Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. 00:00:01 (Jason Grumet)
Twitter gets very angry when you keep it waiting. (laughter)
00:00:10 (Jason Grumet)
Well good afternoon. At the very outset of this morning’s conversation I mentioned that
the purpose of this effort the Commission on Political Reform was to really start to think
about the interactions between leadership and citizenship, not to simply focus inside the
beltway or outside the beltway but recognize that we have a large and diverse country
with leaders of all types that have to be part of the solutions we’re interested in finding.
And this last panel really starts to bridge that discussion. We are now going to spend
some time thinking about the incentives and obstacles to public service. We have
before us a terrific panel of elected leaders, former White House officials and some real
innovators in the non-profit space who have created opportunities for people to lead and
contribute. The panel, led by our very own John Fortier who directs the Democracy
Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, John is a political scientist with expertise in
government institutions and particular electoral reform. He is widely published and has
really been the brain trust behind the boiler room of the Commission on Political Reform
as we move forward through the process a lot of the efforts that you see will be driven
by John and his team. So John.
00:01:29 (John Fortier)
Thank you Jason and thank you again to the Reagan Library. I’m here to introduce a
really stellar panel of people who’ve thought about and been in public service and really
to think about the question of are there obstacles we are throwing up to people who
want to serve in government, who want to give back in a way and what sort of
institutions we might create going forward. I too have a couple of duties to do here, so
first we are going to look to make sure that our online audience gets going with a poll
question which we have and that poll question which we’re going to put up on the
screens is, “Would you consider running for political office in the future?” And that’s a
yes or no question. So during the session as in the earlier sessions we’ll be reporting
your results on the screens here. And the whole forum is being live-streamed on the
Bipartisan Center’s website which is bipartisanpolicy.org and you can send us a tweet
using the hashtag #EgageUSA. Later during the session we’ll read some of your twitter
comments and questions, actually some of them have already come in and we will also
be taking some questions from the audience for the final part of the session. I’m going
to introduce the panelists and then we’re going to get to the questions. To my left here
Mark Gearan, Mark Gearan is the President of Hobart William Smith College also was
colleges was also the head of the Peace Corp in the Clinton Administration. Chris
Marvin is the founder and the head of the Got Your Six campaign and organization that
connects veteran’s to public service in a number of ways. Governor, Governor of
California Gray Davis, we’re going to go down to another governor, Governor
Kempthorne who also served in the cabinet and the Senate, and Antonia Hernandez the
President and head of the California Community Foundation, Governor Jennifer
Granholm and Ambassador Bob Tuttle who was Ambassador the United Kingdom as
well as the Head of Presidential Personnel in the Reagan Administration in whose
library we sit as we speak. I’m going to turn first to a question to Mark Gearan and one
1 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. has come in from Twitter already and that is a question from Arianna from Simi Valley
right in the neighborhood, and it is, “How can young people contribute to government
and politics in an uncertain future.” If I can just elaborate on that question and ask you
a little bit more directly, you are the President of a college and you see our younger
generation today and at least our sense is that when you ask people if they want to
serve if they want to give back they say yes, they say they want to do good things but
they often are more attracted to non-profits and they’re not as interested especially in
running for office, is that your sense or what do you see in the younger generation?
00:04:14 (Mark Gearan)
Well I would say more broadly it’s a great question that was formulated but I am very
optimistic about the millennial generation. They are the most civically engaged, service
oriented generation arguably since the greatest generation. You see it with the
numbers interested in the Peace Corps, and AmeriCorps, Teach for America all the
various streams of service so amidst our many and varied problems that we have which
this great effort is addressing I come to this with great optimism about this generation. I
would say that it is a generation that brings a sense of idealism as other generations but
a very pragmatic sense of that, what they can do in their neighborhood, hence Habitat
or AmeriCorps or Peace Corps ways to very tangibly make a difference. The political
space, I think for all the reasons we’re discussing and the genius of this Commission on
Political Reform I think does not attract some of the very talented students. I think that
can change, I think there are pathways for this but at the front end I come to it with great
appreciation for the millennial generation and great optimism for their commitment, their
service and their sense of civic engagement. Colleges can do more, the political space
can do more, innovative programs like what Chris has created all of that can add to the
future which in my perspective is bright.
05:42 (John Fortier)
I’m going to turn to Antonia Hernandez, we had a little conversation yesterday and you
have younger people and people wanting to do good works with the foundation and
supporting good works, what’s your sense of the young generation, where they are
maybe compared to what it was a generation ago.
00:05:59 (Antonia Hernandez)
Well I agree with Mark there is a great deal of caring in this young generation. They
want to address the difficult issues that is facing the world. They volunteer, they want to
work in the non for profit sector, they want to volunteer in the food bank, you know
working with youth but politics has turned, they’ve turned off of politics. They don’t see
politics as a place where they can make a difference, where they are heard. And they
don’t see the current elected officials behaving in a way of role modeling what good
government is. And so they are turned off of politics but they are very much turned on
to doing good.
2 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. 00:06:50 (John Fortier)
I know Jennifer Granholm as Governor you wanted to weigh in on this you see young
people, can you give your perspective?
