Transcripts For CSPAN Executive-Legislative Branch Relations Panel At William Mary 20240714

One. First, madam president of the National Conference of state legislators representing illinois 47th district, senator torri hutchinson. [applause] former United States senator and former governor of the commonwealth of virginia, george allen. [applause] governor of South Carolina, jim hodges. [applause] former majority of the u. S. House of representatives, eric cantor. [applause] finally, a former advisor and deputy chief of staff to the white house to george w. Bush. [applause] thatnt it always seem the moment we are living in is the most chaotic, the most dysfunctional that we have ever seen in american politics . Looking back through history, we is ato explore what it the federal level and what it is at the state level that has made government so dysfunctional and so problematic. And how, looking forward, are there ways that all of us and all of you can help the past about . Get past that. College inuated from virginia, i went right to my first job, i covered the Virginia State legislature. Talk about dysfunctional. The first republican government the democratic Lieutenant Governor and the democratic , and thegeneral Capitol Square in richmond was a war zone just to walk between the Attorney Generals Office and the governors mansion. Rang while iphone was in the basement of the State Capitol in the press room, and it was abc news asking if i would come up to be interviewed to be a network correspondent. 2019, after do squat for years in virginia, i go up and abc news sends me into the white house just weeks after president theard nixon had left on south lawn, the only president in history to resign in disgrace. Talk about constitutional crises. Talk about times when the American Staffing of our society has been torn apart with protests against the vietnam war. Let me ask each of you now to ideas or someome thoughts and we will start with governor alan because, im sorry, governor hodges of South Carolina, because youve come now nottate that is only read in terms of voting but a state with the democratic president ial primary that can be decisive for the democrats. Would you talk a little bit your experience as governor, but the experience on the National Stage of president obamas campaign . First of all, thank you for age,sing me head of the rather than george. Its great to be here. Out,nk as you pointed everybody believes that the times that they operate in were run better than what is currently happening, that is just always the case. Imagine that George Washington probably cursed Thomas Jefferson about how bad things were with jefferson in charge and it seems no different with people in political office. I will say this, that i think that my observation growing up in a small town in South Carolina and some of the changes that have occurred, i think i have an appreciation for why we have the trouble that we have. We are in a country that is politically divided, often 5050. We look at elections and how people vote, generally 5050 which means people have starkly different views in our country. You think of what weve been through in the past decade, if you understand peoples lack of trust in institutions. Weve had wars, without the great recession, we have a situation where people who are over 60 are in jobs that seemed more permanent and now they are not. We moved from defined benefit plans to sometimes no retirement at all. Weve had people who have not had wage increases for periods of time. We have opioid problems. Real communities in our country suffered a great deal and i think you begin to understand some of the issues that are out peoples lack of trust in institutions to solve these problems. Because they believe that whether its Corporate America or banks or elected officials like us, many of them believe they have been let down and they have a lack of confidence. And to add to that, and i know this has been talked about, the watercooler conversation provided or what the local newspaper provided in terms of opportunity,persed the ability to shut out things we dont want to hear. More and more people are choosing avenues where their views are reinforced rather than being educated. That as a prelude, i understand why things are harder now than they once were. That on top of a system in washington that seems to be defined around keeping things from happening rather than making things happening leads to frustration for the american public. Level, i think theres a good reason why things work better. Virtually every state has to pass a budget every year and you can jam a lot of things in the budget with pay raises and environment, criminal justice and things that are important, but you have to get that budget done. It makes states see more functional, in many ways they probably are because they have these impediments they need to get done. Allen, colleague, george the experience of republican governor of the democratic legislature, but youve come up in washington and you got the washington experience as well. You once compared the pace in as United States senate moving at the pace of a wounded sea slug. Wounded sea slug. What . [laughter] thats true, i did say that. I look at our country and our society and how i grew up which or in a football family, everyone, regardless of their background, race, religion, ethnicity, has an equal opportunity to compete and succeed on a level Playing Field and i like to see action and things done. As governor, i make more decisions in a morning then we do all week in the senate. In fact, my first act i first made, they call it the maiden speech in the senate, was on behalf of the judicial gregory, whooger was on your Previous Panel on the judiciary. Chief judge of the Fourth Circuit court of appeals. We met with him right after i got sworn in and he has been nominated by president clinton right at the end of this term. Typical of the senate, it was held up, nothing happened. Now, the republicans were in control of the senate. President bush was soon to be inaugurated a few weeks later. And i think that is you over there, chief justice, the judicial recognition. Anyway, i talked for the candidate to see what his judicial philosophy was. Glad to listen to him earlier today, i was glad to see everyone applauding to his commitment to the constitution and our Representative Democracy. Thinking, i was skeptical. I got to know him as a person. Its capabilities. My first speech on the senate floor was to have Senate Colleagues above politics and process and judge Roger Gregory as an individual. He actually said, i saw that speech he made, what do you think of it . And i said i talked to them, i may be wrong, but my point of view is you should interview him as well and i think you will be just as impressed as i was. Forever, evenok president bush renominated along with about a dozen other judges he nominated, and adjusted forever to get the senate to move. And im just getting aggravated and more aggravated but it doesnt matter, we got enough votes for him. He said such and such, im still upset president clinton nominated him. I said i dont care. Just a vote, darn it. Just take it to a vote. Vote. Finally got the vernon is the first africanamerican to serve on the Fourth Circuit court of appeals. Cochrans desk for that final vote. That is Jefferson Davis desk. Person, theyg always ask senators who want a drink of water, i said sure. Way, im going to give a speech