1995, as, uh, and in effect, I, I passed the gavel, figuratively speaking, to my successor, Newt Gingrich. It
(cough)
marks a transition from, uh, the Great Society, uh, to, uh, the Contract with America. Uh, a period of thirty years, and in those thirty years, a very momentous part of the history of, of, of the modern Congress. I am, uh, in reflection, uh, continually grateful to my constituents for giving me a chance to, uh, serve that long period.
Uh,
(clears throat)
but I remember very well my entering it as well as
(clears throat)
my leaving it and some of the changes and attitudes and institutions that fell in between.
(clears throat)
All
(clears throat)
of our newly elected members of Congress are submitted now to a period of orientation that starts in December after election and takes place, uh, unfortunately, in the most recent years, rather separately. For years, uh, both parties, uh, conducted their own individual, uh, orientation of members, and then they joined together, um, after about a week of separate orientation, uh, for a, uh, a joint, uh, session at the Kennedy School at Harvard. Yeah, recently that’s been un-
Uh, terminated as I think, uh, many, uh, on the Republican side thought that the Kennedy School was a little too much on the liberal side of the philosophy of politics, and so they continued separately. But in my day, this was very brief. We were given a, a very short orientation, uh, by, uh, the members, uh, on the leadership on the Democratic side.
Then Speaker McCormack, uh, suggested to us that, uh, newly elected members, uh, might be elected by accident, as he put it, but seldom reelected by accident. The message was subtle but clear, “Come back in two years’ time, and if you’re reelected, we’ll, uh, treat you more seriously.” ” But I remember more distinctly, uh, a, a senior member from Ohio, uh, Mike Kirwan, who was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations, who gave us the advice that, uh, we should avoid at all costs the most serious possible problem that a new member could, uh, face and the most serious mistake a new member could make.
And we leaned forward to hear what this was, some ethical trap or other, and he said, “Thinking for yourselves.”
(laughter)
He said, “Maybe within the brief area of your own constituency, you might know on some local issue better than the leadership.” But he said, “In all other things,” he said, “trust the leadership.” He said, “Trust the subcommittee chairman, trust the committee chairman, trust the, uh, chairman of the Democratic caucus, trust the Democratic whip, trust the majority leader.”
And he said, “Especially, especially,” he said, “pray God, trust and support the Speaker.”” I remember being outraged at the time. I thought this was a terrible thing for a senior, uh, leader of my party to, to say to us who had been elected to make a mark in dealing with the problems of the ’60s and beyond, uh, to say that we shouldn’t think for ourselves. And he made it worse by saying, in his judgment, more people had gotten in trouble by thinking for themselves than by stealing money.
That I thought was an outrageous slur.
(laughter)
In the, uh, 25 years of following that, uh, uh, period, I became a, a subcommittee chairman, a committee chairman, the chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the Democratic whip, the majority leader, and finally in 1989, the speaker. The wise words of Mr. Kirwan came back across that generation of time. I thought how right he was.
(laughter)
And while obviously it’s wrong to suggest that, uh, members of Congress shouldn’t think for themselves, and they do indeed think for themselves, it is an institution of four hundred and thirty-five members plus delegates, and, uh, the role of the speaker is, I think, an important one. And I came to feel, uh, at the end of my service that probably, if anything, the institution needed to be strengthened, that there needed to be more authority and more power in the speakership than had been true, at least for much of the time which I served. Uh, it’s gradually accreted.
We’ve given, uh, speakers more authority over committee and other assignments in recent years. The con– in both parties, the Speaker pretty much nominates and elects the members of the Rules Committee and, uh, the members of the o- the officers of the House. But when you’re responsible publicly, as the Speaker is, for the institution and for mistakes or scandals, if you will, that arise in the institution, it’s very im-important that you have the authority and responsibility to set that right.
Now, we don’t wanna get into a, a nineteen, uh, uh, hundred, uh, type of, uh, power speaker, czar speaker, like, uh, Speaker Thomas Reed or Speaker Joe Cannon, who were considered, uh, enormously and pr- and, and probably were too powerful.
(clears throat)
In fact, Speaker Reed, a, a, a figure of, uh, of great size as well as power in the House in, in the 1880s, uh, used to say that the minority’s role, the role then of the Democratic minority, was to, to draw its pay and to make a quorum. He w- He was an interesting man, by the way.
He, uh, he resigned from the Congress, uh, and from the speakership over a disagreement with the United States acquisition of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Uh, he was also a kind of a tart-tongued and witty speaker. Uh, once asked, uh, whether he would attend the funeral of a friend, he, of an adversary rather, he said, “No,” but he approved of it highly.
(laughter)
The, uh, he was asked whether he might be the nominee of the Republican Party, and he said, “They could go farther and do worse, and undoubtedly will.” Uh, in the early part of my congressional career, uh, as a young member of Congress, uh, I, uh, participated in that, uh, uh, Great, uh, Society period, uh, led by Lyndon Johnson. And I think, as I recall, one of the things that was, uh, most different from present-day, uh, politics was a sense of optimism on the part of the, the public at large.