00:06:57 (Jennifer Granholm)
Yeah, I actually was so encouraged by the number of young people who are here in this
room who raised their hands when they were asked the question would you consider
serving and in fact the poll number reflects that 58% would consider serving. I would
just say this, you know, we’ve got a veteran up here and many people think of service
as a form of giving to our country the way our veterans do when they go fight for us
overseas and that is a hugely and wonderfully honorable thing but we all have a duty as
citizens to serve too. And the duty is that you are here on this planet on this in this
country to make it better than when you arrived and the duty of service is not just some
it is for all and the question for you is you have heard all these political challenges that
we’ve discussed today that that not deter you from serving but in fact that fuels your
desire to serve so that you can come and make the changes that are necessary for the
reforms that we all know need to happen. I teach at Berkley in the Graduate Schools of
Law and Public Policy so perhaps my view on this is a little bit warped but because I’m
teaching people who want to serve. But I’m really encouraged even, even in the
political side by those are willing to raise their hand and say send me. My one piece of
advice for you though is to recognize that in running it’s not about you. That it’s not
about you, it’s about the changes that you want to make in the world. And if you run
with that in mind then it becomes your focus and your vision and your clarity and it
becomes much more, easier for you to raise your hand in fact when you realize that it is
not about you. So go forth and change the world.
00:08:58 (John Fortier)
Well I knew we wouldn’t have a shy panel and I know Governor Kempthorne and
Ambassador Tuttle want to jump in so Governor Kempthorne
00:09:05 (Dirk Kempthorne)
John between breaks I’ve enjoyed talking to these young folks here. The fact that some
of you have said that this is not a field trip, you wanted to be here and you started this
morning with this (raised his hand) and your still here. I mean I think we all ought to
sign a note for you. Let’s see it’s Simi Valley High School, Royal High School, Grace
Brethren and Conejo Valley High School any other High Schools? But I mean it’s
tremendous. (applause) Yeah (applause) And John if I could I’ll give you a couple
other specifics. Here’s my point. When we talk about running for public office, it’s not
for everybody, but I think there are so many examples of citizens are not sitting around
waiting for the government to do something for them, they’re doing significant things.
There’s a young man, Andy McKracken, he was Student Body President, American
University, last year he organized a hundred and twenty five incumbent university
student body presidents I was one of the speakers asked to address them. I didn’t
know what to expect. A hundred and twenty five college leaders, one of the most
respectful impressive group of people I’ve ever seen. The questions so insightful and
respectful, I mean I’m the one that went away invigorated. A Brett Gibson did a tour of
3 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. duty in the Middle East comes back, goes to the Harvard Business School, is elected
their Class President and implemented that there must now be public service before you
graduate from the Harvard Business School. What did they do? I think they adopted a
series of 6th grade classes throughout the region, so you have Harvard Business School
Students in the classroom role models. Reid Marcot, former Marine, started a health
clinic in Africa, Airlina for Cebera. My word these are young people. Somehow
somebody didn’t tell them they couldn’t do it. They just got up and did it. That’s what all
you can do. That’s the greatness of the spirit of America and that’s why I’m going to
jump back, pardon me for reiterating but I said this morning, that ad for Budweiser that
said name the horse and the number one answer was Hope. That’s what this country is
about is hope. I went to a Joel Osteen gathering at Yankee Stadium, filled to capacity,
every age, ethnicity, socioeconomic level, what was the common denominator, hope.
There’s nothing wrong with the citizens. I think we’ve got to get the leadership to catch
this thing called hope and then deliver.
00:12:07 (John Fortier)
Ambassador Tuttle you wanted to jump in?
00:12:10 (Robert Tuttle)
I agree 100% with what both Governors said. However maybe I can speak for a second
to those of you who didn’t raise your hand this morning. I would, I’m one of those, I
didn’t quite have the gumption or the courage or whatever else it was to put my name
on the ballot but I’ve been very fortunate to be one of those lucky people who have
been able to serve in government and I served as a non career or political appointee for
ten years of my life. And I can tell you it’s enriched my life, I’ve gone places, and met
people I never thought possible. We have something very unique in our political
system, it’s not true of many democracies in that we have a lot of non-career appointee
positions. At the federal level it’s about 3000 full time and about 1800 part time.
There’s the same in our local and in our state governments. So I would encourage
those of you who maybe don’t want to put their name on the ballot to get involved in a
campaign or in some way but to serve in a political or appointee position. They are
very, very important. As I said in our federal government it is 3000 full time political
appointments. It seems small when you think of the two and a half to three million
federal employees but it’s much larger than all the other western democracies. And I
think in a country as big as ours I’m an example. Someone who came from the West
Coast, went all the way back to Washington, spent 6 ½ years, I think you bring back as
much as you possibly give so please think about serving in a politically appointed
position if you would.
00:13:45 (John Fortier)
Let me follow up with you a question I was going to save for a little bit later and then I’m
going to turn to Governor Davis but you did serve in the Office of the Presidential
Personnel, directing it trying to fill all these positions, find people who want to serve in
the federal government. You’re right that’s very different from many countries where
most of the government is very career. That people who admire President Obama will
take time from their private lives and their careers and spend several years serving their
4 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. country. People who admired President Bush have done the same. So how did you go
about trying to find these people? What were the challenges of you seeking out the
right people for these complex jobs, bringing them to Washington, what was it that you
tried to do to get them?