and we are going to finally get a vote to have the first africanamerican on the Fourth Circuit court of appeals and im going to give the speech Jefferson Davis desk. And young mr. Thomas said thats really cool. Thats how the senate operates, very slowly. Things that need to be done in federal government to get in order of priority. They need to have not just passing a budget, but priorities. You cant say yes to everything. I think the ones at the convention we propel the federal government to finally have a balanced budget. Secondly, they need to get back to basics. Is awful. Susan and i have been watching people during the Government Shutdown when they dont have the budget and people supposedly could get a loan, or government workers. Im thinking, my goodness. In the real world, if you dont dig your job done on time, you dont get. Members of congress, their ifaries ought to be withheld they dont get Appropriations Bills done on time to get back to basics. [applause] at the state level, we need redistricting reform so we have more Fair Districts rather than like masses that look somebody has one spaghetti up against the state map and that is your congressional district. I think voters ought to be choosing their leaders rather than politicians taking their voters. [applause] thank you, governor. Lets go over to the white house. Carl, you are the only one on this panel who as far as i know, has never run for office. Demonstrating my superiority. I wanted a life. You look at that ballot, the tension between the legislative and the executive from your position and campaigns, what do you blame for the kind of dysfunction . First of all, thanks for having me. Second of all, im going to do great damage to governor hodge reputation by largely agreeing with him. In a disruptive moment in american politics were the two parties are at each others throats, or washington does not we are going where through a pot was moment. The good news is, weve been here many times before. The first time that there was a physical altercation on the floor of the United States 1796, spitting line of vermont and griswold of with hand irons pulled out of the fireplace at the house of representatives chamber. My senses governor yardley probably went home on the first day of the meeting of the house of burgesses and said to his wife, temperance flowerdo said to himself, honey, you cant imagine what a bunch of morons we have at the house of burgesses. This has been happening continually. Today, the it is bad gilded age makes today look like everybody is sitting around the fireplace singing kumbaya. In 1889 inperiod 1890 where for five and a half months, the opening five and a half months of the 1889 legislative session, the house of representatives doesnt pass a single bill in the first milli fire five and a half months because the democrats who are in the minority announced they will not answer the roll call and by doing that, they will deny the house of forms to connect business. It takes a u. S. Supreme Court Decision at the end of five and , this is we dont give a crap when youre going to try to do. We are not going to allow business to move forward. We are going to have to work our way through this. Unfortunately, one of the things required to work through this is to have leadership at the white house that basically rises above the normal backandforth. We came into office in 2001 under a slightly difficult circumstance, there was this little thing called florida, you may remember it dimly. As a result, bush felt compelled to make certain that his colleagues on the democratic side of the aisle understood that he was the president of everybody. The first members of the u. S. House that he met with was george miller, the writing democrat on education labor so he could talk about education reform, and the first members of senate he talked to was not the republican leader, it was senator kennedy because he wanted to send a signal. That i learned at the white house, the personal relationships between the president and the congress, even with members and most importantly with members of the opposition, have to be aimed at cordiality. The president cannot get drawn into this stuff. He has to rise above it and be the adult in the room and take whatever is hurled his way. Kennedy of massachusetts said on july 4, 2003, bush lied about wmd in iraq, he knew that was a lie. He look at the same intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Said they had wmd but we need to remove it by diplomacy, not force. But that did not keep bush from holding his tongue and trying to set the record straight without giving personal and working very closely with kennedy for three years in 2005 on immigration reform. But the president has to be that person and it is not an easy job. I will time i got a call that a speech, i gave didnt read it beforehand, they just wrote it. And i called bush a liar and a loser and i didnt mean to call him a loser. Will you tell him im sorry . [laughter] senator, ive got his schedule and he doesnt have anything right now, why dont we just point you to him and you can talk to him yourself . Thats the job of the president whether they like it or not, the personal relationships matter. I cannot tell you how many people come up to me, representatives, some of his colleagues on the democratic side. Said, if youhem told me i would want to spend more time at the white house under a republican president than a democratic president , i would have laughed at you, but i did. That was because bush understood simply being able to look at somebody as a human being and not as a cutout that you bought on amazon of your political opponents so you can take it around to all the town Hall Meetings and parade them to their face. Thats important. Its not often i get to say madam president. Madam president for a hutchinson torri hutchinson, you are here today representing state legislatures and there is a sense among many people that may be states work a lot better in terms of bipartisanship than the federal government. Seen, how doe you you both in the Illinois Legislature and when you deal with both sides of the aisle in the National Conference of state legislature, what is the secret sauce . If i had a secret sauce i could sell, i dont know if i would be doing this. A lot of people have mentioned that. The National Conference of state legislatures is 7383 legislators across the country. Both democrat and republican and the interesting thing is that you can have a conversation with someone for 10 minutes and then go, are you a d or an r . As opposed to what were seeing now, or if you tell me how you walk across the street, if you wait at the light, if you like order, if you cross the middle of the street, you might be a libertarian. We look at almost everything through a partisan lens right now. Ist happens with the states that one of the things the governor mentioned, we have rules and procedures and things that are put in place that you cant go around. A budget has to be done at a certain time. Are our constitutional things that say you have to do this by this time. Conversation, that requires participation in a way when itsnt see constant, like a rolling calendar that never ends. Moments, i think we are all alluding to the personal relationships. , if is missing right now is i know you, who just got diagnosed with cancer and whoever office, it is difficult for me to call you a liar when i disagree with you, because i