One can look back and agree or disagree with the so-called Great Society initiatives, but there was, at the time, the sense that Congress was moving forward to deal with the problems of, of– that faced the country, at least in the level that legislation and policy can, congressional policy can. And, uh, uh, in turn, the public, uh, gave strong, uh, support and was confident not only that the political institutions of the country would work well, but that the country’s economic and social future were solid and sound. Uh, in fact, as you may have read a rather n– famous question has been asked over all of those years, “How much of the time can you trust the government to do the right thing?”
That question has been asked continually over the last thirty, forty years. And, uh, res-respondents are asked to, to say whether they can trust the government all the time, most of the time, some of the time, little of the time, or none of the time. In nineteen sixty-five, when I was elected to Congress, that question was answered all the time or most of the time by seventy-five percent of the respondents.
Amazing to think now that three out of four people in nineteen sixty-five felt you could trust the government Virtually all the time. Now last year, that figure was less than twenty-five percent. So we’ve had a reversal from three out of four to one in four who believe the government can be trusted.
Uh, it’s been marked as well by a general, uh, change, I think, in the character of how fellow citizens view each other.
(clears throat)
Again,
(clears throat)
when the question was asked in 1965, uh, can you trust people or do you have to be on your guard? Uh, two-thirds said you could trust people. One-third said you had to be on your guard.
Last year, two-thirds said you had to be on your guard, and you– one-third said you could trust people. So the society as a whole is evidencing a sense of kind of distrust, not only with institutions, uh, but with, uh, fellow citizens. This worries some, the sociologists, because there is a tendency for people to become less trustful as they grow older.
And younger people, uh, tend to be more trusting than their elders in, uh, many cases. Trust is something you often learn in childhood. So as the, the country, uh, ages, the level of trust is expected to go down, not up.
And, uh, when we look at our politics today, uh, I think we see so many people responding with distrust, uh, as far as not only the purposes of, um, the institutions of the government are concerned, but with the people in-in-involved and who work and who are elected to represent them in Washington, D.C., or in the state capitals, or in the city halls. And, uh, I think this poses a particular problem for representative government. The, uh, Congress itself, uh, has, uh, contributed to this problem, frankly.
Members of Congress for a long time, in many cases, would use distrust or dissatisfaction with the institution, uh, as a way of getting themselves reelected. Somebody would stand up in a public meeting. and say, “You know, I think it’s terrible what’s going on in Washington.”
And more often than not, a representative would say, “Well, don’t tell me, I work there. It’s worse than you think. It’s more serious than you believe.”
And in reality, my impression is that the public is much too cynical, much too critical, much too doubting, uh, and much too, uh, disappointed in the government, uh, with all of its faults and failings, than they should be based on what the reality is. And, uh, I think, uh, the way back from that is, is difficult to see, but I think we have to find a way back from it. We have to find a means of instilling a greater sense of confidence and a greater sense of intelligent and, uh, participation that follows from that if, uh, we’re going to strengthen our political institutions.
Uh, the role of, uh, of television is another interesting question. For, uh, over a decade now, we’ve televised most of the, uh, activities of Congress gavel to gavel. And I’m often asked, uh, whether that’s helped or hurt the system.
Uh, I think I’m coming around to the view, uh, it’s a politically incorrect one, that it– on balance, it may have hurt rather than helped the, the, uh, information, uh, that, uh, the public receives and the impression that they have of the institution of Congress. The, uh, tendency for people is to see, I think, on television, conflict. Uh, and, uh, the sharpest aspects of debate, uh, sometimes the most personal.
Uh, and I think that tends to distort, at least what was in the past, uh, an opportunity for members to work together, uh, across party lines, across, uh, partisan de– and philosophical divisions. Now, the public is better informed, at least a part of it, about the technical aspects of how Congress runs. In fact, there’s developed a kind of a C-SPAN junkie knowledge about how subcommittees organize and which hearing is going on today.
But the general impression, I’m afraid, may be one that is negative, uh, reinforcing the belief that all they do is wrangle and bicker, and there isn’t any interest in trying to find solutions to the country’s serious problems. The, uh, television, uh, had, may have made other, uh, contributions to the problem by, by giving people the impression that problems ought to be solved quickly, uh, that there are relatively easy answers if people just get together and resolve them. And again, politics may have contributed to this problem.
Maybe politicians have been too, uh, optimistic about the ability of pol– the political system to solve deeply rooted social problems. We have answers for everything in politics. Uh, how to solve the problem of, um, one, uh, family, uh, one-parent families, how to solve the problem of teenage pregnancy, how to solve the problem of drugs, how to solve the problem of crime, more death penalty statutes, whatever it might be.
And it’s almost natural that, uh,
(cough)
out of these easy, uh, political promises will come disappointment and s-a sense that, uh, that the political system has failed. Realistically, uh, politicians are loath to say that there are some problems that, that the political and government system cannot easily address or resolve, although everybody knows that’s probably true. We have a, a serious problem in the, uh, impression that television and the media have given in broad terms to the, to the character of what it is like to serve in Washington, D.C.