00:14:26 (Robert Tuttle)
Just a quick, cute story. When I first went to Washington and was interviewed for the
Office of Presidential Personnel, someone told me who was working in the office,
“there’s enough Republican’s within a mile of where we’re sitting to fill up the
government.” And I said, “No that’s not true.” Well it is true. There’s lots of people in
Washington who want to serve and so we thought it was very important in Presidential
Personnel to go outside of Washington. So we had specialists, we had people come in
from the professional search world who worked for us to go outside of Washington. We
looked to people who’d worked in the campaign. There’s always after an election a
tremendous enthusiasm and you get thousands of letters from people who want to
serve. And then of course as I’ve mentioned there’s not a lot of positions and once their
filled the enthusiasm dies down. So we went back into our computer and found people
that sent letters at the beginning of the Reagan Administration and called them 4 or 5
years later and were able to find some outstanding people that way. So there’s many
ways. We would go to organizations that are probably represented here and said do
you have someone that you’re interested in serving. Just one cute story, when Senator
Baker became Chief of Staff we were looking for a position at the Tennessee Valley
Authority which was not in very good shape. And frankly Senator Baker had sent us
some of the people who were serving so with some trepidation I walked downstairs to
his office, he was then Chief of staff, and said “you know we have a little problem here
at the TVA” and he always called me Tuttle and he said, “yeah Tuttle I know you’re
right.” He said call this guy who was the head of the Nashville paper and he’ll find you
some people. And sure enough, out of the, I called this guy and he got a fella that was
running an automobile plant in Tennessee who turned out to be the one that President
Reagan selected to run the TVA and really turned it around. So it’s a huge country,
there’s lots of people, just tell people that you’re interested in serving. It’s very
important.
00:16:21 (John Fortier)
Governor, Governor Davis.
00:16:22 (Gray Davis)
First of all I want to commend all the young people here and I want to thank the Ronald
Reagan Library for being here. I got to meet Ronald Reagan when I first went to
Sacramento with Jerry Brown in 1974. I don’t care if you were Democrat, Republican,
Independent, Green Party AIP you had to like Ronald Reagan. He was a good man,
sunny disposition, liked all people, no malice in his heart. I would like to see politics get
back to that, no matter what your point of view to be seen as a good person trying to do
the right thing so we’re thrilled that the Reagan Library is in California. I would
encourage anyone who’s thinking about running for office, do it. When I was growing
up, I’m with the Tom Daschle era, Dan Glickman era, you know great things happened
5 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. through politics. Ronald Reagan helped end the cold war. John Kennedy put a man on
the moon. Eisenhower after seeing Spudnick circle over us which you could see with
the naked eye, 1957 I’m old enough t remember that , said if you wanted to be an
engineer so that we can combat this Russian presence in our sky we will pay for your
education, private public, the government will pay for your education. So great things
happen in government, down at my level I was able to sign the first bill in America
for…and other good stuff. But my point is find a way to serve even if it’s not in
government because today with the adoption of rapidly evolving technology there’s all
kinds of ways to serve, I mean anyone who’s spent any time in silicon valley or
technology center is just impressed with the attitude. Every person in those companies,
Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, go to work believing they are going to change the
world and guess what, sometimes they do. I mean there’s no question that the kind of
tumult and change in governments in North Africa last year had a lot to do with the
Google search and Twitter. Because government could not block all forms of people’s
ability to communicate, they could call meetings protest, they could demonstrate, they
could do things that in the past couldn’t be done, so you can change the world for the
better in a whole host of ways, government is one. I’ll leave you with this last thought, I
was in Switzerland a couple of years ago no Switzerland you think of as always being
peaceful always being neutral, you know I know Israel requires that every man and
woman serves the country and I happen to be a veteran too Bob I was in Vietnam and I
respect anyone who serves this country in any capacity, in Switzerland you have to
serve the country for three years a man or woman has to join the service. So I think in
our hearts we ought to have an unwritten rule that we have to find some way to give
back to America. You are so lucky because you have a host of ways and no one should
tell you how to give back you should follow your heart but clearly there are ways you
can impact the world just sitting at home on a computer you can change the world and I
encourage you to do so.
00:19:30 (John Fortier)
Thank you Governor, thank you for raising that last point. We are going to try to get to
the question here on the panel but also when we look to go to Philadelphia for our next
meeting of the commission to think about other institutions of public service which we
can create. There’s military service and the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps but there
may be some other institutions that we really need to serve at. Can I ask you a follow
up thought Governor, most people who ran for Governor or Senator didn’t do that as
their first office they started somewhere else, you started somewhere else, can you talk
a little about your motivations for running. Getting in at the lower level and also what
you see in California for people today who are looking to get into politics but are at
breaking in at a lower level who might then use those as stepping stones to get into
higher office.
00:20:11 (Gray Davis)
Well my primary motivation really came when I was in Vietnam because I believed what
I read in the newspaper and when I got over there I found a very different situation.
First of all I didn’t find anyone from Stanford or Columbia Law School in Vietnam, I
found mostly southern whites, a lot of minorities. This is an era when we had a draft so
6 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. presumably everyone had some, you might end up in Vietnam whether you wanted to or
not let’s put it that way and everyone was under the burden of serving the country so I
had this sort of old fashioned notion that everyone was doing their part which was not
the case. So that was in the back of my mind when I went back to Los Angeles, started
practicing law and was asked initially to help Tom Bradley get elected as Mayor of LA
he had lost in a very close race to the incumbent Sam Doherty who had won second
time and I attribute my motivation to leaving the practice law, not taking a leave of
absence but leaving it because I felt so strongly that this was a way I could give back to
the experience I had in Vietnam. So that led me to a succession of different offices. I
ended of being Chief of Staff to Jerry Brown then running for the Legislature. So I do
think there is a sense of having to pay your dues, you can just run for President of the
United States as your first office, you might not make it, same thing with Governor or
Senator but generally people like to see that you’ve been elected to some other office
first as a demonstration of your bonifides you actually can accomplish something, win
peoples’ confidence. That might merit a promotion to whatever office your running for
now. So local School Board, Legislature, Congress those are good points of entry and
you’ll learn a lot about the process and you will prove to people that you’re willing to do
the hard work, pay your dues and wait your turn which still, you know, resonates with
some voters. So it’s always fun to start at the top, I remember being at a new
Governor’s school, all the Governors will appreciate this, I’m sitting next to Jesse
Ventura, Jesse Ventura was elected in 1998 a former wrestler in Minnesota was
Governor for one term and he’s reading my resume, you know Chief of Staff and
Assembly, Controller, Lt. Governor and he says “My God it took you, first you were this
then you were that then finally you got to be Governor.” And I said, “Well what should I
have done Governor?” He says, “Just go into wrestling you get famous you get famous,
you get elected Governor.” So there are exceptions to the rule. (laughter) But for most
of you I think you’re going to have to accommodate to the notion that you are going to
have to try at least one office first before you run for President of the United States.