know you. So, we are missing personal relationships with people. Where people talk about the old days of glory, about how Ronald Reagan and tip oneill would fight it out on the floor and then have a drink afterwards. Our Senate President makes it a point to have a dinner with all the democrats and all the republicans over the course of the session. So every night, we have a dinner. And the first thing we kick off in our Illinois State dinner is a conversation between republicans and democrats. It is the first thing we do after we settled offices. When we add the fact that we are not talking to each other and we are living in a place where everyone is screaming at each other as opposed to talking to each other, and that is exacerbated by this socialmedia loop and echo chamber. It also bleeds into our elections to where we never stop campaigning. And if you never stop campaigning, it is almost impossible to govern. So, what we are seeing right now is this endless loop that is almost self fulfilling all the way around. I think states to operate slightly different than the federal government. One because we are closer to home. Two because we have procedures in place that make us have to reach certain deadlines. And the other thing is that 90 of most state legislators across the country will tell you, 90 of the bills on the floor fly out unanimously. No big issues, very quietly. There is not a big partisan wrangling. You kind of understand that if you have a problem in a district, if it is a water problem in a district, it is not republican water or democrat water, it is just water. And when you know youre going to meet someone at the Grocery Store next to the eggs and they are going to stop you and said, you know what, i heard when you know youre going to have those conversations, you try to elevate. It doesnt mean that the 10 of things we do that are partisan are significantly partisan. And they are so because so many of our National Issues have nationalized state politics at the local level. And there is a danger in that because then all of a sudden, things we never used to fight about we fight about. Such as, infrastructure. We all know we need infrastructure. It is hard to be exceptional without infrastructure. Those other things that did not used to be partisan. So this endless loop we are in right now, i think there are state legislators across the country that are determined to know their colleagues, have to compromise and work with their colleagues. Also, understand that you can be polarized, but still get things done. And when i say polarize, i mean, you can think totally ideologically different, but it does not mean we are not passing bills. So, polarization doesnt have to equal gridlock. And gridlock is much harder at the state level, considering the procedures and policies we have in place. Ms. Compton thank you. Eric cantor, you are the only one on this stage who has been majority leader of your party in the United States house of representatives. Talk about trying to get things done. What do you think, from your perspective of it, what do you think maybe has worked in the past, and how important is that relationship between members in the house of representatives . Mr. Cantor first of all, i am not so sure there is one secret that is going to be the panacea to all of the ills that affect our system today. I would say that there was some validity to what the senator was talking about in the legislative process, to know your colleagues, especially those on the other side of the aisle. Because it is very tempting right now to assume a posture of an entrepreneurial, kind of a policy entrepreneur, where you are in competition with the other side and you are loaded every day given the incoming assaults or attacks coming from the other side. But i wouldnt overrate that element, maybe you call it social diplomacy, because you know, i think a lot of us grew up in sort of that Ronald Reagan tip oneill myth, and reality back then, that everyone was going to get along and have a drink at the end of the day together. I think we would have been disappointed if we relied on that. I think maybe incrementalism right now, incrementalism is i think very underrated. Because in this age of no compromise, by definition, incremental progress is a compromise. But you know, i think you need that in order to start to build the trust and respect among colleagues in a legislative body so that you almost have like memory muscle, the it is ok to work with other people that may not come from your perspective. And you know, i saw it in the federal level in congress. This individual probably doesnt want me to say this right now, but i can tell you i had a great working relationship with joe biden. And you know, he was obviously on the others of the aisle as Vice President when i was majority leader. And we had a relationship where you could pick up the phone, call them, and because we had experience in working almost on a routine matter working almost on routine matters. So, when we arent that trust between each other, if you recall some of the debt ceiling days and everything else, we actually had the trust we were going to tell each other the truth, and we could deal with it one way or the other, but there was no monkeying around about it. I wouldnt say no b. S. , but it was a great, productive, relationship. Secondly, i think the temptation right now with things being so binary, it is either win or lose, it is your side of the others, the temptation is to want to assume what moves the other side, and assume that you are either going to get their vote or not, and really that assumption takes the place of any real conversation. And we saw this on the republican side of the aisle. We felt very strongly in the original days of president obamas administration. If you remember, it was right after the financial collapse, lehman brothers, bear stearns, and the economy was shedding jobs at 400,000 a month. And president obama had said he wanted to do a bill that was later dubbed the stimulus bill. And in the end, i was the whip at the time, so i took the brunt of this. Republicans did not give up one vote for that bill. Now, if you had one of their administrators here today, they would say wait a minute, we were bipartisan because we inserted things in the bill that your party traditionally supported. There was no excuse for you not to support. But remember, you know, we are all political creatures. You know, leadership in the congress of the time had the obligation to look for the priorities that our membership had an our constituents one its so we could go back and tell them, and instead of a productive dialogue, there was just a presumption made. So i think assuming rather than engaging is probably an ill you could easily repair. And i say lastly, the importance of remembering. And this is something for me now in the commercial and Business World that is very different because it comes naturally. You have to find a winwin situation if you are in business. You have to. Whether you are in a publicly traded company or not, shareholders or the rest, you have people who have to be able to say, winwin. We gotta remember that in the political context because every single policymaker or elected official has a constituency that he or she is going to go home to, and believe me, that individual doesnt want to go home and say, hey, i got taken to the cleaners on that deal, but i voted for it anyway. That is not happening. So, this