I have never seen a really good movie about politics. I, I’ve seldom read a, a good novel about the political system. Uh, there’s, uh, almost always, uh, an emphasis on, uh, the, the sort of power aspects of being in politics or seeking office.
Uh, very seldom do the realities of people’s personalities and concerns and interests and values come through? Uh,
(coughs)
the,
(coughs)
uh,
(coughs)
recent movie, uh, Distinguished Gentleman, uh, was, um, an Eddie Murphy, uh, sort of piece where, uh, uh, the Congress votes, we talked about this a little earlier,
(coughs)
the Congress votes deliberately to continue a cancer-causing, uh, problem, uh, when faced with the alternative that it could stop it. Uh, ca-candidates are seen as receiving contributions as personal bribes. Uh, there is an enormous lack of integrity and personal ethics reflected in the entire congressional community, except for a couple of people, one of whom is incompetent, and the other one who is naive.
Uh, the whole system is finally rescued by an ex-con man, Eddie Murphy, uh, criminal turned, uh, Lone decent, uh, uh, member of, of, of the House of Representatives. This, uh, movie unfortunately is a kind of a, a classic example of how the political system is pictured, albeit in a comedy, comic situation. Uh, reinforcing, uh, unfortunately a lot of attitudes that exist out there to begin with.
The, uh, I think there’s a, a legitimate question about whether we have moved hard enough or fast enough on some elements of congressional, uh, and campaign finance reform. Although this is a difficult subject and, uh, not, not an easy one to resolve inside the institution because both parties see certain types of reform as benefiting them or not benefiting them, and individual members obviously, uh, have a, a sense of expertise on this question. But in, in general, uh, the, the Congress has tried in recent years at least to address public concerns about accountability and about, uh, a campaign finance, uh, reform needs.
And, uh, I, I regret that we didn’t in the last Congress complete action on campaign finance reform or, or lobbying and gift reform. We passed both of those in the House, but they failed in the Senate with Republican filibusters. Uh,
(clears throat)
The new Congress has not really taken up campaign finance reform very seriously, and, uh, I hope that they make an effort, uh, later this year. But with that concession that Congress has sometimes failed to move fast enough on what the public perceives as needs for reform, the institution is not as hobbled by misconduct,
(clears throat)
Again, as people imagine. Uh, far from it. I think that the general level of ethical conduct in the Congress is not only better today than it was a generation ago, but is considerably, uh, can be considerably, uh, favorably compared to any other professional activity in the country.
The, uh, challenge for us as a nation
(coughs)
to provide, uh, some greater sense of confidence in, in the institutions of our own government is probably self-evident. But it’s strange to me that at a time when the model of American government is being, uh, adopted abroad by nation after nation, where the image of American democracy has been one of the truly compelling ideas at the end of the Cold War period, and where American political consultants are advising other governments on how to copy the American political institutional system, that we should, uh, find less and less support, less and less trust, uh, for it here at, and, at home. The, uh…
One of the things that may, may be also a, a problem is the end of the Cold War itself. In the 1930s, the country was engaged with the idea of recovery, of how to deal with the massive depression that inflicted tremendous rates of unemployment and economic insecurity on so many Americans. That was lifted by the Second World War, where the task of the nation was to defeat Nazi and Japanese military, uh, threats.
Uh, and following that was the,
(cough)
the expansion of the Cold War,
(cough)
of the post-war period and the development of the Cold War, where we had a combination in the immediate years after World War II of economic expansion and growth and optimism with a commitment to protect Western values as the leader of the Western alliance against the Soviet Union, whose philosophical and military threat was thought to be pervasive. Suddenly that’s over. Americans are no longer faced with a serious, uh, international challenge.
Uh, there are sporadic challenges of terrorism and There are trade difficulties and there are other emergencies, but not of the character of that the Soviet Union presented in, in the Cold War period. And to some extent, the legitimacy of the federal government has been affected, I think, by that. Because wherever else happened during the Second World War– the, the, the post-Second World War period, the United States government had an important role in maintaining the leadership of the Western alliance against the Soviet Union.
And I think that was a background that gave it some legitimacy across our party and philosophical lines. I remember George Will one time saying that people shouldn’t criticize the federal government too severely, conservatives shouldn’t, because if people lost confidence in the federal government, they would also lose confidence in the leader of the free world and the strategic alliance that had to combat communism. The, uh, end of the Cold War, uh, led many people to question what the federal government was doing effectively to deal with the problems here at home.
And
(coughs)
I would have to say that I think my own party, uh, failed in the task of explaining that very well. At least in recent years, the comparative, uh, colloquy between Democrats and Republicans, between, if you wish, the Democratic, more pro or active government party and the Republican, more critical, anti-government party, was clearly kind of year after year won on the Republican side by increasing numbers of Americans who felt the government was not functioning well. Eighty percent of them thinking that it was overblown and too expensive.