00:22:54 (John Fortier)
Thank you, so I want to turn to Chris Marvin. So you’re a veteran and you run an
organization that is bringing veterans into public service. Veterans have a strong record
of run for public office really at higher rates than they are in the population, what can
you say about today’s veterans, coming back do they feel less likely to run than an
earlier generation? What’s their motivation? They clearly have served, they want to
serve more. What are they thinking?
00:23:20 (Chris Marvin)
Well Governor Davis mentioned the draft in Vietnam and of course something like a
draft does put skin in the game for everybody, right everybody has to be a part of it. It’s
a form of civic engagement in a way and we don’t have that today. What we have is an
all volunteer military force which means that every single person serving in the military
chose to do it. They signed up to serve and they have served and many of them when
they come home when they take off that uniform their service doesn’t stop. I think
contrary sometimes to popular believe in the public where people are very apt to say
“thank you for your service, you’ve done enough and that was amazing” these are
7 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. people that are preprogrammed in some ways to serve. A lot of them may have
volunteered in their communities or they are boy scouts or girl scouts and that’s what
led them to military service. For many of them it leads to political or public service as
well and what’s striking today I think in 1972 the early 70’s 75% of Congress were
military veterans. Anybody have any idea of what it is today? It’s actually it’s 19.4%
with the recent loss of Senator Annoy a venerable veteran and Senator but and it’s
higher than the distribution of veterans in the adult population but it’s actually
significantly lower than the veterans who are running for Congress. So 1 in 4 federal
Congressional races in 2012 had a military veteran the primaries, not just the early
races but only 12 were elected and 23 left. So I think for 32 years in a row we’ve had a
decrease in the number of veterans in Congress and we have the lowest rate of
veterans in Congress today since the 1920’s. What we also have is the highest level of
hyper-partisanship. And I would make an argument and others might agree that while
veterans won’t solve the problem and the lack of veterans didn’t cause the partisanship
problem they help. Veterans are used to being part of something greater than
themselves. They’ve already dedicated themselves to service and many times you
may get a Democrat and a Republican who served next to each other in Iraq or
Afghanistan who are going to figure out how to push a bill through despite the partisan
tendencies. And so my thought would be whether we are talking about military service,
whether we’re talking about AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps that people who have
served know how to work together and know how to be something greater than
themselves and these are the types of people that we do want to see in our legislatures.
00:26:07 (John Fortier)
So I’m going to turn back to Mark Gearan. One of the hats you wore that I did not
mention was that he was the Director for the transition for the Clinton Administration.
And that as Ambassador Tuttle has indicated is a big operation. In another country
where there are a few people that you have to find and bring into government, there are
thousands and there is the planning from going from the campaign to the administration.
So what are some the challenges what are some of the ways that which maybe our
system while allowing people to come in serve is making it a little bit hard for them to do
it.
00:26:40 (Mark Gearan)
Well I think the Ambassador’s point is well taken in terms of the many different ways
and particularly when you look at the federal government and the generational shift that
we are right on the beginning of in terms of the many interesting terms of careers that
exist. Particularly for young people because you get a great deal of responsibility at a
young age. I would say while there has been recent efforts in the Congress to help this
there are encumbrances for political appointees in terms of confirmation, people’s lives
being on hold and I think we could do a lot to make it easier. I was very honored to be
nominated by President Bush to serve on the Corporation for National Community
Service it runs AmeriCorps, Vista and SeniorCorps It is a board that meets three times
a year but requires Senate confirmation. So in my office in Geneva, New York as a
college president, arrives the FBI for my vet and I had been cleared by the Senate to be
the Director of the Peace Corps previously. And it just struck me that perhaps the level
8 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. of detail required for a board that meets 3 times a year may not necessitate it. So one
of the questions among the litany that they ask every, is that we’d like to speak to your
neighbors this is the FBI agent, could we talk to your neighbors. I live on campus as the
President, I live next to a fraternity. (laughter) So I had this great image of sending the
FBI to knock at the door of the fraternity next door but I digress, the point is I think there
are encumbrances that efforts like this querying whether the senate confirmation of as
many appointees are required might lift the opportunity’s in a very long process that
sometimes distracts, delay’s and may even retard peoples interest from serving.
00:28:44 (John Fortier)
If I could turn to Dirk and follow a little along in the process. If Mark and Ambassador
Tuttle were trying to find people to be nominated to send some of them to the Senate,
you were sitting in the Senate, do you think maybe Marks point is right, that maybe we
want ethics, we want transparency we want to know about people who are coming into
government, we don’t want them to have conflicts of interests but are we overdoing it.