my way or the highway, you win, or i lose, or i win and you lose, it is very difficult to see how you make progress. To the point the governor made earlier, in this age of social media and the hyperbole that dominates the discussion online, it is a really difficult thing to achieve right now, when what we are really talking about is winwin for everybody. Ms. Compton carl, you want to jump in there . Mr. Grove i have never told you this, but i had an experience in 2001 the reflected on your visit to the cabinet room. I have a great pal named ben stein. [laughter] mr. Grove we were supposed to have dinner one night in washington, d. C. , we happened to both be there, and he called me up and said, carl, would you like to have dinner with Larry Summers . I said, yeah, but he is not going to want to have dinner with me, the National Economic Council Director for president obama. He said, he would love to meet you. Weird story. Anyway, we end up having dinner. Ben stein, a comic and economist, Larry Summers, and his wife who is a poetry professor at harvard, and me. And out during the course of the dinner, Larry Summers spends half the dinner talking about the indonesian economy. Afterwards i sighed to ben, what was that about . He said, he wanted to show you he is the smartest guy in the room. But during the course of the evening, summers says to me, i dont understand why we only got 11 republicans to vote for the stimulus bill. I said, that is interesting, can you explain that . He said, let me ask you a couple of questions. I said, were you in the room in the cabinet room when the president set cut off eric cantor, who was supposed to present the republican option for the stimulus bill by saying, i won. He said, i was there. I said, did you see anything wrong with that . He said, no. I said, did you ever contemplate asking the republicans what it would like in the package . He said, no, we had the right package. And i said, did you ever go to capitol hill and the with the republicans, and say, boys, boys and girls, what did you want what do you want . No, we had National Economic Council Meetings and we made the decision for what is right for the economy. I said, why would you be surprised nobody voted for your bill if you didnt give them a seat at the table . Sometimes you have to sit back and say, eric, what do you want . We will put that in our thing. They have to do that even with little or no anticipation of getting your vote. Saying, i won, is like saying, i am not going to Pay Attention to you. It goes back to what toi said a little bit. You have to deal with people. And sometimes the best thing, and i sure the governor did it when he was governor. I know governor allen was forced to do it because he was dealing with demo rats. Dealing with democrats. He have to put in with the other side wants in order to say were all in this together. The dinner took place in a Korean Restaurant in washington, d. C. , the smallest town in america, everything gets out, but no one has ever reflected on this. Showing that Larry Summers was not really followed around by the press, although he did have a secret Service Detail and an armored up suv, which i never saw the National Economic Council Director under bush have. I always told him that andy was a cheapskate. The s. O. B. Would never allow you to have an armored up suv, particularly if you were the National Economic Council Director. Ms. Compton let me ask you, gerrymandering. You talked about gerrymandering. Can you all here . Ms. Compton gerrymandering [shouting] [laughter] we will start with governor alan. Mr. Allen the question was on gerrymandering [laughter] mr. Allen gerrymandering, and have an example, eric cantor, on some other problems in washington. And in governance generally, you need to listen to the other side. I see chief alston here. There you are. I learned a lot as governor listening to virginia indians, something i knew nothing about. It was not an issue i run on, but you need to listen to people and learn about all the people. It is best if you actually run an election based on the agenda and ideas, and if you are given the honor of serving, you keep your promises. It helps. With a democraticcontrolled legislature, every bill, you had to get a democrat sponsor on truth in sentencing and abolition, welfare reform, educational standards and so forth, and gerrymandering fits into this. We had a commission on juvenile justice. They said juveniles were dangerous, they were stealing gum and hubcaps. Anyways, we had a commission to make the streets safer, and some juveniles are very dangerous. The democrats had another commission that looked at how you could turn kids around who just need a structure in their life. And so, we were ready for a big confrontation, us versus theirs. And i said, will you know, our crew was looking at the dangerous folks. The ones who can be turned around. Why dont we bring out the best of both . Take the best of their ideas to turn kids around they need structure and discipline in their life and take ours, and it ended up passing like 952, or Something Like that. On gerrymandering computers, they come up with these districts that what legislators are worrying about is a primary. They are not worried about the general election. Eric cantor getting knocked out here you have a majority leader from our commonwealth of virginia, he gets knocked out in a primary, and he was accused of being too friendly with the obama administration. Ms. Compton too moderate. Mr. Allen yes, he gets knocked out. And then with this ocasiocortez, representative in new york winning, the democrats are finding that same fear. And part of this is because of redistricting, that they that they end up, the politicians create districts that are convoluted districts. I got hit by it when i was in congress for 14 months. They split down our log house on a gravel road and split it five different ways. And i ran for governor. They probably should have left the district alone and it would not have to deal with me as governor. [laughter] mr. Allen but it has gotten so truly that the worry is, can i win my primary . If you get to a situation that carl or eric, or governor hodges is talking about, where you find a consensus, that is the compromise is akin to capitulation. And so, we need to have districts that are more compact, more contiguous. In virginia, they are splitting because so many precincts and people dont even know who they are voting for. The town of culpepper, was 15,000 people, is divided into three senate districts. You know . Who was responsible for the town of culpepper . One of the three senators in that district in virginia. This has to be solved at the state level. The Supreme Court made that decision. Virginia has a really good process going on right now. Vivian watts and ken plum, what you all passed is outstanding. Equal number of democrats and republicans and independents, you need at least one from the others to pass it. If you pass again next year, it goes to the voters for ratification. And it is absolutely essential that it gets done this year regardless of who is in charge, so we dont have in virginia unelected federal judges, and commissioners from uc irvine drawing legislative maps here in the commonwealth of virginia. So the states need to take the lead. I like virginia is doing. Other states have done it in a different way. I think the virginia approach you all crafted last year is outstanding, and