Transcripts For CSPAN2 Civic Engagement Civility Panel At William Mary 20240713

Warner is, i dont know, approaching old age. I will not say he is there. Is approaching old age but you would never know it. We have been sitting in the back and talking about this race and that race and all kinds of things and i was thinking about his career and it is absolutely incredible. You can go back as far as world war ii and korea. He was in both of those and you didnt have to. He was always willing to jump in and participate. He did lots of things in between. Lets start with secretary of the navy in the early 1970s, head of the bicentennial commission. Those of you old enough to remember the wonderful celebration of the bicentennial of the us which helped bring the country together. And he went to a place many of you never heard of, the United States senate. He was elected in 1978, elected very narrowly, 5000 votes, very narrowly. That was the end of his time test. Occasionally he would have one within a few Percentage Points but mainly was unopposed. In the u. S. Senate from 1979 all the way to 2009 when he yielded the seat to another warner who was completely unrelated to him but the voters thought that he was in that enabled him to win the massive landslide, mark warner. On a personal note ive got to tell you this, it describes his life in a way. In 1978 when he ran for the senate i was already a pundit back then. I had a life as a hobo, no real employment that mattered, doing all kinds of things that made no difference. I am a pundit and i wrote a really nasty piece about john warner. Im embarrassed to admit that now. Talk about being wrong. I wrote a nasty piece about him. Most politicians that i have known would have never spoken to me again. Instead, he called me and said i want you to get to know me. Maybe you will criticize me but i know from that piece you dont know what you are talking about. We got together and sure enough our friendship has endured. It grew even though i had a roll and he had a role but this man served not just for you and your but a national senator, we dont have many of anymore. He served the National Interests. Not his partys interests. We need more of those in both parties so i am extremely pleased and proud to have the honor of introducing senator john warner. [applause] right there. Standing ovation. I appreciate that. Standing ovation tells you something. Nobody told them to do it. The best kind of standing ovation. Senator, just getting right into it, you have an talking on the phone a great deal, we were talking backstage a few minutes ago, what is wrong with our system today . Because clearly this extreme polarization has hurt us in lots of different ways and it is here in virginia and it is nationally. We are having a hard time. Having a hard time recruiting people, dont want to run anymore and a lot of the good ones, the ones who are in this room are all exceptions. Every single one. The uva is a public institution. You are all exceptions. A lot of colleagues who arent here right now dont fall into that category. You were there for so many years. You took the arrows for controversial things you did, not just from democrats but republicans and pundits. They are the ones i really hate, those pundits, they are worthless. They were all attacking you for the things you did but you stayed there, you toughed it out. What can we do today to attract people who want to serve the National Interests and not just their partys interests . Lets lighten it up a little bit. I want to introduce my wife jeannie, she is the one who has to go through all the daily the reason is it ties into the theme of what i want to talk about as Public Service. Any Public Service starts with your family and commitment to your wife but secondarily your children because so much time is taken away by events and you owe it to them to make sure they are solidly with you. When i am on the road all the time, there sits george allen. George is not had enough fun is two in the circus, going and coming. His voice is stronger than mine, overpowering 64 inches will hit you going down the hall and you have to be careful. His lovely wife right next to him, others are hidden. Where is bobby scott . Are you still here . Bobby and i put together the first africanamerican on the bench. I remember seeing bobby and said bobby, virginia has never had in its 200 year history and africanamerican on the bench or a woman on the federal bench and i said i want you to help me select that individual to go on the bench and it was jim spencer, on the Circuit Court and jim came up from district court. I have had wonderful experiences with all these powers of mine who served together but every one of them is facing a challenge today. I go back and reflect on a moment for the basis of my thoughts, i am always laughing at congressman, getting home in the district. There is a group of people. Senators go from the tip of the state all the way to Northern Virginia to the Atlantic Ocean to the valley of virginia so senators have a lot more to cover than members of the house. I want to thank those of you and i bet there are a few who might have voted for me at one time or another. There is a hand going up. May i thank you. I enjoyed it and enjoyed every minute of it and did come up to the end and this shows you how politics in virginia has worked in those days and i said you are 80 years old, give or take, and you had a good role in ice. And step forward and even though the democrats offered not to run anybody against me for a commitment to get one year to decide who shouldnt run. Here im today having pleasure of being with you. I want to talk about what we can do. In all those 30 years, talking to so many young people in all types of forums they often appreciate that very much. How do you get into politics . A fundamental question. How do you get into politics . I did not spend the time trying to answer their questions, here i am in the twilight of a career and i will dedicate