Are we putting people through the ringer are we using ethics as sort of a weapon
against people who want to serve and what about the Senate, what do you think the
Senates role should be, is it performing it’s proper role in the confirmation process.
00:29:18 (Dirk Kempthorne)
I’d divide that issue in two. The first is how much information do we need. That’s not a
political thing. That’s something that is a process and a rule and really I believe in the
bipartisan fashion, Congress could take a look at that. To me three times a year versus
a Cabinet Member, I mean my neighbors were visited by the FBI also. It wasn’t as
exciting as a fraternity. Now the other part though, the Senate where for political
reasons you put a hold on somebody. It may have nothing to do with that appointee
and you can role it around. Hey Gray I’m going to take that hold off of that nominee
would you put yours on it and we just keep passing it around. Here’s what it does to
the nominee, let’s say it’s somebody that’s nominated for US Attorney, or for judge, and
again it has nothing to do with them really it’s just you can’t bring the judiciary
committees nominee list forward. So how many months does that person to be put on
ice, maybe he or she is a practicing attorney and while everybody thinks they are going
to be confirmed as the next US Senator, judge well who’s going to go and sign up with
them as an attorney and give them a contract for a year. Suddenly their business
begins to dry up, that’s their income. At some point they just say I can’t do it. Boy I
think there was some individual back in my state that it was like two years, I mean they
truly wanted to serve. That’s what I think is wrong and this goes back and I know the
ambassador feels about this as well we talked about it at lunch but when your party has
the White House you’re absolutely convinced that that President has every right to have
his nominee voted up or down. That’s it just vote up or down. But when you are not in
the White House you will do whatever is necessary to delay it use it as leverage and
that’s why I think everybody, every party has been on record as saying a President
should have their nominees voted up or down, they’re not consistent they don’t say it all
the time but you’ve got em on record. Put it together you have the case you can say
well alright we’re now going to vote on it but we are going to make the effective date five
years from now, 8 years from now so that it does not affect any incumbent
9 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. administration. Ok, that way it is going to be an advantage for whoever happens to win
the White House next time. I think that’s the way that it could be done. That’s part of
the reform I’d suggest.
00:32:15 (John Fortier)
(unintelligible) First Antonia Hernandez then Governor Granholm, about the issue that
Governor Davis raised. He raised the issue of universal service or the draft, can we
think about other institutions of service that we can create. We have the military and the
Peace Corps and AmeriCorps we have a number of governmental institutions but are
there other institutions that we should create and are there things in government that
people you see in the non-profit sector that are longing to do that we really should have
additional institutions for them to serve.
00:32:50 (Antonia Hernandez)
Well I mean there’s a lot of institutions that people can serve on and be volunteers on
non-profit boards but let me go back to the issue of government service. A lot of young
people want to work in government. I started in the Senate Judiciary Committee, I
worked for Ted Kennedy and I was one of the people that had to vet the judges and
individuals, and I will tell you I loved the time that I worked at the Senate. I worked with
Senator Thurman, Hatch, Alan Simpson, it was a place where you worked together to
find solutions. I can tell you, I would not work in the Senate today because of the fact
that people go in to make a difference. You know it’s like you said, it’s not about you it’s
about wanting to change the world. It’s about wanting to see results and if you don’t
see an institution functioning to get to those results you’re not going to be inclined to do
that. The next question is it is wonderful that young people want to serve you know we
saw the poll and you know it’s really wonderful you know sort of affirming of the fact that
people want to serve but the question is why? Is it to change the world and if it’s to
change the world I can tell you that young people are turning to other institutions. Now I
think one of the biggest mistakes, my son went to Iraq ok he went into the military in fact
still is in the reserves, and I think that one of the biggest mistakes that this country has
made is a volunteer military. Because it’s through sort of mandating to serve your
country, to meet people from different stratus of society, to see yourself in the same
boat that you have this commitment to a country and you see yourself as part of whole.
And I will tell you my foundation has been very involved in helping veterans returning
from Afghanistan and Iraq and one of the things that I find very disturbing to me is the
isolation of the folks who serve in the military and the lack of support that’s given to our
military individuals. They are coming back with immense problems and the support is
not there. And because not everyone has served or the possibility of service there’s not
that sense of commitment, we thank them at the airport, we thank them when we see
them in military, but are we really sort of understanding the sacrifices these military
people have made so my thing with young people is there are tons of things that you
can do. And this generations not waiting for us to tell them what to do they’re doing it.
They’re you know developing new non for profits, we get hundreds of applications to my
foundation from young people who started a tutorial in inter-cities, you know the food
bank I will tell you last year that we honored a young high school, 17 year old high
school, from the age of 14 he lives in the San Gabriel Valley and probably the same
10 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. here in Simi Valley, lots of fruit trees, he went and bought the equipment and started
knocking on doors and started saying “can I take the fruit, can I take the crop” and then
he would deliver it to the food bank. So there’s not a lack of commitment, there’s not a
lack of wanting to do it, it’s going back to the issue that we’re here today, what is it in
our government, whether it’s local, whether it’s state, whether its federal, whether it’s
the Assembly or the Senate, are the institutions working, are they solving problems to
convey to the young people that these institutions are worthy because they’re solving
the issues. And I think that’s the question about public services and servicing in
government not whether young people are committed to service.