the best of all, and the legislature has to approve it. Ms. Compton real quick. Governor hodges, then eric. Mr. Hodges when i think of gerrymandering, i have a brother in 1984, told me that Walter Mondale would beat Ronald Reagan, because everyone he knew was voting for mondale. I told him, mark, you need to get out more, you might see things differently. [laughter] mr. Hodges i think about gerrymandering in those terms, because district are drawn like that. The perspective i have about this, and i think george talked about a number of important points on gerrymandering, but here is the thing that is most important. I have colleagues tell me when i was a legislator or that they didnt believe poverty existed in South Carolina. And i thought, you know, you would be better served living in a district where you had rich people and poor people, he had corporations and shop owners, where you had to learn to navigate dealing with all those different constituencies. And i found over the years that the best legislators, and i am sure it is true in virginia, that those who served communities that had to deal with lots of different issues, and navigate that politically and balance those. That is really how policy is made. And i think that is the big danger of gerrymandering and how we do reapportionment now. We are homogenizing districts in a way that people cannot communicate effectively, and people dont really understand what is going on in their state. Ms. Compton that is true. Mr. Cantor the times we are in are also different now than when this controversy first started. Since i have been in the legislative body a long time ago, it was right before george became governor, so 1991 was when i first served in the house of delegates. But if you look at what is happening today, if you look at the senate of the United States right now, only nine states out of 50, only nine have a divided senatorial delegation, meaning there is a republican and a demo and a democrat together serving that state, which tends to say, hey, it is not gerrymandering in the senate. This is selfelecting, if you will. And i think it is less than a quarter of the population of the United States actually lives in the state where there is a divided government in the legislature. So, in a way people are , beginning to sort of live with, or think like people they live with, and choose to do that. Which goes to i think the point george made. If you stick to the priority of being community representatives, and really make it so that you try and Pay Attention to political boundaries, you naturally force i think what governor hodges is saying to try and have an individual that can take into consideration more than just one way of looking at things. Ms. Compton for the National Conference of state legislatures, this is a huge issue. Ms. Hutchinson yes, we have a commission on it and we study it. And there is a lot of conversation across the country about it. We are talking about district packing. When there is National Gerrymandering conversations, and a look of the congressional delegations versus what is happening the state legislatures, we have examples that went to the Supreme Court about whether or not there would be a change, but they kicked it back to the state. I serve in a district in illinois where on paper, it doesnt look like i could be senator at all. Not at all. Most people would assume an africanamerican legislator would have on all africanamerican district. It goes to some other myths that what people can represent everybody, but black people will only be the representative for the black people. And i dont represent a district that is like that. I ended up having to learn to have conversations, listen better, listen harder, listen more. Talk to various different people in ways that before i was elected, i did not even know i had those muscles. It really does make you a better legislator when you are forced to listen to people who do not look like you, dont have the same experiences you have. And district packing stopped that. When you have an entire district where you only have to deal with your base of people, you never have to go outside those things and figure out how somebody else lives. Then you come to a legislative body in your face with this reality. How do you negotiate with someone you are supposed to kill . How do you do that . It is difficult to walk into a room and negotiate. There is no such thing as negotiation absent good faith. There is no good faith if there is no trust and there was no trust if i dont know you. We talk on a regular basis, legislators across the country when we come to our national summit, it will be in nashville, tennessee, august 5 and that will be one of the topics we discuss. Legislatures are charged to deal with this. We deal with so many more things to do than simply pulling together districts that would have worked 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Because there is what eric said, self selection. People are moving into places and choosing to live with people they know and are comfortable with, and that they share common ideals and values, history and culture. There is nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that. It is just that it is happening at the same time. That the way we receive our media and information is also selfselecting. We also can stay in our own bubbles, stay in a place and in a zone where we only listen to ideas that reinforce the way we think. I remember being in a town hall and i said, who in here wants me to tell them the truth . Every hand shot up, tell it like it is. I said, wait a minute, the minute i Say Something you dont agree with, you will stop clapping. And that is the difference between campaigning in governing. When i am campaigning, i need smiles, claps, and applause. When i am governing, i need to get with people in a room that think differently than i do and figure out how to move the ball forward, and i cant do that if there is no benefit to my constituency. So, we are living in a world now when you dont get a benefit from being bipartisan or compromising. But you also have a large cognitive dissonance that they will turn around and say at the same time, we just want you to get things done. [laughter] ms. Hutchinson how do you get things done, you sent me into kill them and now i cant negotiate. Nothing is happening. We all end up so frustrated and we end up with these systems where most general people will talk about how they hit the institutions. That they know their person and they like their person. They like their person. They will come out and say, a hit congress, they dont do i hate congress, they dont do anything, all politicians are liars, tricks and thieves but not you. [laughter] ms. Hutchison you are doing such a great job. Everybody is like, really . So, that gets reinforced, shared, and from Facebook Instagram this waiter to the memes. It is always really kind, but also kind of heartbreaking whenever i walk up to someone, and they say, i did not know you. I enjoy talking to you. I didnt know you thought that way. Or, i disagree with everything you just said, but i appreciate the fact that you believed strongly in what you just said and i will give you a chance. Those encounters are becoming more and more rare because we are able to come into our own little corner, and not when i see and when i see another person, i am hoping that i am not wondering whether or not this is a real human face. Whether