Seventy percent more thinking that the taxes were too high. The Republican message, the conservative message, was playing into an almost, uh, total national consensus. And on the Democratic side, the values of some kind of active government to maintain a continued effort to reduce, uh, the problems of poverty and crime and the deficiencies of education, the needs for, uh, uh, disadvantaged groups to, to have greater attention and concern with their needs, were simply failing against that, that effort.
In 1994, of course, as we all know, it led to the, uh, election of a majority, uh, Republican Congress in the House and the Senate. And, uh, uh, let me say, I, while I don’t think the Contract with America had much to do with the, uh, election itself, it, it
(cough)
became a very effective post-election tool in further emphasizing the need, uh, on the Republican side for solidarity in the, in the House. Uh, where we will see the system go is not yet clear.
(cough)
There’s still a great deal of dissatisfaction and distrust, and, um, uh, uncertainty on the, on the, and insecurity on the part of the, of substantial elements of the electorate. Maybe as much as a third of the electorate today is not sure whether the election of the Republican Congress or the was, was a, a movement in the right direction. So this next, uh, election in 1996 will be a very important in deciding where the mood of the country will take us.
I think in looking back on the, on the thirty years in which I served, not only am I unhappy about the, the character of the lack of public trust and the decline of, uh, uh, esteem for our political institutions, but puzzled to some extent by the fact that even those things that have manifestly improved in that period are sometimes not given much credit. In the period of time from nineteen sixty-five to the present, obviously many things have gotten better. Uh, security for senior citizens is markedly improved.
Uh, the environment is demonstrably better. Uh, opportunity for citizens, regardless of their condition, and circumstance, whether race, religion, national origin, sexual preference, whatever, is obviously improved over what it was. Uh, the country no longer strides the world like a colossus, but the United States still has the most productive economy in the world, and the the opportunities for for further growth are obviously impressive.
What is on the downside, of course, is, in addition to public attitudes, is the fact that there seems to be a certain stagnation of income for Americans, uh, except for the very top level of our, a national economy which has achieved most of the real economic growth in recent years, and the sense of frustration and insecurity that has come into the economic system is also a serious problem. But we as a nation seem to be lacking in, uh, the kind of unified or consensus-building attitudes that I thought existed, uh, at the beginning of my political career. I hope we can find a way to, to restore that.
Uh, overall, uh, we are still the country to which, uh, almost everyone in the world who admires freedom and liberty looks to, uh, as a model and as a hope for the future. And whether those are newly emerging democracies in Eastern Europe or, uh, the possibilities of democratic, uh, uh, movement in places like China, Uh, the United States, uh, has an extraordinarily important role to play in, in the last years of this century and the beginning of the next. Perhaps as, as important as it has played in the last, uh, decades of, of, of the, of the twentieth century, which has been called, of course, the American century.
Thomas Jefferson, after whom these lectures are named, is particularly claimed by, by, uh, Democrats as the founder of the Democratic Party, although he is, of course, uh, belongs to all Americans of all political persuasions. One of my favorite stories about Jefferson is that he, uh, wrote his own epitaph, and, uh, he’s buried under it at Monticello. It’s a simple epitaph that says, “Here lies buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the American Declaration of Independence, author of the statute granting religious freedom in Virginia, uh, father of the University of Virginia.”
That’s all it says. And he showed it, uh, tradition says, to a friend before he died, and the friend said, “Well, Mr. Jefferson, it doesn’t say that you were ambassador to France after the great Benjamin Franklin, that you were, uh, Secretary of State of the United States, that you were Vice President of the United States, and you were twice elected President of the United States.” And Jefferson’s response, I think, was a good, uh, motto and a good, uh, recommendation for all in public life.
He said, “I prefer to be remembered, sir, for what I have done for others rather than for what I know others have done for me.” meaning that public office is a public trust, is an opportunity, and is a great honor. And I think, uh, my abiding feeling after spending thirty years of my adult life in the political system is that, uh, it is a tremendous opportunity for anyone to have.
There are always regrets you didn’t do more, always a feeling of opportunities that were missed, uh, always a sense of, uh, what could have been, uh, more effective, uh, in the way of, of public service and, and seeking, uh, important public goals. But beyond that, I think a sense that it is a honorable, uh, occupation, and it’s one which I hope, uh, young people, so many in this room, will think about as they, uh, leave their education and pursue, uh, their careers. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here.
I’d be glad to respond now to any questions about it.
(applause)
[00:33:55] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Um, what do you think the, the role of women and minorities will be in, uh, Congress? Uh,
(unintelligible)
[00:34:03] TOM FOLEY:
Well, you know, the Congress has been, I think, perhaps validly criticized for not being representative of the country as it is today, but it’s getting a little better. The number of women members has risen, and the number of members, uh, who represent, uh, minority communities in the United States has grown slightly as well. But still, unfortunately, not a, a good simulacrum of the country as a whole.
And, uh, there isn’t an institutionally easy way to correct that, but I think it, it, it’s moving in, moving in that direction.