00:37:15 (John Fortier)
Governor you want to quick follow up then I’m going to…Governor Granholm
00:37:19 (Gray Davis)
I just wanted to something Antonia said and something that was said about skin in the
game. I don’t think we should have a draft but I think we should have if not a
compulsory some implicit understanding that everyone serve 6 months doing
something. The Peace Corps, teaching, the homeless, educational institution and
regularize it so everyone gets a certificate of service because it’s one thing we can all
do together all American’s no matter how busy no matter how into our own thing we are
we all give something back to make this country better. The advantage of having a
draft, which I don’t propose, is we would not have been in Iraq for ten years, we might
have been in Iraq for ten months because everyone gets to weigh in, because
everyone’s son or daughter may be forced to go to a place they don’t want to go. So
you can’t have a world living in relative comfort with one or two percent of the country
doing the heavy lifting for America and I have great admiration for the young men and
women who are serving now, multiple deployments, that never happened in Vietnam
you may have done 2 deployments and it’s customary if you had done 3 and 4 but it’s
really unfair that the disproportionate amount of keeping America secure falls on a very
small part of the population. That having been said I think reinstituting the draft would
be a mistake but we do have to find a way to engage middle class America as if they
had skin in the game so that they weigh in if they are not pleased with the way some
military adventure is going.
00:39:02 (John Fortier)
Governor Granholm
00:39:03 (Jennifer Granholm)
Just quickly, I just want to put a huge plug for all of you out there for when you graduate
from high school or when you graduate from college want to do a year of service.
AmeriCorps or City Year or Teach for America are fantastic programs and if I had the
pen I would sign a five to ten fold increase in the number of slots for those programs
because they are so incredibly important in teaching you leadership and in giving you
exposure in parts of the country and parts of the country that you might not otherwise
have seen. I have two daughters who have gone through City Year and they have been
assigned to two of the toughest schools districts in the country and if you ever want to
11 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. run for office than you should, have an experience that fuels a passion for you. And that
passion, I mean my kids are completely obsessed now with poverty and education
about making a change in education. I don’t think they are going to run for office but I
do know that they want to make a difference in that area because they’ve been exposed
to it now and they’re burning with the desire for change so for all of you if you want to
take a gap year or if you want to go after college either way it is a hugely growing
experience and I wish every young person in America could do it.
00:40:22 (John Fortier)
Governor Kempthorne has a quick follow up, I do want to go to our Twitter and poll
questions after you.
00:40:27 (Dirk Kempthorne)
John, thanks. I just want to mention John Ridgeland who is also member of the
commission, was going to be here but of a family issue he must deal with. But John is
working with Admiral Mullen, General McChrystal and others, these military leaders are
developing what is an alternative to military service which is civilian service to the
country. It’s what’s being discussed here. Good people, I’ve been to the meetings, I
think they’re affiliated with the Aspen Institute. There will be a proposal that will come
from that and it will be a call, a call to serve and the youth of this country, they’re ready
to stand up.
00:41:13 (John Fortier)
Let me turn to our Twitter results we’ve got a question or a poll question we’ve put up
for our online viewers and that question if you remember was “Would you consider
running for political office in the future?” And our audience is perhaps more public
spirited than some other polls I’ve seen 58% say yes, that’s a good thing and 42% say
no. I do have a couple of questions that have come in from twitter we are also going
turn to the audience for questions. Two questions I have which are similar, I’m going to
put them together, one is from Tony, Tony P from Southern California which is “What
can educators do to help the next generation of public servants get beyond gridlock?”
and another question from Sean K from California and that is, “Is unwillingness to serve
related to polarization? Will only extremist run for office?” And so I want to put those
two questions together and think about some of the motivations for people running for
offices. Some of them have always have been really an association with a party.
Finding your way in the Republican or Democratic Party, believing in the issues there,
but are we and are we at a point become where we have become more ideological in
that respect? Are there, are we having fewer people who want to just want to give back
and maybe aren’t as committed to parties, want to find some ways. What’s, anybody
can take this, but what’s the relationship between today’s people and polarization
versus the past. Yes, Governor Davis.
00:42:37 (Gray Davis)
Well, clearly since the day Tom Daschle was Majority Leader and Dan Glickman was in
Congress there’s not a sense that we can work together on a bipartisan basis. Ronald
Reagan used to invite Tip O’Neil over to have a drink, they’d work things out, there
12 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. would be progress. George Bush the elder same attitude, I don’t know when it started
to change but you know, we pay the salary of all the people you send to Washington
and Sacramento. They’re working for you and they ought to be able to come back and
say “Here’s what I was able to do for you and for the country in the last 2 or 4 years”
and not just that I had an amendment that failed or I had a speech, what actually
happened to move the country forward and give your children more opportunity. And I
don’t know how that is going to change unless America starts voting out incumbents. I
don’t say that lightly because there are a lot of good incumbents trying hard to do their
best. But somehow the signal has to go back to Washington that we are tired of
excuses. We’re tired of you telling us you can do the job. You can’t do the job, fine,
step aside we’ll find someone who will do the job. Because I don’t see how you get past
gridlock if gridlock will still keep getting your member of congress re-elected. The only
thing that gets their attention is losing. Or their buddy losing and then say well maybe I
better take another look at what I’m doing here but just going back there and spending
half the time in recess and raising money during that time and coming back with
excuses why they couldn’t make the country better is not good enough.
00:44:16 (John Fortier)
Anybody else want to take this on? Do we have a different type of person running
today? The question is, one of the questions is, “are we attracting more extremists to
run for office?” A good way of putting that might be are we attracting committed people
with ideas but is it a problem today or is that, or where are we? Senator?