my efforts very severely working with my buddy over here. He is all smiles now. I ran the opposition. If you cant beat them join them and that is what i did. Join you rascal. He has established himself not only in the university of virginia. Nationwide, and authority, bipartisan, picking one or the other, just the system of politics. And the concept and sell it to our state and help finance it but sell the concept to a state of having an allday work session and run an ad across virginia, you are interested in possibly serving in Public Office someday, sign up. We will feed you lunch but you are on your own. You get here and you leave. It is a tight schedule but we will introduce you to politicians and other public figures all over the state and so forth. And tell you what it is like in hopes that you can make up your mind. Not telling you to do it but you better know it before you get in it and believe me, getting into it today is very important for reasons that were not present when i came into politics and that is the severity of the technology, all the things that were developed from the internet to social media to unmanned spacecraft, all kinds of things. Todays political figures have got to be persons that have a basis to learn and learn quickly because the spectrum of problems that they are going to be confronted with his unlimited. Let me stumble through one last personal story to make a point clear. Picture my campaign over a year and two months and iran against former governor, and nathan miller, distinguished state legislator and the four of us traveled with our dog and pony show all over the commonwealth, sat on boxes and picnics and had a friendly debate and then we came down, now we have to decide which of the four. So they came up with the idea lets have a convention. That sounds sensible. 1100 people, 1100 people showed up to the virginia coliseum for that convention. I will never forget it. It went on in too late at night and i remember one of my Campaign Managers that you want to win this race, you are on the fifth ballot and i was tied for the sixth ballot coming up. He said get out there and start a parade and dont like the parade end until after midnight. I said what do you mean . What does that have to do with it . He said at the stroke of 12, about one fourth of this audience eventually in their beliefs. They have to quit politics, the sabbath, sunday morning and they are going home. And you are going to lose. And i said ive got to think about this. It seems to me distrustful, he shook his head. It is up to you. You want to be a senator, get out on that parade. If you dont, pay me off and i am gone. I didnt and i lost and dick won and then we had the tragedy of his coming in an airplane late one night in richmond and the plane hit the top of the tree and he lost his life. I was given 90 days, got that . 90 days i didnt have a stick of furniture, i didnt have anything to put together a campaign and seek that election. I won the nomination. The Old City Council of fathers in the Republican Party were tough gang those days and they didnt not conservative enough, you are not conservative enough, got to commit to do this. I dont make any commitments and the door opened and this is something i will never forget. In walked a woman very quietly and simply said my husband lost his life. He would be here tonight telling you to give the nomination to warner. There was dead silence. I took her by the hand, walked out. Next morning they announced shows you the power of individuals to go along. It is fun to hear about people with their nonachievements, made a difference. The last week of the campaign, my opponent was unable democrat named andrew miller. His family, Francis Pickens miller who was part of the famous bird machine for a while and broke off, and the attorney general, and able campaigner and a good guy. The last debate cleverly put in alexandria where i now live, a strong democrat stronghold. They went through the debate and the moderator said each of you have two minutes to stand before the crowd and in very simple language tell them one reason why you should be the next senator. A senior in the hierarchy got up, woke up, looked him in the eye and didnt say anything, he stood there, my watches clicking, this guy burned up his time and is not saying a thing. Then he looked him in the eye and said i was born a virginian. There was dead silence, he turned around and walked on. The silence was still in that room, that was the longest walk in my life, of my seat, up to i was going to speak, give me the strength to figure out what to do now. I have been 18 months trying to do that. It hangs in abeyance for 3 minutes. What do i do. I said go for it. What my opponent said tonight, taken into consideration it is important. I call it the virginia way. We now in virginia how things are done, and my colleagues say what does that mean . It is virginia, dont try to worry about it. There is my mother, 86 years old in the front seat, i said my opponent talked about his birth. My family had come from amherst, virginia, i heard him too. I heard him too. I want him to know even if i and doctor john, an oldtime surgeon, ever thought my little boy wanted to be a United States senator, across the Potomac River and had him under magnolia trees in the state of virginia. That broke the audience up. Grandma speaks first son. I won that election 48 hours earlier by one half of 1 of a vote. You didnt know that story. It shows you the importance of what you are doing here today, it has been a common theme through todays speeches and yesterday about the need to get only the best and brightest to come into our political system but we have to sit down and devise a work session to help those who want to know more about the fundamentals of politics to come forward but the importance of family is number one. We are not here to convince you but to answer questions with expert people. I want to put the state on map as holding a real honest to god oldtime