[00:34:38] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Yes. How do you account for the fact that, uh, so many members of the House from both parties are deciding not to seek reelection?
[00:34:46] TOM FOLEY:
Well, there are about forty, I think, in the House today that have decided not to seek reelection, fourteen Republicans and twenty-six Democrats. Some of it’s just the end of the career. They’ve spent a long time in the Congress.
But I think politics is getting meaner. It’s harder to raise money. Uh, and, uh, by the way, it’s one of the more distasteful parts, I think, of being in public life is raising money.
Uh, the campaign costs have, have just gone way ahead of inflation, so that House seats that when I started used to cost maybe a A campaign would cost fifty, sixty thousand dollars, now cost five hundred to a million. Five hundred thousand to a million. Uh, also internally, I think the, the system has gotten, um, unfortunately, uh, away from the kinds of civility that used to mark, uh, a little more of our relations between members.
Uh, there, there’s more, uh, confrontational attitude in Congress today. There’s more, uh, kind of distance between the two parties. There’s less communication,
(cough)
less sort of acquaintance and friendship across party lines, and I think the rhetoric has gotten pretty harsh. About thirty-one members gathered together a couple of weeks ago to sign some kind of petition they’re going to circulate to try to get members to be more civil to each other. Uh, that, that has a, uh, uh, an effect, plus what I mentioned earlier, public attitudes.
I mean, people don’t, uh, value as much, uh, to say the least, uh, the, the, what the work that members do. And it is pretty hard work. It, it’s, uh, long hours.
It’s, uh, sometimes family separation. Uh, it’s, you know, a commitment that, that’s, that’s a fairly substantial one that you have to give to, to being a member of Congress, and, uh, uh, many members, I think, uh, sum it up with the kind of trite phrase, “It isn’t any fun anymore.” Uh, but I think that’s some of– motivated some of the members to, to, to leave the Congress.
Also, I’d have to say that a few of them, uh, who have been committee chairmen probably, find it, uh, a little bit difficult to, to leave those powerful posts, and, uh, they– that may have some influence in, in their decision. We’re losing some good people too, by the way, I mean, both in the House and the Senate.
[00:37:06] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Yes. Uh, looking back to the ’60s, do you think there were mistakes made in immigration policy?
[00:37:14] TOM FOLEY:
Were, were there mistakes made in immigration policy?
[00:37:16] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
And reforms made in the past?
[00:37:21] TOM FOLEY:
Well, that’s a, that’s a tough question. I, I, I, I think the figures out today from the Census Bureau indicate that about nine percent of the American population is foreign-born. There are something like twenty-three million Americans who were born, uh, uh, uh, in other countries.
Uh, that’s still, uh, very almost half of what it was in 1910 when we had 15 percent of our, uh, national population, uh, was foreign, foreign-born. Uh, and I think we’d have to say that, uh, although it’s, uh, an, an issue that’s caused some anxiety with, with people, and obviously people like Pat Buchanan are playing on that, uh, I don’t think there’s too much evidence that immigrants have taken away jobs from Americans. On the contrary, I think they provided, uh, a, a healthy and important part of our economic growth and development and obviously the diversity of the country.
And, uh
(cough)
so from my standpoint, I don’t know that the immigration policy can be indicted that much. There’s a lot of concern, obviously, about illegal immigration, and that’s an entirely different, different problem from it.
[00:38:37] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
I remember that in ’65, the policy tended to exclude Europeans,
(cough)
and nobody foresaw that.
[00:38:48] TOM FOLEY:
The what? I’m sorry.
[00:38:49] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
The policy reforms tended to exclude European immigrants.
[00:38:54] TOM FOLEY:
Ex-exclude European immigrants and, and favor others. Well, um, well, I– certainly our policy favored immi– earlier favored European immigration. So we, we’ve made some attempt to clear that up with some changes, the Donnelly, for example, in Ireland, uh, visas and so on.
(coughs)
Uh, but they’re taking another look at it right now. There’s an immigration act that’s moving through Congress at the moment. Yes.
[00:39:24] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Unless it’s because it’s a majority African district, can you explain why your party has opposed statehood for D.C.? The Democrats claim to be the party of the common man and the disenfranchised.
[00:39:36] TOM FOLEY:
I was the majority leader. I was the principal sponsor of statehood for D.C.
(laughter)
[00:39:40] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
But your party– your party, this was your party.
[00:39:43] TOM FOLEY:
Well, the
(cough)
Democratic Party supports it more than the Republican Party.
(cough)
I guess the question is why there isn’t a majority in Congress in favor of statehood for DC.
(cough)
I think, uh, the, uh, the answer to that question probably is, uh, that, uh, unfortunately, uh, in, in, in ma-many cases, um, w-well, I’ll put it very bluntly
(cough)
that, uh, there’s no chance in my judgment of, of, uh, the, uh, Republicans in the Senate, uh, voting for, uh, uh, two Republican senators in the District of Columbia. So that’s one r-reason on the Republican side. On the, on the Democratic side, it’s, it’s harder to, um, suggest why, why people are against it, except that I,
(cough)
I guess they think that the District of Columbia is getting smaller. It was eight hundred thousand when I came to Congress. It’s now five hundred and fifty thousand.