00:44:35 (Dirk Kempthorne)
John, I mean I’m just going to point out some of the examples, very, very positive
examples, it’s not that they are sitting on the sidelines, they may not choose to run for
office doesn’t mean they’re not doing tremendous things in helping change the world. I
mean why don’t we just stand up and cheer those folks, the old individual initiative not
waiting around for government to take care of them. Pretty awesome.
00:45:00 (Antonia Hernandez)
But I think for young folks that really are committed I would say to you, learn to listen
and tolerance is the most important thing. And understand that politics is give and take,
it’s sausage making, and you don’t get everything. You have to come in with the
attitude that you’re going to take a little, you’re going to give a little. And I think coming
from extreme positions you’ve already come into a system of gridlock and that’s the
modeling that you have to do. And I think I think the schools are responsible to some
degree for not teaching civics, not teaching government, not teaching the understanding
of how our democracy works. It was made to work on a give and take. It was not and
absolute you know where the majority gets everything. And I think that that’s really
important to listen, not to just be you know Fox or CNBC but to listen to other people
and try to put yourself in their shoes. That’s the real art of being a successful leader
and understanding that people will vote for you for the values you stand for an the
judgment not that you promised that you’re going to vote on a certain issue a certain
kind of way and your never going to change.
13 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. 00:46:26 (Jennifer Granholm)
Don’t sign pledges!
00:46:29 (Antonia Hernandez)
Never! (laughter)
00:46:30 (Jennifer Granholm)
Unless it’s a pledge to the voters who elected you but…
00:46:34 (John Fortier)
So I have another question from twitter and that is from Brian, Brian D from California
and he asks, “How do we get more middle class people to run for office when
campaigns are so expensive?” Is that one of the obstacles people face today?
00:46:47 (Antonia Hernandez)
Money
00:46:49 (Chris Marvin)
I would say that, seeing the earlier panels, you know and being somebody who’s young
and for the record has no political aspirations right now but one thing that would scare
me off if I did would be that I have to raise millions of dollars, and so where, where
would that come from. And I think that sort of juxtaposing the previous question, it’s not
the extremist that are running because of the extreme but it’s the same symptoms that
are creating the hyper-partisanship that are also discour…, you know, causing
discouragement with people who might potentially run, run for office. And that might be
just the reputation of Washington in some circles, the gridlock, the necessity to raise a
lot of money that we think are contributing to the hyper-partisanship are also
contributing to the lack of participation, but that, we are only really measuring that in
those who are winning races, right. We’re measuring that necessarily in those who are
running for races because there still may be a lot of people who are running for races a
Democrat in a Republican District and vice a versa, who may not see these problems,
who are out to serve the public, they just aren’t winning races.
00:48:13 (John Fortier)
Governor?
0048:14 (Dirk Kempthorne)
John, to Brian’s question I think we as a panel and the Bipartisan Policy Center, we
need to be careful that we don’t become so nationally sentric that we think every office
is federal. It’s not. There’s a lot of wonderful middle class folks that are running for
Mayor and City Council, County Commissioner, Governor, I mean, School Board, that’s
where they are and that’s a grooming ground that if they have a record then they can go
and offer themselves further. When I first decided to run for Mayor of Boise, I was 33
and when I went to the political thinkers they said “that is the dumbest idea we have
ever heard of, because if you were thinking of running for politics, don’t run for Mayor,
nobody’s been able to do anything in this city, you’ll be from the biggest city from the
14 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. state so you’ll never be elected to anything beyond that.” And I took their counsel and I
ran. (laughter) Because my motivation was simple, I truly believed in my heart I could
be part of a solution for a community that I loved, where my children would be born and
if that was the extent of my public service so be it. Because every day for the rest of my
life when I would walk down that town I would know somehow I did something that was
good.
00:49:49 (Jennifer Granholm)
And Dirk isn’t it true that at the state and local level that’s where compromise happens?
That’s where people know how to work together.
00:49:56 (Dirk Kempthorne)
Absolutely, it’s, I believe in it.
00:49:59 (Gray Davis)
If I could just…
00:50:00 (John Fortier)
Yes one quick comment then we’ll go to the audience for a couple questions.
00:50:02 (Gray Davis)
I think you can make a difference if your goal is to do that and not to see how long you
can stay in office. Because it’s amazing what you can do if you are willing to risk your
office. People sense the passion, they see you’re genuine and they’re moved by that
cause they know you’re vulnerable and you’re taking a risk and sometimes you lose an
office. I, one of the reason’s I lost my third race for Governor in a recall was I insisted
on raising something called the vehicle license fee which really should be called the
public safety tax because Sacramento just puts a stamp on it and sends the money
back to local police and sheriffs. But I was the only Governor ever to lower the license
fee and I lowered it to 50% of what it was and then I said for one year I want to raise it
back to where it was. People said we didn’t tell you to give us the money, you did, it’s
our money, asta le vista. (laughter) heck with you we’re keeping the money. But the
point is I raised the tax because I didn’t want to short change local public safety which is
important to all of us and people understood that. And Arnold who I like came in and
repealed it but I think that most people agree that the state would be a lot better off if
that tax was there again it does not go to Sacramento we just put a stamp on the
money and it goes to local sheriff and police. But people sense your passion, they
know why you’re doing it and they know you’re willing to take a risk then I think you can
make a difference. If you want to make difference and hang around for 30 years those
are probably inconsistent goals.