for him of what it is to be a politician, what is expected of you and hopefully more of you will come and step up to the challenge. That was wonderful. [applause] that was the easiest interview i have ever done. You dont have to do it. Thank you, you did a wonderful job putting this together. Take a standing ovation. Get up, lazy bones. There he is. Frank was one of my first students. You did a good job. I take full credit for him. I want to ask. Hold everything. He wants to say hello. That was not part of the deal. I am going to do that. Come up here. The truth is she will take a small token we are presenting you with this special virginia heritage 16, 19, 2019, commissioned by the American Revolution in honor of this commemoration. You have a designated driver. I wanted to make sure there would be no drinking in the car, i know our panelists want to shake your hand before you leave the stage. We are proud to have known you and look forward to other adventures with you. You are full of good ideas and the history lesson. Thank you. That was fun. Just waiting for you to sit down. Hello, diane. You deserve half the credit for anything frank did. Have a good panel on Civic Engagement and civility. There are not many examples we can cite but we have a good conversation what we can do to strengthen Civic Engagement and strengthen civility. We have a fantastic group of people to discuss this. I want to discuss this, you could all not listen. Frank, you wrote a wonderful script. These three panelists have insisted on rewriting the whole thing. I do not want you blaming me for the subject they are going to bring up. Are we agreed on that. I wanted him to know that. It is not all going to be sweetness and light. There will be controversial topics discussed so not necessarily with our first speaker, somebody we all know, we certainly know his work and the great things he has done for virginia. I will introduce him. The second speaker is bobby scott, representative for the Third District of virginia, we met in politics, no other place we would have. He is our congressional dean both houses of congress in virginia and then we have kirk cox, speaker of the Virginia House of delegates, youve seen him during this conference. I havent seen much of him but i have seen his son cameron who has been in our classes and working with the uva center for politics and doing a terrific job. My staff loves him. I criticized him heavily when he gets an answer wrong because he should know everything with the speaker of the house as his father and that is my view of it. You gave me permission. He knows most things but not everything. I want to start out by introducing a man i hadnt had the opportunity to meet before now but is the philanthropist philanthropist. He has done more for Historical Preservation and institutions including monticello near me than anybody i have ever come across and he does it quietly and effectively, to think of the history we would not have preserved or the history we wouldnt have discovered had it not been for you. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for what you have done and i would like to see, having focused on history what you can tell us about the ideas of civility and Civic Engagement from that perspective. What i am trying to do is remind people, on the theory, not a novel theory is that if you remember the past you might not make the mistakes we have made in the past and maybe do better in the future. Thats not a Novel Concept but the theory behind studying history as we might learn something from it and do better in the future. One of the problems we have now is because of a concern about Stem Education among other things history is not being taught particularly American History in our School Systems as much as it used to be when many of you were in school. We dont see teach civics anymore very much, we dont eat American History very much. You can graduate virtually any college in this country without having to take in American History course. You can graduate from 80 of colleges as a history major without having taken American History. What do we get as a result of this . In a recent survey done by annenberg foundation, two orders of americans have not made the 3 branches of government and one quarter of americans cannot name one branch of government. 30 of americans think George Washington crossed the rhine river during the revolutionary war. More High School Sophomores can name the first three names of the 3 stooges than the first three names of any Founding Fathers and amazingly 10 of American College graduates now believe that judge judy is a member of the United States Supreme Court which is not yet the case i would add. So think about this. Recently. If anybody here is a citizen who is a naturalized citizen, any naturalized citizens here . If you are a naturalized citizen you have to reside in this country for five years and then take a citizenship test. It is 100 questions, you need to get 60 of them right and youre a citizen after being sworn in. 91 of people to take the test presumably after studying pass it. 91 pass. The survey was done by the Woodrow Wilson foundation and discovered if you give the same test of people who are native born americans, only the citizens in one state were able to pass it, vermont. 