or not you are republican or democrat, or anywhere on the spectrum, but that i see human being worthy of having discussion with. My heart hurts with where we are today as a result of that. And i dont know what the answers are to that, but i do know that it is worth continuing to fight about it. It is worth continuing to debate about it. It is worth being in the arena to try to solve it because it is the only place that it is going to happen, absolutely in the states. [applause] ms. Compton i want to turn to a question. I will start with carl. Is the communications problem, the people finding their own comfort zone, the proliferation of cable news, internet sites, the less influence of the major networks, the less influence of that morning newspaper i hope some of you still get them on your doorstep every morning is it the fault of media . I tend to blame the digital age itself for changing these communications. Carl . Mr. Grove yeah, technology is the enemy. We must take all the machines and break the internet. [laughter] mr. Grove we must destroy electricity and return to a purer, simpler more faithful age. [laughter] mr. Grove look, social media is corrosive. Social media is bringing as back to a point where we sort of cocoon in our own comfortable sources of information. On the other hand, we have been there before. The country began in an age in which we got our information primarily from newspapers almost exclusively, and they were party organs controlled by politicians. Big example not too far from here in richmond, in the runup to the 1800 campaign, Thomas Jefferson put a notorious slander and libelous article on the whigs. He proceeded to write the first editorial that mr. Jefferson had sired a child by a slave, so jefferson got a comeuppance for having hired the notorious mr. Caulder. But we went through this age, and we went through an age of technological change. Think about the moment and then 1840s when selling information began to be shared instantaneously across the country. Before, it took weeks for something to go from boston to new orleans, but they invention of the telegraph brought an instantaneous National News network. Talk about the technological change of 1870s one along comes cheap Steam Powered machines and we have a proliferation of every kind of newspaper. There are 13 daily newspapers in new york in 1896, which was down from their previous high. And again, you picked the kind of information he wanted. Imaginative political revolutions of radio in the 1920s and television in the 1950s. So, our entire countrys history has been one way or, how we receive information has been one way or, how has been one where how we receive information and how we process it, how we can check its sources and authenticity has constantly been challenged the technology. Social media in particular is coarse and vulgar and corrosive. And the internet, i have a friend who was 94 years old. She was was 1 one of the founders of the modern Republican Party in virginia. She sends me these emails but but she sends me these emails that she sends around her fellow ancient blue head republican gals. And it is funny. One says alexander ocasiocortez is the son of aliens from mars. Its not true. Oh, it isnt . Well, then let me go ahead and change that. [laughter] mr. Grove and this goes on all the time, and you have to worry about it. It is corrosive. There is no ifs, ands, or buds about it. We have to find a way to deal with it. Let me make a point. I look at the internet as the greatest invention since the Gutenberg Press for the dissemination of ideas. The Representative Democracy, who are the owners of the government . The people. So the people decide. The reason newspapers are dying, people can get biased information for free on the internet. People realize human beings have a position and a view. Reporting too much has turned into columns and editorials. Carl, even before all of those wonderful milestones in history, if it werent for the Gutenberg Press, who wouldve read those 95 theses that Martin Luther nailed to the church . The Gutenberg Press got those ideas out that led to the protestant reformation. I am not promoting that. Reagan was a great baptist, thank you very much. [laughter] mr. Allen jefferson said, whether somebody believes in one god, 10 gods, or five gods, it doesnt break my legs or pick my pocket. So, religious freedom means you believe what you want, and you will not be diminished on account of it. But the internet, i think the social media that is changed compared to the newspaper, letters to the editor, you had to put your name to it. Now, it is anonymous. So, now so now, it is this ranting and hyperbole, and the media is on top of it. They used to talk about sensational headlines, it is now clickbait. Everything is hyped up, and it is not just the bloggers who do that. It is all of them. Mainstream media. Ms. Hutchinson there are no bumpers are guardrails. Mr. Allen there are no bumpers, it is called freedom. And people need to realize that just because it is in the newspaper on the internet doesnt necessarily mean it is true. You need to trust, but verify. Mr. Cantor and we are about to see this go to the next stage, when you got video that is going to be, you know, put together, and these fake videos that are going to go in. And if you think it is difficult to them it is difficult to convince people what they are reading about aoc is not true, imagine the difficulty in telling somebody that what they saw is not true. We are going to get to a point, i believe, system of accountability. Mr. Grove there is a cautionary note in here about reform. In the Bipartisan Campaign reform act of 2001, passed in 2002, john mccain and his colleague, a democrat from wisconsin enshrined a provision that said, if you put an ad on the internet, if you pay for advertising on the internet, you are not required to have a disclaimer. Disclaimers on the internet are entirely, you know, you are the committee for truth in america, you dont need to put a disclaimer on there today. We face not only the deep fakes of some kid sitting in a garage in suburban denver, but remember, in 2016, 1 of the main drivers of news on the internet were a group of kids in montenegro which figured out that if they made of weird websites that were either very liberal or very conservative and manufactured information from public sites and gave a spin to it, they could get Advertising Money from putting up these websites and driving traffic to it. The click bait it might have been 22. 