00:51:34 (John Fortier)
So I know we are going to be going to Philadelphia to think about these questions in the
future so if the commissioners have a question about this or if not we are going to turn
to the audience for one or two questions before we wrap up our days program. And
15 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. there is a mic floating around and I am going to go to the back left here if you would just
identify yourself when the mic comes
00:52:07 (audience question)
I’m Larry Kennedy, Ventura County Community College Trustee. All of you seem to
agree about universal service to the government different forms, military, Vista the
Peace Corps, and I wonder if there is any policy level that could link that with the
problem the students are having now with student loan debt, it’s so huge. So how can
we incentify so that I myself I was drafted during Vietnam and you know there was no
incentive and how can we incentify it so everybody who does serve feels like they got
something back?
00:52:42 (John Fortier)
Mark you want to take that?
00:52:43 (Mark Gearan)
Well it’s a great question and there are ways. I would I would observe to Governor
Granholm’s point, we have great programs, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Vista, that are
highly applied for programs. When I was Director of the Peace Corps we had 10,000
applications for 3500 positions. Now I don’t know if the 6500 others were tan fit and
ready to be Peace Corps volunteers but why in God’s name are we saying no to
Americans that want to go to some of the most desperate places on the planet to serve.
Right, the Peace Corps is one percent of one percent of the federal budget, military
marching bands which I’m a big fan of are a bigger part of the budget, right. So there is
an imperative, AmeriCorps, Vista each and every year have challenges hearing that so I
think which is not contrary to your point of incentifying what we see is a burgeoning
interest of young Americans and those not so young wanting to give back in these ways
outside the military but we are not responding to the kind of 4 to 5 increase Governor
Granholm suggested. In addition I think individual Colleges and Universities are
providing ideas to provide incentives to lessen loans, there are programs and federal
incentives I think could be tied to that for either loan purposes or incentifying on the front
end with the AmeriCorps grants.
00:54:24 (John Fortier)
We really have time for one more question before I’m going to bring Jason Grumet up
here and we get here in the back on the right. Since I started on the left I will end on the
right.
00:54:35 (audience question)
My name is Cassandra and I was wondering, you had said that that the people that
volunteer to go into service are less committed because the lack of incentive or the lack
of support from everyone but if you initiated the draft and there was more support don’t
you think the people who didn’t want to be in service would be less committed.
16 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. 00:55:03 (John Fortier)
Is universal service, I mean the volunteer army today has people who want to be there
as Chris mentioned, is universal service really going to bring a lot of other people into
service who really don’t want to be there. Is that a fair enough summary?
00:55:21 (Gray Davis)
I’ll take a crack at that, the answer is possibly, possibly. But I think we make it broad
enough, I mean universal service is not just AmeriCorps or Vista as far as I’m
concerned you can serve your local school board, your church, your synagogue, your
mosque, your boys, club girls club, whatever. Now some of those people may not be
able to compensate you but hopefully that as Mark said could be worked out so that you
could get scholarships, universities and colleges will recognize the significance of your
service and other, waive tuition or find other ways to reward you. I just think that it is
important that this generation of Americans which clearly understands the importance of
service is recognized for that, we appreciate it, and we say one of those options is to go
into public office, one of them is to work for a public policy institute, one of them is just
to be a mentor to someone who will benefit from your expertise and guidance. I mean
there are a lot of ways you can serve but I think it’s important that we find a way to
recognize that service, give people a piece of paper or certificate saying thank you for
serving America.
00:56:36 (John Fortier)
Antonia do you want to weigh in? Yes.
00:56:39 (Antonia Hernandez)
Well you know, I would say to young people that in this country, in this democracy, you
have two R’s, there’s your rights and your responsibilities to the communal and we all
should have a stake in the game. Whether it’s in your school, whether it’s in a food
bank, we have to have a commitment and I think one of the things, today is that we’re
not all going to be able to do only what we want to do if we want to maintain this
democracy, if we want to have a communal sense of being responsible for the well
being of the communal and the communal is the United States of America. So you
know we all have to do different things and I think that one of the things is our
responsibility to make the whole a lot better so yeah some people might not want to
serve in whatever capacity but that’s the only way we are going to improve this country.
00:57:38 (John Fortier)
I’m going to bring Jason Grumet up here to close for the day but while he is walking up
there can we thank the panel for their service today. (applause)
00:57:56 (Jason Grumet)
It’s always nice to clap for ourselves at the end of the day. This has been a big day for
everybody. We couldn’t have done it obviously without all of you. I would like to thank
John Fortier for leading this panel and for all the work he and Michelle Nellenbach and
the whole BPC team has done to put this day together. To our Commissioners I want to
thank you all for joining us and I have a small apology to make, we told you this wasn’t
17 Panel III – Obstacles to public services at state and federal levels. going to take much of your time and I fear that might have been a slight understatement
because I think you have raised such a profound number of questions we now have an
obligation to go out and answer some of those questions. So you are launched. The
next large gathering of this full commission will be on July 23rd in Philadelphia. For
those of you following us out there in the real world you can follow us between now and
then. Please hop on to bipartisanpolicy.org where we will be updating the activities of
this commission and posting papers and questions and hopefully continuing what will be
a dynamic dialogue. Finally I want to thank our media partner USA Today and the
exceptionally talented Susan Page for leading off the event and for really mostly in this
room it was really nice to thank the President and the legacy of Ronald Reagan, so
much of his spirit of pragmatism and passion and conviction I think has really inspired a
lot of the work that we intend to do and it’s really terrific to be in this fabulous library to
start this process so thank you to the Reagan Library. (applause)
18