49 of the other 50 states the average citizen could bypass the basic citizenship test. There is no one way to solve this problem. What i try to do in a modest way, im trying to find some historic documents, magna carta, declaration of independence, he met patient preparation, bill of rights, constitution, and put them in places where people can see them. What is important to see the historic document . You can put effectively look at a computer screen. The human brain has not evolved to the point where treat the computer screen document the same as it does a historic document so if you go see the original magna carta which i bought and put on permanent display the National Archives you will more likely before you go there or if you go there to read about the magna carta, why it is important and why it is significant. The same is true of Historic Buildings was when the Washington Monument has earthquake damage i said i would put up the money because it might take too long to get it done. Monticello needed some work, month earlier needed some work. Iwo jima memorial needed work, Lincoln Memorial needed work. I said let me fix these up and maybe more americans will visit these places and if they visit maybe they will learn more about our history. That is not going to solve all our problems and help members of congress worry about American History and we talked about this. I started a program 5 years ago to educate members of congress about American History. I bring up Doris Kearns Goodwin and interview them in front of numbers of congress, we get typically 200 members of congress and i asked them to speak with people in the opposite party because they dont do that and people on the opposite house often dont do that either and i will not say the pieces broken out in washington dc but maybe of congress have learned more about our history but a little better, robbery. What i am trying to do to help with Civic Engagement is to think about the good, the bad and Thomas Jefferson was an extra ordinary man, he will declaration of independence but was a slave owner and when i put up money to help monticello get restored i said i would like the slave quarters to be billed because people should know Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner among other things and the same is true of montpelier. So people can see the good and the bad. My theory is if people learn more about our history will they be informed citizens . And intelligent decisions. If you dont have informed citizenry democracy wont work as well. There is a tremendous premise. It is a tremendous premise but you are leaving an unbelievable legacy and you caught some of these things in time, deterioration occurs and what i was impressed with was your ability to look in a balanced way at historical figures. They werent perfect unlike us. We are incredibly perfect and everybody would agree to that but some of them had fault. You mentioned Mister Jefferson and the statute of virginia for religious freedom and the Louisiana Purchase and we could go on and on. It is horrible that he was a slaveowner and he knew better. He knew better. But you have to balance the accomplishments and achievements with less attractive side. Dont we all want that . May be our obituary, dont we want a balanced view of the life we lead . I would like to see that view of history and historical figures become standard. When we were in grade school we read how great George Washington was and he was great, we would not have had the Constitutional Convention succeed, we would not have won the revolutionary war the president he wouldnt have gotten off to a good start but he was a slaveowner as well but really founding father who freed his slaves upon his death. We have had many faults with our Founding Fathers as we have fault with a lot of people, nobody is perfect. When you mention obituary, i want you to think about this. There was a man eating down in stockholm in 1888 and he was reading the newspaper and he read his own obituary. How can it be . Alfred nobel who was the inventor of dynamite was sitting at his breakfast table and he read alfred nobel has died, thank god the merchant of death, the inventor of dynamite, has gone. The newspaper made a mistake. It was his younger brother who died but he had the advantage of looking at his own obituary and what people thought about him. I ask people all the time think about this. Suppose you were going to read your own obituary tomorrow in the newspaper. Would you be happy with what you read . The answer is not yet, you have more time to do something about it. I try to tell people all the time, think about this. The earth is 5 billion years old. Humans as we are, homo sapiens are roughly 400,000 years old. We are modest in terms of the grant span and our average Life Expectancy is 80, 90, 100 years if youre lucky or unlucky depending on your point of view. What you can do in your lifetime is relatively finite but we are all on the face of the earth for a short time in relative terms, we should try to take advantage of it and do something to leave a mark, justify my existence on the face of the earth. This is what i have done to make myself proud of what i have done. My parents proud, grandchildren proud so i ask all of you to think about what you can do and i coin a phrase for one thing i tried to do which is called patriotic philanthropy which is to give back. All philanthropy is patriotic and honest but when you are doing things remind me of our history and heritage, and if you are great, i am convinced those people who give back to the country live a longer life. Why do i say that . People that give back to our country are happy. Happy people live longer. Grumpy people dont live as long. If you are going to be happy by giving back your country try to do that now and also there is a special place in heaven reserved for people that give back to the country. You might laugh about that but why take a chance that i am wrong . [applause] i love that. I agree with you. If you were a betting person, do the good things and you have. You sets the standard for everybody else. I want to go to mister chairman, the chairman of the education labor committee, used to make me call him congressman. Now he makes me call him mister chairman. I knew him when he was a state senator and he was more informal than. I love him. I always have. Hes a terrific guy, chairman of house education labor committee, he has long been a supporter of Public Education in general and Civic Education in particular. People arent born with those things in their genes. Most people arent. Chairman scott is an exception. His mother was a science teacher. His father was the first africanamerican to