50 a day but, by god, that goes a long way in montenegro. We are facing an International Threat for not only the trolls of the gr you in st. Petersburg, but were facing the likelihood the chinese, the koreans, north koreans, and nonstate actors are going to be trying to play in the american elections as well as russia. Mr. Allen all of what yall are saying is true, but you want the government to somehow start regulating. Mr. Rove at minimum, i think we ought to have disclaimers required of anybody in political ads. If you have a political ad, you have to file in committee and facebook and others have to unlike television, where you buy a bunch of tv ads, the buyers know about it. You have to, blah, blah, blah. We have to make it public so we have to figure out, who is that committee . Are they registered with the federal Election Committee or a bunch of g. R. U. Trolls or chinese in beijing who are trying to interfere with our elections . Second of all, we have a robust presence by our intelligence agencies to be investigating on all of this kind of stuff so we dont just indict 33 people. Mueller doesnt just indict 33 people. We indict every son of a bitch who is trying to play in the elections in 2020 in real time just like they did with the hacker with capital one. Ms. Hutchinson i do think our laws havent caught up with the disruptive nature what have technology does. So were accustomed to getting the information the way we get it. Theres journalistic standards. Now we have this new ability to say what we think and send out all these opinions and stuff without any of those same standards in place. You dont have to verify any of those things, i dont think our libel and slander laws mr. Cantor i dont this is where government will do it. It will be obsolete as government does something. I believe we have found ways going back to the kind of Disruptive Technology way back when centuries ago that society figured out a way to hold people account. I think it will be more marketbased. You already got people out there now taking algorithms and trying to assess veracity and i think you will have a system that will develop out of the market. Anytime the government gets involved, you start picking winners and losers. Ms. Hutchinson two things can be true at the exact same time. You can have guardrails that got guardrails that ought and must do. All of our conversations need to be either or, these are the things we must act. Mr. Cantor government needs to require transparency. I am with tony on this. One of the largest twitter accounts hacked in the election was tennessee republicans, which was being run out of st. Petersburg. Our government did not find out about it until afterwards. The private sector they were the ones that allowed to set up. When the tennessee Republican Party kept saying to twitter, hey, jack dorsey, this is not us. They refused to do anything about it. There ought to be tools to allow private individuals. There ought to be the possibility for the government to sanction people by saying, youre violating the law. Youre impersonating a state political person when your name is mr. Allen so the problem with this to me is if you are joe public, you begin not to trust any information. You begin to think everything is fake news. Whether its the New York Times or whether its the things you see on the internet is we got to get our arms around this because no one believes any information that they see is real. Because of the things they read about of what happens on the internet. I mean, this is the scary thing, we cant even agree on common sets of facts as to what problems are because of all of the things that are going on with the internet. Ms. Compton in the very few minutes we have left, could each of you come up with an idea or two of what, not only governments do to change what bob gates this morning called unchartered territory, how dangerous its become, but come up with an idea of what, not only governments might be able to do at any level, or what the American People need to demand of the information and the leaders they put out . And ill start with you, governor hodges. Mr. Hodges parttime legislators. One of the things about congress, its become such a fulltime occupation that the people in the congress dont have a chance to really engage as much with their colleagues, with people back home as they might. I think there is a lot to be said you for a parttime congress where they spend more time at home dealing with people, talking to people about the problems that exist in the community, going back to the system we had in the 1950s and before. Thats one thing that was pretty good then, is the time we spent at home back in the district. So as minor as it may seem, i think trying to move to a system like state governments have where people spend a lot more time at home, and it shortens careers too. Ms. Compton we could get rid of air conditioning like they didnt have. Eric cantor. Mr. Cantor what can the American People or government due to ms. Compton get past this period of dysfunction and hostility . Mr. Cantor well, certainly if you look from the leadership level in terms of legislative bodies at the state level or in congress, i always say, we need to start we need to start seeing the practice of winning together again. And so at the legislative level, if you take an issue that may not be the sexiest or most consequential issue but, again, establish a pattern of working together, as i was saying earlier, it could really go a long way. We have got to start goa about start to go about planting those seeds again. I think it is about reestablishing some norms or stop trying to go in and break up the norms every single day we wake up. Because theres actually some value in some of these institutions that have developed, and they have developed based on what the subject of these several days are here in williamsburg celebrating jamestown, it is those pillars of democracy, that balance of power, the notion that we dont want mob rule, which is what you got online right now, directly impacting policymaking. So somehow there needs to be an intervention. Ms. Compton karl rove. Mr. Rove ill agree with governor hodges, parttime legislators. You may not know about the home state of texas. Where the second most populated state in the union. Our legislature meets for 140 days every two years. But along we pay them 600 a month and begrudge every single penny we pay them and we, like every other state, have a balanced budget requirement. Heres the other thing we ought to try to figure out how to do, and this will surprise you. We do not organize and we have not for 50 years organized the Texas Legislature on a partisan basis. When i moved to texas, moved from richmond, virginia, moved and hacked up to austin, texas, i went to work for the senior republican in the legislature. He was one of 13 out of 150 members of the house of representatives, and hed been a committee chair. Today, we have 88 republicans and a majority of the Committee Chairs in the house are democrats. When i moved there, there were three republicans in the state senate out of 31 and one of them was a committee chair. Today, we have 21 republican state senators and 10 democrats and we have democratic Committee Chairs. The longest serving chair is a democrat, chair of criminal justice. I dont know how we get there. We dont i mean, we passed a state budget. 1473. When we had to cut when every state had to cut its budgets, we had to cut not the future of state spending, we had to cut our budget from 110 billion to 100 billion. Cut it by 10 billion. About 9 . It passed the house of representatives 1490. Because the members were working within a limited time constraint, 140 days, they were not organized on a partisan basis. We fight over redistricting and important things like the bathroom bill. By and large, it runs on a bipartisan basis. One other quick thing. I dont think well get out of this mess until we have different leadership and its probably not going to be until 2024 that we have both parties nominating somebody who says, were all in this together. The politics of the gilded age i mentioned earlier, it was terrible. 