It is, uh, losing fifteen thousand people a year, most of them middle-class, uh, constituents, both, uh, African American and, and others, and, uh, there’s a– the doubt that the, that the city or the District of Columbia can maintain the viability of a state. Looking at it from another standpoint, the, the city is also already saddled with some of the things that states usually undertake, like maintaining a mental hospital, a prison system, and paying for Medicare, and so on.
So as a practical matter, I think we have to accept the fact that there isn’t going to be a majority to make the District of Columbia the, uh, a state, the, the fifty-first state. It isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. What needs to be addressed now is the immediate problems of the city, maybe looking at some additional revenues, but also, frankly, there has to be a reduction in the cost of the city government.
Washington, D.C. has the highest number of public employees per capita of any city in the country. Uh, significantly more than New York or Chicago, for example. Uh, there also should be a reexamination of the charter of home rule, and maybe some of the responsibilities the city now has to bear, such as I mentioned, uh, should be, um, re–
well, it should be relieved of or given assistance with. But, uh, it– the city is just not as viable as it once was as a, as a political and public community. and I think that’s hurting the cause of, of, of the statehood notion.
I mean, I could– I, I was for four years, as I say, the principal sponsor of it, and, uh, we simply didn’t come near to having the votes to pass it in the House, and it would never have survived in the Senate. Yes.
[00:42:33] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
How would you weigh the current, uh, freshman class, and how many of them are elected by speaking of a per accidens definition, by accident?
[00:42:42] TOM FOLEY:
By accident. Well, it’s, uh, it’s obviously, um, it’s obviously a mixed group. I mean, you can’t sort of categorize them all.
I– Th-they’re, uh, politically, they’re, they’re much more conservative than I would be, obviously. That’s easy to say. Some of them are, are quite able and, uh, within the f-scope of their political views, uh, sensible people.
Uh, I regret as a group that they have very often, uh, sort of a character of, of being not only sort of anti-Washington, but anti-international. I wouldn’t call them necessarily isolationists, but I think this, this class, this group, and probably has the least interest in foreign affairs and international affairs of any Congress in the last fifty years. Um, they, uh, have from time to time, I think, uh, uh, been, uh, difficult to manage for their leaders.
I’m talking now about the Republican freshman class. And I’m not sure that they’re not going to face a serious problem this fall in having refused to compromise so often on a number of key elements in the budget and with respect to welfare reform and tax policy and other things, that this contract with America is going to turn out to be a largely dishonored instrument. Uh, while the promise was only to bring them up for a vote, uh, most people, uh, understood that there was gonna be some kind of an effort to pass, uh, the elements of the Contract with America.
It’s a political trivia question, but I don’t think there are many people, maybe not even in this room, who can name the three things that have been passed. There are only three. Anybody takers?
[00:44:33] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Telecommunications. Telecommunications.
[00:44:36] TOM FOLEY:
No, that’s not part of the Contract with America. Hmm?
[00:44:40] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Compliance?
[00:44:41] TOM FOLEY:
Yeah, accountability, that’s one.
[00:44:49] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
I mean. Oh.
[00:44:51] TOM FOLEY:
No, I haven’t finished that well. Anyway, I won’t- bother you with it. Uh, the, uh, unfunded mandates, uh, bill, the Accountability Act, and the Paperwork Reduction Act.
[00:45:07] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
How much is a quart of milk?
[00:45:09] TOM FOLEY:
How much is a quart of milk?
(laughter)
Uh, sixty-seven cents.
(laughter)
[00:45:17] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Um, I have two questions for you. Um, one, um, the Christian Coalition was formed in nineteen eighty-nine, and you’re in Congress, and obviously it’s had, um, an impact on, on politics in this country. Um, How do you see its changing role in Congress just in the last fifteen years, and how do you see it in the future?
You know, the Christian right in US politics. And, uh, the second question is, uh, um, you have– you’ve been elected for thir– for thirty years from a largely, um, uh, con-conservative district. Uh, is– D-d-do you see any other Democrats coming out of eastern Washington?
(crowd laughter)
Ever?
[00:45:59] TOM FOLEY:
Oh, sure. Oh, yes. The–
There, there’ll be other Democrats coming out of eastern Washington. I’ll answer that part of it last. Uh, first, the, uh, the Christian Coalition, uh, is of course, an individual organization.
My general view is that obviously people who have, uh, uh, values, religious values or people of faith have, have a right, an obligation, the same opportunity everybody else has to, uh, participate in public life and in politics. I get a, a little nervous, however, when people connect their religious faith, their particular religious beliefs, their confessional beliefs, with a certain, uh, collection of what I would regard as largely secular issues. I mean, in a broad way, obviously, uh, respect for family, respect for values, respect for, um, all the things that we associate with religious conviction i-is, is beneficial in, in public life.