serve on the Newport News School board. In a century, 100 years ago. Werent even established. He has got education in his blood and i want to ask bobby first about the role of education and cultivating good citizenship and you are in an institution, congress generally both houses where civility is in short supply and the same is true with the other end of pennsylvania avenue. How do you deal with this today and is there any coming back . I mentioned the virginia delegation gets along better than any other delegation and you can credit john warner making that a priority. You have a role model of civility. We have john warner to thank, if there is any dignity. He was dean of the delegation over the years. One of the problems, education is extremely important. You have people trying to debate issues where one side doesnt believe in science. How do you debate somebody who doesnt believe in science . If you look at the budgets we produced a lot of them dont believe in arithmetic. You have tax cuts and suggest it is not going to affect the budget. That is absurd. You try to have civil debates with people, one of the things frequently said his public sentiment is on board and these people dont fall out of the sky, they are elected and if they are acting in an uncivil way, their constituents have to respond. Education is extremely important aspect of this and we need to focus on making sure education is available to all and increase the level of education for people across the country. The brown decision, the Supreme Court said any child may be reasonably be expected to succeed, denied the opportunity of education, such an opportunity is a right on equal terms. And the real estate tax, guarantees is not going to be equal because more assets than others, going into title i to make money into low income areas so low income areas will have a fighting chance, no child left behind and you want to make sure achievement is right and if there are achievement gaps you have to deal with it and the response to achievement gaps were so convoluted everybody hated no child left behind so a couple years ago, every Student Succeeds. It doesnt give them any flexibility on the requirement that uss to ascertain achievement gaps and have incredible response and if you succeed in that, we would go a long way and having an electorate that is knowledgeable and can deal with all the complexities of legislation without that. There is no civil way to have a discourse. If you are not using evidence and research and you see this in crime policy and that was on the Judiciary Committee when i was in congress until i became a lead democrat on the Education Committee. Crime policy is just a matter of choice. Trying to reduce crime and save money or you codify a bunch of simpleminded slogans and soundbites. Over the years it is slogans and soundbites, whatever sounds tough on crime or sounds like you are doing something and pass it, some of the initiatives have been studied and researched, shown to increase the crime rate. Trying to get people to an evidence in researchbased approach where you have a more different crime policy, texas went through this process, and 6 years ago, they needed to billion dollars for the department of corrections to deal with increasing prison population, 2 billion, one state. If we try some rehabilitation, 10 of that money on that, we might not have to build all prisons. 200 million, and they looked up and reduced crime so much not only did not have to build new prisons, they closed the ones they had. It creates a nice coalition, and saving money, covers the entire political spectrum and where people are looking at criminal Justice Reform is something that is doable. You have to have people who are willing to have an educated approach to policy and that is in recent history very difficult. Let me ask one followup. Education is primarily a state and local function granted but you are chairman of the Education Committee. Are there anyways the federal government can encourage and the on entry in secondary schools more Civics Education and maybe civility education . Members of congress are hardly role models. To talk about civility. And the absence of civics i think is one thing we need to start looking at because people as david just mentioned, going up without a basic knowledge of civics or civility, at a high you can teach civility, but if you have civics and the discourse is more intelligent and acrimonious, i think by example you can have more civility. But we have a situation now where people are reelecting and supporting and not criticizing people who are not being civil. You heard davids description of the average americans knowledge of civics. Its almost a crisis, because in the end its average citizens and their knowledge or lack of it about government and politics and candidates and election the term of the type of government that we have. Well, the legislators didnt a fallout of the sky. They ran campaigns and got elected. When they have served a little they have to be reelected, and when they have behaved the way some are behaving and get reelected anyway, then we have a problem. With respect to Civic Engagement i should mention as well that one of the greatest tasks or responsibilities or obligations of a citizen to be engaged is to vote. Yet even in president ial elections we have roughly 50 of eligible voters voting and an author elections less than 50 . Of the the eligible voters in the typical Congressional Election off your you might have 25 or 30 of eligible voters. In a primary you might at and, therefore, some people who have the right to vote dont choose to exercise it. When you think about the people who have given their lives in our many wars to preserve our right to have the right to vote and people dont choose it its a sad commentary on the current state of Civic Engagement. There is a little positive good news. Last year in the midterm elections it was only a 50 turnout, only, but it it was the largest midterm turnout since the