20 years of divided government, two years of republican government, two years of democrat government, five president s elected, none of whom get 50 of the vote, two president s elected with the majority of electoral college, but they lost the popular vote. And nationwide popular vote majority is 9,000 votes and an ugly politics that makes todays literally looking like they were singing kumbaya. I was reading on a tariff budget. Another one excoriates the former speaker first democratic speaker of the house in 18 years called him a thief and liar and a cad for having broken party ranks to support the protectionist position on this free trade measure. When finally, speaker randall said i have had enough of this, the chair declares the gentleman from georgia out of order, he turns to the former speaker and says, i will not blank you if you were a dog. Four letters, you can figure out what they were. This is the tone of the times. And until along comes this mild manner, reform minded president who you never paid attention to named William Mckinley and breaks the deadlock and ushers 32 years of republican denomination and has bipartisan periods of cooperation and its because there was change of the tone in the leadership at the of top. It matters a lot. Ms. Hutchison it doesnt mean we need one person. To look for a messiah who is going to come in and save everybody. I do think our body politic needs to start to reward statesmanship. When people think why you go into Public Service in the first place, our general conversation about the discourse course is another one of those loops. We hate government. Government does not work. We are not going to participate. All we do is yell and scream about it. We hate government because government doesnt work as an endless loop. I think that is when you are having your own conversations at the dinner table in your families, and everybody has a crazy uncle that says something crazy at thanksgiving. Saves it up to say it at thanksgiving dinner. Were like, dont sit uncle soandso because you know he will Say Something crazy. Today, those things are splitting up whole families. Theyre changing neighborhoods and blogs and things. Like, i cant talk to you once i find out what i think you believe politically right now. And i do think in this day and age, right now, if we dont start to, as a populace, deal with the fact that our institutions were created for a reason, they need to be protected because they are fragile. They are as fragile as democracy is. As long as we allow this corrosive discussion to happen amongst all of us across the country, that government cant be a power for good, that we dont need people to come in and have like this Representative Democracy is somehow fallible in and of itself because people are fallible, there is only one person that loves me completely, unconditionally, who i know would do anything in the world for me. Thats my mother. I dont agree with her all the time. I just dont. And she knows that and i know that and our families know that. So looking for the person that you agree with 100 of the time and then anybody who is of an opposing view is now the devil, you know, this constant delegitimization of the opposition, that you cant have you cant have a debate with someone who i wont even i wont acknowledge you even have a genuine premise i can argue from, that talk, that thing we allow ourselves to do, we do it at home, we do it in our living rooms, we do it when we come from church, we do it all the time. Its no surprise when you show up and its election time and the ads start going and the Internet Things start happening and that gets seeped its already in our public consciousness, that this in and of itself is an evil institution. So what im hoping for and look to do is remember that there is honor in Public Service. There is a reason to go into Public Service. This is a for some of us its a calling. For some of us, its a thing we are supposed to be doing when you care about something bigger than yourself and bigger than your own block, your own bank account, bigger than you. There is an honor to Public Service. And as long as we keep behaving as though the entire political system isnt even worth saving, then none of us will come together to solve the most biggest, complicated problems we have when nobody trusts the institutions we have that are designed to solve those problems. We its time for us to start protecting the institutions we have right now. Because they are all of ours. Ms. Compton governor allen. Mr. Allen all right. Cleanup. Thank you, thank you, senator. I think any leader or anybody that cares to lead needs to lead by example on various areas that you can find common ground. Governor hodges and i were glad to be with each other about a month ago. We both coauthored an oped in that appeared in the virginia and South Carolina papers in support of the United Statesmexicocanada trade agreement. Its good for america. We need to be interconnected. Trade is good for jobs and our competitiveness. So all of us, whatever our role is, whether in state legislatures, congress, or elsewhere, need to show that sort of effort. The other message from this week in this remembrance is trusting the people. Government closest to the people, Representative Democracy is created to protect our natural rights, freedom of religion, freedom of expression for men and women, private ownership of property, the rule of law, where you have fair adjudication of disputes as well as protection of our natural, godgiven rights. And the states are those laboratories of innovation and democracy that closest to the people. We can learn from the states. Everyones talked about washington dysfunction. Everyone talks about 49 states have a balanced budget requirement. Ms. Hutchinson come to the summit. Mr. Allen the old dolly singing 9 00 to 5 00. The folks who are Public Servants need to be in touch with the way normal people look at things, and honestly, if members of congress dont get the one thing they are supposed to do done on time, withhold their pay. I guarantee you they will get it done on time. Thats the way it is in the real world. And so we can learn from mistakes. We can put in those structures at the federal level. We can get a government that is reflective of what we the people want, but ultimately, its we the people, and what we should insist on for our competitive states and our competitive country, from the very beginning until now until the future. If you want to be successful and your competition for jobs and innovation, public safety, you got to be willing to change, to adapt, to innovate and improve. Standing still will get you put behind, and so we the people need to be propelling our Public Servants to be willing to change, adapt, innovate, and improve and always advancing freedom and opportunities for all. Ms. Compton and this is your panels way of saying, we all depend on you as well as public citizens. After all, the power is in your hands. Please thank this remarkable panel. [applause] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, gabriel ruben discusses the latest in congress and campaign 2020. And naacp president and ceo Derek Johnson will be on to discuss voting discrimination. And then former white house adviser and now talk show host sebastian work up on president trumps reelection strategy. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 this morning. Join the discussion. Today, on American History tv at 5 00, a discussion about shakespeares influence. Clackum on american artifacts, the Norman Rockwell Museum Traveling Exhibit on fdr. Explore our nations past on American History tv every weekend on cspan3. , joe barton jill