But if one assumes that to be a, a, um, a righteous
(coughing)
or, uh, decent, uh, Christian or Jew or Muslim or whatever, you have to have a certain position on Social Security reform or on Medicare or on term limits, then I think we’re confusing sort of broad religious values with very secular issues. And I think they tend to almost trivialize sometimes those things as well as, as create a a, a sense of, um, distortion in, in the political system itself. Yes.
By the way, the, the Democrats have suffered, I think to some degree, by, by two defections. The defection, defections, not total, but substantial, of white evangelicals and white Catholics that were part of the Democratic coalition for a number of years.
[00:48:03] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Um, in the last thirty years, how has the role of, um, other NGOs besides the Christian Coalition, uh, changed and influenced, uh, the Congress and the means that they can
[00:48:12] TOM FOLEY:
I think you’re good with that one.
[00:48:12] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
give or that-
[00:48:14] TOM FOLEY:
How, how have NGOs- how have NGOs changed in the last thirty years, and what kind of influence do they have in Washington right now? Good or bad? Well, I, I guess my, my only occasional plea to NGOs is, uh, you know, that, um, sometimes that their demands were so specific and so uncompromising that it was very difficult for them to, uh, be satisfied with what I thought was substantial gains in what they would normally see as their objectives.
Uh, the, uh, I think that’s sometimes been true of the environmental community, uh, which has been driven again by the sort of most demanding elements of its, uh, political constituency and, uh, and, and other groups as, as well. Uh, there are some issues, for example, on which it is extremely difficult to take any position except a fairly categorical one, uh, wi-without political consequences One of them is, is the, the very difficult issue of abortion. Uh, you can be pro-life or you can be pro-choice, but if you wind up being a little bit in the middle, very often you, you receive political, uh, attack, uh, from, from both sides.
So they, they tend often to, uh, to, to be a, uh, a force in politics that demands, uh, more extreme positions than maybe the member would normally want to, want to achieve. But on the other hand, they off– they’re off– they’re part of the, of the political system.
[00:49:56] SUSIE:
Yes. Would you speculate on how different the United States would be now if JFK had lived?
(laughter)
Now… what is your take on Cuba, please?
[00:50:07] TOM FOLEY:
Take what, Susie?
[00:50:08] SUSIE:
On your, your view on what
(cough)
we should do about Cuba, the first day in office.
[00:50:12] TOM FOLEY:
Oh.
(laughter)
Well, I don’t, I don’t know that it’s, you know, his— history doesn’t disclose its alternatives, is the old saying. And if he didn’t, if JFK didn’t die, uh, you know, he would’ve been elected to a second term, I think, and what that second term would’ve been and, you know, what would’ve happened on-
[00:50:30] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Downhill.
(laughter)
[00:50:32] TOM FOLEY:
There’s a true Kennedy viewer. The, uh… I, I, I didn’t serve with JFK, but I was in Washington when he was president and I, I know the sense of kind of, uh, enthusiasm about it. I, I think specialists are a little different sometimes.
They, they look at the Kennedy administration with much less glowing terms and, and, and the Kennedy, uh, political, uh, possibility with less sort of optimism than many people do who were Kennedy supporters and lived through the time. But, uh, I served with, uh, seven presidents, starting with Lyndon Johnson, and, uh, Johnson was by all odds the most, the most colorful. And, uh,
(laughter)
one wonders what would have happened if he had, you know, been able to find a way to end the Vietnam conflict earlier and so on. Lot, a lot of things that are interesting to speculate about. As far as Cuba is concerned, uh,
(coughing)
politically, uh, sensitive subject, uh, I, I think, uh, uh, it is arguable that, that, uh, um, um, an approach to the embargo which, uh, selectively, um, uh, let the influence of trade and opening of Cuban society have an impact on institutions there would be better policy than, than the tight embargo which we’ve imposed. Now, the, the, the thing that concerns me, too, is that although I think the, the issue of the memorial was handled pretty well, uh, and there’s no justification, in my view, for the shooting down of these two aircraft. Uh, when we get into, uh, the questions of possible, uh, physical, uh, military, uh, activities, I think we have to be extremely, extremely careful, obviously.
But, uh, the policy of the government is pretty much directed that way. We may take one more question and then two more. All right.
[00:52:34] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
How would you characterize the, uh, relationships and interactions of past Democratic-controlled Congresses with, uh, Republican presidents, including during the first part of the speakership with the current relationship with the Republican-controlled Congress and Democratic–
[00:52:50] TOM FOLEY:
Well, I think we got to know how to do it, from my standpoint, got to do it pretty well. I mean, we– the, there’s been more divided government than not since the end of World War II. And the, uh, protocols between a Democratic Congress and a Republican president got pretty, uh, well established.
In other words, they were fairly comfortable. Uh, nobody has been in this situation before, not for forty years, so this is all quite different. Um, For example, my impression was that, that, at least with the leadership level, Republican, uh, administrations tried pretty hard to, to be personally accommodating, to be, uh, fairly easy in their, uh, personal relationships with Democratic leadership people because they depended on their cooperation, and I think we, in turn, in many cases cooperated.