first midterm of Woodrow Wilsons administration, which i remember well. That was a very exciting time. [laughing] and he do think in 2020 you are going to see a turnout through the roof, and you can guess the reasons why. I think it will be turnout through the roof. Turnout by our normal standards. In some countries may be the force people to vote to some extent but you might have 80 or 90 of the eligible voters voting. We will be lucky to advocate 60 of eligible voters to vote. If we can get 60 or 70 would be better because the government itself will have more authority and is more of the what you have more people voting for it. Let me turn now to speaker kirk cox. He has a perspective on this, not just for him by his many years of Public Service and his current high position, but also for 30 years he was a civics teacher in virginia. And by the way, i just want people to know, dont even bother to look for corruption connected to kirk cox. Because the man has been a schoolteacher and then a member of the virginia general assemble. If you want to get rich, those are not the ways to do it. [laughing] so things look good. But seriously i that a number of the students come to the university of virginia. They love you. He was a great civics teacher. He would often bring them up to the university and show them around, get some of us to chat with them about it. Obviously you have a Strong Political philosophy and party, but the point out to me, the democratics pointed out to me, that you never insisted that they agree with you and maybe you even gave them a little extra credit having the guts to disagree. Thats the way it should be. Mr. Speaker, whats your view of Civic Education civility . I would say first of all, some great points up in may. David said aptly we dont teach and of civics and history, but the key to all of it is the teacher in the classroom. Its interesting, when you Teach High School you have two kinds of kids, you get the kind of kid who loves government, but they are very emotional passion. They dont know why they love certain things but they think they do. Then frankly of 80 of the kids that really doesnt affect their lives and they just dont see the utility of it. Your child as a teacher with is important, we assume an education that come to challenge the teachers to make sure you given the Critical Thinking skills that in of the documents, the fellows, the declaration. Let me give you an example. My first day of school i taught all young teacher, dont pass that materials for the entire class. You have insurance forms, youve been through this, everything in the world. I said engagement quickly. Heres what i used to do. I used to shoot the president. Let me explain. I would have simulation and no matter who is president , i was bipartisan, i would have little exercise by which i would give the kids a twopage scenario. Most are in the summer and i get all the background and then i would say the president is boarding air force one pickiest just been shot turkeys in a coma. And they go, youre the Vice President. You have 15 minutes to figure out what to do, stand up in front of the class and then explain what youre going to do. You can imagine theyre panicking. This is the first day of school. One kid has all the answers so hes hoping to volunteer and it would also scared to death. I tell them stop looking at your feet because ill call you on you. I call on the two types of kids. I put them outside the room after the think about it for 15 minutes. I tell the rest of the class you are the press. Yet stand up and ask questions and well see how this person does. I call the first kid in who is the passionate keep it all the kid stand up and they start clapping for him. Aye thats terrible. Free press. You dont clap for the president. So then the kid walks in. He expects is nervous by dispassionate. I given certain little nuggets within my twopage explanation. One is that our russianmade weapons. You all know this is a cold war. There so many russianmade weapons. Obviously on black market. The kid accuses the russians of shooting the the president ande starts world war iii. I go that julie bad because you just started world war iii. So then they start asking the kids questions. I let the other kids as question and i asked the q1 one. So, mr. Vice president , hows the 25th amendment affect the situation . The kid looks at me like im crazy . The 25th amendment . He goes i have no idea. I can sit down. You are totally through. You were trained to be Vice President and you dont know the one that deals with the disability of a president . Your whole career is over. Heres whats really important. The United States of america, which is a representative democracy. You trying to do good things and now frankly your career is over. I said thats very, very important. And then i keep the simulation going but two days later i did things like stock market has dropped to 2000. And ask a newe president. What are you going to do about Monetary Policy . Im going to raise taxes. The fed thats that. You have this totally wrong, you dont know what you talking about. What im trying to do, i stopped after two days and i got heres the problem. You are very passionate and i love your passion. But you basically dont know the facts and she made a lot of bad decisions. Im going to do a similar simulation at the interview. You will get every one of those facts right and the passion which believe in you will be able to turn into really good public policy. I know this is a bit of a long story so then we proceed to teach the constitution. I make them memorize the amendment, teach at the federalist papers and when they start getting bored i say remember the simulation i did . You need to understand the fundamental principles. I had my kids debate the federalist papers. Let me tell you, when i was teaching it, grouped a lot of kids, xyz. Everyone of the kids can do that. If your confidence they can do that. We debated separation of powers and checks and balances, federalist and antifederalist. We heard a lot of great discussion on the bill of rights. We debated the bill of rights et pacific those kids did great. And even win when elections cae along i was trying to think how can we get kids to basely know what the candidates truly stand for . I would have them right who are you for. They would be very passionate that they would write who they were for. Flip over the page i would list six major policy areas. So, for example, for president obama, the aca. Explain to me. Whats his position. It was really funny, they would flip it over, look at it and i would just look at them, literally a minute went by and all their pencils were down. And then i would wait about ten minutes, and who is feeling horribly uncomfortable. Once again i made the point is, were going to talk about these campaigns and the platforms of these various candidates and whats going to love your passion, you have no idea what the candidate stands for. So by the end of this particular lesson you will know that they need to make an informed choice. I know im going on and on about this but i think its very, very important that we engage all students, that we make sure that they develop that factual basis, and they also develop those Critical Thinking skills. And finally i do a mock general simply. I teach in parliamentary procedure before we can do anything. I make them come through the speaker which is what we have to do. I make sure they conduct themselves in committee the right way. And there are small things you can teach students about how to conduct themselves but i think those exercises are very, very, very valuable. And so thats one example but this is a great form today to be learning so much about that. When i became speaker, im a conservative republican, so bob and i would disagree on a lot of issues but im speaker for the entire house. When i gave my speech i basically said, a member it was there a controversial, we were 5050 for a long time. Basically the election was decided by a drawing a black film canister. Out of eighth Virginia Museum bowl because its a tight election between a republican and democrat. And we of course one that drawing. And i said it feels like were five miles apart with all the rancor. But really its only five feet difference between the democrat and republican side. We tried to do that. When a perfect but i think we really do try to do that. So thats sort of been the way ive approached it. But, and and i will end with t. Everybody says where do you think youve had the most influence . I will always tell you i think as a teacher. I love being in the General Assembly and i think, youve been a tremendous teacher. Some of my students come back and say that. I do think ive got a lot more influence to educate as a teacher because thats what all start. I would just add that were here to celebrate the 400th anniversary of virginias founding. Once we have nice discussions and so forth would go about our business. What if we accomplished by doing this . One of the things we all might consider is what can virginia do to improve Civic Engagement in the state and what can virginia do to improve voting participation in the state . Virginia has a special obligation i would argue because it was the virginian who drafted the declaration of independence. It was a virginian who was the father of the constitution. It was a virginian who presided over the constitution convention. It was a virginian who was the person who upset, most upset about the constitution because it did that the bill of rights. It was a virginian who drafted the bill of rights. So virginia has been involved for a long time for Civic Engagement and doing the things that are now the governing principles and governing structures for our country. So you would think the virginia as a mark of its 400th anniversary should say we want to make sure that Going Forward, people in this state to better job than any other state in knowing what the constitution is, knowing what the declaration of independence is, knowing what our history is and be engaged by voting a a higher percentage, making certain citizens take the citizenship come to better job than any other state. When you think about what you want to do Going Forward after this celebration is over, i hope the people involved will say we should leave a legacy for those people who are coming in the future and the legacy should be that we are the most specifically engage day, the most informed state, and were honoring the great virginians who came before us because of what they have done. Lets hope so. Lets hope so. Applause [applause] were running at a time but ive one more question as a talk about Civic Education and its easy to talk about but difficult to do. But even more difficult subject is the dramatic and disturbing the client incivility. Not just between elected officials, but in our system generally, citizens to public officials. You can throw the news media in. I actually think social media is a cause of a great deal of it, not the actual news media. You cant put all these genies back in the bottle. Were stuck with them and know what is going, relatively few people will jump off twitter. In most days i would like to but you cant. Your engaged with people and you need them and they need you and all the rest of it. What can we do, practically . Two of you are in our senior people, very senior people in elected bodies where we all can agree civility has declined. And, yes, i know of the president s role and that certainly is a big piece of it, too. But it was declining before he was every elected. What practically can we do, learning history helps, being taught well helps, but there are other things that weve got to do. Its almost a crisis, a lack of civility. What can we do . Thats an easy question so i will let [laughing] and do it in two minutes like last night with the debate. And i will say thank you, mr. Speaker, just like they did. Ill be brief. You have to call out. You cannot allow some of