I was given a lot of criticism for cooperating too much, uh, both as majority leader and speaker with, uh, President Reagan, pre– and President Bush, on the theory that I should be more combative. But when you have divided government, you also have to think how are you gonna move the ball forward, how are you gonna get things done, how are you gonna resolve problems, and where there are areas of cooperation, I think that’s what the country wants to see, the two parties working together. It’s the biggest complaint now that comes from public polling is that it looks like it’s gridlock again back in Washington.
And there’s too much bickering and so on. The, the public s– seems to be a little perverse. They elect parties for different responsibilities in the Congress and the presidency, and then they expect easy re– personal relations and effective cooperation.
It’s not quite that simple. But, uh, certainly when you have the reality of divided government, I think it’s incumbent on both sides to try to do their best to, to, to make it work. Um, and that’s what I tried to do, and I think others on the Republican side tried to do as well.
[00:54:39] AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Yes. Hi. Um, among, uh, most of the political groups around campus, it seems that a really hot topic is campaign reform. But at the same time, is that political, uh, lobbying groups, uh, wield tremendous power over elected officials? Uh, from your perspective, how true is that, is that?
[00:54:57] TOM FOLEY:
One, I think there’s too much money in politics, uh, which comes to be a problem because it there is also t-too much demand, uh, for, uh, campaign, uh, fundraising efforts, you have to work at it a little bit more and more all the time to raise the money that’s needed to run an expensive campaign. And so one of the things we ought to try to concentrate on is how we can sort of reduce the need for candidates to, to struggle quite as much and spend quite as much time raising funds. I don’t think the other problem is as great as the public thinks it is.
That is the problem of influence. Very frankly, uh, part of, Almost every congressman’s, uh, or candidate’s, uh, na-natural ability should be the ability to, to say no, uh, obviously to a contribution that they think is,
(cough)
is one that, that they should not accept for one reason or another, either because of
(cough)
expectations or circumstances. And obviously, if anybody ever came to you and asked you to vote for a bill reminding you that they’ve been given a contribution, they should be thrown out of the office. I think most members will do that.
Uh, but the demands, again, on your time on, on fundraising efforts are pretty high. I think personally, the best way to do that in, in campaign reform is in part to have a system of partial public financing of congressional elections. The problem is this is al-almost universally unpopular with the public, and whereas incumbents tend to feel that public financing helps challengers and is more likely, uh, in comparative terms to be disadvantageous to them and helpful to their potential challenger.
Uh, they, they, they bring to that expectation or that view, an expectation that they’re going to get praised if they vote for public financing, that the newspaper is going to say, “Thank God for Congressman Foley. “I mean, he realizes that this is a disadvantage to him, but he’s helping political reform by supporting public financing. Instead, the opposite happens.
And the newspaper, you know, theoretically, imaginative newspaper writes, uh, an editorial that says, “Congressman Phogbound,” after stuffing all of these countless billions down a hundred rat holes, now has the audacity to vote for, uh, public funds to finance his campaign or hers.” So it’s very difficult to get elements of public financing. I don’t think that PACs are quite as evil as most people think.
Uh, One, they’re diverse enough. Two, uh, they’re impersonal enough. And, uh, And three, uh, well, there should be some limits on them, I, I think that fundamentally, there isn’t anything wrong with the idea that people might contribute, uh, collectively to having a greater voice and, and making some contribution.
Raising the individual contributions from one thousand to two thousand to three thousand probably could be considered, but, uh, again, I don’t think the big problem in American politics today is that people can’t give more money individually. Uh, there are almost no easy ways to reform the political, uh, system. You do something whenever you change the, the mix and the, and the, and the mechanism.
Uh, what is al– very important in a lot of reform, and I say this with some trepidation, is that the country gains some confidence from it. It isn’t always a problem of correcting egregious, uh, weaknesses in the system. as it is to address public confidence issues, And we need to find a way to give the public greater confidence that the means of raising money and running for election is reasonably fair, uh, and gives people an opportunity to influence the political system through contributions, and not turn it over, quote, to only the special interests.
That perception that special interests dominate fundraising, dominate financing of campaigns, and have the attention and time of the member above ordinary citizens is one of the key, uh, problems today in the sense of public confidence. It needs to be worked on. And, uh, to the extent possible, we need to try to find some, some common, uh, ground between the two parties, because when the, when it becomes politicized with Democrats opposing, Republicans supporting and vice versa, it’s extremely difficult to get the result.
I guess we said two questions
[00:59:42] NELSON POLSBY:
and that’s two.
[00:59:43] TOM FOLEY:
That’s two.
(laughter)
But we’ll continue tomorrow. Tomorrow. Thank you very much for the chance to speak.
(applause)
[01:00:01] NELSON POLSBY:
Those of you who want to continue tomorrow noon, Institute of Governmental Studies. If there are a lot of you, it’ll be in the library. Otherwise, room one nineteen.