things that instead to become normalized. Statement after statement, you cant defend them. There was one a couple of days ago there was a press Conference Held by legislative leaders, and again, subscript under it was gop leaders defend racist comments. Well, you should be calling it up. You cant defend it because then its just encourages more of the same. If you dont call it out, its going to continue. The voters have to participate when people conduct themselves in that kind of way. There has to be adverse consequences of the election. I think you have to find some common ground. So lets the candy. When you go to issues which are very important, like life, thats hard because that such a fundamental principle. But having said that, higher education, k12. When i became speaker one of the things i tried to do with the Talent Pipeline is safe is a set of issues we can work on. You find that with anything else is what you try to start working on a set of issues and you have a few successes, obviously you have to work with those people and then you get to know them a little bit better and then you can build on the successes. Dont go to the issue that is so polarizing your not going to get a start there. So in virginia, and to do think weve had some good things happen, if a look at colleges and universities what we done in that space. So thats really what we tried to do the last few years. And then you have to try to tackle the tough issues, the tough issues for us would be Virginia Beach and gun control, Mental Health issues. I do feel like if you can have some success and you start working on those, you know who the players are, then that really evolves much easier to try to work on more difficult issues. Thats my more practical solution. I went and visited an Education Committee retreat in charlottesville. They had a bipartisan retreat about two years ago right after we passed every Student Succeeds act. And i was just stunned with the serious cooperative evidencebased approach the committee was taking, coming out of washington where its basically slogan based. But a really deliberate process. And when you can agree that you will follow the evidence and research, that knocks out about of the confusion right there. Everybody, the research tells you exactly what to do. A lot of stupid stuff gets codified, that the research is cleared, it doesnt work. And so i just want to implement the house Education Committee for taking that kind of evidencebased constructive approach. Two points. 11, some of you may remember that in the early 1960s Adolf Eichmann was captured in argentina and taken back to israel. The trial was held in israel and he was sentenced to death and is executed. A book was written about that, or two articles, and it was entitled the of evil. What she meant was evil had become so commonplace that killing people in concentration camps was accepted as the norm. In the same sense while its not killing people, when you accept as the norm outrageous statements or conduct that is not becoming of a civilized society, that society will ultimately not survive. So we have to speak up against these things and we have to do things that might take some profiles in courage. Profiles in courage was a book written by john kennedy about senators. There have been as many books written about profiles in courage in many years but maybe we should encourage more people to speak up and be courageous pic speaking of john kennedy, remember when he said in his famous inaugural address, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. So anybody here, anybody who might be listening, say what can you do for your country . One of the things you can do is speak up when there are outrageous things being said so that our civic conversation does not allow, is not allowed to go off track, and so we dont have analogy of evil, banality of accepting these outrageous things that people say. The final thing that john kennedy said in that address some of you may remember it, i remember it quite vividly, i was in the six grade but i remember that speech. He said with a good conscience are only sure reward with his to come the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to leave the land we love asking his blessing and his help but knowing that here on earth gods work must truly be our own. So we cant depend on god to solve these problems for us. It requires each of us to get engaged and to give more of ourselves then made was given before in order to make certain we dont have a analogy at the look and concepts were weeks at what anybody says that might be courageous allow people to do things that do not further civic discourse. [applause] thats a perfect note on which to end. Its actually kind of upbeat. I have stated profiles in courage by the wake of the original version. I talked to ted sorenson about it, the real author or at least part of it. We agreed that even then the book was a very slim volume. So maybe we could all work to expand the next edition of profiles in courage. We all need to do to make our society more civil and to help Civic Education. Enjoyed being with you. Thank you, david, robbie, kirk. They did a terrific job. Please join me for a round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] the house impeachment inquiry hearings continue this week on cspan. Tuesday House Intelligence Committee will vote in a closeddoor session to send that their findings on President Trump to the house Judiciary Committee. Then on wednesday live at 10 a. M. Eastern the house Judiciary Committee led by chair Jerrold Nadler hold a Public Inquiry hearings on the constitutional grounds for president ial impeachment and will hear testimony from law professors. Follow the impeachment inquiry, watch live on cspan3, online at cspan. Org or listen on the free cspan radio app. Sender Elizabeth Warren held a town hall in iowa city on the campus of the university of iowa. She was introduced by supporters and Campaign Organizers from the area and then spoke on w